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Jamestown Foundation Issues Commentary: 'We're Coming For You' - PRC Influence in UN Rights Bodies
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Sept. 30, 2026, in the foundation's China Brief Notes:
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'We're Coming For You': PRC Influence in UN Rights Bodies
Rana Siu Inboden | Anouk Wear
Executive Summary:
* The People's Republic of China (PRC) is increasingly funding UN Special Procedures that are aligned with its values and interests, particularly mandates that focus on economic, social, and cultural rights, to elevate these rights over civil and political rights.
* Chinese representatives consistently occupy positions on UN human rights bodies, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Sept. 30, 2026, in the foundation's China Brief Notes: * * * 'We're Coming For You': PRC Influence in UN Rights Bodies Rana Siu Inboden | Anouk Wear Executive Summary: * The People's Republic of China (PRC) is increasingly funding UN Special Procedures that are aligned with its values and interests, particularly mandates that focus on economic, social, and cultural rights, to elevate these rights over civil and political rights. * Chinese representatives consistently occupy positions on UN human rights bodies,such as the Human Rights Advisory Committee and the Consultative Group.
* The participation of Chinese diplomats in other key UN bodies, such as the Consultative Group, which vets the Special Procedure applications and then develops a short list of finalists for these positions, could enable the PRC to secure these spots for its citizens.
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The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, expressed concern about counterterrorism and assimilation policies in the People's Republic of China (PRC), among other human rights violations in his Global Update during the 62nd session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) (OHCHR, June 15). The continuing abuses he was referring to include an ongoing crackdown in Hong Kong, further abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) that the United States and others have characterized as a genocide, and the recently enacted Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress, about which the UN has already expressed serious concerns (China Brief, May 15).
Beijing rejected his criticism and defended its human rights policies at the UN days later (CGTN, June 20). In an effort to forestall greater scrutiny of its record and shape the UN human rights system, Beijing is increasing its presence and prominence throughout the UN human rights system. These efforts have led to a growing number of Chinese nationals taking positions within UN human rights bodies, to which Beijing has raised funding levels. Beijing believes that greater influence will lead to diminished criticism of its human rights record, allow it to push its alternative rights model, and influence the trajectory of the international human rights regime (China Brief, February 6).
The PRC's preferred rights model focuses on economic development while sidelining civil and political rights. This was clear in remarks made at the 2026 UN General Assembly by Deputy Permanent Representative Sun Lei, who stated that "the right to development permeates all other human rights ... We must uphold a correct view of human rights, ensure that the right to development is fully recognized and given equal importance, and correct the direction of international human rights governance" (Xinhua, September 23).
Increasing Presence of PRC Citizens in Key Bodies
The PRC appears to be encouraging Chinese nationals to apply for positions throughout the UN human rights regime. This is particularly clear within the UN's Special Procedures system, a part of the UN that is comprised of independent human rights experts focusing on particular human rights issues and the human rights situation within individual countries and that has increasingly highlighted the PRC's human rights abuses in recent years (UNHRC, June 3, 2020; Global Policy, May 23, 2024; UNHRC, January 24, 2025). In tandem, PRC representatives frequently seek a seat on the UN Consultative Group, a five-member body--one from each geographic region--that is responsible for vetting and recommending Special Procedure applicants.[1] PRC representatives have served two one-year terms on this body in the last five years: Jiang Duan, who served from April 2020, and Li Xiaomei, who served from April 2024 (UNHRC, accessed September 28).
Selection of UN Consultative Group sitting members is not usually a competitive process, which makes the PRC's behavior all the more notable. Although the responsibility of vetting Special Procedure applicants is an important one, countries are generally hesitant to volunteer to serve due to the workload of reviewing all the applications (Author interview, November 18, 2025). The PRC's approach thus stands out. In an interview with a diplomat whose country is a member of the Consultative Group, the respondent said that "whenever there is a Chinese national that applies for a position, [the PRC permanent mission in Geneva will] lobby very hard." They emphasized that Beijing does not hide the fact that they want diplomats to recommend PRC nationals, while other countries are more subtle. The PRC even pressures other countries, albeit obliquely: the diplomat had been warned to consider their country's relationship with the PRC when there is an upcoming vote.[2] They added that the Consultative Group works by consensus, which obscures the views of each member (Author interview, November 28, 2025).
