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News and updates

News and updates

House Republicans Unveil Stopgap Bill

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On Tuesday afternoon, House Republican leaders released the text of a stopgap funding bill aimed at keeping the federal government open through November 21. The measure is designed to buy lawmakers additional time to finalize the annual appropriations process.

The bill allocates tens of millions of dollars in enhanced security funding for members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and the Executive Branch. Notably, it omits provisions to renew the expanded Affordable Care Act tax credits—an item backed by Democrats and some vulnerable Republicans.

Support from House Democrats remains uncertain. President Trump has urged congressional Republicans to bypass bipartisan negotiations and push the bill forward without Democratic backing. While GOP leaders believe they have the votes to pass it, internal resistance is emerging, with conservatives such as Rep. Thomas Massie already defecting.

Even if the bill clears the House, it faces an uphill battle in the Senate, where 60 votes are needed—requiring at least some Democratic support. House Republicans hope to pass the measure by Friday, pressuring Senate Democrats to approve it and avoid a government shutdown. However, Senate Democrats, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), remain wary after facing backlash for supporting a similar bill in March.

Without a stopgap bill, the federal government will run out of funding by October 1st. We will continue to update this page as more information becomes available.

UW Provost Tricia Serio Visits D.C. to Champion Research Priorities

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This week, University of Washington Provost Tricia Serio traveled to Washington, D.C. to meet with senior leaders across multiple federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), to advocate for robust federal investment in research and innovation.

As the chief academic officer of one of the nation’s leading public research universities, Provost Serio underscored the vital role that federal research funding plays in advancing scientific discovery, supporting students and faculty, and driving economic growth in Washington state and across the country. Her meetings focused on aligning federal priorities with the university’s research strengths and strategic goals for the upcoming fiscal year. Amid growing uncertainty around federal budget negotiations, Provost Serio emphasized the critical need for sustained investment in university research and explored opportunities for the University of Washington to strengthen its role as a trusted partner to the federal government.

Provost Serio’s visit reflects UW’s ongoing commitment to federal engagement and its leadership in shaping national research policy. By fostering and maintaining strong partnerships with federal agencies, Provost Serio worked to ensure that the UW’s research enterprise remains a powerful engine for innovation and advancement.

Federal Budget Update

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The federal government is set to run out of funding at the end of September, leaving Congress just weeks to avoid a shutdown.

Current funding is provided by a continuing resolution (CR) passed in March that extended government operations through the fiscal year. Lawmakers have increasingly relied on CRs in recent years as partisan divisions have made it difficult to pass the 12 annual appropriations bills on time.

Although Republicans control both chambers, deep divisions remain between the House and Senate. Senate Republicans have advanced bipartisan bills that call for tens of billions more in spending than proposals from House Republicans and the Trump administration.

In the House, GOP lawmakers have been drafting bills with steep cuts but are also moving toward another stopgap resolution. Such a measure could extend funding into mid-November, giving negotiators more time to strike a full-year deal for fiscal 2026.

One option gaining traction would combine a short-term CR with several relatively uncontroversial appropriations bills, including Military Construction–VA, Agriculture, and Legislative Branch. Senior appropriators Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) have endorsed the approach, with Cole signaling he wants the CR to run only through Thanksgiving.

Tensions with the White House are complicating talks. The administration’s recent use of the “pocket rescissions” process to cancel billions in foreign aid has drawn sharp criticism from Democrats, raising doubts about whether bipartisan agreements will hold.

Meanwhile, appropriators are pressing ahead with their individual bills to show progress. The House is set to take up the Energy-Water bill this week, while the Appropriations Committee will vote on the Financial Services measure. In the Senate, the panel plans to advance Homeland Security and State-Foreign Operations next week.

Less than 13 legislative days remain until the funding deadline, meaning lawmakers will have to act quickly to keep the government open.

 

 

Supreme Court Rules on NIH Grant Cancellation

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In a divided decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for the federal government to terminate more than $783 million in active research grants from the National Institutes of Health, a move that has drawn intense scrutiny from scientists, public health advocates, and legal scholars. The 5–4 ruling, issued August 21, allows the Trump administration to proceed with its cancellation of thousands of grants tied to topics such as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), gender identity, HIV/AIDS, and COVID-19. The majority held that disputes over terminated grants must be heard in the Court of Federal Claims, not in district courts, effectively halting a wave of legal challenges that had temporarily blocked the cuts.

