OMB Spending Holds Slash NIH and NSF New Grant Awards by 70%

Congress passed the largest science budget in U.S. history in January, preserving $48.7 billion for NIH and $8.75 billion for NSF. Six weeks later, almost none of that money has reached researchers.

The Office of Management and Budget has imposed unprecedented restrictions on how science agencies can spend their congressional appropriations, requiring detailed spending plans before releasing funds. The result: NIH has awarded roughly 30% as many new grants as it normally would by this point in the fiscal year. NSF has made about one-quarter of its typical awards.

How the Apportionment Bottleneck Works

Under normal procedure, OMB issues an apportionment — essentially permission for agencies to spend congressionally approved funds — shortly after a budget becomes law. Agencies then submit spending plans and begin making awards.

This year, OMB initially restricted NIH's apportionment to salaries and operating expenses only, blocking research funding entirely. On March 4, OMB extended that restriction for an additional 15 days. It has since released research funding only for congressionally mandated programs, leaving the bulk of competitive grants frozen.

A new OMB memo compounds the problem by requiring agencies to submit unusually detailed spending plans — a level of granularity that sources say is designed to give the White House line-item influence over grant portfolios that Congress traditionally funds through broad appropriations.

What This Means for PIs and Applicants

The downstream effects are already visible. New R01 awards, the bread-and-butter funding mechanism for biomedical research, have slowed to a trickle. Training grants, center awards, and cooperative agreements face similar delays. NSF program officers have reportedly paused review panels for some directorates while awaiting spending authority.

For applicants with pending proposals, the immediate advice from university research offices is consistent: do not withdraw applications, but prepare for extended timelines. Proposals submitted in fall 2025 that would normally receive funding decisions by now may not see action until late spring or summer.

Researchers tracking how OMB actions affect specific funding mechanisms can find regularly updated analysis on the Granted blog.

The situation remains fluid. Congressional leaders from both parties have pressed OMB to release the funds, but no timeline for full apportionment has been announced.