Regulations.gov Comments

I respectfully oppose the proposed revisions to 2 CFR &sect; 200.205.<br/><br/>Federal grant funding decisions should be based primarily on scientific merit, technical expertise, and objective evaluation through established peer-review processes. While ensuring compliance with applicable laws is essential, the proposed changes grant increased discretion to political appointees to evaluate proposals based on evolving administrative priorities and subjective interpretations of the &ldquo;national interest.&rdquo;<br/><br/>This approach risks undermining the independence, predictability, and credibility of the federal funding process. Researchers, institutions, and organizations rely on transparent and merit-based review systems to ensure that funding decisions are fair, evidence-driven, and insulated from political influence. Allowing political considerations to outweigh expert peer-review recommendations may discourage innovative research, reduce public confidence in federal grant programs, and create uncertainty for applicants.<br/><br/>I am also concerned that emphasizing alignment with current presidential priorities could disadvantage important scientific, educational, and public health initiatives whose value extends beyond any single administration. Federal investments should support the best available research and programs based on demonstrated merit, rigor, and potent...

This is overreaching, against the First Amendment, and I would never again vote for any politician who supported it.

Politicians with no scientific background (no PhD in the applicable field) should not be in charge of approving all research grants. This is extremely corrupt. They simply dont understand the topics well enough to make the calls.

As a cancer survivor myself and as a daughter who lost her Dad to prostate cancer, I have some very strong feelings about cancer research. Without cancer research, I&rsquo;m not here to be a mother to my two boys. Without cancer research, I don&rsquo;t get extra years with my Dad. I also work at an academic medical center and see firsthand how cancer research has helped so many. This research should never be political. We&rsquo;ve already lost so many scientists because of this administration - a generational loss that we&rsquo;ll all pay the price for. Please don&rsquo;t make it worse with this rule!

I think it would be a terrible mistake to require political review of all scientific grants. Throughout history, most of the groundbreaking biological discoveries came from studies that would not have seemed &quot;relevant&quot; to political demands. For example, research into bacteria led to the foundation of genetic engineering. Research into jellyfish led to the discovery of fluorescent proteins, allowing researchers to visualize proteins in living cells. Research into chickens led to the discovery of genes that cause cancer, as well as the discovery of retroviruses that informed later work on HIV. Research into plants and worms led to the discovery of gene silencing. Research on cone snails led to the discovery of novel painkillers. Research on squid led to the fundamental understanding of the way that brain cells send signals over long distances. There are many, many more examples like this. If we want to keep the US at the forefront of biological discovery, we need to keep funding research like this -- groundbreaking research into fundamental mechanisms. To do this, we need to prevent political appointees from interfering with the discovery process. In the past, panels of expert scientists have decided what studies are likely to lead to major discoveries, and their track record has been very good. Let&#39;s keep that system going. U.S. taxpayers deserve to know that th...

I&rsquo;m not paying taxes for this, and I won&rsquo;t be voting for anyone who supports this, either.

Please keep INH, we need science in so many ways. It helps to move America forward in the world instead of further behind.

I am a research scientist. I did four years of undergraduate education, went to four years of medical school, completed a four year PhD, completed a two year Pediatrics residency, completed a 4 year Infectious Diseases fellowship, and completed a two year post-doctoral fellowship. I have extensive training in my field of bacterial pathogenesis and infectious diseases. I am the one often asked to review grants on NIH study section. As someone with all the training and experience I just outlined, I still struggle on occasion to understand all aspects of scientific proposals and the merit or various grants. I do my absolute best to give the best scores to the most deserving research. <br/><br/>To think that a government official could decide on grant funding, or even understand proposals, is insulting to people like me that volunteer our time to review. This will backfire for the administration. Rather than create a more transparent and fair grant awarding system, this would put doubt in all grant funding and lead to increased distrust and politics in science. Right now the US is the leader in the medical and basic sciences across the world. If these OMB rules get accepted, this will essential break science in the US. Please reconsider and trust the scientists to do what we are trained to do.

