Category: Politics

Senate Republican leaders unveiled a spending bill Sunday that would temporarily block President Donald Trump from implementing a rule change that would give political appointees sweeping power over hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants.

The provision was tucked into a bipartisan measure to fund the government through Dec. 11 that was negotiated by Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Vice Chair Patty Murray (D., Wash.) and reviewed by Senate GOP leaders. It marks another notable rebuke of the president by senators from his own party.

In a statement, Collins said she is “pleased” the provision was included in the spending agreement. She also said the White House rule change has the “potential to politicize grants and harm small, rural communities, families, and biomedical research.”

The rule change, released in May by the White House Office of Management and Budget, would give political appointees more power over discretionary grant funding, diminishing a system created after World War II that calls on independent peer reviewers — experts in the field — to determine whether scientific proposals are worthy of federal funding.

It would require political appointees to review grants before they’re awarded to ensure they advance the president’s priorities and do not support projects the administration opposes, including those that “fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate” diversity, equity, and inclusion principles or “deny the biological reality of … the sex binary.”

It also would give agencies the power to end grants at any time, to further restrict collaboration with researchers in China, Russia and certain other foreign countries, and to add new requirements for foreign researchers working in the United States. The rule would not apply to disaster recovery grants or some grants awarded by Congress through law, including block grants.

Trump administration officials say the rule would add needed oversight to federal grant-making, ensuring federal funds aren’t wasted or misused. OMB officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Sunday, but have said that the Biden administration used federal grants to promote a “far-left” agenda.

OMB said it planned to finalize the rule by Oct. 1. If the Senate’s funding extension were approved by both chambers, it would block OMB from implementing the rule, at least until the measure expires on Dec. 11.

Collins urged OMB to withdraw portions of the rule in early July. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers — along with GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) — have raised similar concerns. Murray and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D., Conn.), the top Democrats on the Senate and House Appropriations Committees respectively, celebrated the provision in statements Sunday.

The new OMB rule would “only give Trump the greenlight to take even more federal funding hostage,” said Murray, who worked with Collins to craft the Senate spending measure. Murray said she pushed for a provision that would have permanently killed the OMB rule but was rebuffed by her Republican colleagues.

When OMB announced it this spring, the proposed rule change drew widespread outrage from scientific researchers, who say it could end U.S. scientific dominance by subjecting research institutions to political meddling, introducing new instability to federal funding, limiting foreign collaboration, and pushing away talented researchers.

Trump administration officials have said they wouldn’t use the rule to blindly slash scientific funding. OMB Director Russell Vought said during a congressional hearing last month that the administration doesn’t intend to cancel grants “in a heartbeat.”

But “when we find something that’s problematic that our policy officials would not have caught, we need to be able to turn it off,” Vought added, citing as an example an NIH subgrant given from a U.S.-based nonprofit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the Chinese laboratory at the center of suspicions about the origins of COVID-19.

Last year, the Trump administration canceled hundreds and froze thousands of federal grants to projects they argued did not align with administration priorities. It unleashed chaos within research institutions, scientists said, prompting layoffs and upending projects.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.) has said he aims to pass the spending bill before the Senate leaves town Friday for a monthlong recess. The government would shut down at the end of September if the measure — or one like it — is not approved.

It was unclear Sunday whether the GOP-controlled House would support the measure as written. The House returns from its own monthlong recess on Aug. 31. Spokespeople for Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and Republican House appropriators did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Senate Republicans are racing to complete a lengthy to-do list before leaving town Friday, including approving a stopgap spending bill aimed at averting a government shutdown before the Nov. 3 elections.

In addition to the stopgap budget bill, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.) is working to confirm 74 of President Donald Trump’s nominees and faces pressure to advance a $95 billion package that would provide fresh cash for the Iran war and inflation-battered farmers.

Whatever senators don’t accomplish this week is likely to be pushed to September, when Congress is scheduled to be in Washington only briefly before hitting the campaign trail.

The stopgap budget bill is up first, with a procedural vote that was expected late Monday. Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R., Maine) and Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the lead Democratic appropriator, worked jointly on the bill, which would extend government funding through Dec. 11.

The measure differs in important ways from a version of the bill passed by the House: It incorporates White House requests to maintain funding for housing and nutrition programs through the fall, and it would extend an expiring authorization for veterans’ healthcare.

Additionally, it would temporarily block the White House Office of Management and Budget from adopting a rule that would give political appointees sweeping powers to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the lead Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said in a statement Sunday that the Senate bill marks “a clear improvement” over the House bill, which she and most House Democrats opposed.

If the Senate approves it, the House could take the measure up when lawmakers return at the end of August. Unless Congress acts, the government is set to run out of funds on Oct. 1.

Senate Republicans are also facing a long list of presidential nominees at an array of agencies, including the Departments of State, Energy, Treasury, and Justice. The Senate could also confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general if the two Republican senators who have blocked his confirmation vote to advance it Tuesday.

Late Sunday, Blanche issued a written order formally rescinding the Trump administration’s proposal for a $1.8 billion fund for people who claim they were victims of political prosecutions — a step toward breaking the impasse.

Blanche said the revision came as part of an agreement with Senate Judiciary members including Sens. John Cornyn (Texas) and Thom Tillis (N.C.), who had threatened to vote against his nomination over concerns about the fund. The order came one day after Trump threatened in a Truth Social post to revive his push for the payout fund if Blanche is not confirmed.

The Judiciary Committee has scheduled a critical vote Tuesday on Blanche’s nomination.

