Congress Delays OMB Grantmaking Rule with Stopgap Funding Bill

The House voted Tuesday to fund the government and to block a controversial White House plan to overhaul federal grantmaking through Dec. 11. The bill now goes to the president, who said last month that he would sign it into law.

This version of the bill, which passed the Senate last month, would at least temporarily block the Office of Management and Budget’s plan to give political appointees unprecedented control over grantmaking decisions and restrict researcher use of grant funds.

The bill also staves off the original Sept. 30 deadline for Congress to pass funding bills for fiscal year 2027.

Colette Delawalla, founder and CEO of the advocacy organization Stand Up for Science, celebrated the bill’s passage. “This is a win and would not have happened without the activism of many thousands of individual scientists and the pro-science public,” Delawalla said. “That said, it is the first step in seeing the OMB proposed rule revoked. It should never see the light of day and we will continue to fight against its implementation.”

OMB has so far reviewed almost 165,000 comments on the proposal. The office originally planned for the rule to take effect by Oct. 1, the start of fiscal year 2027. Rules are typically issued in the Federal Register 30 days before they take effect. OMB did not respond to a request for comment on how the bill affects its planned timeline for the rule, but OMB Director Russ Vought now says the office will not implement the rule until Jan. 1, according to Stat.

Based on the wording in the funding bill, it seems that OMB staff could still work on finalizing the rule and responding to comments, said Stuart Shapiro, dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.

“I should note we are talking as if OMB will follow the law, and that is an assumption in this administration, not a given,” Shapiro added.

The funding bill would block rules “arising out of” OMB’s notice of proposed rulemaking or “substantially similar” rules. It remains unclear how this provision will impact similar revisions to regulations at agencies like the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education. For instance, NSF has proposed overhauling its grantmaking regulations, including changes to align with OMB’s proposed grant termination provisions, disallowance of publication costs, and more. The NSF proposal kicked off a public comment and final rule process separate from OMB’s.

Krystal Toups, director of contracts and grant administration at COGR, said NSF could move forward with implementing its new regulations, even if the funding bill becomes law. However, she added that NSF has indicated it will have a second comment period before finalizing its new regulations. “NSF will review the public’s comments on the topic and hopefully respond accordingly,” Toups said.

Kei Koizumi, a senior advisor at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it would be “wildly premature” for NSF to implement its proposed changes when the OMB rule could still be blocked by Congress or the courts.

NSF declined to comment on the bill’s impact on its proposed grantmaking changes.

Congressional support for the stopgap

The House voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, 370–48, despite earlier Republican support for OMB’s grantmaking proposal. In June, House Republicans rejected two attempts by House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) to block the OMB proposal via amendments to the Labor-HHS-Education and Homeland Security appropriations bills.

Before the vote on Tuesday, DeLauro spoke in favor of the added provision and said there is bipartisan opposition to OMB’s proposal.

“More must be done to permanently block this policy before it is allowed to take effect,” DeLauro added. “Federal funding must be awarded as Congress intended, based upon genuine need and objective merit. Funding for cancer research should not be blocked because of partisan politics.”

House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) did not call out the provision but expressed support for the bill. He called on the Senate to issue its appropriations bills to fund the government through fiscal year 2027. The Senate will return from recess on Sept. 14.

Democrats in both chambers have loudly opposed the OMB proposal, joined by Senate Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME). In July, all Senate Democrats called for a complete rescission of the rule, while Collins asked for several sections to be withdrawn.