This is another &#39;Project 2025&#39; abomination that aims to serve corporate interests as well as making the US a theocracy. <br/>No to this rule, no to Vought and his christofascist cronies who only give more power to the 001<br/><br/>This Rule is another outcome of the &#39;Project 2025&#39; campaign to serve corporatist interests and theocrats. It must not pass. Vought and his christofascists must be stopped. Now.

The government has no business holding hostage medical care for anyone, ever. Freedom means choice, and the ability to choose for ourselves in all areas of life should remain the quintessential American ideal. This sham of a movement is a disgrace and I do not support limiting any persons freedom.

Politicians with no scientific background (no PhD in the applicable field) should not be in charge of approving all research grants. This is extremely corrupt. They simply dont understand the topics well enough to make the calls.

As a mother of a son with a complex congenital heart defect, I understand more than most the important of lifesaving medical research, which often begins with federal grants. I ask that you oppose the Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance and keep political appointees rather than scientific experts from being the selection and approval point people. <br/><br/>Thank you,<br/>Jesse Smith

The proposed rule changes are an existential threat to the US science &amp; technology enterprise, which has been responsible for innovations that have served to provide competitive advantages that the US has enjoyed for decades. Enacting these rules would destroy scientific research in this country and would be a gift to our adversaries. The proposed rules would take control of scientific research from experts in the associated disciplines and give the control to political appointees who may have no scientific training, knowledge, or expertise. Federal funding agencies have long relied on fair, objective, and rigorous evaluation processes, and the proposed rules, which give all the decision making authority to these political appointees, would make the evaluation process a farce. Restricting conference attendance would block venues for exchanging ideas, critiquing approaches, and finding new collaborators. Scientific research is difficult, and it would be even harder if researchers could not engage with their communities and must work in isolation as the proposed rules would require. Moreover, if researchers cannot publish their results and cannot even talk about their results, how would other scientists and the general public know about these outcomes and avoid redundant lines of effort? Restricting scientific results from being made public would contradict the justificati...

Healthcare and science is not typically fully understood by lay people and should not be subject to the approval of politicians who arent educated in this. Its not fair to the researchers and honestly, its not fair to the politicians

I strongly oppose this change in oversight. Political appointees should play no part in regular approval of research grants administered by public agencies that use content experts and well-established peer review processes to determine merit of proposals. This system has led to tremendous advancements in science and medicine, and it should continue to be allowed to do so. This change will inevitably diminish the impact of scientific research in our nation.

This is a simply abhorrent idea that goes against the constitution and forces opinions on the workers of the state. This should not even be considered let alone be made into any form of legislation.

[200.461]<br/>Opposition to proposed 2 CFR &sect; 200.461 &mdash; Disallowing Publication Costs<br/><br/>I am a senior researcher funded by NASA grants for many years. I am commenting anonymously to protect my institution from potential funding risks.<br/><br/>I strongly oppose the proposed changes to 2 CFR &sect; 200.461, which would make standard scientific publication costs unallowable. This is based on two main points:<br/><br/>A. It conflicts with modern open-access research practice. Publishing results in peer-reviewed journals is the final, essential step of any research project. Modern science relies on an open-access model where the funding entity pays upfront fees so the data is immediately free to the public. Labeling these fees &quot;unallowable&quot; will lock taxpayer-funded discoveries behind journal paywalls or stop publication entirely.<br/><br/>B. It directly contradicts Executive Order 14303 (&quot;Restoring Gold Standard Science&quot;), which mandates that federally funded research prioritize transparency, rigor, and unbiased peer review. Cutting off funding for publication costs creates barriers to sharing results, directly violating the order&#39;s requirement to keep American science open and accessible.<br/><br/>OMB must remove the restriction on publication costs under 2 CFR &sect; 200.461 and keep them as fully allowable direct costs for scientific...

