On Jan. 27, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a directive to federal agencies issuing a “temporary pause [on] all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders…” The freeze is effective Jan. 28 at 5 p.m.
OMB is part of the Executive Office of the President and administers the federal budget. Each federal agency will need to develop a process of reviewing their activities as required in the memo. During the “temporary pause,” agencies must conduct a comprehensive review of their programs to identify any that may be affected by President Trump’s executive orders. They are required to report their findings to OMB by Feb. 10.
Earlier today, OMB released a subsequent question-and-answer document to clarify the scope of the directive, stressing that any federal program not implicated by the president’s recent executive orders is not subject to the freeze.
The executive orders listed in the guidance are:
- Protecting the American People Against Invasion
- Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid
- Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements
- Unleashing American Energy
- Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing
- Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
- Enforcing the Hyde Amendment
We recognize that this directive is creating a great amount of uncertainty, and there are emerging efforts to challenge it. We are working with congressional, executive branch, and association stakeholders to better understand and respond to the anticipated impact.
We expect to learn more throughout the day and will continue to update this web page. Please bookmark the page and share it with your colleagues. We also continue to welcome feedback, insight, and questions from our research community at [email protected].
Additional Resources
National Science Foundation: Message to the NSF PI Community (Jan. 29)