Regulations.gov Comments

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.

This is absolutely a government overreach. In fact, requiring any adherence to creed over fact is facist and pathetic. Trans people have always existed, will always exist and your fear of them is quite laughable.

I am writing to express my concern with the proposed regulation for federal financial assistance.<br/><br/>Scientific research in the US is funded from many sources, and the US government provides some of those dollars. Governmental funding is crucial to the our continued success in science and our pre-eminence as a space that attracts funding from elsewhere and the best minds in the world as collaborators. In order to ensure that government funding is used thoughtfully to push forward the best projects, a peer review process is the backbone of the selection process. This has been an effective mechanism for a wise use of resources and should not be ended. It is a rigorous process that ensures stable funding for those who have demonstrated aptitude and capacity for excellent scientific research. As it is functioning well at this time, there is no reason for sweeping change, which is what is proposed in this regulation.<br/><br/>Scientific research is essential for every aspect of our lives; it answers questions about how we live, how we interact with the world around us and how we can improve every part of that world. Some of these questions will not be answered by industry, so funding sources from the government help advance the science. We can&#39;t expect innovation in business if we don&#39;t have innovation in science. Having them side by side is important; they both fin...

This proposal is shooting our self in the foot. Political appointees have no place in steering research. The inventiveness and creativity of our US scientists are a major asset to the US. This OMB proposal is small minded and stupid&hellip; more than that it&rsquo;s dangerous!

I am a dual doctorate degreed individual (DVM, Ph.D.) who completed my education underwritten in part by federal grant funding, competed to obtain federal grants as a student and professional, and participated on study section as an expert in my corner of science. I am appalled at the suggestion that any political advisor would have any say in determining who obtains grant funding, which can be political with a small &quot;p&quot;, but involved ethical scientists and engineers with deep knowledge and experience in assessing what projects were worthy of support with scant federal funds. Most political appointees do not have the temperament, deep knowledge and experience, and foresight to understand why it would be important to invest in given fields, and to recognize creative work in generating, proving or disproving hypotheses using the scientific method across fields. Further, as a political appointee, these people are beholden to the way in which government functions politically that is not present in having study groups composed of scientists and engineers working across industries and in academic or business settings that are NOT directly dependent on obtaining financial support from the government in the same way. I am fearful that the overtly political bent of political appointees would deleteriously affect our scientific progress and funding in ways that will lead to...

This is a waste of time and resources, not just the screening for people agreeing with you but the whole trans scare overall. What a trans person does to their own body has absolutely zero effect on anyone else and is no one&#39;s business. I can&#39;t believe this government is wasting so much time and effort on torturing and killing a portion of the population when our planet is slowly cooking. Go after the data centers using up all our water and polluting the communities they&#39;re forced upon. Honestly you people are such giant babies it&#39;s ridiculous. I can&#39;t believe my taxes go towards these things.

June 10, 2026<br/>From: Dr. James L. Stevens<br/>[ ]<br/><br/>To: www.Regulations.gov/docket/OMB-2026-0034<br/>Subject: Public Comment from a Retired Scientist.<br/>Dear Comment Reviewer:<br/>I am a retired scientist whose early career path has been assisted by federal grants, and I am concerned about the careers of young people following a path like mine. I came from a poor family but was found to be academically talented at an early age. My fondest desire was to become a scientist like those whose biographies that I had read and be able to make a small contribution to the total of human knowledge and the material betterment of society as well as providing for my family. A full college scholarship got me to the BS level of Physics and an NSF Traineeship program allowed me to obtain my Ph.D. My thesis research was federally funded at the Savannah River Site including costs associated with publication and presentation at the American Physical Society Convention. Another grant allowed me to do more research at Case Western Reserve University as a post-doc. Over the next 40 years, I was an assistant professor and then Research Physicist at Philips Electronics where I published about 30 patents and peer-reviewed papers. In short, I was able to realize my dream with the help of federal grants and other sources. I am concerned about OMB-2026-0034. It is easy to see how it...

I am writing as a private citizen to oppose the proposed Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance (Federal Register, May 29, 2026) and to ask that OMB withdraw it.<br/>I am a Managing Director at Marsh, a U.S. Coast Guard licensed master, and I live aboard a sailboat with my wife. My clients rely on federally funded science every day to manage risk: catastrophe models, climate and flood data, hurricane forecasting. So do I personally. When I am 800 miles offshore, a NOAA forecast is the margin between a routine passage and a dangerous one. That forecast exists because the United States funded patient research for decades and let scientists, not political appointees, judge which work was sound.<br/>I also serve on the Dean&#39;s Advisory Council of the University of Rhode Island&#39;s Graduate School of Oceanography, though I comment solely in my personal capacity. Three provisions concern me most.<br/>First, discretionary termination of awards. Ocean science cannot be paused mid-award; an interrupted time-series is destroyed, not suspended. No institution can schedule research vessels or admit doctoral students against funding that can vanish without cause. Termination authority does not reduce waste; it converts every dollar spent on an unfinished project into waste.<br/>Second, sidelining merit and peer review in favor of political appointees. No serious business lets p...

