By SPC

Beginning in August 2025, the White House has published a series of executive orders and proposed rulings that would shift the review process of federal research grants away from scientific experts and into the hands of political appointees. This would be catastrophic for ensuring scientific integrity across National Institute of Health grant processes.

SSDP’s Science Policy Committee strongly opposes the proposed changes (Docket OMB-2026-0034) to the current peer review grant system as it will ultimately cause harm to research, including life changing research on harm reduction, health disparities and novel treatments for substance use disorders. 

This should not be a partisan issue. Scientific standards should not change every four or eight years depending on who occupies the White House. Shifting research funding decisions away from scientific peer review and toward politically driven priorities threatens the independence of science and could undermine critical drug policy research, including life-changing research on harm reduction and novel treatments for substance use disorders.

Because public health research, harm reduction initiatives, and community-based addiction services often face intense political scrutiny — which we have recently seen with the Dear Colleague letters from SAMHSA — granting political appointees unchecked authority to abruptly cancel, freeze, or alter grants puts vital life-saving programs at constant risk of disruption. This politicization threatens funding for evidence-based interventions such as syringe services, overdose prevention studies, and barrier-reducing treatment models, which are frequently stigmatized or politically contentious. 

We urge individuals to use our online tool to craft a letter to send to their members of congress. This is an urgent call to action as the continuing resolution put forth by Congress expires December 11, 2026. Unless Congress acts, the block on the rule ends.

“These proposed rules represent a dangerous encroachment on the scientific grant-awarding process by unelected political appointees,” said SSDP Ambassador Joseph Hennessey, an MD/PhD student at University of Wisconsin and member of SSDP’s Science Policy Committee. “Scientists, not politicians, should decide which scientific grants are most meritorious and most likely to advance important scientific and medical breakthroughs. These rules must be vigorously opposed by all sides and Congress must reassert its power of the purse to dictate how federal funds are appropriated.”

What the Rule Would Do

OMB says the rule will improve transparency, accountability, and oversight of taxpayer dollars, reduce burden on grantees, and stop funds from being used for what it calls “wasteful” or ideologically driven projects. It argues that elected leadership should be accountable for how federal money is spent.

Those are legitimate goals. The question is whether giving political appointees greater authority to override scientific and merit-based review is the right way to achieve them. Critics, including Republican Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, argue that Congress already sets funding priorities by law and that adding political review after merit review undermines that intent.

The proposal rewrites the Uniform Guidance (2 CFR Part 200), the rulebook for nearly all federal grants, into a binding “Uniform Grants Regulation.” For NIH-funded science, the most consequential changes are:

•  A political sign-off on every award (§200.205). After peer review, a senior political appointee must review all discretionary awards. The appointee is told to use “independent judgment” rather than routinely defer to reviewers, and to ask whether each award “demonstrably advance[s] the President’s policy priorities.”
• Peer review becomes advisory. Scientific merit scores would inform decisions but no longer anchor them, allowing political appointees with no scientific experience to override peer reviews.
• Greater authority to terminate ongoing grants (§200.340). Agencies could end active, multi-year grants if they no longer fit agency priorities or “the national interest,” with administrative hearings skippable for these terminations (§200.342). This could disrupt long-term research, waste resources already invested, and undermine the stability that complex scientific projects require.
• Funding calls must align with administration priorities (§200.202). This includes extensive new requirements that demand awards “demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities” and targets specific language related to gender identity, public health, women, health disparities, racial equality, and climate justice. While these provisions reflect the priorities of the current administration, the larger concern extends far beyond any one administration or political agenda. Giving political officials greater authority to determine which areas of science merit funding creates a system in which research priorities can shift with political leadership, rather than remaining grounded in scientific merit and the purposes established by Congress.
• Priority alignment restricts professional development. New limits on participation would restrict publication costs, conference travel, and international collaboration. These activities are essential to sharing findings, evaluating research, and advancing scientific discovery.
• Foreign collaboration restricted. The proposal would impose additional restrictions on certain foreign research collaborations. While national security safeguards are important, unnecessary barriers to legitimate international scientific cooperation could limit the exchange of knowledge and slow research progress.

