On Thursday the White House released long-anticipated draft regulations that, if enacted, would give political appointees the final word on federal research grants and other funding across government agencies.

Scheduled to be officially published in the Federal Register on Friday, the 412-page proposal on federal spending rules would centralize Office of Management and Budget (OMB) control over releases of government funds, including for scientific research grants. The OMB is headed by Russell Vought, lead architect of Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan for the Trump administration.

“Recent years have provided evidence of the need for meaningful reform in Federal grants administration,” states the proposal’s “Background” section, which goes on to criticize “a ‘woke’ policy agenda that deliberately favored certain identity groups over others” under the Biden administration. The new rules would mandate political appointees at scientific agencies to sign off on all research awards for compliance with presidential priorities, including those on race and gender.

And at scientific agencies, the proposal states that “senior appointees must conduct these reviews and apply specific principles when evaluating proposals,” a departure from past practice whereby apolitical expert review committees approved research grants.

Scientific peer review of research proposals, long the standard for approval of research grants at the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation and other governmental science agencies, “remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion,” the proposal states.

“We warned of this exact form of government overreach in science a year ago,” says Colette Delawalla, founder of the science advocacy group Stand Up for Science. “It replaces expertise with political appointees, globally decouples the U.S. and completely guts our scientific ecosystem.”