Action Alert: Comment on the OMB’s Proposed Federal Grants Rule

Members of the ecological community are encouraged to submit public comments on a sweeping proposed rule that, if finalized, would fundamentally change how federal research grants are awarded, administered and terminated in the US.

On May 29, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a proposed rule called Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance that directs dozens of changes to the regulations governing all federal grants and cooperative agreements. This is not a routine update. If finalized as written, the rule would:

• Give political appointees veto power over peer review, requiring a senior political appointee to personally approve every discretionary grant and explicitly stating that peer review recommendations are “advisory” only
• Allow active grants to be terminated at any time, with minimal justification, if an agency determines the work no longer aligns with current administration priorities
• Restrict conference attendance and publication costs, requiring advance agency approval for researchers to attend scientific meetings or pay open-access and journal publication fees
• Prohibit or restrict international research collaborations, banning the use of federal funds for work involving countries designated as foreign adversaries or under US sanctions
• Effectively ban entire categories of research from federal funding, including work using disparate-impact analytical frameworks crucial to environmental justice, public health and climate adaptation and mitigation science

For ecologists, the stakes are high. Ecological research depends on impartial peer review; long-term, multi-year datasets; international partnerships monitoring biodiversity, climate and ecosystem change; and open scientific exchange at conferences and in scholarly journals. These provisions, taken together, would erode the independence of the scientific enterprise by inserting political judgement into funding decisions that have historically rested on scientific merit.

The public comment period closes July 13, 2026. Your voice matters.

Strong, individualized comments carry far more weight than form letters. Here are tips for making your comment as impactful as possible:

• Be specific. Reference section numbers where you can, beginning each portion of your comment with the relevant section number in brackets (see the American Astronomical Society’s analysis of relevant sections of the proposed rule).
• Tell your story. You are speaking for yourself (not for ESA), so describe how a specific provision would affect a grant you hold or have held, a collaboration you depend on or research you could no longer conduct.
• Quantify the harm where you can. Include dollar amounts, timelines, study or postdoc positions at risk or data collections that would be lost.
• Connect to the public good. Explain what society loses if this research slows or stops.
• Describe administrative burdens. Note the added time and cost of new compliance requirements like advance case-by-case agency approvals for publications and conferences.

ESA will be submitting its own formal comments, but comments from working ecologists, on their own behalf, describing in concrete terms how these provisions would affect federal research are among the most powerful inputs the agency must consider under the Administrative Procedure Act.

Here are some additional resources to help you draft your comment:

• The American Physical Society’s comment tool that helps users craft and submit personalized comments on the proposed rule to regulations.gov
• ESA’s guidance on submitting public comments
• The American Geophysical Union’s Action Center
• Context and analysis of the proposed rule, from the American Astronomical Society
• Coverage of the proposed rule from Politico

Please submit your comments by
11:59 pm ET on July 13.