New Rule Reshapes What Science Is Allowed To Ask
A new Office of Management and Budget (OMB) rule would make political alignment a prerequisite for federal science funding. The public comment period closes on July 13th.
The Trump administration initiated waves of attacks on science on day one, through aggressive cuts to agencies, staff, grants and contracts. These attacks have taken a toll on scientific research across the country. Now, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed a new rule that will dramatically change the way the federal government issues grants – a tsunami poised to wipe out scientific integrity in our country.
Coverage of the proposed rule largely focuses on political appointees taking control of grant awards, which undermines peer review and makes the administration's nebulous "Gold Standard Science" a benchmark for judging research. Elizabeth Ginexi's summary of the rule's key changes lays out the most problematic provisions.
OMB’s announcement may lack the dramatic flourish of a brandished chainsaw, but this rule is more effective, and will be harder to reverse. This administration is not simply targeting scientific findings they disagree with, they’re proposing a framework that makes ideological alignment a prerequisite for federal science funding. This politicization of science is hugely problematic, not least that non-partisan science is one of the ways we the people hold those in power to account and bridge partisan divides through scientific understanding.
One overlooked aspect of this proposed rule targets science that “promote[s] or support[s] theories of disparate-impact liability” or “DEI.” In plain terms, this empowers political appointees to block or cancel funding any time scientific inquiry is focused on any specific group. The proposed rule degrades American science by making it a tool for political favoritism and retribution. As we’ve seen from terminated grants in 2025, the “DEI filter” can stifle critical research and expose Americans to harm — a federal judge has already ruled one such round of AI-driven cancellations unconstitutional. The rule also gives agencies broad power to terminate awards that no longer match political priorities, leaving widespread uncertainty for grantees dependent on federal funding.
Removing a scientist's ability to ask specific questions destroys their ability to draw useful conclusions: if you cannot call out the population being harmed by a specific ailment, how can you find a solution that will help? Specificity is the root of effective public policy. Avoiding certain terminology or excluding certain variables undermines scientific findings and policy outcomes. For example, a 2020 study, "The Effects of Historical Housing Policies on Resident Exposure to Intra-Urban Heat", used historic redlining maps to compare where excessive heat shows up today across 108 U.S. cities. It found that formerly redlined neighborhoods are consistently hotter than the wealthier districts that were never redlined—on average 4.7°F hotter—with two to three times less tree cover. Under OMB’s new policy, such research could be rejected for using variables designed to address a root cause of urban heat.
This rule threatens the federal government’s ability to learn about successful interventions. Urban heat research has already shaped how cities target tree-planting and heat investments, and helped inspire proposed federal legislation like the SHADE Act to fund tree canopy in formerly redlined districts. That kind of investment means fewer heat-related deaths and saves taxpayers money, because it helps governments invest strategically.
OMB’s proposed rule also strictly curtails public access to taxpayer-funded science. Researchers can no longer use federal funds to cover publication costs and open-access fees and public communication and outreach are severely restricted. Science doesn’t serve the public if the public never learns about it.
OMB’s proposed rule goes against a long bipartisan commitment that federally funded research findings should be available for public use. The first Trump administration signed into law the 2018 Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act, which included the Open Government Data Act and made open government data a legal requirement rather than just policy preference. As recently as July 2025, when the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) public access policy took effect, the administration has treated public access as part of its own “Gold Standard Science.” OMB’s attacks on public access cut against that very premise. On one hand, you are required to publish your federally funded research openly, but under this rule you are no longer allowed to spend grant money to do it.
The Administration’s cuts halted so much promising, groundbreaking, potentially life-saving research. If enacted, the OMB rule would make that kind of loss permanent — not just for those researchers, but for any future researcher — stifling scientific progress in the name of politics, ignoring the value of expert review, and damaging the U.S.’s role as a global leader in science, research, and innovation.
When we let partisan politics decide what science is allowed to ask or find, the loss isn't only the studies that get canceled. It's the discoveries we never make, the communities that go unprotected, and the persistence of problems we never learn how to fix. This rule is open for public comment until July 13th. If you believe science shouldn’t be dictated by politics, add your voice today!
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