Mark Kelly Spearheads Letter Demanding Reversal of OMB Rule on Federal Grants

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is spearheading a letter to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, demanding a reversal of new rules that he claims would "politicize" federal grants.

The Context

Near the end of May, the OMB released a series of newly proposed rules to be implemented by October, several of which are significant changes to how the federal government awards grants.

The first of which is the implementation of a mandatory pre-issuance political review for all discretionary awards, wherein senior appointees (or their designees) would oversee and determine whether proposals selected for funding are consistent with applicable law, agency priorities, and the national interest.

Second, agencies would be given a greater discrepancy in the risk of applicants, based on the applicant's capacity to manage a "high dollar" award in addition to their overall financial stability, an applicant's history of "questionable practices" based on publicly available and verifiable information, foreign gift and contract disclosures required by the Higher Education Act, and a new provision that allows agencies to consider an applicant's "affiliations with organizations engaged in activities that violate federal law, undermine public safety or national security, or advocate for the overthrow of the United States government."

Kelly's Response

While these measures are intended to improve transparency and accountability, Sen. Kelly's letter argues that they overstep the OMB's authority, "will make it impossible for grant recipients to faithfully carry out the funding priorities that Congress establishes in statute, and would turn federal grants into a new cudgel for the President to unilaterally advance his partisan agenda and punish political rivals."

"Rather than focusing on fulfilling the statutory purposes of a grant program, applicants and recipients will be forced to play an endless guessing game, trying to determine which of their activities may or may not run afoul of OMB's ambiguous regulations or the president's whims," Sen. Kelly commented. "OMB's proposal unlawfully seeks to substitute Congress's role in directing federal spending with the President's preferred priorities, and in doing so, makes it harder for every community and organization in the United States to fairly access federal funding. We call on you to rescind this proposal."