Submitted on behalf of Vascudyne, Inc - Small MedTech Company: VASCUDYNE AS PRIME RECIPIENT<br/><br/>1. Termination/suspension for convenience destroys disproportionate value in milestone-gated medical product development (&sect; 200.340).<br/>One of Vascudyne&#39;s awards is a four-year, $3.99M program with a sequential, capital-intensive regulatory path &mdash; cGMP production, GLP preclinical testing, a preIND/IND submission to FDA, and aiming toward a subsequent Phase 1 trial in adolescents &mdash; with costs heavily front-loaded into Years 1 and 2. Allowing an agency to terminate when it determines the award &quot;does not effectuate program goals, Federal agency priorities, or the national interest as they exist at the time of the termination&quot; means a mid-stream discretionary termination &mdash; for example, after GLP testing but before IND submission &mdash; would strand a large sunk federal and private investment with no clinical or regulatory readout. For regulated, milestone-sequenced medical product development, value is realized only at the end of the sequence. Convenience-termination and the parallel 90-day temporary suspension should carry heightened justification and wind-down/close-out protections for FDA-track awards.<br/><br/>2. The lower-IDC preference penalizes small for-profit recipients already at the floor (&sect; 200.205(b)(3)).<br/>Vascudyne cur...

Outrageous.<br/><br/>I am a retired nuclear scientist. I contributed to the nation&#39;s defense. But I have become appalled at what I see. Back in the 1990s I worked on flat panel displays. It was deemed to be a &quot;must have&quot; technology by DARPA. It was also perfect for American style manufacturing, high value added, high automation with lots of need for a highly technical supply chain. This was all until Newt Gingrich realized that he could damage Bill Clinton by pulling the funding and announcing that &quot;in America, we don&#39;t pick winners.&quot; Rubbish. Or maybe the point is really thst we pick losers by not having a strategy at all that doesnt play well on youtube. Overnight, the money - public and private - dried up and our flat panel efforts imploded. South Korea - a tiny country with a small economy ended up dominating one of the largest tech industries in the world. Shouldn&#39;t have happened and it was entirely political interference.<br/><br/>Today with AI, we are confronting potentially the largest destruction of human capital in history as what is left of our technical labor will be thrown into a cage fight against limitless machines in command of all human knowledge. No doubt the economy will grow as we break the back of skilled labor and internalize the profits as rents accrued to the rich. But all that education, all that experience, all that s...

I strongly support the proposed policy to limit the number of simultaneous RPGs that a single PI can hold. NIH funding is a limited resource, and a small percentage of investigators currently receive multiple grants while many highly qualified scientists struggle to obtain even one award. A reasonable cap would help distribute funding more broadly, support a larger and more diverse investigator pool, and increase opportunities for early-stage and mid-career researchers. In addition, managing multiple large grants simultaneously can be challenging, and a more balanced distribution of funding may improve project oversight, mentoring, and scientific productivity. Overall, I believe this policy would promote fairness, strengthen the biomedical research workforce, and maximize the impact of taxpayer investments in research.

I am a Physics Professor and Astronomer at a small liberal arts college in New York. I am writing because changing the policy surrounding funding for federal grants seems politically motivated, and I would like it stopped. Scientist should be in charge where grant money goes, in alignment with what proposals are most scientifically important and viable. When politicians get involved in deciding what kind of science is allowed to be studied, then it is no longer science. When external parties control science we get things like the smoking industry commissioning scientist to publish studies about how smoking is good for you. It is another example of the president removing power from congress and placing it in the hands of the executive branch. It should not stand. Thank you for your time.

As a taxpayer and voter, I highly disagree with the proposed rule. Already, as a result of this administration&#39;s slashing of grants due to it&#39;s political ideologies, I have experienced a loss of work, even though I am not a researcher. These constant cuts have far reaching effects that do not only impact grant recipients, but impacts everyone else who works at grant-receiving institutions, and within their communities. While the rules outlined here do not specifically cut funding, I can foresee them having a huge impact on the amount of work available to me in my community, even though I am not a researcher. People from all walks of life work at these research institutions, and they are important parts of the local economy. By taking aim at scientists, you are also hurting general laborers and the every-day people that work at these places helping to keep the lights on. When these large institutions are forced to cut jobs due to federal changes, it upsets the local economy and leaves regular people without jobs. You are taking away people&#39;s livelihood with your political targeting of science/research.<br/><br/>Additionally, having a political appointee (who does not understand the science) deciding if grants are awarded or not is ludicrous. Our country is backsliding and we are becoming the laughing stock of the world. We are hamstringing ourselves and limiting f...

The Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance declares that its aim is to &ldquo;improve transparency, accountability, and oversight for Federal awards across the Federal Government.&rdquo; What it is is a far-reaching regulation which lays a legal path to making the lives of a small subset of Americans, those who are transgender, miserable. It would prevent transgender Americans from gaining employment, getting loans, getting housing, getting a fair education, medical attention, doing research&hellip; in short, prevents them from being active and productive in vast aspects of American life. This Regulation is an expression of the current administration&rsquo;s culture war against our nation&rsquo;s LGBTQ population.<br/><br/>What is the point of targeting transgender Americans? Why not try to lift up the lives of all Americans? Why not concentrate on laws and regulations that would improve our housing crisis, make healthcare affordable, do something meaningful about gun violence, strengthen K-12 education, create a rigorous vocational apprenticeship system, ensure safe drinking water, improve infrastructure, and reduce inflation?<br/><br/>But instead, the proposed Regulation would codify the administration&#39;s anti-trans executive orders into binding federal policy, imposing a blanket prohibition on federal funds going toward &quot;gender ideology&quot;&mdash;with terms...

I support the stated goals of improving transparency, accountability, and stewardship of taxpayer resources. However, several provisions of the proposed rule may unintentionally undermine scientific research, clinical trials, and the research infrastructure that has made the United States the global leader in innovation. My comments focus on five areas where modest revisions could preserve accountability while protecting scientific discovery, human subjects research, and America&#39;s long-term competitiveness.<br/><br/>1. Section 200.340: Termination of Awards<br/><br/>The proposed rule would expand agency authority to terminate awards that no longer align with agency priorities or interests. While flexibility is important, scientific research operates on multi-year timelines and depends on funding stability. Universities, hospitals, and research institutions invest heavily in personnel, infrastructure, compliance systems, and trainee development based on the expectation that peer-reviewed awards will continue absent misconduct, noncompliance, poor performance, or safety concerns. This concern is especially important for human subjects research. Many federally funded clinical studies involve patients who may be receiving investigational treatments, or are contributing critical follow-up data. Termination for reasons unrelated to safety, ethics, scientific validity, miscondu...

The proposed regulation should not be adopted. There is a wealth of scientific evidence and other research that scientific research on and reflecting diversity, equity, and inclusion or &quot;DEI&quot; is needed to improve public health, research quality, productivity. See, for example, the following analyses. https://research.iac.es/proyecto/undark/media/diversity/How_Diversity_Drives_Better_Science-_A_Review_of_High-Impact_Research_MEJ.pdf &quot;DEI&quot; also improves the quality of work performed. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-matters-even-more-the-case-for-holistic-impact https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/04/business-case-for-diversity-in-the-workplace/ https://learning.linkedin.com/resources/learning-culture/diversity-workplace-statistics-dei-importance

I am highly opposed to this rule proposition. This will place grant funding decisions in the hands of appointed politicians who are unable to identify appropriate needs for scientific research, and have no business doing so. It will disrupt the peer review system that ensures the best grants are funded. It threatens the development of treatments for a myriad of diseases, including mental health, age-related illnesses, diabetes, neurodevelopmental disorders, and unique needs for subpopulations such as different sexes and ethnic populations. It will completely disrupt the integrity of the peer-review process that ensures that our tax dollars go to the best science, rather than a political appointees whims and wishes.

I&#39;m a first year postdoctoral researcher working in particle physics. I have a number of concerns with this docket.<br/>[200.202] I&#39;m concerned that alignment with administrative priorities will hinder important research that is not immediately in the public eye. Research findings should be independent of opinion.<br/>[200.204] If we allow grant applications to happen outside of the public circle, then this is a major step towards a completely corrupt system where you need to know someone in order to get your research funded. This is not a free and fair practice at all. I am concerned this would heavily hinder the growth of research into upcoming cities across the US.<br/>[200.454], [200.461] Preventing researchers from using funds to publish their findings would drastically hinder a small research group where the number of authors on the paper is either a single author up to a dozen or so authors. Needing to pay this out of pocket of researchers salaries is too extreme in a &quot;publish or perish&quot; system. We would see incredibly fewer US scientists if they are unable to publish because their grants do not allow them to use the money to write a paper in a high impact journal. <br/>[200.432] Mandating pre-approval for conferences is outrageous. If a conference is announced 8 months before it happens and you need approval to attend even farther in advance, it sim...

