The White House has dropped a plan to issue an executive order that would have given political appointees control over scientific research grants at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, reported on Wednesday, September 23, 2026, that administration officials conveyed they will not move forward with the proposal. The decision followed reports of a meeting between President Donald Trump, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought, and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya to discuss the plan.
The proposed executive order sought to establish a new board, co-chaired by Vought and Bhattacharya, that would have required a unanimous vote to approve NIH grants. According to reports, the proposal was intended to give the White House greater control over grantmaking to diminish diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and to halt funding to Harvard University. The White House had previously attempted to block $2.6 billion in grants to Harvard last year, a move that was subsequently overturned in court.
Bhattacharya reportedly resisted the proposal during an Oval Office meeting on Friday, September 18, defending the agency's existing peer-review process. The NIH currently awards approximately 19,000 new research and training grants annually through a multi-stage system involving expert panels and institute directors. Sen. Collins and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) both issued statements opposing the move, arguing that biomedical research awards should be based on scientific merit rather than political review.
For individual researchers and academic institutions, the impact would have been a fundamental change in how they secure funding for laboratory work, clinical trials, and staff salaries. Instead of a process managed by scientists at the 27 NIH institutes and centers, researchers would have faced a final layer of political approval. This could have led to the sudden loss of millions of dollars for specific institutions, such as Harvard University, or for research projects containing language related to diversity or gender issues. While the NIH has already implemented a screening process for "politically sensitive terms," this executive order would have institutionalized a final political veto over the entire awarding process.
The abandonment of the order preserves the current independence of the NIH grantmaking structure for the immediate future. It also avoids a new legal precedent regarding whether an executive order can circumvent existing federal regulations governing grant awards. However, the tension between the administration and the NIH director remains a factor in future policy, as the OMB has previously attempted to claw back unspent agency funds. A stopgap funding bill temporarily blocks a separate OMB rule regarding grant control through December 2026, and researchers recently filed a lawsuit alleging that current grant screening practices violate First Amendment rights.