Flood of comments on White House grantmaking overhaul is largely negative, analysis shows

Politics Flood of comments on White House grantmaking overhaul is largely negative, analysis shows About 60% of opponents cite concerns about political control of grants Manage alerts for this article Email this article Share this article By Anil Oza and J. Emory ParkerJuly 15, 2026 Anil Oza[email protected]Anil Oza is a general assignment reporter at STAT focused on the NIH and health equity. You can reach him on Signal at aniloza.16.J. Emory Parker[email protected]Emory is the data editor at STAT. He’s a data journalist with a background in bioinformatics and molecular biology. You can reach Emory on Signal at jaspar.01. An analysis of a torrent of public comments submitted on a White House proposal to change the way federal contracts and grants are doled out shows a widespread rebuke of the potential change by scientists and others. The analysis, done by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partnership with STAT, used a large language model to classify whether a comment was supportive or in opposition and to identify themes mentioned in comments. It found that about 95% were in opposition and just 1% supported the proposed changes to the “Uniform Guidance.” A total of 496,769 public comments were submitted before the deadline of Monday at midnight, and an analysis of the 52,322 comments that have been posted in full show an overwhelming rebuke of the proposal. Advertisement The substance of that proposal would bring about a fundamental change in the way that science is funded in the U.S., taking autonomy away from scientists and empowering the Trump administration to override the recommendations of peer reviewers, terminate grants at will, and exercise more latitude in the type of research federal agencies support. If finalized as written, it could codify the tumult and uncertainty that have defined the past year and a half for vast portions of the scientific enterprise. The overarching theme cited in comments of those in dissent was the risks associated with political appointees directing what science is funded. Other common concerns were peer review being deemphasized, the potential for awards to be terminated before research projects are completed, and restrictions on work related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Those who commented in support largely surfaced arguments about reducing waste, fraud, and abuse “When you end up in a place where, with every new administration, you’re going to start all over on what the priority is, you are not going to be able to catch up with China. You’re not going to be able to cure disease, and you’re not going to be able to grow the economy. So, it’s good to see that that is what’s driving the opposition,” Sudip Parikh, the CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told STAT. Advertisement It is not entirely surprising the proposed rule garnered widespread attention, given that it governs over $1 trillion in federal contracts a year. The scientific research community, largely dependent on federal dollars to support its work, was fast to raise awareness of the proposed rule issued in May by the Office of Management and Budget and to encourage a wave of public comments. Science advocacy groups and scientific journals led the way, and higher education coalitions, professional societies, elite research universities, and individual researchers followed. Even industry groups, which have been cautious in directly criticizing the administration, submitted comments. In the UNC-STAT analysis, 76% of the comments were submitted by individuals, 22% anonymously, and 0.5% by organizations, though because of a lag in the posting of comments, the analysis may be undercounting organizations, which tended to submit closer to the deadline. Some organizations “wrote longer technical comments that took longer to write,” said Alexa Dietrich, the research director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Those comments, she added, are likely to delve into the legal arguments against the rule, including freedom of speech concerns and claims that the OMB proposal would diminish Congress’ power of the purse. The comments available focus largely on opposition to the prospect of more political control over grantmaking. Around 60% of commenters of those opposed to the rule directly mentioned political control of grants, while about a third mentioned opposition to peer review no longer being binding. The most common concern among those who supported the proposal was the idea that there is rampant waste, fraud, and abuse among federal grantees. “Supporters of the rule often cited abuse and fraud. They think that this rule is needed to reduce fraud in government funding. Trump has been talking about fraud for years and years, and so it isn’t surprising that people now will say back, ‘We’ve got to get the fraud out,’” said Maria Gallo, an epidemiologist at UNC and one of the researchers who worked on the analysis. Advertisement The administration is required to respond to substantive public comments, according to the Administrative Procedures Act. But it does not need to amend the rule based on that feedback. The administration just needs to demonstrate that it has read and considered each substantive argument against the rule and respond. “Public comment periods and regulations are not a plebiscite, they’re not a vote. So it doesn’t officially matter whether it’s 80-20 one way or 70-30 or 51-49. One thing I can assure you, the administration, any administration, will not count up and let those totals affect their final decisions,” said Stuart Shapiro, the dean of the Rutgers School of Planning and Public Policy and a former OMB official who has written about the role public comments play in shaping regulation. In urging people to submit public comments, many science advocates advised that individuals make their comments unique, to maximize the chance that it would raise individual issues that the administration would have to reckon with. Some even created online tools to help facilitate