The requirement that senior political appointees conduct pre-issuance review of every discretionary grant, with an explicit prohibition on deferring to peer reviewers, conflicts with the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289a), which establishes peer review by qualified experts as the basis for NIH funding decisions. I currently hold two R01 grants as MPI and I have served as a review during study sections in the past. I have firsthand experience with the value of peer reviewed feedback that improved our science, as well as the commitment that peer reviewers make when reviewing proposals. The potential for this new rule to take the word or experts out of the decision on which grants to fund will negatively impact scientific pursuits. Diseases will not be cured and lives will be lost from this action.

I am writing to submit a formal comment regarding the Office of Management and Budget&rsquo;s (OMB) proposed revisions to the Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance. I hold a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from UC Irvine. Following a career as a biomedical researcher, I currently operate a communications business as a professional scientific writer and editor. In this role, I provide specialized technical writing and editing services to assist researchers in developing competitive grant proposals, preparing peer-reviewed scientific articles, and writing articles about science for non-specialist audiences.<br/><br/>Because my livelihood and entire professional background intersect directly with the administration, communication, and execution of federally funded science, I am uniquely positioned to comment on how these proposed updates will impact the domestic research ecosystem, scientific communication, and global competitiveness.<br/><br/>The proposed revisions introduce frameworks that risk significantly diminishing international collaboration. As an American researcher, my career was profoundly shaped by the inherently global nature of scientific inquiry. I had the privilege of completing a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Singapore Eye Research Institute and serving as an assistant professor at the U...

I want experts to decide how the Department of Management and Budget, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of State, the Agency for International Development, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Commerce, the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Corporation for National and Community Service, the Social Security Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the National Science Foundation, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, the Department of Homeland Security, the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Department of Education, the Export Import Bank, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Peace Corps, the Election Assistance Commission, the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council, the Federal Communications Commiss...

The grantmaking process should not be controlled by political appointees because scientific progress takes years. Needing to respond or adjust to the starts and stops of political winds will be detrimental to progress. Not only will the U.S. fall behind other countries in terms of innovation, citizens will suffer the consequences of fewer treatment options, fewer clinicians, and fewer facts on which to base personal decisions. <br/><br/>Science is a way we learn about the world. Policy is what we opt to do with that science. Government officials are already central to the latter. By placing themselves in the middle of the former, they will limit what we can know based on the interests of a small group of elected officials. <br/><br/>Please do not implement these changes. They will not accomplish the stated goals of transparency, accountability and oversight. <br/><br/>

[200.205] Transparency and Accountability<br/>The proposed revisions create an information and accountability blackout around federal funding evaluation, achieving the exact opposite of their stated intents:<br/><br/>Political Overrides [200.205(d)]: Reducing peer review to an advisory status and injecting mandatory &quot;pre-issuance reviews&quot; for alignment with un-quantified &quot;presidential priorities&quot; destroys merit-based evaluation. This leaves scientists unable to fairly compete and leaves the public unable to verify if tax dollars support excellent science. Explicitly instructing officials not to defer to merit reviewers bases allocations on shifting political compliance rather than scientific excellence and viability. <br/><br/>The Gold Standard Paradox [200.205]: The listed tenets of &quot;Gold Standard Science&quot; mirror standards already in place. However, mandating that all raw data be shared lacks safeguards for intellectual property and patient privacy (HIPAA). This will negate or disqualify support for large swaths of biomedical and translational research.<br/><br/>Masking Review Metrics [200.205]: Forcing agencies to communicate flattened &quot;consensus panel&quot; metrics instead of individual reviewer score distributions hides critical scientific debate and dissenting peer viewpoints. If political appointees override peer scores, the public de...

[200.205] <br/>The stated purposes of the proposed changes, to enhance transparency and reduce waste and abuse, are laudable. If one were attempting to design a system that would do the opposite, however, the result might not be very different from what has been proposed. Many of the proposed changes could facilitate the misdirection of federal funds rather than prevent it. Time commitments prevent me from reviewing and commenting on the entire document. I have focused on the small portion of section 200.205. <br/><br/>Proposed text: <br/>(1) Discretionary awards must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President&#39;s policy priorities.<br/><br/>Comment: <br/>This rule provides opportunity for abuse and hence wasteful spending by providing a mechanism for an appointee to steer funds (for example, to a political ally) with at most vague justification. <br/>It risks converting discretionary grant making into a mechanism for political prioritization rather than neutral programmatic decision‑making. <br/>As such, it goes against the stated interest of ensuring that tax dollars are not wasted or misused. <br/><br/>Furthermore, Congress, not the executive branch, sets spending priorities. The executive branch is tasked to implement (or execute -- it&#39;s in the name) the spending priorities of the legislative branch. <br/><br/>Proposed text: <br/>(2iv): &quot;.....

