A planned executive order that would have greatly enhanced White House influence over grants at the National Institutes of Health is “looking dead,” according to one person familiar with the decision and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).
On Tuesday, Collins, the chair of the appropriations committee, sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, decrying the White House plan to establish a commission of political appointees, including Vought, with veto power over grant awards. The tempering of the executive order was first
“I urge you not to move forward with this proposal, which would undermine … the Federal government’s objective of funding biomedical research projects based on scientific merit and value rather than political ideology,” Collins wrote in the letter.
Her concern was shared by several other lawmakers,
Her concern was shared by several other lawmakers, who released their own statements earlier this week. By Wednesday, some of those same officials were celebrating the Trump administration’s seeming reversal.
“It shouldn’t take public outcry to prevent President Trump and Russ Vought from laying waste to the NIH and defunding lifesaving research because they think it’s ‘woke’ or want to extort a university,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations committee, said in a statement.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The idea for the executive order came out of a widely reported Oval Office meeting Friday, when Vought accused the NIH of funding projects that do not comport with the goals of the Trump administration, The Washington Post reported. President Trump seemed to support the idea of moving NIH grants more firmly under political control in part so that he could further target research funding for Harvard University
It was just the latest attempt by OMB
It was just the latest attempt by OMB to bring science funding more tightly under agency control by taking a more hands-on approach. Many of those efforts have been challenged by Congress, however. Last year, Vought mandated that the NIH fund grants in their entirety up front, rather than dispersing funds on a yearly basis. This meant that the agency had less cash on hand for new grants. But that funding strategy, called “Multiyear funding,” was curbed in the 2026 appropriations bill, which also slightly increased the NIH budget after OMB proposed a massive cut. Congress is on track to do so again this year.
Earlier this year, OMB delayed signing off on NIH spending in its 2026 budget. The agency similarly last year instituted a brief pause on NIH being able to spend any money. And in May, OMB rocked the scientific community by proposing a rewrite to the bedrock guidance for all federal contracts that deemphasized peer review and empowered political appointees in driving decisions. The proposal received tens of thousands of comments in opposition, and its implementation was blocked by Congress’s stopgap spending bill.
Its most recent executive order also received immediate pushback from Congress members on both sides of the aisle, and in both chambers.
Daniel Payne contributed reporting.
