Transparent to Whom?

The OMB's Proposed Rule and the Long War Over Accountability in American Science

On May 29, 2026, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) posted a proposed rule to “improve transparency, accountability, and oversight for Federal awards across the Federal Government.”

Of the 7,256 comments downloaded on June 6th, 27% cite at least one section of the rule. A breakdown is shown below.

The top cited section is highly objectionable as it explicitly codifies a politicization of grant funding. Specifically, the proposed rule would require that a senior appointee review grants for “ensuring that discretionary awards advance the President’s policy priorities.” (see further, Roger’s analysis here and Matt’s take here)

OMB claims there is too much ideology in science. Commentators argue that the rule introduces too much politics into science. Both are correct.

In recent decades, elite scientific institutions have courted a lucrative stance that science belongs “nestled within the bosom of the Democratic Party,” rather than doing everything it can to make sure that is not the case.

OMB and commentators invoke transparency and accountability but mean opposite things by them.

For OMB, these terms mean that federally funded science must support the President’s priorities. This is an extreme and dysfunctional version of an otherwise longstanding legitimate concern that the US scientific enterprise is too insulated from democratic accountability and has drifted very far from widely shared public values. By subordinating internal expert review processes to executive authority, OMB puts the entire enterprise under its thumb.

Commentators object, reasonably, to remaking of US science in the President’s image. But their responses sidesteps the democratic legitimacy problem that gives the rule its symbolic power. For example,

• “‘Transparency’ actually means opaque oversight of government grant allocation by appointed administration officials who will enforce it.”

• “This is not a transparency measure — it is a structural replacement of scientific expertise with political judgment.”

Similarly, OMB and commentators both speak of ideology, but in different ways. OMB wants to remove specific types of ideology from science; commentators see the rule as imposing ideology.

The quest for accountability is as old as post-war science itself. There are two main strands.

First, is accountability for research priorities aligning with broadly shared general welfare and national economic concerns. Second, is accountability over researcher and institutional conduct.

There is an institutional belief that bad behavior is inevitably self-corrected through scientific norms. This is simply not true- at least not on time scales shorter than full careers.

It’s not that bad behavior is rampant; it is that bad behavior is apparent in high profile individuals and institutions. That a vengeful administration would take the opportunity to herald this behavior as just cause to kneecap the entire US research enterprise is not surprising.

The OMB rule is destructive policy. But, a core problem is the lack of Congressional leadership. Accountability in research and over research is a fair expectation for publicly funded research.

By abdicating that responsibility, Congress has left one of the most powerful sources of the nation’s strength and prosperity— scientific research, to the whim and passions of political faction.

A brief history of efforts to create accountability of publicly funded science

Post-WWII Foundations (1944–1950)

Senator Harley Kilgore (D) pursued the establishment of a National Science Foundation that would award grants based on a geographically distributed process, with political accountability, and prioritizing urgent social problems. Engineer Vannevar Bush also wanted NSF, but wanted oversight to remain among scientists.

With the caveat that President Truman insisted that NSF have political oversight, Bush won the broader debate about insularity around publicly funded research. As you can see in the image below, there is a concentration of grants in a few select places.

Image from Mills, A. 2021. “A More Productive Way to Spread Federal Science Funding Around.” Issues in S&T.

Increased Scrutiny (1970s-1980s)

In 1975, Senator William Proxmire (D) began issuing Golden Fleece Awards targeting what he considered to be frivolous government funded research. The award series invited scrutiny to the peer review process for grantmaking and a House Science subcommittee held a series of hearings on the subject.

In the early 1980s, Representative Albert Gore (D), brought issues in research misconduct to the fore. The hearings were notable for demonstrating that misconduct was more frequent than Congress was aware and contradicting claims that scientific norms of conduct prevent such behavior at scale.

Congress established the Health Research Extension Act of 1985 (Pub. L. 99-158), requiring institutions receiving public funding to establish policies for handling misconduct allegations.

In 1988, two House subcommittees, one under the leadership of John Dingell (D) and the other led by Ted Weiss (D), held hearings on scientific misconduct at NIH with a particular focus on handlings of fraud allegations.

In response, the DHHS created the Office of Scientific Integrity and Office of Scientific Integrity Review in 1989. These were later consolidated into the Office of Research Integrity and later formally codified (Pub. L. 103-43). A unified, government wide Federal Research Misconduct Policy was created in 2000 (65 Fed. Reg. 76260).

The Politicization of Scientific Integrity (2000- present)

At this point, things mostly split into two lines of activity:

1. Congress punted responsibility for establishing integrity norms to the Executive Office

2. Legislators dove deeper into grant making and procurement proceduralism.¹

In 2001, as part of the Data Quality Act included in the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act (Pub. L. 106-554), Congress directed OMB to

issue guidelines ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by the agency [emphasis added]

OMB guidelines (67 Fed. Reg. 8452) were issued in 2002 and agencies were required to publish their own implementing guidelines.

In 2005, OMB published the Final Information Quality Bulletin for Peer Review (70 Fed. Reg. 2664) stating:

The agency shall provide its prediction regarding whether the dissemination will be “influential scientific information” or a “highly influential scientific assessment,” as the designation can influence the type of peer review to be undertaken. [emphasis added]

OMB prescribes “type of peer review” to be determined based on the information’s potential political impact:

• Influential scientific information

  • scientific information the agency reasonably can determine will have or does have a clear and substantial impact on important public policies or private sector decisions

• highly influential scientific assessments

  • a scientific assessment that: (i) Could have a potential impact of more than $500 million in any year, or (ii) Is novel, controversial, or precedent-setting or has significant interagency interest.

The pearly gates of science

In 2007, through the America COMPETES Act, Congress directed OSTP to develop

principles to ensure the communication and open exchange of data and results to other agencies, policymakers, and the public of research conducted by a scientist employed by a Federal civilian agency and to prevent the intentional or unintentional suppression or distortion of such research findings [emphasis added]

OSTP responded in 2008 never mentioning “scientific integrity.”

The principles were reframed as part of scientific integrity in a 2010 OSTP memo responding to a 2009 Presidential Memo by Obama highlighting the term.²

From here, Trump and Biden presidencies spun scientific integrity through executive orders and OSTP activities.

1. For example: Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (Pub. L. 103-62) required all federal agencies to set goals, measure results, and report progress annually; Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (Pub. L. 109-282) required disclosure of all entities receiving federal funds through USASpending.gov; Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 linked grant spending to specific programs; Grants Oversight and New Efficiency Act of 2016 (Pub. L. 114-117) required OMB to direct agencies to provide Congress with a list of expired grants not yet closed out and the reasons for the delay.

2. There is a tension between OMB and OSTP over turf.

In 1976, Congress established the Office of Science and technology Policy (OSTP) to provide the President with “advice on the scientific, engineering, and technological aspects of issues that require attention at the highest levels of Government.” OSTP maintains scientific expertise. OMB, however, has designated rule making authority under the Data Quality Act authority over government spending.