White House faces stiff pushback on subjecting grants to political review

WASHINGTON — Some of the nation’s top law enforcement officials were not pleased when the White House embarked on its push to assert more political control over more than $1 trillion in annual federal grants.

The proposal, unveiled in May, stood to enable the administration to steer significant funding to causes and organizations aligned with President Donald Trump — and to cancel grants if recipients did not conform to his political views. That troubled a set of groups representing sheriffs, narcotics officers, and district attorneys, which said this month that the “undefined expectations” in Washington could interfere with public safety.

The letter was one of roughly 500,000 formal comments that have flooded the Trump administration in recent weeks. Many of the posted submissions expressed misgivings with the draft White House plan to take greater control of federal spending.

The opposition has been wide-ranging, spanning academic researchers, artists, city leaders, civil engineers, congressional lawmakers, housing experts, state attorneys general and regular Americans, who have warned that the White House could imperil public services if it subjects federal grants to political review.

The administration proposal, which is not final, targets a vast set of federal funding for climate, education, health, housing, and infrastructure. If carried out, the regulation would require Trump’s political appointees to approve grants before they are awarded to cities, states, nonprofits and other institutions. The review would primarily aim to ensure that the money supports purposes that “demonstrably advance the president’s policy priorities.”

Recipients of federal funding would also be subject to broad political handcuffs. Taxpayer dollars could not “promote anti-American values,” for example, or be doled out to nonprofits that engage in some kinds of “issue advocacy” or that have certain “memberships and affiliations.” And a large set of topics would be off-limits, especially for scientists and researchers, who could face some of the most severe restrictions.

The White House budget office has described the changes as necessary to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, including spending that the office’s director, Russell T. Vought, deems to be “woke.” To achieve that goal, the administration has adopted an expansive view of its budgetary powers, even though Congress possesses the power of the purse under the Constitution.

Many recipients of federal grants told the White House over the last two months that the proposed changes could be debilitating and that they cannot afford to have their aid revoked if Trump does not agree with their agenda.

“This will put a lot of things up in the air,” said Andy Schor, mayor of Lansing, Mich., a Democrat. He added that the plan would affect “policing to housing to all the dollars we get from the feds.”

Such interruptions have already plagued Schor’s community. The mayor recalled a series of incidents in which federal grants to the city and local nonprofits, including money to address redlining and combat violence, had been interrupted or canceled under Trump.

Schor said the consequences could be greater if White House officials could more easily cancel a larger set of grants simply because “they suddenly decide they don’t like something.” In that case, the mayor said he would face a dilemma that could force him to choose between “staff we have to lay off or dollars we can’t get into the community for these important things that are needed.”

A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for comment.

Testifying at a Senate hearing Thursday, Vought said the proposal aimed to ensure “that we have democratic control of the spending that is going out.”

But the stakes of his approach became clear when Sen. Tina Smith (D., Minn.) asked Vought how the administration might approach federally funded cancer research. She raised the example of a grant devoted to identifying the source of high cancer rates among Black people — and the extent to which the administration would disallow the money because of the president’s long-stated opposition to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Vought began by saying the White House was “against DEI policies,” adding, “How that would impact with that particular grant would be a decision for a political official, policy official, at NIH,” referring to the National Institutes of Health. He said administration appointees would “make the final decisions,” though they would take expert views into account.

Smith said that revealed the “absurdity and the bias of this proposed rule, and the danger of what happens when you bring political ideology into grant-making processes, particularly around healthcare.”

The proposed rules are the latest step in Trump’s contentious campaign to recalibrate how the government spends its money. With the help of Vought, the administration has fired thousands of federal workers while taking steps to hold up or cancel billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid, arguing that the spending was unnecessary or misaligned with Trump’s beliefs.

Lawmakers from both parties sharply criticized some of Trump’s moves, and federal judges have repeatedly declared the president’s actions illegal. Yet the White House has continued pressing ahead and has taken steps to formalize some of its practices with its proposal targeting federal grants.

The roughly 400-page blueprint, which the White House aims to put into effect in October, quickly stoked broad opposition.

In Pennsylvania, the United Way, a network of nonprofit providers, warned that the grant rules could create “unpredictable financial and legal risks” for organizations that provide food, housing and other essential services. The group warned that those entities probably did not have the resources to comply or contest the government’s proposed restrictions.

The Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture took issue with the way the administration tried to restrict the political activities of grant recipients. The agency said that approach could “chill free speech, creative expression, and activities supportive of diverse cultures and communities,” including at museums.

The National Sheriffs’ Association and other law enforcement groups said they did not have the resources to incorporate all of the changes the White House had envisioned. A national network of civil engineers said the plan would impinge on its ability to collaborate with foreign counterparts on infrastructure research.

And scientists, researchers and health providers expressed some of the loudest opposition. More than 300 organizations — many representing practitioners working on cancer cures, ALS and HIV treatments and pediatric medicine — urged the Trump administration to slow down because of the risks to their work and patients.

The White House proposal reserved some of its strictest rules for academics funded by federal dollars. It aimed to limit the research they pursue, the conferences where experts can appear, and the organizations and foreign labs with which they are allowed to collaborate.

Entire research areas would also be restricted if the rules were to take effect as drafted: Grants could not support work related to diversity, equity or inclusion, for example, or projects or groups that “deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans.”

The strictures amounted to a major “escalation” from the president’s previous attempts to slash and control funding at agencies like the NIH and the National Science Foundation, according to Sudip S. Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a nonprofit that promotes scientists.

“It overemphasizes the political at the expense of scientific opportunities and the needs of the American people,” he said.

Despite the president’s pursuit of deep cuts, Democratic and Republican lawmakers have ignored the requests and opted to keep most health and science funding intact. So the renewed push by Trump to cement his control over federally funded research enraged many Democrats, who view the proposed regulation as another encroachment of their spending powers.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.), who leads her party on the Appropriations Committee, said that the president, if successful, could undermine the idea enshrined in the Constitution that “money is directed based upon the needs of the American people, and that is transmitted through elected representatives.”

DeLauro also joined with the 11 other House Democrats who serve in leadership positions on key appropriations committees this week to express deep reservations with the administration’s plans. The lawmakers estimated that the White House effort would affect more than $1 trillion every year.

Democrats were not alone in airing frustration. In a separate letter last week, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican chair of the Appropriations Committee who is facing a tough midterm election race, said the White House could imperil much-needed funding in ways that “harm small and rural communities.”

The proposal drew support among Trump’s conservative allies. Daniel West, the government relations director for Heritage Action, said that some of the backlash had been “hyperbolic” and that he did not expect the White House budget office to retreat.

“Everything I’ve seen indicates that OMB cares deeply about ensuring the proper stewardship of federal dollars, and they are moving this rule with that intention in mind,” West said.

Some opponents still seemed to be readying for a legal battle. Citing the implications for education, healthcare, housing, science and other “critical services to hundreds of millions of people,” a group of governors and attorneys general from two dozen states told the White House on Monday that its proposed changes to grants would violate the Constitution. Many of the same states, including New York, California, and Colorado, have successfully fought Trump in the past over budget cuts enacted without the express permission of Congress.

“The rule offends the Constitution,” the states argued at one point in their missive.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.