Washington’s grant-industrial complex has discovered a new theory: Once Congress appropriates money, unelected reviewers and recipients, and not executive officials accountable for administering the law, should control where it goes.This panic gets the rule backward. At its core, OMB’s proposal to Part 200 is simple: make federal grants more accountable to taxpayers by tightening oversight, rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, protecting national interests, and ensuring public money advances the purposes Congress actually authorized.
Washington distributes more than $1 trillion annually through a sprawling system insulated from public scrutiny, marked by weaknesses in program design and award selection through post-award oversight. OMB’s proposal is the most serious effort in a generation to restore lawful stewardship, transparency, and accountability to taxpayers.The senators claim OMB lacks authority and is usurping Congress’s power of the purse. But there are a series of statutes in Title 31 of the United States Code, along with several laws that give OMB governmentwide financial-management policies for promoting consistent, efficient use of federal grants.Congress creates programs, sets funding, and determines eligibility. But when it gives an agency discretion to choose among eligible projects, that discretion does not belong to a private peer-review panel or permanent bureaucracy.The rule does not let the president cancel “any grant at any time for any reason and without any notice.” Discretionary termination applies only to the extent permitted by law, must be clearly included in award terms, and generally excludes statutory entitlements such as formula, block, and disaster-recovery grants. Agencies must provide notice and an explanation. The rule will leave the discretionary decisions to agency officials who are politically accountable to the American people — not to unelected bureaucrats.The attack on OMB’s science reforms is misplaced. The proposal expressly preserves peer review. Scientists may continue evaluating methodology, technical merit, and research potential. Their recommendations remain an important part of the decision-making process, but the final decision rests with the executive officials responsible for administering taxpayer dollars. That is not anti-science. Peer reviewers can assess scientific quality, but they cannot determine whether a project complies with the law, fulfills the program Congress authorized, duplicates existing work, presents national-security concerns, or advances the agency’s lawful priorities. Expertise should inform those decisions but not replace accountability to the American taxpayer.The U.S. Office of Personnel Management building in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