[200.205] Comment on Pre-Issuance Review and the Advisory Status of Peer Review<br/>I submit this comment as a scientist who has served as a peer reviewer of research and emerging-technology proposals for the National Science Foundation. I write to oppose the changes to &sect; 200.205, which require senior political appointees to conduct a &quot;pre-issuance review&quot; of all discretionary awards, instruct them not to &quot;ministerially ratify or routinely defer to&quot; peer reviewers, and demote peer review to &quot;advisory.&quot; I respectfully request a substantive response to the empirical and economic concerns below.<br/>1. The rule misidentifies the source of return on research investment. Federal R&amp;D produces extraordinary economic value precisely because award decisions track scientific merit rather than the priorities of whoever holds office. Recent Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas research (Fieldhouse and Mertens) estimates that nondefense government R&amp;D has generated aggregate returns of roughly 140&ndash;210 percent and accounts for about one-fifth of all U.S. business-sector productivity growth since World War II&mdash;a higher rate of return than public infrastructure. The mechanism that delivers those returns is expert evaluation of which proposals are most likely to yield reproducible, high-impact results. Inserting a political filter ahead of that...

I am writing to oppose this regulation. Much of my career was spent in the pharmaceutical industry working on novel treatments for neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders. Our work depended on research findings in academia, almost always funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or National Science Foundation (NSF). The basic research performed in these academic laboratories was based upon thorough review of grants submitted to NIH and NSF. There was no need for further beaurocratic review by political appointees. Much of my graduate education was funded by a training grant and my postdoctoral research was funded by NIH grants. After leaving the pharmaceutical industry I helped start a company working on hearing loss. We applied for and received funding through Phase I and Phase II Small Business Innovation Grants (SBIR). I have also served on ad hoc NIH study sections reviewing SBIR grants. Throughout all this experience I experienced first hand how the best science received appropriate funding. Final decisions regarding funding were made by the Director of the appropriate NIH Institute. These were always based upon approving grants that received the best score after study sections thoroughly reviewed the grants. Additional review by poltical appointees based upon arbitrary and changing criteria will not improve the quality of science. These individ...

Re: Comments on Proposed Rule, &quot;Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance,&quot; 91 FR 32198 (May 29, 2026)<br/><br/>I submit these comments as a concerned member of the public and a recipient of federal grant support myself. While I support accountable use of federal grant funds, several provisions of this proposed rule would cause serious harm to grantees and the communities they serve.<br/><br/>[200.340] &mdash; Termination authority is dangerously overbroad<br/><br/>The proposed rule allows termination whenever an award &quot;no longer effectuates agency priorities&quot; &mdash; with no requirement that the recipient have done anything wrong. Grantees hire staff, sign leases, and make long-term commitments in reliance on awarded funds. Mid-grant terminations based on shifting priorities leave organizations unable to pay employees or recover sunk costs. OMB should retain noncompliance as the standard for termination, require 90 days&#39; advance notice for any priority-based termination, and mandate reimbursement of all costs committed prior to notice.<br/><br/>[200.208] &mdash; Specific conditions must remain risk-based<br/><br/>Current rules limit specific conditions to recipients with documented risk factors. The proposed revision allows conditions based on undefined &quot;agency priorities,&quot; giving program officers unchecked discretion to impose enhanced r...

These proposed rule changes are a giant step backwards for our country. Science needs to be reviewed and approved by SCIENTISTS. Politics needs to stay out of this, and political appointees with no scientific expertise have no business in this space. The proposed policy changes will send this country back into the dark ages. China is already surpassing the US in its scientific discoveries and output. Is the intended goal to push that to happen faster? Additionally, the plan to terminate grants at will is completely inappropriate and will result in enormous loss of infrastructure and scientific progress, not to mention the negative effects on universities, scientists, and communities/

I am a county-level Public Health Emergency Preparedness Coordinator in Montana. I am issuing a comment OPPOSING REVISIONS to the Rule &ldquo;Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance&rdquo; (OMB-2026-0034) posted on May 29, 2026, proposing to revise parts of the OMB Guidance for Federal Financial<br/>Assistance located in title 2 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) (the Rule). I OPPOSE what these revisions would mean in practice: Political appointees who can override expert judgment and block science grants that don&rsquo;t advance the President&rsquo;s priorities would have that same power over transportation awards, housing funds, public health initiatives, and more. Any active grant could be canceled mid-project because it no longer serves &lsquo;the national interest.&rsquo; A highway already under construction. A tribal health program mid-delivery. A city still rebuilding from a flood. And every new grant program must align with administration priorities before a single application is even solicited. Entire categories of funding can be quietly discontinued without a public announcement or a vote. Federal grants are not peripheral to how states and communities function. They represent, on average, 36 cents of every dollar a state spends. This rule puts that entire financial partnership between the federal government and the states under political control, without...