On another body, the UN Human Rights Advisory Committee, which acts as a think tank for UNHRC, the PRC's presence is nearly constant. Its 18 members are nominated by states and elected by secret ballot to three-year terms. Chinese nationals have served on the Advisory Committee consistently since at least 2012.[3]
Uptick in Special Procedure Applications From Chinese Citizens in 2022-2024
Since 2016, there has been a consistent and growing interest in Chinese citizens applying for positions within the Special Procedures system (see Figure 1). The number of applications of Chinese nationals roughly tracks with the number of overall Special Procedure openings. Unusually, in 2022, 35 Chinese citizens applied, even though there were only 23 overall Special Procedure vacancies. This uptick very likely reflects Beijing's concern with the increased scrutiny it faced at the time with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights releasing a report, which noted that Beijing's harsh policies toward the Uyghur population could constitute crimes against humanity and the subsequent introduction of a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council on abuses in the XUAR. Although the PRC's intensive and aggressive lobbying prevented the resolution from passing, the mere introduction of a resolution was a significant embarrassment to the PRC (Reuters, October 6, 2022).
[View table in the link at bottom.]
This effort has seen some success. Prior to 2019, a PRC diplomat had not previously been appointed to a Special Procedure mandate. Since then, three Chinese nationals have secured positions either as members of working groups or as independent experts. These include Li Yuefen, as the Independent Expert on Foreign Debt and Human Rights (2020); Lu Haina, on the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls (2023); and Liang Xiaohui, on the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development (2026) (OHCHR, accessed June 29 [1],[2],[3]).
Growing Financial Contributions
The PRC has also expanded its voluntary financial contributions to Special Procedures, totaling nearly $2.25 million since 2017 (for the full breakdown of financial contributions, see Table 1). Those funds have been allocated toward mandates that focus on its preferred understanding of human rights: economic, social, and cultural rights, as opposed to civil and political rights. The additional funding often allows the mandate to hire additional staff, conduct more travel, and engage in other activities that elevates the mandate's focus and draws greater attention to a particular issue. This appears to be part of the PRC's effort to diminish civil and political rights within the United Nations and to favor human rights topics that align with its interests and views.
One case in particular demonstrates how the PRC uses these donations as a tool to advance its interests. The PRC extended nearly $1 million between 2020-2026 to Alena Douhan, the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. Douhan, who departed her post this year, is a professor from Belarus who criticized the international community's sanctions targeting the PRC for its abuses against the Uyghur population (UN Watch, May 26, p.75). The PRC also donates to the mandates on the rights of migrants and minorities, which likely reflects a desire to highlight a human rights theme that casts the United States in a poor light (ICIJ, April 28, 2025).
The only mandate the PRC has supported financially that addresses civil and political rights is one on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. This mandate only received $150,000 from the PRC. Of note, this contribution was made only after the previous mandate holder, Fionnuala D. Ni Aolain, had left her post. Ms.Ni Aolain had spoken out numerous times about the PRC's human rights abuses (Global Policy, May 23, 2024).
Beijing has also increased its voluntary contributions to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, from less than $1 million in 2022 to $4 million in 2024 (ISHR, October 1, 2025, p.116). This appears to be a way to gain influence and secure political goals rather than to support human rights. In 2024, a Chinese delegate in the UN 5th Committee of the General Assembly, which is responsible for the UN's budget, told other delegates that "[v]ery soon we'll be the largest contributor, [so you should] stop this bullying of us, because we're coming for you" (ISHR, October 1, 2025, p.76).
Conclusion
Beijing is seeking greater influence in the UN human rights system by expanding the presence of PRC representatives and increasing its funding to parts of the UN human rights regime. Since President Xi Jinping's address at the UN Office at Geneva on January 18, 2017, the PRC has gradually expanded its footprint in the UN human rights system. Over time, this combination of funding and Chinese representatives serving in the UN human rights system could enable the PRC to shape human rights norms and ideas in their interest, which draws attention away from civil and political rights both within the PRC and around the world.
