Issue 17 (September 2)

Trump Administration Actions (all actions available here):

• Memorandum: Withdrawing the United States from International Organizations, Conventions, and Treaties that are Contrary to the Interests of the United States (1/7/26)
• Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research (12/18/25)
• Ensuring a National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence (12/11/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• President’s Management Agenda (12/8/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Launching the Genesis Mission (11/24/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Ensuring Continued Accountability in Federal Hiring (10/15/25)
• Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities and Cross-Cutting Actions (9/23/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Restriction on Entry of Certain Nonimmigrant Workers (9/19/25)
• Memorandum: Use of Appropriated Funds for Illegal Lobbying and Partisan Political Activity by Federal Grantees (8/28/25)
• Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking (MORE INFORMATION) (8/7/25)
• Ensuring Transparency in Higher Education Admissions (MORE INFORMATION) (8/7/25)
• Preventing Woke AI in the Federal Government (MORE INFORMATION) (7/23/25)
• Creating Schedule G in the Excepted Service (7/17/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Memorandum: Ensuring Accountability and Prioritizing Public Safety in Federal Hiring (7/7/25)
• Establishing the President’s Make America Beautiful Again Commission (7/3/25)
• Enhancing National Security by Addressing Risks at Harvard University (6/4/25)
• Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats (6/4/25)
• Restoring Gold Standard Science (5/23/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Increasing Efficiency at the Office of the Federal Register (5/9/25)
• Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research (5/5/25)
• Improving the Safety and Security of Biological Research (5/5/25)
• Strengthening Probationary Periods in the Federal Service (4/24/25)
• White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (4/23/25)
• Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education (4/23/25)
• PROPOSED RULE: Improving Performance, Accountability, and the Civil Service (4/23/25)
• Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities (4/23/25)
• Extension of Hiring Freeze (4/17/25) 
• Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History (3/27/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Improving Education Outcomes by Empowering Parents, States, and Communities (3/20/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy (3/14/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Additional Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions (3/14/25)
• Implementing the President’s DOGE Cost Efficiency Initiative (2/26/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Ensuring Lawful Governance and Implementing the President’s DOGE Deregulatory Initiative (2/19/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Radical Transparency about Wasteful Spending (2/18/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission (2/13/25)
• Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative (2/11/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Advancing United States Interests When Funding Nongovernmental Organizations (2/6/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling (1/29/25)
• President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (1/23/25)
• Removing Barriers to American Leadership in Artificial Intelligence (1/23/25)
• Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (1/21/24) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing (1/20/25)
• Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Trust to the Federal Government (1/20/25)
• Establishing and Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (1/20/25)
• Restoring Accountability to Policy-Influencing Positions within the Federal Workforce (1/20/25) – Reinstates Trump Administration’s 2020 EO creating a new Schedule F in the Federal Excepted Service 
• Withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO (1/20/25)
• Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements (1/20/25) – Withdraws the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord, among other actions.
• Hiring Freeze (1/20/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Return to In-Person Work (1/20/25) (MORE INFORMATION)
• Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship (1/20/25)
• Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions (1/20/25) – Rescinds dozens of Biden Administration Executive Orders

Find COSSA’s full list of Trump’s Executive Actions and more information here or on the Social Science Space Tracker.

This month’s Why Social Science? post comes from Tabbye Chavous from the American Educational Research Association who writes about how everyone benefits from a strong federal commitment to education research and what halting that investment would mean for the future.

Read on for more.

Two new Action Alerts have been published in the COSSA Action Center:

Urge Congress to Prioritize Science Funding!

Over the past few months, Congressional appropriators have been drafting key legislation that will determine funding for federal science and statistical agencies for the next year. With the proposed massive budget and staffing cuts in the Presidential Budget Request, the stakes have never been higher. While Congress is likely to pass another year-long continuing resolution (CR), it is essential that our community fights for federal science funding and the scientific workforce. Now is the time to ACT! Write to your Members of Congress urging their support for research funding and to end the political interference into the federal scientific enterprise!