I am a scientist. The US scientific system is the best in the world. Our universities, labs, and companies attract the most brilliant scientists from everywhere in the world to come to the US and keep us as the undisputed world leader in fields from AI to crop science. This creates jobs and wealth for our country. This proposed rule change threatens to obliterate science in the US. Here are reasons that two example specific provisions would destroy our world leadership:<br/><br/>&sect;200.205: Our scientific funding system works so well because it is run by scientists, not politicians. Scientific reviewers do not make decisions based on what is best for the current ruling party but rather what the best science is. Putting decisions in the hands of politicians will cause ideological science no matter who controls the White House.<br/><br/>&sect;200.220: Almost every project I have ever worked on during my career has required working with scientists in other countries. Specialization means that small but important problems often only have a handful of experts working on them in the world, and these experts need to work together to accomplish goals. Disallowing foreign collaborations will not hurt foreign scientists, it will hurt the US by causing international collaborations to continue without US scientists. If top American scientists are forced to choose between trying to do...

I feel compelled to write as someone who cares deeply about federally funded scientific and medical research. Before I retired, I worked as an Operations Manager and Grants Administrator for a small biotechnology laboratory that received grants from the NIH and other federal and private entities. The scientists I worked for were dedicated and passionate about their research, and this was one of the best experiences of my administrative career. <br/><br/>After reading through the proposed rule changes, I am particularly concerned with section &sect;200.340. This proposed rule change would allow any active discretionary grant that no longer aligns with &ldquo;the national interest as they exist at the time of the termination.&rdquo; This seems so broad and poorly defined that it would effectively convert all multiple year federally funded research into at-will arrangements. <br/><br/>In research that involves human subjects this rule could put participants, students and researchers at serious risk. This uncertainty makes it difficult to design studies, recruit staff and research subjects and for students and scientists to plan their careers. Putting too many parameters on research stifles the ability to create studies and deal with unexpected results that inevitably arise. <br/><br/>I urge the OMB to revert to the existing provision that limits termination of a grant to noncom...

While academics can be insulated in a bubble that needs to be refreshed from time to time, they are experts in their fields and the results of the work of centuries of American scientists has produced science that is the envy of the entire world. To allow outside administrators or politicians to have major input in who gets grants is just so incredibly stupid and will absolutely result in weakening American science and thusly our strength in the world. I can understand that there is some DEI and liberal intentions that infiltrated science and got carried away, but it still affects only a small portion of scientific research and this is an excessive response. Please do NOT make this rule change

Good afternoon! I&#39;m writing in reference to OMB-2026-0034; specifically provision [200.432]. I work for a small business and our contact with customers has already been affected by the slow release of federal funding, including NIH R grants and T grants. We exhibit and program workshops at many scientific and education conferences to meet potential customers. Cutting research funding for conference attendance without prior approval in a grant hurts our business because it reduces attendance at these meetings. Due to rising conference and travel costs, it means that we spend more money to make fewer meaningful contacts. Over the past two years, we have already felt the profound effects of the loss of travel funding for conferences; adding yet another roadblock woudl further hurt our business.

[200.340]<br/>My name is Lisa Fugett, and I work as a Grant Specialist for Ayres Associates Inc., supporting local governments and community organizations in securing and administering federal funding across Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest.<br/>The Uniform Guidance provides the common framework governing how federal grants are applied for, awarded, and administered. The proposed overhaul could significantly disrupt the ability of local governments and nonprofits to access and manage federal funding&mdash;funding that directly supports critical infrastructure, transportation, water systems, and community development projects that residents rely on every day.<br/>Changes to how grants are reviewed and awarded, new authority to terminate active grants, and sweeping simultaneous changes across all federal agencies create significant uncertainty for project sponsors who have planned, obligated, and staffed projects in good faith under existing federal requirements. Many communities&mdash;particularly small and rural municipalities&mdash;do not have the administrative capacity to quickly absorb and respond to widespread regulatory changes without risking delays, cost overruns, or compliance issues.<br/>If these disruptions occur, the impact will extend beyond project sponsors to the communities those projects serve. Delays or instability in federal funding can directly affect publ...

I am an early-career faculty member who research has been funded by NIMH, and whose career depends on being able to obtain more NIH funding to continue our research on early-life stress and how it affects brain development. <br/><br/>I am particularly concerned about the proposed revisions to &sect;200.205, which requires political appointee review of grants. Funding good science should not be a partisan issue, and peer review by experts in the field should remain the top criterion for whether a grant should be funded, rather than conformation to a political agenda or an administration&#39;s priorities. Proposed revisions to &sect;200.340 also enable grant termination at any time for these same criteria, which is deeply unsettling and will take away any form of stability for our already difficult research work, making it exceedingly difficult to hire and retain the best scientists on our research team. <br/><br/>I work with several outstanding foreign collaborators, who are at the top of their field, and revisions to &sect;200.220 are concerning because our collaboration would now be disallowed. This is extremely inefficient and time-wasting, because we will now be forced to find new collaborators within the US, which takes a lot of time to develop these kind of productive working relationships. Some fields are exceedingly small, and there really are only foreign collaborato...