* * *
Table 1: Breakdown of PRC Donations to Special Procedures Mandates
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Dr. Rana Siu Inboden is a Senior Fellow with the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin. She focuses on China, human rights, and international relations.
Anouk Wear is a researcher, analyst, and translator focused on topics related to international law and human rights in the China region. She obtained her BA in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and her LLM in Public International Law from Leiden University.
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Original text here: https://jamestown.org/were-coming-for-you-prc-influence-in-un-rights-bodies/
[Category: ThinkTank]
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'We're Coming For You': PRC Influence in UN Rights Bodies
Rana Siu Inboden | Anouk Wear
Executive Summary:
* The People's Republic of China (PRC) is increasingly funding UN Special Procedures that are aligned with its values and interests, particularly mandates that focus on economic, social, and cultural rights, to elevate these rights over civil and political rights.
* Chinese representatives consistently occupy positions on UN human rights bodies, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The Jamestown Foundation issued the following commentary on Sept. 30, 2026, in the foundation's China Brief Notes: * * * 'We're Coming For You': PRC Influence in UN Rights Bodies Rana Siu Inboden | Anouk Wear Executive Summary: * The People's Republic of China (PRC) is increasingly funding UN Special Procedures that are aligned with its values and interests, particularly mandates that focus on economic, social, and cultural rights, to elevate these rights over civil and political rights. * Chinese representatives consistently occupy positions on UN human rights bodies,such as the Human Rights Advisory Committee and the Consultative Group.
* The participation of Chinese diplomats in other key UN bodies, such as the Consultative Group, which vets the Special Procedure applications and then develops a short list of finalists for these positions, could enable the PRC to secure these spots for its citizens.
-
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, expressed concern about counterterrorism and assimilation policies in the People's Republic of China (PRC), among other human rights violations in his Global Update during the 62nd session of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) (OHCHR, June 15). The continuing abuses he was referring to include an ongoing crackdown in Hong Kong, further abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) that the United States and others have characterized as a genocide, and the recently enacted Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress, about which the UN has already expressed serious concerns (China Brief, May 15).
Beijing rejected his criticism and defended its human rights policies at the UN days later (CGTN, June 20). In an effort to forestall greater scrutiny of its record and shape the UN human rights system, Beijing is increasing its presence and prominence throughout the UN human rights system. These efforts have led to a growing number of Chinese nationals taking positions within UN human rights bodies, to which Beijing has raised funding levels. Beijing believes that greater influence will lead to diminished criticism of its human rights record, allow it to push its alternative rights model, and influence the trajectory of the international human rights regime (China Brief, February 6).
The PRC's preferred rights model focuses on economic development while sidelining civil and political rights. This was clear in remarks made at the 2026 UN General Assembly by Deputy Permanent Representative Sun Lei, who stated that "the right to development permeates all other human rights ... We must uphold a correct view of human rights, ensure that the right to development is fully recognized and given equal importance, and correct the direction of international human rights governance" (Xinhua, September 23).
Increasing Presence of PRC Citizens in Key Bodies
The PRC appears to be encouraging Chinese nationals to apply for positions throughout the UN human rights regime. This is particularly clear within the UN's Special Procedures system, a part of the UN that is comprised of independent human rights experts focusing on particular human rights issues and the human rights situation within individual countries and that has increasingly highlighted the PRC's human rights abuses in recent years (UNHRC, June 3, 2020; Global Policy, May 23, 2024; UNHRC, January 24, 2025). In tandem, PRC representatives frequently seek a seat on the UN Consultative Group, a five-member body--one from each geographic region--that is responsible for vetting and recommending Special Procedure applicants.[1] PRC representatives have served two one-year terms on this body in the last five years: Jiang Duan, who served from April 2020, and Li Xiaomei, who served from April 2024 (UNHRC, accessed September 28).