Write to Congress Today to Oppose the Equal Representation Act

Earlier this year, Representative Chuck Edwards (R-NC) introduced HR 151, the Equal Representation Act, which would require a citizenship question on the decennial census and exclude “people who are in our country illegally” from the count. The US House of Representatives is likely to vote on this Bill in Fall 2025. This act would be detrimental to the health and accuracy of decennial census data, which is used to determine apportionment as well as federal funding to communities, including funding for schools, hospitals, roads, etc. While the Constitution mandates that every person should be counted in the decennial census, President Trump recently called for a “new” census where “people who are in our country illegally” are not counted, prompting renewed interest in the Equal Representation Act. 

Write to your Members of Congress to express your opposition to HR 151, the Equal Representation Act, and call on lawmakers to protect the integrity of decennial census data.

COSSA’s 2024 Annual Report is now available. Check it out to learn more about COSSA’s activities and successes over the past year.

Find out how your organization can become a member of COSSA on our website.

Congress has returned from their August recess prepared to tackle appropriations as the end of the fiscal year (FY) rapidly approaches. As previously reported by COSSA, both the House and the Senate have released their Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS) Appropriations bills but only the Senate has released their Labor, Health and Human Services, Education (LHHS) bill before leaving for the break (see COSSA’s analyses here). While it’s unlikely they’ll manage to finalize any of their bills before the end of the fiscal year on September 30, the House LHHS Appropriations subcommittee plans to mark up their version of the LHHS bill later today (watch live here). Yesterday, the subcommittee released the bill and a bill summary, which, at first glance, includes;

• $48 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), in-line with the Senate’s bill but significantly higher than the President’s request of $27.9 billion;
• $740 million to the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), a $53 million cut but significantly higher than the President’s request of $261.3 million;
• and $100 million for activities related to the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement championed by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Notably, none of the President’s reorganization proposals were included in the bill, but the subcommittee did propose to eliminate the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a repeated proposal from last year.

Stay tuned for COSSA’s in-depth analysis of the bill and continued reporting on the progress of FY 2026 funding legislation in the weeks and months ahead. You can follow our coverage here. 

Executive Order Seeks to Mandate Political Review of Grant Awards 

On August 7, the White House issued an Executive Order (EO) on Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking. This is a sweeping order that seeks to place several new requirements on federal grantmaking agencies, including science agencies. The EO states, “Every tax dollar the Government spends should improve American lives or advance American interests. This often does not happen.” It continues, “…the best proposals do not always receive funding, and there is too much unfocused research of marginal social utility.” [emphasis added]

In response, the EO calls for each federal grantmaking agency to create a process, overseen by a political appointee, for reviewing both new funding opportunity announcements (FOAs) and new discretionary awards before they are issued. Under the new process, no new discretionary awards can be made unless the political appointee determines they are consistent with agency priorities and “the national interest,” further stating that discretionary awards must “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.” The EO additionally prescribes that grant funding cannot be used to support race preference, awardees who deny two sexes or that “sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic,” illegal immigration, or other “anti-American values.”

The EO goes further by requiring that all discretionary grant agreements include language to allow for “termination for convenience,” which includes projects that no longer advance agency priorities or are found to no longer be in the “national interest,” which is not defined. Agencies are expected to revise terms and conditions of current grants to permit immediate termination for convenience.

The Executive Order is likely in response to ongoing lawsuits about the federal government’s authority to terminate grants on specific topics that are not priorities for the Trump Administration (see related article).

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, expressed strong objection to the order, stating “In what world does Donald Trump think that Americans want political appointees – who, need I remind the President, are unelected bureaucrats – making decisions on what science gets funded?”

Congress will likely continue to address pieces of the EO through funding legislation in the weeks ahead. Stay tuned for additional coverage. 

Trump Issues EO for Transparency in Higher Education Admissions

On August 7, President Trump issued an Executive Order (EO), Ensuring Transparency in Higher Education Admissions. The EO, which builds off previous orders relating the Administration’s attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices, identifies a “persistent lack of available data” on the influence of race on higher education admissions (see previous COSSA coverage). The EO calls for the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)—which collects important data from U.S. colleges, universities, and technical and vocational institutions—to promote transparency and remove perceived inefficiencies through expanding “the scope of required reporting” and accuracy checks of submitted data. The Secretary of Education is directed to oversee these changes and take remedial action against institutions that do not comply.