Elsewhere, the Senate is expected to easily approve legislation to impose new sanctions on Russia, which would allow the Trump administration to levy up to 100% tariffs on the top five purchasers of Russian oil and natural gas. The measure, which was championed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) before his sudden death last month, advanced last week on a strong bipartisan vote.

And Thune has said the chamber would vote on an industry-backed cryptocurrency bill that would establish federal authority over digital assets. But the measure faces opposition on a variety of fronts, including from Democrats, who are demanding tougher ethics provisions to limit Trump’s ability to profit from his family’s crypto businesses.

Possibly the tallest order for Republicans this week is finalizing a framework for a budget package to speed cash to farmers and the Pentagon. Using a complex process known as reconciliation, GOP lawmakers could sidestep a Democratic filibuster and pass the package with Republican votes.

For the strategy to work, Senate Republicans would need near-unanimous support in their caucus. But several GOP senators have expressed opposition.

“We’re taking a hard look at it,” Thune told reporters last week. “And at the moment, as I’ve said before, we’re probably not there.”

Last month, the House passed a $95 billion budget framework that includes $73 billion for defense, $12 billion in aid for farmers and $10 billion for election-related measures, which House Republicans hope to use to impose elements of the Save America Act — a top Trump priority. That bill would require voters to prove their citizenship when registering to vote and to show a photo ID at the polls.

Trump has demanded that the Senate stay in session until the election provisions pass, but Thune has said repeatedly that the bill cannot pass the Senate, even under reconciliation. Tillis, for one, has said he would not support it.

Meanwhile, multiple GOP senators have expressed other concerns with the House framework for reconciliation, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Bill Cassidy (La.), and Collins.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairperson Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), who has argued for closer to $300 billion for defense, told the Washington Post on Thursday that he is pushing for the higher amount. But a bigger package risks the support of fiscally conservative Republicans, who are already balking at adding $95 billion to the nation’s $39.8 trillion debt.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said the White House would need to directly request the additional funds for defense. Still, Johnson said he was “pretty optimistic” that the Senate would advance a budget framework before leaving town.

In a letter to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and acting attorney general Todd Blanche, the chairperson of the Special Olympics — who is also Kennedy’s cousin — called on the administration to reverse course on a Justice Department memorandum that could narrow federal protections for disability care.

The letter by Tim Shriver joins a recent outcry from lawmakers and disability advocates who have warned that the June memo, which called for reinterpreting a key Supreme Court ruling on disability rights, could shrink access to home- and community-based care services that hundreds of thousands of Americans with disabilities rely on to receive care without being placed in institutions — a cause that members of the Kennedy family have supported throughout their political careers.

“This is something that is in some ways the central passion of our family,” Shriver told the Washington Post. “And I hope and believe that Secretary Kennedy understands that.”

The Health and Human Services Department and Justice Department did not provide a comment by the time of this article’s publication.

The memo comes as patients and caregivers brace for Medicaid cuts from President Donald Trump’s tax bill, which are also expected to hamper disability services.

“Many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are already worried about whether the Medicaid-funded supports and services they rely on will be there in the future,” Shriver wrote in the letter sent to Kennedy and Blanche last week and shared with the Post.

Shriver, a longtime disability rights activist, said he sent the letter in his personal capacity. He has led the Special Olympics, which organizes sporting competitions for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, since 1996.

The Justice Department memo, issued in mid-June by its Office of Legal Counsel, argued for a looser reading of the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C., viewed as a landmark case for disability rights. The Supreme Court ruled that it was discriminatory to institutionalize people with disabilities when they can and want to receive community-based services instead.

“Olmstead is what created the tools to require states to provide community-based services,” said Alison Barkoff, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University and a former HHS administrator during the Biden Administration.

Advocates argue that those services can be more cost-effective than institutional care and better enable people with disabilities to work and remain connected with their families and communities. Around 4.5 million Medicaid enrollees receive home- and community-based care, and hundreds of thousands more are on waitlists for the services each year, health policy research organization KFF estimated in 2024.

“These programs are the difference between a full life and … tragic mental illness, loneliness, depression, isolation, humiliation,” Shriver told the Post.

The Kennedy family has been closely involved in efforts to promote disability rights. President John F. Kennedy signed a major mental health bill in 1963 while in office and alongside Sen. Robert F. Kennedy — the health secretary’s father — pushed to shift disability care away from institutionalization and toward community-based services. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a sister of President Kennedy and Tim Shriver’s mother, founded the Special Olympics.

The Trump administration has scrutinized home- and community-based services for fraud and argued that some states poorly oversee their home-based care programs. Advocates are also concerned that states newly strained by cuts to Medicaid could slash support for home- and community-based services.

The Justice Department memo would make it easier for states to do that, opponents have said. It argued that Olmstead does not require states to provide home- and community-based care for people with disabilities and that the federal government is not authorized to enforce such a mandate. It conceded that such an opinion is “out of step with the common understanding of that decision within the federal courts.”

Groups including the American Civil Liberties Union, American Association of People with Disabilities, and Center for Public Representation denounced the Justice Department’s position. Democrats in Congress urged the department to rescind the memo.

While the Justice Department’s opinion doesn’t change the law, it could indicate that the department will step back from enforcing Olmstead, advocates said.

“It provides a signal that the Department of Justice and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services are stepping back from that commitment to community integration,” said Lydia Dawson, the vice president of government relations for ANCOR, a national association of private community providers.

Shriver said the Trump administration’s stance threatened decades of hard-fought progress for disability care.

“I am hopeful that you will help ensure that our country continues moving forward rather than backward on the promise of inclusion,” he wrote to Kennedy and Blanche.