Federal watchdog hits Trump administration for illegally withholding funds for NIH grants

The Trump administration illegally impounded congressionally approved funding for the National Institutes of Health as it canceled existing grants and reduced new grant awards, a congressional watchdog agency found.

The Government Accountability Office issued a report Tuesday concluding the NIH “intended” to withhold the funds in violation of a 1974 budget law called the Impoundment Control Act that limits a president’s ability to not spend money Congress appropriated.

Senate Democrats tried to get President Trump to unfreeze some of the NIH grant funding, along with foreign aid, in exchange for fast-tracking confirmation of some of his nominees. Mr. Trump rejected the offer as “political extortion,” and the Senate adjourned Saturday with more than 140 nominees that have cleared committee still awaiting a floor vote.

In fiscal years 2024 and 2025, Congress appropriated roughly $46 billion to NIH for each year.

But between February and June of this year, NIH has “obligated,” or committed to spend, $8 billion less toward new and existing grant awards than it did during the same period last year, the GAO found.

Some of that reduction comes from NIH canceling more than 1,800 existing grants as part of a review to comply with Mr. Trump’s executive orders directing grants, contracts and other assistance that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or gender ideology to be terminated.

“While it can be argued that NIH reviewed grants to ensure that funds were spent in alignment with the priorities of the new administration, NIH did not simply delay the planned obligations of the funds,” the GAO said. “Rather, NIH eliminated obligations entirely by terminating grants it had already awarded.”

Failing to obligate or spend congressionally approved appropriations or request that lawmakers rescind the funds is a violation of the Impoundment Control Act.

The law allows for a president to withhold funds under limited circumstances by justifying to Congress for a temporary deferral, but the Trump administration did not do so for the NIH funding, the GAO said.

“HHS has offered no evidence that it did not withhold amounts from obligation or expenditure, and it has not shown that the delay was a permissible programmatic one,” the watchdog said.

A U.S. district court judge in Massachusetts ruled that the NIH’s cancellation of grants to comply with the Trump executive orders violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The administration appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court.

In addition to canceling existing grants, the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees NIH, limited the issuance of new grants by directing its agencies to stop publishing grant review meeting notices in the Federal Register.

NIH did not publish any grant review notices from January 22 through March 3, which the GAO said “halted NIH’s ability to review and subsequently award grants.”

HHS told GAO that NIH has since “caught up from the pause when compared to prior years” and continued grant application reviews on pace.

“However, HHS’s response did not include information regarding current obligations of NIH funds for FY 2025,” the GAO said. “Furthermore, HHS showed no sufficient justification for the pause that it instituted.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said the GAO report affirms that “the laws of our land are not suggestions.”

“Congressional Republicans need to stop placating the administration and start holding Trump and his administration accountable for not following the law,” he said.

Mr. Merkley said Mr. Trump and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought are “putting the health and safety of hardworking families across this country” by illegally impounding NIH funding that supports “countless cutting-edge treatments for cancers, rare diseases, cardiovascular diseases, and neurodegenerative diseases.”

Mr. Trump and Mr. Vought have both said they believe the Impoundment Control Act is illegal and have indicated a desire to challenge the law in court in hopes of having it overturned.

The Washington Times reached out to OMB for comment.