The fight over science funding: Congress vs. the OMB

The Project 2025 document outlined additional ideas, such as the elimination of scientific research at the EPA, something that has since occurred. It also suggests that finding solutions to climate change is part of a "partisan political agenda." So, its hostility to scientific findings extended well beyond the biomedical fields.

But what about Congress?

It's safe to conclude that this faction, which is now running the government, views science and scientists as ideological opponents and has been actively seeking to reduce their numbers, both by terminating current grants and eliminating funding for educational programs.

What had been less clear was whether Congress had adopted a similar perspective. In the past, funding for science had enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Even in cases where Republican presidents have attempted to cut back on research for budgetary reasons, Republicans in Congress haven't gone along, in many cases joining with Democrats to provide science agencies with budget increases.

That appeared to come to an end this spring, however, with the passage of Trump's 2026 budget outline by Congress with near-uniform Republican support. That passage made the massive cuts to science proposed by Trump the official US policy, which seemed to indicate that the era of bipartisan support had come to a close.

But the US budget process is somewhat quirky, involving two stages: The first is the passage of a budget that lays out the plans for how to spend money, and the second is the actual appropriation of the funds. And, while Republicans voted along party lines to support Trump's priorities in what was termed the Big Beautiful Bill, the Senate has, during the appropriations process, behaved like it was still back in the bipartisan era, with committees choosing to fund science agencies at levels similar to the 2025 budget passed under Biden.

The upcoming fights

Congress' newfound independence when it comes to science comes with a couple of major caveats. The first is that these appropriations votes have mostly taken place in smaller committee votes, rather than before the full Senate. It's possible that this support will wither when higher-profile votes take place. While these specific funding choices would likely receive widespread Democratic support in the closely divided Senate, there's a decent chance that these will be bundled with other budgetary priorities that limit or eliminate Democrats' willingness to go along. And then there's the question of whether this bipartisanship extends to the House, where the shorter terms in office have tended to lead to a chamber with a significantly larger population of radicals.