OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
4:53 PM – Thursday, August 7, 2025
President Trump has signed a new executive order (EO) requiring political appointees to oversee federal grant approvals, called the “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking.”
The EO, signed on Thursday, targets increased scrutiny on federal grants, especially those previously awarded for research and administrative costs deemed controversial. This falls within a broader effort by the Trump administration to align federal spending with the “America First” agenda.
“Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests,” the EO reads in Section 1. “This often does not happen.”
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The order went on to criticize the allocation of federal funds toward initiatives that promote “absurd ideologies,” citing projects ranging from “drag shows in Ecuador” to “transgender-sexual-education-programs.”
The EO also emphasizes the serious risks linked to wasteful spending, blaming the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for previously directing taxpayer funds to the “unsafe lab in Wuhan, China — likely the source of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The EO emphasized the necessity of oversight even for federally funded projects that “serve an ostensibly beneficial purpose,” noting that “the Government has paid insufficient attention to their efficacy.”
From this point forward, agency heads must designate senior appointees responsible for reviewing funding announcements and discretionary grants to ensure alignment with agency priorities, and ensure funding coordinates with agency priorities and national interest. The review process includes several levels of review for funding applicants.
Senior appointees must also annually review discretionary awards for consistency and progress.
No new funding opportunity announcements are to be issued until the new review processes outlined in the EO have been implemented.
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