87.5% of Organizational Comments Opposed OMB Grant Rewrite

An analysis of 3,653 organizational comments found that 87.5% opposed the White House Office of Management and Budget’s proposed rewrite of federal grant rules, according to a study released Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal published by the American College of Physicians.

Researchers from the American Cancer Society and its advocacy affiliate, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, conducted the study. It covered 3,653 organizational comments from 3,557 organizations, within roughly 165,000 comments OMB had posted by Aug. 17 out of about 497,000 submitted.

The authors used an AI model to classify comment positions. The reported method gives no accuracy rate, validation sample or error estimate, so 87.5% represents the authors’ classification of the analyzed sample rather than a verified count of all submitted comments. ACS and ACS CAN jointly filed comments opposing the rule.

What would the proposal change for research offices?

The proposal would require political-appointee review of discretionary awards, revise agencies’ authority to terminate grants when priorities change, and impose new restrictions on federally funded international research. It would cover federal grants and cooperative agreements across about 40 agencies.

For grant administrators, the proposal reaches award selection, project continuity and compliance planning for international studies. A stopgap spending law bars OMB from issuing or finalizing the rule, or a substantially similar rule, through Dec. 11, 2026.

OMB says the changes improve oversight of federal spending. In a June email to R&D World, a spokesperson wrote: “This change will dramatically improve the ability of agencies to identify and respond to fraud, waste, and abuse.” That sentence states the administration’s intended effect; the analysis did not measure fraud, waste or abuse outcomes.

Which organizations opposed the rewrite?

Scientific and medical associations were among the strongest opponents. The analysis found 540 comments from 526 such professional associations, and approximately 93% opposed the changes. Research institutes showed a similar result: 93% of 102 comments from 100 institutes opposed them, while 3% supported them.

About 83% of association comments and 84% of institute comments raised concerns about scientific integrity and peer review. Their stated concerns also covered research funding, funding continuity, publication and open access. Across all organizations, the leading issues were administrative burden, due process, termination authority and research funding stability.

The combined ACS and ACS CAN opposition puts three budget-sensitive terms on research leaders’ agenda: discretionary awards, termination authority and international-research spending. Their operational questions would include which proposals remain fundable, how much staff to assign and whether international-project plans need revision.

How much industry opposition appeared?

Only 14 of the 3,557 commenting organizations were life sciences companies or health plans. That is too narrow a base for a broad measure of corporate sentiment. Most identified company participants were small biotechnology firms, and all opposed the proposal; no large drugmakers appeared among published comments.

The Biotechnology Innovation Organization strongly opposed the rule and urged OMB to withdraw or substantially revise it. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and AdvaMed, the medical technology trade group, raised concerns and urged OMB to revise the rule or delay finalization.

The Council of State Bioscience Associations, a coalition of regional bio groups, opposed the proposal and urged withdrawal or revision. Their positions came through letters posted on Regulations.gov.

Who supported the proposal?

Support was rare among organizational commenters: about 1.4% favored the changes. Civil, legal and policy groups had the highest support rate, at 8.2%, making support a small and mixed bloc rather than a unified research-sector position.

The Center for Impact Sciences at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy supported stronger pre-award review, reduced grantee burden and changes to program design and performance reporting. Its Regulations.gov comment said the rule would “level the playing field.”

Executive director Jason Saul also founded and chairs Mission Holdings, the parent company of Mission Measurement and Impact Genome, which build impact measurement and verification systems.

Mission Measurement and Impact Genome jointly filed a comment supporting the same provisions. Saul’s roles connect the center to the two companies, so the public record does not represent three independent supportive organizations.

New Prairie Press, a library-based open-access publisher at Kansas State University, strongly supported making publication costs generally unallowable except where statute required them or a federal agency approved them in advance. It also backed investment in open-access infrastructure instead of per-article fees.

That position conflicts with the Association of American Universities, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and the Council on Governmental Relations, which advocates for research institutions on federal policy. All three opposed the publication-cost limits.

How complete is the public record?

Regulations.gov listed 164,654 published comments as of Oct. 26, with the newest postings dated Aug. 17. That matches the roughly 165,000 comments covered by the analysis, but the pool represented only part of the approximately 497,000 submissions. The study also reports organizational comments rather than a count of individual sentiment.

OMB did not respond to a request for comment on the analysis. The next fixed date is Dec. 11, 2026, when the statutory bar ends; if OMB returns with a revised proposal, research offices will again face choices about award-review capacity, termination exposure and allowable publication spending.