The White House appears to be backing away from plans to exert more political control over research grants issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest science funder in the US, according to reporting from Semafor on Wednesday.
Senate Committee on Appropriations chair Susan Collins (R-ME) told Semafor that White House officials, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, shared her concerns about the adverse effects of adding a layer of political approvals to research funding.
The retreat comes after Collins sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought and NIH director Jay Bhattacharya on Tuesday exhorting them not to proceed with an executive order that would give political appointees veto power over NIH funding. The NIH has authority to disburse up to $48.7 billion in fiscal year 2026.
Collins says in the letter that NIH grants already go through a rigorous review process and that adding a layer of political approvals would undermine medical advances. “If the administration seeks additional reforms of NIH, I urge you to submit a legislative proposal to Congress rather than pursue an executive order,” Collins writes.
In a statement earlier this week, Collins also notes that under the September continuing resolution, a temporary spending bill, lawmakers had already temporarily blocked a government-wide effort from the White House Office of Management and Budget to establish political review of NIH and other federal grants, as well as any similar attempt to give political staff power to withhold money allocated by Congress. The continuing resolution expires on Dec. 11.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is blunter: “Whether lifesaving medical research gets funded or not should be determined by experts at the NIH—not a panel of lackeys chosen by Donald Trump and Russ Vought,” she says in a press release on Monday.
Collins’s and Murray’s responses came after the Washington Post first reported that Vought and Bhattacharya clashed in a heated meeting in the Oval Office last week. Donald J. Trump told Vought to draft an executive order to create a board of White House appointees to approve NIH grants Vought chastised Bhattacharya at the meeting for approving money for projects that are contrary to White House goals, according to the Washington Post.
The proposed board would include Bhattacharya and Vought and would be required to reach unanimous decisions on grant awards, Politico reported.
The White House, in an unsigned email, tells C&EN that “the Trump administration remains committed to the core mission of the NIH. Any reporting about potential policy decisions, unless officially announced by the Administration, should be regarded as baseless speculation.”
The potential executive order is part of the White House’s ongoing effort to take more political control over the NIH and remove programs conflicting with the administration’s goals.
On the first day of his second term, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to get rid of programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The administration has also targeted funding related to clean energy and climate change, among other topics. Last year, the White House froze nearly $15 billion in NIH grants but released the funding after pressure from Republican lawmakers. The Trump administration also wanted to cut the agency’s budget by 40% in its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal.
Whether or not the White House’s efforts to gatekeep the NIH succeed, Trump’s work to expand political control over science is already starting to hamper research, according to Jules Barbati-Dajches, an analyst at the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. The uncertainties over funding are making it harder for institutions to plan for the long term.
“There are people whose careers depend entirely on federal funding,” Barbati-Dajches tells C&EN. “It can start to impact who can be hired, who can stay on faculty, the stability of people’s jobs, the availability of grad school positions, the fields that people can apply to and pursue degrees in.”
