A letter from Senate Appropriations precedes the apparent death of an NIH grant veto plan
The order was never published, so the record is a sequence: Vought pushed it at a Friday meeting, the Senate Appropriations chair wrote against it on Tuesday, and by Wednesday one person familiar with the decision called it dead.
The Scientist · Science desk
What happened
- Vought pushed at a reportedly contentious White House meeting on Friday for an order creating a commission to review all NIH grants, after Trump was reportedly angry that Bhattacharya had refused to cut funding for Harvard researchers.
- Politico reported that Vought and Bhattacharya would both serve on the proposed board, and that the board would be required to reach unanimous decisions on grants.
- Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs Senate Appropriations, wrote to Vought and Bhattacharya on Tuesday decrying a commission of political appointees holding veto power over grant awards.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint The congressional block on the OMB regulations is temporary, so the protection on grant review expires with the spending vehicle that carries it and has to be renewed.
- Who's exposed exposure Politico's account ties Trump's interest in the order to targeting Harvard's research funding. Named institutions, not just disfavoured research topics, then sit inside the scope of a funding decision.
- What it sets up precedent Each OMB attempt has arrived in a different instrument, so the next one is likely to use a vehicle that no current spending-bill language reaches.
- What doesn't add up contradiction The NIH director whose refusal reportedly prompted the order was also slated to sit on the board it created. The sources support a reading in which agency leadership resisted and one in which it was absorbed.
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Peer review at NIH is a screen with stages. Researchers submit a lengthy proposal, then pass through multiple rounds of screening and review by independent experts. Arthur Caplan calls that the agency's "gold-standard" approach to federal grants [17]. Caplan is an emeritus professor at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine and has served on NIH advisory committees. The commission would have sat downstream of all of it, and Politico reported that its decisions had to be unanimous [9]. Unanimity is not a tie-breaking rule. It means a single member's objection stops an award, so the OMB director would have held a personal veto over grants that had already cleared scientific review [21].
"I don't think peer review at the NIH is broken, so what are we fixing, unless it's imposing a political agenda?" Caplan said [18].
NIH's budget is more than $40 billion, and the panel would have signed off on grants issued by the agency [6]. How many awards a year would have needed the panel's signature was not reported.
The earlier attempts to move this money were curbed by spending bills. Last year Vought required NIH to fund grants in their entirety up front instead of year by year. That left the agency with less cash on hand for new awards [14]. The 2026 appropriations bill curbed that practice and slightly increased the NIH budget after OMB had proposed a massive cut [15]. In May, OMB proposed rewriting the bedrock guidance for all federal contracts in a way that deemphasized peer review and empowered political appointees. The proposal drew tens of thousands of opposing comments, and Congress's stopgap spending bill blocked its implementation [4]. Both rollbacks came in spending legislation [22]. OMB has also delayed signing off on NIH spending in its 2026 budget, and last year it briefly stopped the agency from spending any money at all [20].
The evidence that this order is finished is thinner than the evidence that it was drafted. Nothing has been released [19]. STAT's account rests on one person familiar with the decision who was not authorized to speak with the media, plus Sen. Susan Collins's own confirmation [11]. Semafor first reported that the order had been tempered [16]. Collins had been pressing officials to drop the matter before she wrote. Her Tuesday letter to Vought and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya urged them "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" [11][13]. The order of events is what the record shows; a draft can also stall because the president's attention moved.
Objections came from both parties and both chambers [5]. Sen. Patty Murray is vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. In a statement she said that "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" [1]. The White House did not respond to STAT's request for comment [2]. An NIH spokesperson told Scientific American that "NIH remains committed to its mission of funding biomedical research to benefit the health of the American people" [7].
What to watch
- Whether the next appropriations bill goes beyond funding mechanics and writes language specifically against political sign-off on individual awards.
- Whether OMB re-notices the federal contracts guidance rewrite once the stopgap that blocked it lapses.
- Whether any text of the order is published. Semafor reported only that it had been tempered.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+5
- Incentives60
- Confidence55
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement: "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".
- [2]
The White House did not respond to STAT's request for comment.
- [3]
President Trump seemed to support moving NIH grants more firmly under political control in part so that he could further target research funding for Harvard University, according to Politico.
- [4]
In May, OMB proposed 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.
- [5]
The most recent executive order also received immediate pushback from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, and in both chambers.
- [6]
Under the reported executive order, an appointed committee would sign off on grants issued by the NIH, which has a budget of more than $40 billion.
- [7]
An NIH spokesperson told Scientific American that "NIH remains committed to its mission of funding biomedical research to benefit the health of the American people."
- [8]
At a reportedly contentious White House meeting on Friday, Vought pushed for an executive order creating a commission that would review all NIH grants, according to the Washington Post; Trump, reportedly angry that Bhattacharya had refused to cut funding for Harvard researchers, directed Vought to draft the order.
- [9]
Politico reported that Vought and Bhattacharya would serve on the proposed board, which would be required to reach unanimous decisions on grants.
- [10]
Earlier this month, Congress temporarily blocked the OMB regulations from going into effect.
- [11]
A planned executive order that would have greatly enhanced White House influence over NIH grants is "looking dead," according to one person familiar with the decision who was not authorized to speak with the media, and confirmed to STAT by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the Appropriations Committee chair who had been pushing federal officials to drop the matter.
- [12]
On Tuesday, Collins 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.
- [13]
Collins wrote in the letter: "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".
- [14]
Last year, Vought mandated that the NIH fund grants in their entirety up front, rather than dispersing funds on a yearly basis, which meant the agency had less cash on hand for new grants.
- [15]
The multiyear funding strategy 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.
- [16]
The tempering of the executive order was first reported by Semafor.
- [17]
Arthur Caplan, an emeritus professor at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine who previously served on NIH advisory committees, says the NIH has historically followed a "gold-standard" practice of independent peer review for federal grants, a process that requires researchers to submit a lengthy proposal and go through multiple rounds of screening and review by independent experts.
- [18]
Caplan: "I don't think peer review at the NIH is broken, so what are we fixing, unless it's imposing a political agenda?"
- [19]
The planned executive order was reported by the New York Times and Politico and has yet to be released.
- [20]
Earlier this year, OMB delayed signing off on NIH spending in its 2026 budget, and last year it instituted a brief pause on NIH being able to spend any money.
- [21]
Because approval of a grant would have required unanimity among board members including Vought, any single member's objection would have been enough to block an award that had already passed scientific review.
- [22]
Both OMB initiatives on NIH funding that Congress reversed were reversed through spending legislation: the multiyear funding mandate in the 2026 appropriations bill, and the federal contracts guidance rewrite in the stopgap spending bill.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- scientificamerican.comWhat a Trump order to put political appointees in charge of NIH funding would mean for science
1 article · September 21, 2026
- statnews.comSTAT+: Members of Congress push back on plan to create a commission of political appointees to review NIH grants
2 articles · September 23, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
- Congressional appropriations
- Scientific peer review
- NIH grant funding
- Political control of science funding
Entities
- Office of Management and Budget
- National Institutes of Health
- Harvard University
- Senate Appropriations Committee
- Russell Vought
- Jay Bhattacharya
- Susan Collins