Comment from Peter Fugiel

I write to urge the Office of Management and Budget to rescind its ill conceived proposal to regulate Federal Financial Assistance (OMB-2026-0034). The proposed rule represents a radical challenge to scientific expertise, peer review, and the credibility of the federal government's commitment to independent research. Sections 200.205 and 200.340 would empower political appointees to decline or suspend assistance based not on scientific merit but on arbitrary criteria such as advancing presidential priorities and avoiding significant reputational harm. Yet political authority, even when it enjoys a popular mandate, is not a substitute for knowledge. Priorities and personnel change, not only as a result of elections, but in response to current events, media coverage, and interpersonal allegiances and rivalries. Different appointees and agencies may hold different opinions of what the President's priorities are at a given moment or whether a research project demonstrably advances them. If OMB adopts this rule, it will starve worthy projects of vital federal assistance and waste public funds on unscientific exercises in confirming the prior convictions of political appointees. I am a Senior Research Specialist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a past recipient of a Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation. But one does need a PhD or experience with peer review to understand that a person's politics should not be the basis for judging the value of their contributions outside the political arena.