WH proposes rules giving political appointees final approval on research grants

白宫提议新规：政治任命官员将对科研拨款拥有最终审批权

On Thursday the White House released long-anticipated draft regulations that, if enacted, would give political appointees the final word on federal research grants and other funding across government agencies. 周四，白宫发布了备受关注的法规草案。如果该草案得以实施，政治任命官员将对各政府机构的联邦科研拨款及其他资金拥有最终决定权。

Scheduled to be officially published in the Federal Register on Friday, the 412-page proposal on federal spending rules would centralize Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control over releases of government funds, including for scientific research grants. The OMB is headed by Russell Vought, lead architect of Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan for the Trump administration. 这份长达412页的联邦支出规则提案定于周五在《联邦公报》上正式发布。该提案将把包括科研拨款在内的政府资金发放控制权集中到管理和预算办公室（OMB）手中。OMB目前由拉塞尔·沃特（Russell Vought）领导，他是传统基金会为特朗普政府制定的“2025计划”的主要架构师。

“Recent years have provided evidence of the need for meaningful reform in Federal grants administration,” states the proposal’s “Background” section, which goes on to criticize “a ‘woke’ policy agenda that deliberately favored certain identity groups over others” under the Biden administration. The new rules would mandate political appointees at scientific agencies to sign off on all research awards for compliance with presidential priorities, including those on race and gender. 提案的“背景”部分指出：“近年来，联邦拨款管理亟需进行有意义的改革。”文中随后批评了拜登政府时期“蓄意偏袒特定身份群体的‘觉醒’（woke）政策议程”。新规将要求科学机构的政治任命官员对所有研究奖项进行签字审批，以确保其符合总统的优先事项，包括涉及种族和性别的议题。

And at scientific agencies, the proposal states that “senior appointees must conduct these reviews and apply specific principles when evaluating proposals,” a departure from past practice whereby apolitical expert review committees approved research grants. 提案还规定，在科学机构中，“高级任命官员必须进行这些审查，并在评估提案时应用特定原则”。这背离了以往由非政治性的专家评审委员会批准科研拨款的做法。

Scientific peer review of research proposals, long the standard for approval of research grants at the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other governmental science agencies, “remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion,” the proposal states. 提案称，长期以来作为美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）、国家科学基金会（NSF）及其他政府科学机构科研拨款审批标准的“科学同行评审”，“仅作为咨询意见，不能取代机构的自由裁量权”。

“We warned of this exact form of government overreach in science a year ago,” says Colette Delawalla, founder of the science advocacy group Stand Up for Science. “It replaces expertise with political appointees, globally decouples the U.S. and completely guts our scientific ecosystem.” 科学倡导组织“捍卫科学”（Stand Up for Science）的创始人科莱特·德拉瓦拉（Colette Delawalla）表示：“我们一年前就警告过这种政府对科学的过度干预。它用政治任命官员取代了专业知识，使美国在全球范围内脱钩，并彻底摧毁了我们的科学生态系统。”

The OMB plan comes after the White House released an executive order calling for such changes, alarming lawmakers and scientists, last year. Many experts noted that political appointees at agencies such as the NIH, which funds tens of thousands of research grants every year, may not be sufficiently able to judge grant proposals on their scientific merit. 在去年白宫发布行政命令要求进行此类改革并引发立法者和科学家担忧后，OMB提出了这一计划。许多专家指出，像NIH这样每年资助数万项科研拨款的机构，其政治任命官员可能并不具备足够的能力来根据科学价值判断拨款提案。

President Donald Trump’s executive order was then seen as a reaction to court decisions that had found the administration’s abrupt termination of thousands of grants in its first year to be illegal. The new rules would allow for grant “termination based on the discretion of the Federal agency,” according to the proposal. 唐纳德·特朗普总统当时的行政命令被视为对法院裁决的回应，此前法院裁定该政府在执政第一年突然终止数千项拨款的行为违法。根据该提案，新规将允许“根据联邦机构的裁量权”终止拨款。

“The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) proposed rule is an escalation of the administration’s relentless attacks on independent science,” said Jules Barbati-Dajches of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a statement. “It replaces scientific merit with a political loyalty test and could be used to silence research that is politically inconvenient to the administration.” 忧思科学家联盟科学与民主中心（Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists）的朱尔斯·巴尔巴蒂-达切斯（Jules Barbati-Dajches）在一份声明中表示：“OMB的拟议规则是本届政府对独立科学持续攻击的升级。它用政治忠诚度测试取代了科学价值，并可能被用来压制对政府而言政治上不便的研究。”

International research collaboration would only be allowed on a case-by-case basis under the new rules, upending long-standing scientific practice, and would be disfavored against domestic collaborations. 根据新规，国际科研合作只能逐案审批，这将颠覆长期以来的科学实践，且在政策导向上将不如国内合作受青睐。

The public has 45 days to comment on the proposed regulations—an unusually short time period for such wide-ranging changes, says Matt Owens, president of the Council on Government Relations, an organization that represents more than 150 research universities. 代表150多所研究型大学的政府关系委员会（Council on Government Relations）主席马特·欧文斯（Matt Owens）表示，公众有45天的时间对拟议法规发表评论，对于如此广泛的变革而言，这一时间周期短得异乎寻常。