Scientific experts should decide whether research is funded, not political appointees. <br/><br/>What&rsquo;s next? Politicians can appoint surgeons? Pilots? Astronauts? Who needs expertise when we have opinionated political hacks? <br/><br/>This makes me ashamed to be American.<br/><br/>PhD from West Virginia <br/><br/>

I&#39;m not a scientist or student of science, I&#39;m just a lowly animator, but I&#39;ve done my fair share of research and am somewhat familiar with the process.<br/><br/>Face it, grants will fund studies that will present fact, and fact itself is against this regulation. We are long past the point where you couldn&#39;t have heard what the studies say. You just deny them, and then more studies come out that reinforce what you&#39;ve denied - but if you&#39;re in charge of funding them? Simply flop into the grass like a wet fawn, and run into the thick brush when the dogs find you. Without any investment in their results and findings, you don&#39;t have to make any federal decisions based on them, and you don&#39;t have to hear or even think about them. You don&#39;t think about those suffering from malnutrition in the countries that WE pillaged for resources, or the recent Ebola strain, or those facing genocide in Palestine and Sudan. You don&#39;t care that science affirms trans people, and that trans people are statistically more vulnerable to sexual assault from men than children are from trans people. You can almost feel the welfare queens draining our precious tax money. You can pretend to be someone&#39;s private health insurance and plunge your head into the sand when someone doesn&#39;t meet the requirements for valve transplant coverage, or when insulin costs a ...

Don&#39;t do this. This will hurt millions of people and prevent very good causes from being funded.

Research and research decisions should NEVER belong in the hands of politicians! No politician should ever be able to override a scientists for any reason. Science is science and it is time for politicians to get their hands out of it. The United States was once leading in science and this administration is ruining all of that progress. This administration is killing people with regulations like this. The administration is supposed to be for the people and this administration is doing exactly the opposite. This is a horrible thing and science needs to be left alone and to the experts. This administration has blood on their hands.

The proposed changes for federal grant funding will hinder scientific discovery. Having a political appointee involved in the process of approving grants is dangerous and obstructive. Independent scientists should be reviewing grants on merit. Science is complicated; there is nuance in interpreting results from studies. Independent scientists need to be the ones interpreting proposed studies to understand the importance of the work and the nuances that exist. It is horrifying that science is continuing to be politicized under the Trump administration. Real life people will suffer under this proposal.

We don&rsquo;t need politician review of grants. Sufficient choices should be made in the hiring process for agencies that give grants. This process is long enough as it is and doesn&rsquo;t need an additional level of screening.

Bullshit waste of my tax dollars to try and enforce this. Do not do this.

As a scientist who reads published journals regularly I understand how difficult they can be to comprehend, even as a scientist. So having someone who is not a scientist, with no background in a scientific field, determining whether or not certain research is funded is asinine. You wouldnt expect a scientist to be able to understand the law to the same extent as a lawyer who is formally trained. This proposal is dangerous to the sciences and the advancement of the United States.

As a physician and professor who does research I am very concerned about the OMB&#39;s proposal related to section 2.(200.205(d)) making Peer Review No Longer Binding in grant making decisions. Only scientists and researchers with training in scientific methodology should have the power to determine whether a grant uses sound science methodology and has the potential to address scientific knowledge gaps. Giving the ultimate power to a politician to decide grant funding is ridiculous and will lead to our amazing country falling behind on science that can save lives. Would you trust a politician to make decisions about your personal cancer treatment? or therapy for a chronic disease. Also in section (200.206) the proposal allows scientists to be denied funding based on their organizational affiliations. There are many amazing scientists who may have differing opinions on politics that me, but they are still amazing scientists whose work can save lives. Potentially disqualifying researchers who are affiliated with civil rights, environmental, or public health advocacy organizations is very concerning and can limit free speech. I am also concerned about (200.432) which will make it difficult for researchers to attend conferences to share their research findings with their peers and have peer review. Similarly not being able to use research funds for open access publicat...

Do not make this change. The whole point of social welfare is to help people. This is just blatant discrimination and a violation of free speech. If this change is made, you will be killing people.

