Congress funded science; OMB won't release it

In a previous post, we noted that Congress largely preserved science budgets for FY26, rejecting large proposed cuts. Unfortunately appropriations are only step one. A few weeks ago Nature reported that OMB has been withholding authorization for agencies to spend their congressionally approved funding. As of the beginning of this month, NIH had not received approval to spend research money from the budget bill signed February 3, and was operating on leftover funds from last fall’s stopgap. As a result, they’ve issued only ~800 new and competing awards so far in FY26, versus the ~3000 that would be typical. NSF only got its funding authorized in late February, and is making grants at an even more glacial pace than NIH.