Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

The order directs every federal agency with grant authority to designate a senior political appointee who must approve new funding opportunity announcements and review discretionary grants before issuance. It prohibits discretionary awards from funding racial preferences, the denial of biological sex as binary, illegal immigration assistance, or activities deemed anti-American. It also requires grants to align with presidential policy priorities, demands commitment to reproducible "Gold Standard Science," and instructs agencies to prefer applicants with lower indirect cost rates and to spread awards beyond repeat institutional recipients. Until the new review process is in place, no agency may issue a new funding opportunity announcement without senior appointee approval, except as required by law.

The order also directs the OMB Director to revise the Uniform Guidance to streamline application requirements, cap the use of grant funds for facilities and administrative costs, and ensure all discretionary grants include termination-for-convenience clauses. Agencies must separately revise existing and future grant terms to allow immediate termination when awards no longer advance agency priorities or the national interest. The order does not itself terminate any existing grant or change any specific regulation — those steps depend on subsequent agency and OMB action.

Universities, research institutions, nonprofits, and international assistance organizations that receive federal discretionary grants; federal program officers and grant review panels whose recommendations are now advisory rather than binding; and the broader scientific research community subject to new reproducibility and benchmarking standards.

Grant applicants pursuing research or programs touching diversity, gender, or immigration policy face new eligibility barriers or termination risk. Institutions with high overhead rates become less competitive. Scientific researchers must satisfy new reproducibility standards, and any active grant can be terminated if an agency decides it no longer serves national priorities.

Each agency first designates a senior appointee who personally approves new funding announcements — no new announcements may go out until that process is operational. That appointee then builds a layered review system including subject-matter expert vetting, interagency duplication checks, and pre-award panel discussions with a senior official. OMB separately revises the Uniform Guidance to embed termination-for-convenience authority and indirect-cost limits government-wide. Agencies must submit a 30-day compliance report to OMB on their existing termination clause coverage. A severability clause protects the rest of the order if any provision is struck down.