Science is important because it helps students understand the world around them and make sense of the changes happening in it. It also teaches them how to think, solve problems, and make good decisions based on evidence.

I am a former neuroscientist and academic researcher who held NIH fellowships at two career stages: first as a pre-doctoral fellow at NIH studying women with premature ovarian failure, and later as a post-doctoral fellow on an NIH training grant at Stanford, where I conducted research on chronic pain interventions including real-time fMRI neurofeedback and compassion meditation. I am also a homeschooling parent raising a child whose future depends on the integrity of publicly funded science. I write in strong opposition to this proposed rule, which I believe poses a grave and lasting threat to American scientific progress, the independence of peer-reviewed research, and the livelihoods of the researchers who dedicate their careers to advancing human knowledge.<br/>&sect;200.205 &mdash; Political Appointee Review of Grants<br/>Allowing political appointees to override peer review is perhaps the most damaging provision in this rule. Scientific funding must be decided by qualified experts, not officials whose positions are awarded on the basis of political loyalty rather than expertise. U.S. scientific leadership since World War II has rested on one principle: government funds science but does not dictate its conclusions. This provision dismantles that principle. It does not reform the grant process &mdash; it corrupts it. I urge OMB to withdraw &sect;200.205(b) entirely.<br/>&...

My family has two generations of Alzheimers and we need science to stop the onset. Women need research and Im afraid they wont get it if its political.

Science and studies should be funded and approved or denied only by those who can properly understand the items studied. Stop making science political.

I demand that OMB is stopped to protect independent science

My father, Richard J. Steckel, MD, was the Director of the UCLA Cancer Center after doing a two-year fellowship doing research at the NIH. He must be spinning in his grave now at the new proposed OMB regulations. I am a retired physician who also did research in laboratories at Princeton University, UCLA and Children&#39;s Hospital in Oakland, California. Much of that research was federally funded. Purely political oversight of research funding and topic choice is anathema to everything that made US science the best in the world. I object violently to the proposed regulation, as do all the scientists and physicians I know.

Not only is this a gross abuse of power by the president and federal government, it ignores science and the voice of the people. It caters only to corporations and the church, and neither have place in government policy.

I am a medical journalist and a taxpayer with a special interest in federally funded medical research. I&#39;m concerned that this rule would give political appointees the power to override scientists in deciding which research gets funded. Some 15 years ago, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the same disease that put my father in a wheelchair and contributed to his untimely death. I am healthy and active today, with no limits on my physical activity, because of drugs developed since my father&#39;s death through federally funded research. Future research on diseases like multiple sclerosis should be funded according to scientific peer review, not the priorities of a political official. Politics has no place in science! I implore OMB to withdraw the pre-issuance political review provisions in &sect;200.205.<br/>

This is a heinous, vile and undemocratic move from an autocratic and fascistic administration. Making federal aid contingent on compliance with this administration&#39;s narrow and unscientific gender ideology is illegal and adds barriers to care for some the most vulnerable Americans. Coersing ideological compliance is basely unamerican. The purpose of the first amendment of our Bill of Rights is to prevent this and similar coersions. Bostock v. Clayton County confirmed this in the court&#39;s conclusion that discrimination against Trans, Intersex, and Nonbinary individuals is a novel, but prohibited form of sex discrimination.<br/><br/>It&#39;s a bad enough rule that we already have case law ready to abolish it. You will lose this fight. Back off.

this is a terrible rule as it removed objective scientific review of grant proposals and replaces it with a politically motivated system. As a citizen who benefits from scientific research I object to the proposed rule and recommend that it be scrapped.