Selection of UN Consultative Group sitting members is not usually a competitive process, which makes the PRC's behavior all the more notable. Although the responsibility of vetting Special Procedure applicants is an important one, countries are generally hesitant to volunteer to serve due to the workload of reviewing all the applications (Author interview, November 18, 2025). The PRC's approach thus stands out. In an interview with a diplomat whose country is a member of the Consultative Group, the respondent said that "whenever there is a Chinese national that applies for a position, [the PRC permanent mission in Geneva will] lobby very hard." They emphasized that Beijing does not hide the fact that they want diplomats to recommend PRC nationals, while other countries are more subtle. The PRC even pressures other countries, albeit obliquely: the diplomat had been warned to consider their country's relationship with the PRC when there is an upcoming vote.[2] They added that the Consultative Group works by consensus, which obscures the views of each member (Author interview, November 28, 2025).
On another body, the UN Human Rights Advisory Committee, which acts as a think tank for UNHRC, the PRC's presence is nearly constant. Its 18 members are nominated by states and elected by secret ballot to three-year terms. Chinese nationals have served on the Advisory Committee consistently since at least 2012.[3]
Uptick in Special Procedure Applications From Chinese Citizens in 2022-2024
Since 2016, there has been a consistent and growing interest in Chinese citizens applying for positions within the Special Procedures system (see Figure 1). The number of applications of Chinese nationals roughly tracks with the number of overall Special Procedure openings. Unusually, in 2022, 35 Chinese citizens applied, even though there were only 23 overall Special Procedure vacancies. This uptick very likely reflects Beijing's concern with the increased scrutiny it faced at the time with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights releasing a report, which noted that Beijing's harsh policies toward the Uyghur population could constitute crimes against humanity and the subsequent introduction of a resolution in the UN Human Rights Council on abuses in the XUAR. Although the PRC's intensive and aggressive lobbying prevented the resolution from passing, the mere introduction of a resolution was a significant embarrassment to the PRC (Reuters, October 6, 2022).
[View table in the link at bottom.]
This effort has seen some success. Prior to 2019, a PRC diplomat had not previously been appointed to a Special Procedure mandate. Since then, three Chinese nationals have secured positions either as members of working groups or as independent experts. These include Li Yuefen, as the Independent Expert on Foreign Debt and Human Rights (2020); Lu Haina, on the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls (2023); and Liang Xiaohui, on the Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development (2026) (OHCHR, accessed June 29 [1],[2],[3]).
Growing Financial Contributions
The PRC has also expanded its voluntary financial contributions to Special Procedures, totaling nearly $2.25 million since 2017 (for the full breakdown of financial contributions, see Table 1). Those funds have been allocated toward mandates that focus on its preferred understanding of human rights: economic, social, and cultural rights, as opposed to civil and political rights. The additional funding often allows the mandate to hire additional staff, conduct more travel, and engage in other activities that elevates the mandate's focus and draws greater attention to a particular issue. This appears to be part of the PRC's effort to diminish civil and political rights within the United Nations and to favor human rights topics that align with its interests and views.
One case in particular demonstrates how the PRC uses these donations as a tool to advance its interests. The PRC extended nearly $1 million between 2020-2026 to Alena Douhan, the Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights. Douhan, who departed her post this year, is a professor from Belarus who criticized the international community's sanctions targeting the PRC for its abuses against the Uyghur population (UN Watch, May 26, p.75). The PRC also donates to the mandates on the rights of migrants and minorities, which likely reflects a desire to highlight a human rights theme that casts the United States in a poor light (ICIJ, April 28, 2025).
The only mandate the PRC has supported financially that addresses civil and political rights is one on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. This mandate only received $150,000 from the PRC. Of note, this contribution was made only after the previous mandate holder, Fionnuala D. Ni Aolain, had left her post. Ms.Ni Aolain had spoken out numerous times about the PRC's human rights abuses (Global Policy, May 23, 2024).
