Following over a year of grant cancellations and agency defunding, the federal government wants to officially change their grant-making rules. The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is proposing to overhaul the process by which federal grants are awarded. This could affect billions of dollars in grant funds that support critical work nationwide. These rules could also extend to funding determinations for education, housing, healthcare (including Medicaid), food assistance, transportation, and more. For states, this could put a tremendous pressure on already-strained budgets, since federal funding accounts for 36 cents of every dollar in state spending.
This rule could make it easier for agencies to terminate federal grant awards at their discretion, with the greatest risk to DEIA-related research and programs. In effect, current administration Executive Orders and policies would determine grant priorities and eligibility even if those grants were previously awarded. For decades, federal grantmaking has relied on a scientific peer-review process to determine priorities for awards. This rule would undermine longstanding peer-review. Now, politicians would be making decisions that used to be handled by scientific experts in their field. Even simple affiliation with organizations that the government disfavors could make a grantee subject to losing funds.
The rule calls for grants to comply with something called “Gold Standard Science”. However, the rule never indicates what that means. Without a clear definition, it appears that this could be used as another way to filter out research that goes against the administration’s priorities. Even grants that receive funding could lose funding mid-year. This could undermine multi-year research projects.
Grantees could be banned from using grant dollars to cover open access publication fees without prior approval from the funding agency. This would make it harder for researchers to share their findings with the broader scientific community. It also undermines federal mandates that require all federally-funded research to be publicly available.
Further, researchers would effectively be prevented from speaking to the public about their research findings, if not given explicit permission to do so. Researchers weighing in on certain public policy or issue-based conversations could be accused of politicizing their research and potentially risk losing their research dollars.
For those of us working to advance disability research to improve health equity, these rules would threaten recent gains to recognize disability as a health disparity population. The Executive Orders that dismantle diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility efforts are a direct attack on disability civil rights protections and the progress towards community inclusion. When researchers are barred from naming and studying the health needs impacting disabled communities, this undermines our collective capacity to offer adequate programming and supports. If DEIA bans are infused across federal funding determinations and benefits allocation, this may further discriminate against disability organizations who advocate for the inclusion of people with disabilities in all programs.. These types of funding directives will have a disproportionate impact on disabled people who come from a diversity of backgrounds and communities and are advocating for those communities.
We must take action to comment on these rules, and spread the word across the nonprofit sector to respond through the public record. All substantive comments require a response from OMB before the rule can be finalized.
AAHD Executive Director Karl Cooper expressed his concern regarding the new OMB rules by saying “Federal grants have been used to support disability programs and research in the past and the decisions about funding those awards have been left to peers in the community who review grant applications and provide an independent review on their work. This means that the reviews being done are conducted by those who are members of our community and understand the issues and lived experience of disability. The proposed rules significantly undercut the voice that people with disabilities have in that review process. Additionally, striking projects because they shine a light on disability discrimination and ableism because they are being viewed as a “DEIA initiative” represents a huge step back from the recent gains we’ve made in having people with disabilities recognized as a health disparity population.”
If approved, these rule changes would go into effect by October 1, 2026.
We’re calling on our partners and friends to join us in submitting comments on this proposed rule and preserving the independence of federal grantmaking. Comments are due July 13, 2026: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance
You can also contact your members of Congress to express your concerns about this rule. Congress could pass an appropriations rider to block the implementation of this rule. Find your member of Congress.
For guides to the current proposed rules, and the importance of this comment period, we recommend the following readings:
- Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule – Elizabeth Ginexi
- What We Need to do NEXT: OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule (OMB-2026-0034) – Elizabeth Ginexi
- This new OMB Rule Is Bigger Than Science. Much Bigger. – Elizabeth Ginexi
- White House Aims to Establish Political Oversight of Federal Grants – Inside Higher Ed
- OMB proposes major overhaul of federal grant rules – National Association of Counties
OMB Docket Reference Number: OMB-2026-0034