A list of notable Trump Executive Orders can be found here. Stay tuned to COSSA’s continued coverage on the Trump Administration and relevant policy to the social and behavioral science community.

On August 21, the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump Administration can once again terminate grants funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A district court overturned the original terminations in June as part of a lawsuit brought by higher education and public health associations and 16 states; however, the Supreme Court found that the district court does not have jurisdiction over the terminations. Instead, the ruling states that plaintiffs must file suit in Federal Claims court in order to receive a final decision. A similar ruling was issued in August related to grants terminated by the National Science Foundation (NSF).  

While the ruling leaves federal funding of hundreds of grants in limbo, the Supreme Court ruling upheld the district court’s decision to vacate NIH guidance documents that said the agency would no longer fund research “related to DEI objectives, gender identity, or COVID-19” or “continue the practice of awarding grants to researchers based on race.”

Earlier in August, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that NIH’s grant terminations violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by withholding Congressionally appropriated funds without the legal authority to do so.

This is a developing story. The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) list of terminated grants is available here.

On August 28, Director Susan Monarez was fired by the Trump Administration. Monarez, who was confirmed to the role in July after serving as Acting Director since January, came under scrutiny by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (see previous COSSA coverage). The New York Times reported that she clashed with Secretary Kennedy over vaccine policy, and her removal was later confirmed by the agency in a social media post. At least three other CDC officials have resigned following her termination. A statement published on Twitter by Monarez’s lawyers claimed the dismissal was illegal and politically motivated, stating:

“First it was independent advisory committees and career experts. Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS have set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk. When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubberstamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda.”  

In the interim, Jim O’Neill, who currently serves as deputy to Secretary Kennedy but has no prior experience in medicine or infectious disease science and has a history of vaccine skepticism, will serve as Acting Director of the CDC. He is expected to join the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—which faced similar terminations from Secretary Kennedy in June—during its upcoming September meeting (see previous COSSA coverage).

In a public statement, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who currently serves as Chair of the Senate Health, Education, and Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, requested the ACIP meeting be postponed, writing, “If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.” Further, the Senate Finance Committee, of which Sen. Cassidy is also a member, has called Secretary Kennedy to testify in front of Congress on the president’s 2026 health care agenda on September 4, where they are expected to question him on Monarez’s abrupt termination (watch live here).

Stay tuned for COSSA’s continued coverage of the Administration. 

President Trump has nominated E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) after abruptly firing and baselessly accusing Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of deliberately reporting false numbers in the latest Employment Situation report (see previous COSSA coverage). Antoni comes from the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, where he served as a Chief Economist and contributed to Project 2025. He holds a master’s and PhD in economics from Northern Illinois University.

The Senate Health, Education, and Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) is rumored to hold a confirmation hearing for Antoni sometime this month. While the role does require Senate confirmation, it’s unusual for the Senate to hold a hearing prior to the vote. The last time they held a hearing for BLS Commissioner was in 1993. The Friends of BLS coalition, of which COSSA is a member, urged Congress to extensively assess Antoni’s ability to lead the agency, citing the importance of having a Commissioner that can “restore public trust, defend the agency against political interference, and accelerate critical modernization efforts across all programs.”

Stay tuned for COSSA’s continued coverage of the Administration. 

On October 8, the Population Association of America (PAA) will host a congressional briefing on “U.S. Birth Rate Trends: Patterns, Drivers, and Implications for American Families.” The event will feature a discussion on national and international birth rate trends and evidence on the effects of policy incentives, such as tax credits and paid family leave, in impacting an individual’s decision to start a family. The discussion is particularly timely given the Trump Administration’s interest in encouraging higher birth rates nationwide. Speakers will include:

• Dr. Karen Benjamin Guzzo, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
• Dr. Melissa Kearney, University of Notre Dame
• Dr. Jennifer Sciubba, Population Reference Bureau

PAA is a COSSA governing member organization. RSVP to secure your spot!