Scientists Push Back on Rule That Would Let Politicians Choose Which Studies Get Funded

The U.S. government is considering a rule that would let political appointees — people chosen for their jobs by a political leader — decide which science projects get funded. Right now, panels of scientists called peer reviewers make those decisions. Hundreds of thousands of people have shared their opinions on the change, and most are strongly against it. The deadline to comment was midnight on July 13.

The rule change would affect how the Office of Management and Budget, or OMB, runs science grants. A grant is money the government gives to researchers to pay for their work. The OMB is led by Russell Vought, who helped write a plan called Project 2025. Supporters of the change say past grants were used to push a political agenda, but critics strongly disagree.

Almost 300,000 people sent comments before the deadline. According to one analysis, 94 percent of those comments were against the proposed changes. Scientists, science groups, and everyday citizens all spoke out. Major scientific associations urged their members to get involved.

Several Nobel Prize winners were among those who spoke out against the rule. Wolfgang Ketterle is a physicist at MIT who won a Nobel Prize in 2001. He warned that the new rules would 'destroy the leadership of the U.S. in fundamental science.' He pointed out that his own research took 20 years to develop before it became useful — and that kind of long-term work would be hard to fund under a system guided by political goals.

Another Nobel laureate, Martin Chalfie, won the chemistry prize in 2008. He said the science system the U.S. has built since World War II has helped people live longer and healthier lives. He noted that his prize-winning research was funded by a peer-reviewed grant from the National Institutes of Health, or NIH. 'Having grants pass a political litmus test will destroy science,' he wrote.

Science groups also warned that regular Americans would feel the impact, not just researchers. The American Meteorological Society said scientists who receive federal funding could be limited in how they talk to the public. They might also have trouble going to international meetings or publishing their findings. The group warned this could hurt the country's ability to predict and respond to dangerous weather events.

The American Association for Cancer Research, known as the AACR, explained how much progress science has made under the current system. Since 1991, the U.S. cancer death rate has dropped by 35 percent. That improvement saved more than 4.8 million lives. The AACR said this progress happened because experts — not politicians — made the decisions about which research to fund.

Elizabeth Jacobs, a professor at the University of Arizona, said the proposed rule scares her. She pointed out that any administration, no matter which party is in power, could cut funding for research it dislikes. She worries this could put money for schools, disaster relief, and health at risk for political reasons. 'This could turn everything into a political football,' she said.