Nearly 500,000 public comments were filed by the July 13 deadline, the overwhelming majority of them critical, writes contributor Peter Brantley, adding that, if adopted, the new federal rules would have disastrous consequences for the viability of U.S. research.

By Peter Brantley, Contributor

Aproposed new rulemaking by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) appears poised to dramatically diminish the role and visibility of American science, drawing sharp opposition from researchers and the scholarly publishing community.

Among the controversial proposed revisions to the Trump Administration’s Uniform Guidance for federal grants: provisions that would require political appointees to review grants for adherence to the administration’s policy priorities; a provision for early termination of grant awards; strict restrictions on international collaborations; and the erosion of support for academic societies, publishing, and the dissemination of scientific results.

Although many administrators would agree that the current Uniform Guidance could benefit from some clarification and revision, this was not what anyone had in mind—the OMB’s broad, and apparently politically-motivated suggestions have been met with widespread anguish. Nearly 500,000 public comments were filed by the July 13 deadline, the overwhelming majority of them critical, though only about 54,000 have been published on the docket thus far.

‘Potentially Disastrous’

In the scholarly publishing space, the most significant potential impact comes in two subsections: one on “publication and printing costs,” (subsection 200.461); and another on “memberships, subscriptions, and professional activity costs” (subsection 200.454).

In a break from current guidance, the OMB’s proposed changes to the guidance on publishing would disallow “page charges, article processing charges (APCs), or similar fees such as open access fees for professional journal publications and other peer-reviewed publications.” Rather absurdly, the OMB states in their preamble that publication costs are “not inherently necessary to carry out the core programmatic objectives of most Federal awards.”

Beyond this potentially disastrous damper on scholarly publishing, the two permitted exceptions in the publishing section only serve to create confusion.

One exception pertains to publications approved in advance by the granting Federal agency on a case-by-case basis. However, it’s not clear what “case-by-case” means: such language could refer whether an agency (such as the National Institutes of Health) has explicitly authorized support for author processing charges (APCs). But more ominously, it could be read to mean that individual publications would have to be approved one at a time by the funding agency—a prospect that would create an incredible burden on publication of research that arises from federal grants. Since publishing is the primary way that research results are communicated within the global academic research community, such a slow walking of publications could sink the visibility of U.S. research.

The second exception would apply when publication is required by federal statute. Once again, it is unclear what “required by federal statute” means. The new OMB guidance states that the “general requirement to make results publicly available must not be construed as authorizing publication costs.” But if other federal research apparatuses have adopted open access publication mandates for dissemination of research results funded by federal dollars, how can the resulting circle be squared? Who would bear the cost of publication, especially at a time when library and university budgets are being impacted directly by other Federal policies?

The updated guidance on memberships, subscriptions, and professional activity costs is another major headache for the publishing and library communities. This section has two clauses. First, a clause that disallows “membership in professional, civic, business, and technical organizations” unless they are expressly required to meet the terms of the award, and such costs are pre-approved. Presumably this means that membership in a professional society like the American Geophysical Union would no longer be supported. Second, a clause that states that “costs of the recipient’s or subrecipient’s subscriptions to business, professional, academic, and technical periodicals are unallowable.”

Both clauses are dramatic reversals of the current uniform guidance, and, depending on how they are interpreted, could be massive blow to scholarly communication.

But, again, it is not clear what the proposed “guidance” actually means. Does it pertain to individual memberships in professional societies and personal subscriptions? If the disallowance of personal subscriptions refers to journals that are picked up directly by faculty members or scholars, then that’s a bad outcome, but those costs are less likely to be prohibitive, and could in theory be transferred to library budgets (although library budgets are already admittedly under stress). On the other hand, if the new guidance refers more globally to journals and platforms that are licensed by institutions using federal funds, the wound inflicted on both publishers and libraries would be deep.

Library collection budgets would be significantly cut because a major portion of them in the United States is derived from what are called “indirect costs” allocations. Indirect costs represent the burden that research universities face supporting research activity (also known more precisely as “Facilities and Administration” costs or F&A). Facilities might include the costs of highspeed internet; ensuring that both “dry” and “wet” labs have safe work environments; and managing the provision of high-performance computing.

On the administrative side, F&A can also include the costs of managing federal grants, ensuring regulatory and security compliance, and providing reports and documentation.  At most institutions, a portion of the costs of acquiring scholarly literature is included in the F&A rate that is charged to the funding agency on top of the grant award amount. Indirect cost rates are calculated by each institution and range from a low of 15% to over 60% for high end research universities.

Therefore, the OMB provision disallowing the use of grant funds for subscriptions at an institutional level—in this case, via F&A funds—would dramatically lessen the ability of libraries to subscribe to journals and datasets, help fund or subsidize APCs, and run other programs in support of publishing.

An analysis from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) suggests this would cause a reduction of 20% to 30% in collection budgets—a shortfall that would significantly diminish revenue for scholarly publishers. Given that the U.S. Congress has instructed the OMB that the current indirect cost guidelines should not be altered until there is further review and deliberation of alternatives, it would be somewhat surprising if OMB was here implying the worst-case scenario. But with the current administration, anything is possible.

A Weaponized OMB?

In a statement last month, The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS)—representing dozens of scholarly associations, including publishers, expressed its strong opposition to the OMB’s proposal.

“What the administration is trying to present as an effort to eliminate waste and fraud is another attack on the production and dissemination of knowledge that puts our communities, our nation, and our planet at risk,” the statement reads. “Let us be clear: research must not be under the thumb of politicians.”

Meanwhile, several observers wonder if the OMB’s proposed requirements are legal. Founded in 1921 as the Bureau of the Budget, the OMB has since taken on broad responsibilities in executing the federal budget, including the development of agency guidance, the management of agency performance, federal procurement, compliance with federal regulations, and helping to align legislative proposals with presidential priorities. But historically, the Uniform Guidance for federal funding was just that—guidance. Critics note that the OMB is now seeking to transform that guidance into binding requirements.

“We anticipate that these regulations, if finalized in anything like their current form, will face many legal challenges,” wrote Authors Alliance Executive Director Dave Hansen, in a post last week. “Some will likely challenge whether OMB has the power to issue rules like this at all. Others may accept that OMB has some general authority but argue that particular provisions exceed that authority. Whether and how soon we would get direct answers from the courts is unclear.”

For now, there appears to still be time to organize a response. By law, OMB must respond to public feedback, issue their revisions, and then publish a final rule in the Federal Register before any guidance can be adopted—although many observers are understandably concerned that the revision process may wind up being quite opaque.

But the immediate response to the OMB’s proposal has been clear: if adopted, the proposed Uniform Guidance would disastrously impact the viability of U.S. research. Under the guise of controlling allegedly excessive administrative costs and increase transparency, what emerges is an attempt to enforce the Trump administration’s “anti-woke” policies. But the OMB’s MAGA-aligned vision of an American research enterprise that stands alone, works only with itself, and collaborates with no one else in the world reveals a horrible misunderstanding of how scientific communication and discovery actually works.

Peter Brantley is an independent writer, recently retired from the University of California Davis Library. Previously, he was the Director of Digital Development at the New York Public Library, and before that, Director of Scholarly Communication at the open source not-for-profit, Hypothes.is.