“The combined effect of the proposed rules falls disproportionately on trainees and early-career investigators,” said Dr. Alaina Jaster, neuropharmacologist and Science Policy Committee Chair. “As a graduate student and post-doc, I relied on federal funding for my professional advancement and as part of my income as a student, which if terminated without any cause or notice, would have been detrimental to my training, career, and basic livelihood. Receiving an award as a student meant that my science was competitive, cutting-edge and meaningful which was crucial to furthering my career. If this passes, it would de-legitimize science, prevent students from attending conferences without pre-approval, prevent publishing, and journal access. Without my grant support and the opportunities it gave me, I would not be in a position today to work in biotech and support new therapeutics. The process of training is 10-15 years, and damage to the pipeline now produces generational, not episodic, losses that will ultimately harm the US scientific enterprise.”

Why Grant Decisions Belong With Scientists

Since World War II, U.S. research funding has been built on expert peer review: scientists who are experts on a topic judge which proposals are most rigorous and most likely to pay off. For NIH, this is codified into law; federal law (42 U.S.C. § 289a) requires technical and scientific peer review of grant applications.

Peer review is not about insulating government spending from accountability. Congress retains the power of the purse, agencies remain responsible for administering programs established by law, and taxpayers have every right to expect federal research dollars to be spent responsibly. The question is who should judge the scientific merit of competing research proposals once Congress has decided what research to fund.

Merit review protects research funding from swinging with each election cycle. Many scientific projects take years or decades; a study funded under one administration and cancelled under the next wastes the money already spent, and early-career researchers can’t build careers on funding that might vanish mid-project. When political fit becomes a condition of funding, scientists learn to avoid topics that might be controversial, making science less innovative and more risk-averse.

Independent peer review protects research in fields where political posturing and ideologies have often preempted careful scientific and medical research. That risk is especially great for research SSDP cares about: addiction, overdose prevention, harm reduction, cannabis, and psychedelic medicine.

Research into addiction, overdose prevention, harm reduction, pain management, and new treatments for substance use disorders can be politically controversial across administrations and across the political spectrum. Public health research, harm reduction initiatives, and community-based addiction services are particularly vulnerable to shifting political priorities, even when supported by strong scientific evidence.

That is precisely why decisions about whether science is worth pursuing should be made on scientific grounds. Giving political appointees greater power to override expert review or cancel, freeze, or terminate ongoing awards risks making entire areas of research dependent on the political priorities of the administration in power. Evidence-based interventions such as syringe services, overdose prevention research, and barrier-reducing treatment models should rise or fall on the evidence — not on whether they are politically popular.

“This rule will cripple America’s biomedical research enterprise and prevent scientists from making critical advancements, likely costing thousands of preventable deaths,” said Dr. Lindsey Galbo-Thomma, behavioral pharmacologist and co-founder of the Science Policy Committee. “It will even stretch beyond the laboratory, due to the limits and bans on funding for scientific meetings, which often are in hotels or convention centers and rely on everyday workers such as those in hospitality. All Americans should reject this proposed rule in its entirety.”

Where Scientific Societies Stand

Opposition from the research community has been broad and consistent, including statements from leading scientific organizations:

• AAAS statement (June 2) and formal comment (July 13) — American Association for the Advancement of Science. Calls the rule a power grab that bucks the will of Congress; the comment focuses on OMB overreach, political control of awards and terminations, and international collaboration.
• Society for Neuroscience statement — Warns the rule injects political and ideological considerations into funding decisions that have depended on merit and peer review. See also SfN’s advocacy hub: https://www.sfn.org/advocacy/advocacy-response-recent-actions
• ASPET advocacy update (The Pharmacologist) — American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. Summarizes ASPET’s comment urging OMB to preserve the current framework.
• ACNP response — American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Analysis of the rule’s effects on neuropsychopharmacology, including cross-national psychiatric research consortia.
• FASEB formal comment (PDF) — Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Argues political pre-issuance review contradicts the administration’s own “Gold Standard Science” order.
• ASBMB analysis and action page — American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.
• AAMC comment — Association of American Medical Colleges. Asks OMB to eliminate the pre-issuance review and rescind the proposal in its entirety.
• FABBS summary of opposition — Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences.
• APHA news release — American Public Health Association.
• AAU resource library — Association of American Universities. Collects statements from many other organizations.
• The OMB is moving to allow political interference in federal science and research grants — and Congress needs to hear from you now

Using the Science Policy Committees tool, crafting a letter to lawmakers is extremely easy. This is a critical moment for preserving what makes the US a leader in science, industry and development. Write a letter to your representative in congress by December 11, 2026 to make your voice heard!

We must work together to save science and end research harms.