Today, we’re saying a big thank you to our Members of Congress. By passing a continuing resolution that delays the proposed Office of Management and Budget (OMB) “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance” through December 11, the House and Senate together recognized what nearly 500,000 public comments had already made clear: A rule this sweeping demands serious Congressional oversight before it is allowed to reshape how federal research is funded.
And this delay happened because of our community – the comments you filed, the calls you made, and the stories you shared.
OMB’s Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance: What Comes Next
This delay is a reprieve, not a resolution. As written, this regulatory guidance would:
- Let political appointees override independent scientific peer review, treating expert recommendations as non-binding – replacing scientific merit with political judgment;
- Allow agencies to cancel active research grants at any time when priorities shift, with no finding of wrongdoing required, wasting years of taxpayer investment and abandoning patients enrolled in ongoing studies;
- Restrict researchers from publishing their findings, attending conferences, and even communicating with the patients their work is meant to serve.
For our community, a stable, merit-based research system is the only path to the answers we are still waiting for. This regulatory guidance would slow progress, waste investment already made, and make it harder to bring researchers into the field to study ME/CFS.
Help Finish the Job
It takes about two minutes. Our campaign will send a message to your members of Congress urging them to:
- Publicly call on OMB to withdraw the proposed rule in its entirety; and
- Use their oversight and appropriations authority to require that the rule be withdrawn and permanently blocked from implementation – not simply delayed again or implemented with small revisions.
Support for medical research has long been a bipartisan issue – and seeing the House and Senate take bipartisan action to delay this rule proves it. With your voice added now, we can turn this pause into a permanent win.