The proposed rule, formally titled &quot;Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance,&quot; rewrites the government-wide framework governing all federal grants across every agency. <br/><br/>Among its most consequential provisions, it requires that before a federal grant recipient can receive money, the award must pass a &quot;pre-issuance review&quot; conducted by a political appointee&mdash;not a career expert or peer reviewer&mdash;to ensure it is &quot;consistent with applicable law, Federal agency priorities, and the national interest.&quot; <br/><br/>The regulation explicitly instructs these appointees to screen for &quot;denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic.&quot; [...] <br/><br/>An institution that acknowledges transgender people exist&mdash;through its policies, its training, its healthcare, its bathroom access, its HR procedures, its name-change processes&mdash;could be deemed to &quot;deny the sex binary&quot; or to &ldquo;support the notion that sex is mutable&rdquo; and have its federal funding blocked.<br/><br/>Importantly, the gender ideology prohibition has no age limitation&mdash;hospitals could be targeted not just for providing care to minors but for providing gender-affirming care to adults, because prescribing hormone therapy to a transgender patient of any age could be deemed pr...

Leave decisions around science and science funding to the people who are actually respected members of the scientific community. Giving unqualified politicians or political appointees decision-making power over scientific investments is like giving a toddler a scalpel and telling them to perform surgery &mdash; there is no universe where these appointees without science educations or backgrounds have either the knowledge or the intellectual capacity to make competent decisions about this. What the hell is wrong with you people, stop wasting our tax dollars by adding new layers of bureaucracy that make qualified professionals answer to incompetents. Do better, or do us all a favor and resign in shame before you bring our country to even more disgrace.

I am deeply opposed to this bill. There is already robust peer oversight of grants by peer scientists. Federal oversight by non-experts in the discipline is inappropriate and harmful to the advancement of science. Science advances through objective processes, and a subjective political oversight process can suppress the creation of new knowledge. The US has been at the forefront of scientific progress for decades; this bill will jeopardize all our gains.

[200.205]<br/><br/>I respectfully oppose the proposed revisions to 2 CFR 200.205 regarding Federal Agency Review of Merit of Proposals.<br/><br/>Federal grant programs are most effective when funding decisions are based primarily on transparent, objective, and expert evaluation of the merits of proposed projects. While agencies should ensure compliance with applicable law and statutory requirements, the proposed addition of a pre-issuance review by senior political appointees to determine consistency with current administration priorities and the &ldquo;national interest&rdquo; creates a risk that funding decisions will be influenced by political considerations rather than the scientific, educational, public health, or community benefits of the proposed work.<br/><br/>The proposed revisions also appear to diminish the role of peer review by emphasizing that peer review is advisory and by granting broader discretion to agency leadership. Subject matter experts are often best positioned to evaluate the quality, feasibility, innovation, and potential impact of grant proposals. Reducing the weight of expert review may undermine confidence in the fairness and integrity of the grant-making process and create uncertainty for applicants who invest substantial time and resources preparing proposals.<br/><br/>In addition, terms such as &ldquo;national interest,&rdquo; &ldquo;President...

I oppose OMBs latest proposed rule, Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance. Requiring all scientific grants to be approved by political appointees and stealing approval power from career experts in their fields is like handing the keys to a tank to a toddler. Requiring that funding align withAdministration policies and priorities makes no sense. The science stands on its own merits, for the good of all people and should not be subject to partisan claims.<br/><br/>Political appointees selecting or approving research proposals destroys the scientific process, if this is the intention of this administration, it is cutting off its nose to spite its face. The U.S. has long been a leader in scientific breakthroughs that impact not just those nations, but the rest of the world. <br/><br/>I demand action NOW to stop Vought and protect independent science from political interference.<br/><br/>His meddling is a direct threat to scientific independence, public health, and evidence-based decision-making.<br/>

Office of Management and Budget<br/>Re: Proposed Revisions to 2 CFR Part 200 (Uniform Guidance)<br/><br/>To Whom It May Concern:<br/><br/>I am writing to express my fervent opposition to the Office of Management and Budgets proposed revisions to the Uniform Guidance. The proposed changes would undermine the U.S. research enterprise, weaken America as a global scientific leader, and jeopardize the innovations that drive economic growth, improve public health, and strengthen national security.<br/><br/>The United States is a world leader in scientific discovery because of a research ecosystem built on rigorous peer review, stable federal investment, international collaboration, and the freedom to pursue evidence-based inquiry. OMBs proposed revisions threatens the viability of this enterprise.<br/><br/>Harm to research stability and scientific merit<br/><br/>Scientific discovery requires long-term investment and stability: researchers spend years developing projects, building collaborations, training personnel, and generating data before breakthroughs occur. The proposal would expand the government&#39;s authority to suspend, terminate, or otherwise disrupt research awards based on subjective criteria and priorities. This would create significant barriers to progress for researchers and institutions. <br/><br/>Project funding should not be interrupted for reasons unrelated to ...

