Although research has bipartisan support in the US Congress, and trust in science is above 75% across the country, the Trump administration seems as determined as ever to mortally wound the nation’s scientific enterprise. After the scientific community persuaded Congress to restore most of the president’s draconian cuts to research funding last year, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), under Russell Vought, has found new ways to circumvent the will of Congress and starve American science. At the beginning of this year, OMB dragged its feet in releasing instructions to federal agencies for how to distribute the funding appropriated by Congress, leading to lags in dispersal. Now, OMB has proposed revising the rules that govern how federal dollars are spent. The changes would inevitably lead to unlegislated reductions in funding and damage US leadership in science, both in academia and industry.

In any other administration, when Congress appropriates money for science each year, OMB’s job is to make sure that the funds are released in accordance with the law. But in Project 2025, the blueprint used by the Trump administration to overhaul the federal government according to a theory of greater executive power, Vought called for an activist OMB that serves as the “keeper of ‘commander’s intent,’” thereby moving power away from Congress.

The sweeping new regulations proposed by OMB would subject every federal research funding decision to political review. Peer review has never been formally binding, but this proposal would dramatically expand the power of political appointees to override expert assessments of scientific merit. Agencies could end multiyear grants with no due process. They also could use the vague criteria of Trump’s “gold standard science” to identify institutions for preferential treatment. International collaboration with countries identified solely by the administration would be prohibited under the new rules, but more notably, all research that involves the expenditure of funds outside the US would require case-by-case approval. This bureaucratic hurdle would effectively prevent most if not all partnerships from moving forward.

 The regulations appear to set aside for the time being the issue of how the government reimburses universities for indirect costs associated with federally funded research on their campuses. Deborah Altenburg, the vice president for research policy and advocacy at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, said, “It provides us some breathing room for further discussions about a better solution that is fair and that increases accountability and transparency.” It’s tone deaf to be grateful about money while the very values that have defined scientific merit for 80 years are obliterated. For example, curtailing research into the social determinants of health threatens to leave large swaths of university researchers with no prospects of getting a grant. This comes on top of the elimination of the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation. Higher education and its associations need to firmly oppose these changes, which would create a massive morale and financial problem in addition to curtailing important research.

 The pharmaceutical business has at least as much to lose as academia. In criticizing the industry for its failure to act, Steve Usdin, an editor at the industry publication BioCenturywho has covered policy issues affecting the life sciences sector, reminded pharmaceutical leaders that their silence was “complicity in the destruction of US science.” The global dominance of American pharmaceutical companies has long relied on ready access to the best science in the US and collaborators from around the world—all chosen on the basis of scientific merit, not political ideology. By threatening technology transfer to pharma, the new regulations are out of sync with the administration’s supposed desire to see more industry collaboration and to compete with China. Pharma’s leaders, as Usdin points out, are in the strongest position to get the attention of the White House and urge the administration to change course.

 The time to act is now. The scientific community needs to flood OMB with responses during the public comment period, open until 13 July. Universities and associations must speak out as a united front to mobilize Congress and be ready to file lawsuits once the regulations are finalized. I was sympathetic to members of the scientific establishment who played it carefully during last year’s budget negotiations. Getting the budget deal done was crucial. But that was then. The red light is now flashing. All hands, report to stations.