06/05/2026
The White House’s Office of Management and Budget just proposed new rules that would let political appointees, not scientists, decide which research gets funded in the United States.
Under these rules, a senior political official would have to personally approve every single federal grant before it goes out.
Peer review, which has been the gold standard for evaluating science on merit, would be reduced to just a suggestion. And if your research falls out of political favor? Any active grant can be revoked at any time, with no explanation required.
We're talking about NASA grants, NSF grants, the funding that powers discoveries about our Universe and our planet. This rule was not written by NASA's leadership, and it works against the agency's own exploration goals for the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
The rules would also ban entire categories of research outright, and cut off collaboration with scientists from other countries, even if those researchers live in the U.S.
Researchers wouldn't even be able to use grant money to publish their findings or attend scientific conferences without getting special permission first.
This affects everyone from PhD students to career scientists to all of us whose lives improve because of federally funded research.
The public comment period is open right now, but this time,
we're not asking you to sign a form letter. We need your actual words, your story, to make a difference. Identical submissions get counted as a single comment, so the more you write, the less OMB can ignore us.
We cannot stress how dangerous this rule would be if enacted.
But we can stop this if enough people submit their personal story of why peer-reviewed science is important.
The deadline to submit comments is July 13th.
The Planetary Society is organizing a new space constituency that is educated, empowered, and loud.
