Comment from Anonymous

I am an undergraduate student researcher at Princeton University in New Jersey writing to oppose the proposed revisions to §200.205, §200.432, and §200.461 in OMB‑2026‑0034. I've been working in a lab focused on a project to make crops more resilient to an increasingly changing climate, where the research depends on NSF and other federal research funding. If §200.205 is changed so that senior political appointees must approve discretionary grants and can override scientific peer review, it will make it much harder for labs like mine to get and keep the support they need. Decisions about which projects to fund should be driven by scientific merit and peer review, not political priorities, especially when we are trying to develop resilient crops and address long‑term challenges like food and climate change. Federal research funding directly supports projects like mine which help improve human health, agriculture, food security, and scientific progress in the United States. Changes that make grant funding harder to access would hurt the ability of researchers and trainees to do meaningful work and contribute to the public good. Section §200.205 is especially concerning because it would allow senior political appointees to review and potentially override discretionary grant decisions that should be based on scientific merit and peer review. Decisions about research funding should be made by experts in the field, not shaped by politics. Adding another layer of approval would slow down research and weaken the integrity of the funding process. Section §200.432 would also have a serious impact on trainees. Conference travel is an important part of scientific training because it helps students and early-career researchers share ideas, learn from others, and build communication skills. If federal grant money can no longer reliably support conference attendance, it will become much harder for trainees like me to fully integrate into the scientific community. Finally, §200.461 would create unnecessary barriers to publishing federally funded research. Science only advances when results can be shared openly and efficiently. Requiring additional approval for publication costs would make it harder for research to be disseminated widely. For these reasons, I urge OMB to withdraw the proposed changes to §200.205, §200.432, and §200.461 and not finalize the rule as written.