The provision marks a rare rebuke of the Trump administration by congressional Republicans. But the government funding bill only runs through Dec. 11, and the proposed rule can still take effect after that time.
The proposal from the Office of Management and Budget was roundly criticized by almost every stakeholder that could be impacted. There were nearly 500,000 comments submitted, and 95 percent of them were negative, according to an analysis.
If finalized, the rule would expand the ability of awarding offices to terminate federal grants without cause as well as alter uniform guidance into binding regulations, removing flexibility for different agencies.
“When you have grant review processes that are subject to the arbitrary decision of a political appointee, that inherently means that there’s less accountability on the agency side, and less transparency into how decisions are made,” Cole Donovan, director of policy for the advocacy group Stand Up for Science, told The Hill.
Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), who has called for parts of the rule to rolled back, said in a statement she was "pleased” the provision was included in the spending bill.
“I advocated for significant changes to the proposed rule … citing its potential to politicize grants and harm small, rural communities, families, and biomedical research,” Collins said.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), who worked with Collins on the provision, said she tried to permanently kill the proposal, but Republicans wouldn’t allow it.
“Enabling this rule would only give Trump the greenlight to take even more federal funding hostage,” Murray said in a statement. “While Republicans rejected killing the proposed rule outright, I’m going to keep fighting to put a stop to it once and for all, and I will keep pressing my Republican colleagues to do exactly that.”
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