The lawsuit at the center of the case was filed in the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts by a coalition of 16 states, research institutions, and advocacy organizations. In June, Judge William Young ordered the grants reinstated and invalidated the administration’s internal guidance documents that had led to the terminations. But the Supreme Court’s majority disagreed, concluding that the district court lacked jurisdiction to enforce monetary obligations tied to federal grants. While the justices left in place the lower court’s ruling against the guidance documents, they allowed the grant cancellations to proceed.

Legal experts say the shift to the Court of Federal Claims presents a steep hurdle for plaintiffs, who must now pursue complex contractual claims with limited prospects for immediate relief. Meanwhile, advocacy groups and some members of Congress are calling for legislative action to restore the funding and protect future grants from similar terminations.

Read more here.

Trump Signs Orders on Admissions and Grantmaking

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On Thursday, President Trump signed two new executive orders relating to admissions and federal grantmaking. See summaries and links below.

 

Ensuring Transparency in Higher Educations Admissions

EO here and Fact Sheet here

“ENSURING ACCOUNTABILITY IN HIGHER EDUCATION: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the Secretary of Education to require higher education institutions receiving Federal financial assistance to be transparent regarding their admissions practices.

  • The Memorandum directs the Secretary of Education to revamp the online presentation and data collection of the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to make it efficient, easily accessible, and intelligibly presented for parents and students.
  • The Memorandum instructs the Secretary of Education to expand the scope of required reporting for institutions’ admissions data in order to provide adequate transparency as determined by the Secretary of Education.
  • The Memorandum further instructs the Secretary of Education to increase accuracy checks for data submitted by institutions through IPEDS and take remedial action if institutions fail to submit data in a timely manner or submit incomplete or inaccurate data.”

 

Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking

EO here and Fact sheet here

Sec. 3. Strengthening Accountability for Agency Grantmaking. (a) Each agency head shall promptly designate a senior appointee who shall be responsible for creating a process to review new funding opportunity announcements and to review discretionary grants to ensure that they are consistent with agency priorities and the national interest. For the avoidance of doubt, this process shall not guarantee any particular level of review or consideration to funding applicants except as consistent with applicable law.

Sec. 4. Considerations for Discretionary Awards. (a) Senior appointees and their designees shall not ministerially ratify or routinely defer to the recommendations of others in reviewing funding opportunity announcements or discretionary awards, but shall instead use their independent judgment.

(b) In reviewing and approving funding opportunity announcements and discretionary awards, as well as in designing the review process described in section 3(a) of this order, senior appointees and their designees shall, as relevant and to the extent consistent with applicable law, apply the following principles, including in any scoring rubrics used to assess grant proposals:

(i) Discretionary awards must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.

(ii) Discretionary awards shall not be used to fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate:

(A) racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the grant recipient, including activities where race or intentional proxies for race will be used as a selection criterion for employment or program participation;

(B) denial by the grant recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic;

(C) illegal immigration; or

(D) any other initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.

(iii) All else being equal, preference for discretionary awards should be given to institutions with lower indirect cost rates.

Sec. 6. Implementation and Termination Clauses. (a) Within 30 days of the date of this order, each agency head shall review the agency’s standard grant terms and conditions and submit a report to the Director detailing:

(i) whether the agency’s standard terms and conditions for discretionary awards permit termination for convenience and include the termination provisions described in 2 CFR 200.340(a), including the provisions that an award may be terminated by the agency “if an award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities” or, in the case of a partial termination by the recipient, if the agency “determines that the remaining portion of the Federal award will not accomplish the purposes for which the Federal award was made”;

(ii) whether the agency’s standard terms and conditions for discretionary foreign assistance awards permit termination based on the national interest; and

(iii) the approximate number of active discretionary awards at the agency, as well as the approximate percentage of funding obligated under those awards that contains termination provisions allowing for termination under the circumstances described in subsection (i) of this section.