creating individualized comments. (Form letters that are exact duplicates are not posted and were not included in the analysis.) “Normally, officials are looking for information that bears on the law, science, technology, economics, and so forth. While ordinary people might not be able to contribute on those dimensions, they do have their lived experiences that can contribute original information to the process. A failure to consider that kind of personalized information can lead to future lawsuits against finalized rules,” said Steven Balla, a political scientist at George Washington University who has found that mass comment campaigns have had little impact on changing policy. Some organizations already have begun to prepare to sue the administration, should the rule be published as is. The OMB also has given itself a short timeline to review the comments. It hopes to have the rule go into effect Oct. 1, the beginning of the fiscal year, but that would mean it would have to post a final version of the rule on the Federal Register by Sept. 1. Advertisement “The challenge here is there are so many substantive comments. That’s what your review is also showing: that a good majority of the comments are actually substantive in nature,” said Kali Murray, a legal expert at Marquette University who specializes in the intersection of administrative law and scientific decision-making. Given the short timeline, she suspects OMB also may turn to using AI to sort through comments. Hundreds of scientific societies and other organizations had requested an extension on the comment period, given the scope of the regulation to be able to respond in the most thorough way possible. Matt Owens, the president of COGR, a research policy organization that requested an extension, said that despite submitting a 150-page comment on the rule, he is “still not confident that we’ve identified all of the issues, potential issues, and frankly, unintended consequences.” It’s unclear how OMB will proceed. A spokesperson for the office did not respond to questions regarding its timeline for responding to public comments or react to the results of the analysis. Parikh, of AAAS, said the comments serve as a barometer for the mood of scientists. “I can’t think of another time in history when you can catch the collective mood of almost 300,000 scientists in America. My guess is you’re going to see some very deeply personal comments. You’re going to see some very robust and analytical ones, you’re going to see the gamut. I think that’s going to be remarkable. Analyses like these, I think there’s theses in there about what the American scientific enterprise is thinking right now.” Indeed, a number of researchers commented on how limitations in the proposed rule on spending federal funds on publishing in academic journals or attending conferences would stifle their work and that of their mentees. “I led a productive research laboratory with support from two NIGMS RO1 research grants. … This proposed rule will slow the advance of science and compromise the training of graduate students and postdocs, who comprise a majority of attendees at conferences,” reads one comment from a Yale researcher. “I am a PI with funding from NIMH. I have had several R01s and R21s. The proposal would significantly limit my ability to disseminate the knowledge gained from these grants, as many journals have high article processing fees for open access publications,” reads another from a neuroscientist in Detroit. Advertisement A San Diego State biochemistry professor wrote she had two grant terminations, adding, “just as I do not want political appointees reviewing my medical records and dictating my subsequent treatment, this inappropriately saddles folks without the appropriate expertise with critical, labor intensive decisions.” Initial analysis shows that the mood is rather grim, but science advocates saw one silver lining: that scientists, who largely try to stay out of politics, are engaging with the very democratic process that funds their work. A note on the use of AI This analysis was conducted in partnership with STAT by Jae Yeon Kim, assistant professor of public policy; Betsy Pleasants, a postdoctoral fellow at the Carolina Population Center; and Maria Gallo, professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology. All are at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The researchers used a large language model (LLM) provided by OpenAI to classify comments by whether they support or oppose the proposed rule as well as to count the number of times comments mentioned specified topics. Classification tasks like this would not be possible to conduct in a timely manner by hand and are well-suited to the capabilities of LLMs. This sort of use of LLMs is different from more “generative” uses (like chatting with an AI bot) that are more prone to “hallucinations.” AI tools were also used to assist in the process of writing code for this project, but the entire data analysis pipeline uses repeatable code, mostly R and some Python. None of the summary statistics or charts used in this article were generated by AI. All work was reviewed and verified by humans. STAT also independently reviewed all code and methodology for this project. Per STAT’s AI usage policy, all code and underlying data are available for review on Github. — J. Emory Parker, Data Editor at STAT STAT’s coverage of the federal government’s impact on the biomedical workforce is supported by a grant from the Dana Foundation and the Boston Foundation. Our financial supporters are not involved in any decisions about our journalism.Advertisement Donald Trump, research, White House Submit a correction requestReprints Anil Oza General Assignment Reporter Anil Oza is a general assignment reporter at STAT focused on the NIH and health equity. You can reach him on Signal at aniloza.16. J. Emory Parker Data Editor Emory is the data editor at STAT. He’s a data journalist with a background in bioinformatics and molecular biology. You can reach Emory on Signal at jaspar.01. 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