[200.205]. I am a professor, working in higher education for more than 30 years. I have received federal funding in the past, most recently to fund research that allowed me to write an award-winning book and articles that have received substantial interest and coverage nationally and internationally. My earliest national funding supported my dissertation research leading to my first book, which also won awards. <br/>I write to express my alarm about the proposed regulations by OMB to change the administrattion and supervision of the grant-making process. There are many provisions I am concerned about, but I write specifically about OMB-2026-0034-200.205. That is the provision that would institute a politically appointed reviewer into the grant-selection process. <br/>I understand why the rule is proposed: because the authors are worried that without a politically appointed reviewer, scientific priorities will assert themselves, and some of those priorities might seem to go against a political agenda. I understand that federal funding are taxpayer dollars, which I regard as a precious resource. At the same time, however, science must be free of political steering, only then can it achieve great heights. American science is the best in the world, thanks to the partnership between the federal government and the university system that it supports. If political appoint...

We as a nation have to stop constantly demanding the sacrifice of the least of us so that there can be some visible scapegoat at the bottom of the ladder while never addressing the continued and ruinous failures of leadership and of the obscenely wealthy.<br/><br/>Trans people are blameless for the problems of this nation, they deserve to be able to live in dignity, peace and security the same as cis people, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans, Atheists, Agnostic, gay, straight, bi, pan, man, woman, other, Black, brown, Indigenous, Asian, European, abled, disabled, the only thing that should affect these people is if they commit a violent crime proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.<br/><br/>And no, their mere existence is not a crime and to declare it so would nullify any mandate to govern that this nation still clings to.

I am writing to express my strong opposition to this proposed rule, which would be broadly applied to a variety of funding agencies in charge of administering grant, many of which have already been approved. As a physician and clinical geneticist, I have participated in clinical research and have witnessed first hand the benefits of research unhampered by political views. The existing scientific peer review process is rigorous and occurs prior to the grant award. The idea that a partisan funding rule would be able to disrupt grant money that has already been awarded and that is currently being used in research is appalling.

Grants should be awarded based on merit. I had triple negative breast cancer at the age of 41. I made it through the treatments and remain recurrence free after 2 years, but others are not as lucky. Most of the women affected by it are in their prime working years and mothers to young children. More research money needs to go toward finding a targeted treatment.

This is a terrible proposal. Taken as a whole, these proposed revisions would redirect federal research funding away from a framework based on scientific excellence, transparency, consistency, and the broad sharing of knowledge, and toward one that is more susceptible to political influence, bureaucratic delays, and unpredictability. Such a change would negatively affect researchers, academic institutions, trainees, patients, and society at large. I encourage OMB to revise these provisions by safeguarding the essential role of expert peer review, restricting award termination authority to well-defined and reviewable circumstances, preserving conference attendance and publication expenses as standard allowable research costs, and ensuring that limits on international collaboration are carefully targeted to specific, evidence-based concerns.<br/>The success of the federal research system has long depended on its commitment to scientific rigor, open collaboration, independent peer assessment, and sustained investment. The proposed revisions should therefore be refined to uphold and protect these foundational principles.

I am concerned about the proposed regulations by OMB over the grant funding of our scientific projects that require and benefit from international collaboration. These decisions should be guided by people with the scientific knowledge to guide and understand the technical and comprehensive interpretation of the results collected and understanding of the steps forward based on the data. A political appointee can not reliably do this.

This ruling will hurt a lot people then it will help, and oversteps the bounds of the US government. There are so many better places to be resources into