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Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is again confronting the White House on National Institutes of Health grant decision-making, calling on Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought to drop his push to assert greater control over the NIH’s grant process. “Imposing a political review on awards that have already been selected through a rigorous scientific and merit-based process undermines the long-standing principle that the government funds awards based on scientific need and merit, rather than political ideology,” Collins said Monday. Earlier this year, Collins used her position atop the appropriations committee to block OMB’s broader grantmaking regulation from coming into force. Since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, she’s called hearings on biomedical research and successfully pushed back against NIH funding cuts. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., her counterpart on the committee, also criticized the idea. Outside advocacy groups are also raising the alarm; nonprofit advocacy group Research!America said a political committee would slow medical research. “We appreciate that the administration stated it would spend all NIH dollars — no rescissions or impoundments,” Research!America CEO Russ Paulsen said. “There also needs to be no slowdown in our search for cures.”
document fetched 2026-09-22 02:54 · canonical https://semafor.com/article/09/21/2026/collins-challenges-nih-grant-review-plan