From my perspective, these proposed changes would significantly interfere with my institution&#39;s ability to effectively prepare students for important STEM industry jobs that fill a fast-growing market demand and need in our state and nation. The specter of award termination at any time with minimal justification and without cause on our end would mean that my institution would be unable to even seek federal support in many/most cases, since stopping a project mid-stream with no warning would have significant financial and educational impact for our faculty, staff and students that we could not accommodate. It would make US institutions less effective and less competitive. This would have a direct negative impact on industries that rely on research. Eliminating publication and conference expenses would have a similar impact, reducing the dissemination of best practices and results and reducing collaboration and opportunities to scale and replicate beneficial practices. Eliminating international collaboration would similarly damage US competitiveness, growth and learning. I understand the need to guard against bad actors, but such a sweeping limitation will stifle American innovation. Further, awards that preference lower IDC rates will certainly disadvantage some of the most effective and cost-efficient projects in favor of projects less likely to deliver because they are...

Transgender people are people. It&#39;s outrageous to remove their access to care and support by organizations and agencies that receive federal funding. Removing their rights to receive what they need is discrimination. Trans people aren&#39;t choosing to be &#39;different.&#39; They&#39;ve had the often very difficult task of being who they are in spite of how difficult it is to live safely in our current world. Trans people make up a very small percentage of the US population. They are being unfairly targeted. They are already up against many negative biases that lead to challenges in securing housing, moving safely through the world, and working in fields they are qualified to work in. Mental health challenges, suicidality, gender-based violence are prevalent for many trans people because of prevailing negative attitudes and bias. This will only be compounded if new federal rules to exclude their participation in programs and/or &#39;erased&#39; from existence.

this is not made to be transparent. what it is is transparent fascism of the highest order not seen on the world stage since the last time the Nazis took it from us in the 30s and 40s. to dictate a class of people as non existent is a form of genocide, especially when it leads to us being unable to hold jobs, have a bank account, or get medical attention. this rule change seeks to eradicate 1% of the population for the feelings of a small amount too. you do not have public backing for this which is why you pushed this through as a regulation change, because your laws to do it fail each and every time because you don&#39;t have the votes.

Hi, the points regarding gender and sex are ridiculous. What happened to freedom? We are allowed to smoke, drink, and do numerous permanent cosmetic augmentations to our bodies if we so choose, yet altering sex characteristics is what you deem to be something that is a determining factor in whether or not something gets funding? How people alter their bodies and how an organization chooses to accommodate that or not is not the government&#39;s business. That is between the individual, the organization, and God.

As an engineer and small business owner, I am concerned about several proposed revisions to 2 CFR Part 200. My main concern is focused on the proposed changes to merit review, although I have concerns about some of the other proposed changes such as agency discretion to terminate awards (200.340), and agency approval to attend scientific conference (200.432). These changes would weaken federally funded research to remain competitive, apolitical, transparent, and beneficial to the public and the envy of the world.<br/><br/>The proposed revisions to Section 200.205 concerning &ldquo;senior appointees&rdquo; reviewing proposals and that peer review remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion is particularly troublesome and misguided. Peer review is, and has been for centuries, the foundation of scientific merit evaluation. Peer review ensures that funding decisions are grounded in competence, scientific rigor, feasibility, innovation, and significance. Senior appointees, many who lack any scientific training or experience, would change the goals of funding to political priorities. This would compromise the faith the public has in scientific research and undermine America&rsquo;s ability to continue to lead in discovery, innovation and commercial development. <br/><br/>My concerns regarding senior appointees having oversight into the termination of awards and gra...

Trans people exist and will continue to exist throughout time. Punishing an extremely small portion of our population is hateful and punitive. This continued targeting of the most vulnerable people in our society will lead to their deaths and is absolutely unconscionable.

