I want to start by celebrating some good news this week: A federal judge has blocked the National Science Foundation’s attempt to dismantle NCAR. The preliminary injunction order issued Monday notes that “failure to provide any explanation for its decision—let alone a reasonable one,” as well as the irreparable harm in the loss of expertise that would result gave the court excellent reason to pause these efforts until the government can make their case for the dismantling in court.
AGU gathered hundreds of scientists in an emergency town hall last December at our Annual Meeting in support of NCAR when this dismantling was originally announced. Quickly after, AGU and so many of you sent official comments in protest of the Administration’s actions. We will keep you informed as the case evolves.
Now, we need to gather our power as a community once more.
A proposed federal rule released last week could fundamentally change how scientific research is funded and conducted in the United States. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has proposed sweeping revisions to the regulations that govern all federal grants, cooperative agreements, and other forms of federal financial assistance. If finalized as written, this rule would give political appointees veto power over peer review, allow the government to cancel active grants mid-project with minimal justification, ban entire categories of science from federal funding, and restrict researchers’ ability to publish their work and attend scientific conferences.
Submit your comment by 13 July through AGU’s Action Center.
This is not a routine regulatory update. OMB proposes to rename this the “Uniform Grants Regulation,” but what it actually does is restructure the foundational rules of U.S. science funding—with cascading impact for global collaborators—to serve political priorities rather than the public good. We have seen executive orders, budget cuts, and terminations take aim at the scientific enterprise one by one. This proposed rule would codify that agenda into federal regulation, making it far harder to reverse.
What This Rule Would Do
Political appointees would override peer review
The most alarming provision of this rule proposes that before any federal grant can be issued, a senior political appointee must personally review and approve it. The rule explicitly states that peer review “remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion.”
Peer review has been the foundation of scientific funding decisions since the post-World War II compact between the federal government and the scientific community, leading to the establishment of the National Science Foundation. Under this proposed rule, political officials would have the authority to reject proposals that passed rigorous expert evaluation if they determine the work does not advance “the President’s policy priorities” or is inconsistent with “the national interest,” which could change or reverse course at any moment.
The rule also imports language from the administration’s “Gold Standard Science” executive order, directing agencies to “prioritize institutions demonstrating rigorous and reproducible scholarship,” using the language of scientific rigor as a screen for political gatekeeping, just as we warned when that order was issued. There is no appeal process for researchers whose work is rejected on these grounds.
We have spent generations building peer review precisely because decisions about which science to fund should rest on scientific merit, not political alignment. This proposal would undo that.
Active grants could be terminated at any time, for any reason
The proposed rule would require that virtually every discretionary grant include language authorizing the federal government to terminate the award if it “no longer effectuates program goals, Federal agency priorities, or the national interest as they exist at the time of the termination.” In addition to termination authority, the rule would also allow agencies to issue stop-work orders temporarily suspending all grant activities at any time by written order.
Under this provision, a grant that was lawfully awarded based on the priorities in place when it was funded could be terminated years later because priorities have changed. Multi-year earthquake early warning studies could be abandoned when an agency head makes a comment in a speech. A team running a longitudinal geohealth study could be forced to abandon their participants mid-project.
The federal government has already been terminating grants by executive action. This rule would give those terminations a regulatory home.
Conference attendance and publishing become subject to federal approval
The proposed rule would make three categories of routine research activity subject to advance agency authorization: conference attendance, publication costs, and journal subscriptions.
Under the proposed changes, attending a scientific meeting would only be an allowable grant expense if the agency had explicitly pre-approved that conference in the original award terms. Researchers could not attend scientific meetings, such as AGU’s Annual Meeting, unless that attendance was built into their grant application from the start. If researchers might not yet be sure where they plan to present, or want to attend a meeting that didn’t exist at the time of the award, they will not be able to use the award to fund this method of sharing their research with the community.
Publication costs and journal subscriptions, similarly, would require advance agency authorization. Taken together, these provisions would transform the basic tools of scientific work into burdensome, case-by-case administrative approval items, creating new bottlenecks and compliance roadblocks at every stage of the research process.
Other alarming provisions to note
- A government-wide ban on using federal award funds for collaborations with “covered foreign countries” would apply to travel, research partnerships, and technical assistance. Earth and space science depends on international datasets, satellite systems, and field campaigns that cannot be replicated by any single nation. A rule that prohibits international research collaboration would not protect American science — it would isolate it.
- All research awards must be categorized as basic research, applied research, or experimental development. This categorization could be used to constrain what activities are allowable and creates a mechanism for agencies to redirect funding away from basic science.
- Every institution receiving federal awards would be required to enroll in E-Verify for all employees and contractors working on those awards, a significant new compliance burden for universities with large international research workforces.
- Entire categories of research would be effectively prohibited from federal funding, including work employing disparate-impact analytical frameworks — the methodological basis for public health research, environmental justice science, and social science examining the unequal distribution of climate hazards, air quality, and disaster vulnerability. The rule would also restrict any work the administration deems to involve DEI practices or what it calls “gender ideology.”
Speak Up for the Foundations of How We Advance Science
The comment period on the OMB rule closes 13 July 2026. The Administration has stated its intent to finalize the rule with an effective date of 1 October 2026.
Visit AGU’s Action Center where you can submit a comment easily and effectively — be sure to do so before 13 July. We encourage you to add your own experiences to show how widely this will impact our science.
Our community has always reached for the highest standards in scientific integrity and ethics. That standard is not a political construction. It was built by scientists, for science and society, over generations. We will not let it be dismantled in the name of this or any other political agenda.
Brandon Jones
President, AGU