Can we not encode bigotry into our laws?? Gender affirming care saves lives. Why don&rsquo;t you stay out of people&rsquo;s personal business anyway? Trans people are just the newest scapegoat by a fascist regime

The proposed rule is Proposed OMB &quot;Uniform Guidance&quot; (2 CFR Part 200) would affect our ability at our mid sized campus to move from R2 to R1 in the following ways:<br/><br/>Grant awards would be less purely peer-review driven and based on an opaque selection process. As we try to follow traditional rules to accomplish increasing our research portfolio, there is concern that criteria other than scientific merit would be used to determine selection<br/>&nbsp;<br/>Proposals would have to become aligned with the policy of the administration in power. The risk to this change would be two-fold. First that in an institution with a small number of investigators like ours, alignment would not be assured just based on our small volume of submissions. Second is that while our state is aligned with the desires/values of the current administration, assuming an administrative change may take place in two years, that would potentially put funded projects at the time of the transition at odds with the new administration, threatening cancellation. For example, the one center on campus may be placed at risk as their focus on violence prevention may not align with the current administration&rsquo;s priorities. In 2 years, under a new administration, they may be punished for agreeing to have changed this emphasis.&nbsp;<br/><br/>Collaboration would be made more difficult. In smaller i...

I have devoted my life to support of and participation in scientific research in the United States, first as a technician working in the laboratory of Dr. Sidney Colowick, a researcher supported by the American Cancer Research Foundation at Vanderbilt University; later with members of the Pediatric Medical Faculty at the University of California, Davis, CA and eventually, after receiving my DVM degree and board certification in Laboratory Animal Medicine, providing veterinary expertise in biomedical research at Purdue University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC. I am writing you in response to the document currently out for comment:<br/>RE: Office of Budget and Management OMB-2026-0034-0001 Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance<br/>Section 200.205 -- Please do not allow political appointees with no research expertise to insert political ideology into the review and funding of scientific research and hold the power to deny worthy research for political reasons. Fellow scientists who are familiar with the research are the most capable individuals to evaluate the feasibility and merit of any particular approach to generate viable results.<br/><br/>The way this document is worded the political appointees would have the power to control US scientific research funding completely and the true scientists with expertise to judge the research merit, woul...

The proposed regulations seek to standardize bureaucratic overreach and are idiotic in the extreme. No one- no person, no business, big or small, no matter their political alignment- wants funding to be decided by some know-nothing suit&#39;s ideological intuition. The &quot;Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance&quot; stands to quash free expression just as readily as it hamstrings industry. As a CEO I want my industry regulated by experts and funding decided by the quality of our output, not by how readily we lick Washington&#39;s filthstained boots.

I have recently read the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed rule and it frustratingly shows a complete lack of understanding of how human health research is performed and undervalues it&#39;s critical importance to the health of the American people. As a NIH funded scientist who studies infant immune development to reduce deaths from infection, sepsis, autoimmunity, allergy, and asthma, I have a firm grasp of the American scientific research enterprise. NIH funded research fills critical gaps in research that cannot be feasibly undertaken by private business. Nearly every life saving advancement in human health has foundations in NIH funded research. It trains our future doctors and researchers who treat and develop cures for diseases that our citizens and loved ones suffer from. Importantly, NIH funded research has a high economic return on investment as it lays the groundwork for the entire healthcare industry. It creates jobs and feeds the economy yielding billions in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Our investment in NIH has positioned us as a world leader and provides the American people with the most advanced knowledge to fight disease. This proposed rule is also contradictory, NIH funded researchers are required to share their observations publicly. Eliminating funding for open access publication and conference attendance inserts a barrier to diss...

Trans people are less than one percent of the population. How is making bigotry and formal policy a good use of our tax dollars? This isn&#39;t helping to keep the homeless off the street. It&#39;s not helping Mom and Pop start a small business. It&#39;s not keeping our roads free of potholes or repairing our failing bridges. How is this a good use of money? It boggles the mind.

The interference with science will never go well. Science is a process that works for the betterment of all of humanity, including all Americans. Restricting scientific research into only specific areas dictated by political advisors allows American research to become stagnant and prevent investigations into small, niche areas that keep America at the forefront of scientific exploration.

I am writing to express my strong opposition to OMB-2026-0034, which would threaten the public health in the U.S. and across the world and would undermine the nation as a leader in scientific research and discovery. I write not as a scientist but as a university professor and concerned citizen. <br/><br/>Scientific research and discovery takes time, thought, and focus. Universities and research organizations have built vast infrastructures in order to ensure that the scientists conducting that research and discovery have the time it takes to obtain expertise in their fields. Peer review ensures that science is being evaluated by the scientists who have time to obtain this expertise, not by government bureaucrats who have many other questions to attend to in their daily work. Having government bureaucrats spend their time weighing in on scientific developments about which they know very little is the opposite of the small government that the Republican Party repeatedly promises to deliver.<br/><br/>More significantly, however, this bill will cost lives. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic killed millions of Americans and shut down businesses and schools, the government was admirably quick to respond. Americans had access to some of the first vaccines in part because the science that produced those vaccines was based on previous research--research that, when it was begun, didn...

The provision that officials must screen for &ldquo; denial by the recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic&rdquo; is government overreach. That&rsquo;s not the government&rsquo;s business.