Beijing has also increased its voluntary contributions to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, from less than $1 million in 2022 to $4 million in 2024 (ISHR, October 1, 2025, p.116). This appears to be a way to gain influence and secure political goals rather than to support human rights. In 2024, a Chinese delegate in the UN 5th Committee of the General Assembly, which is responsible for the UN's budget, told other delegates that "[v]ery soon we'll be the largest contributor, [so you should] stop this bullying of us, because we're coming for you" (ISHR, October 1, 2025, p.76).
Conclusion
Beijing is seeking greater influence in the UN human rights system by expanding the presence of PRC representatives and increasing its funding to parts of the UN human rights regime. Since President Xi Jinping's address at the UN Office at Geneva on January 18, 2017, the PRC has gradually expanded its footprint in the UN human rights system. Over time, this combination of funding and Chinese representatives serving in the UN human rights system could enable the PRC to shape human rights norms and ideas in their interest, which draws attention away from civil and political rights both within the PRC and around the world.
* * *
Table 1: Breakdown of PRC Donations to Special Procedures Mandates
* * *
Dr. Rana Siu Inboden is a Senior Fellow with the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas-Austin. She focuses on China, human rights, and international relations.
Anouk Wear is a researcher, analyst, and translator focused on topics related to international law and human rights in the China region. She obtained her BA in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge and her LLM in Public International Law from Leiden University.
* * *
Original text here: https://jamestown.org/were-coming-for-you-prc-influence-in-un-rights-bodies/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Institute: Higher Energy Prices in Germany Increasingly Being Passed On
MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 1 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
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30 September 2026
Higher Energy Prices in Germany Increasingly Being Passed On
In September, somewhat more companies in Germany overall planned to raise their prices. The ifo price expectations rose slightly to 22.7 points, up from 21.4 points* in August. This indicates that the higher energy prices are increasingly being passed on to sales prices. "Fuel and heating oil have already become noticeably more expensive, and energy providers are likely to raise electricity and gas prices this winter.
At the same time, ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 1 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release: * * * 30 September 2026 Higher Energy Prices in Germany Increasingly Being Passed On In September, somewhat more companies in Germany overall planned to raise their prices. The ifo price expectations rose slightly to 22.7 points, up from 21.4 points* in August. This indicates that the higher energy prices are increasingly being passed on to sales prices. "Fuel and heating oil have already become noticeably more expensive, and energy providers are likely to raise electricity and gas prices this winter. At the same time,the price pressure on many goods and services will continue to increase," says Timo Wollmershauser, Head of Forecasts at ifo. "Overall, the inflation rate will climb to over 3% in the coming months." Crude oil prices have risen sharply again, particularly following the blockade of the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Natural gas and electricity prices also reached their highest levels since the end of 2022 in mid-September.
In September, price expectations rose in most of the economic sectors. The rise was particularly marked among energy-intensive manufacturing companies, where the indicator climbed to 24.8 points, up from 19.5 points* in August.
Among non-energy-intensive companies, it rose to 20.4 points, up from 19.2* points. However, price expectations also rose sharply in trade, with the indicator climbing from 30.0* to 35.6 points. By contrast, service providers are planning less frequently to raise prices. The figure here dropped from 20.9* to 19.8 points.
*Seasonally adjusted
* * *
More Information
Survey (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-09-30/higher-energy-prices-germany-increasingly-being-passed)
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Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-09-30/higher-energy-prices-germany-increasingly-being-passed
[Category: ThinkTank]
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30 September 2026
Higher Energy Prices in Germany Increasingly Being Passed On
In September, somewhat more companies in Germany overall planned to raise their prices. The ifo price expectations rose slightly to 22.7 points, up from 21.4 points* in August. This indicates that the higher energy prices are increasingly being passed on to sales prices. "Fuel and heating oil have already become noticeably more expensive, and energy providers are likely to raise electricity and gas prices this winter.
At the same time, ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 1 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release: * * * 30 September 2026 Higher Energy Prices in Germany Increasingly Being Passed On In September, somewhat more companies in Germany overall planned to raise their prices. The ifo price expectations rose slightly to 22.7 points, up from 21.4 points* in August. This indicates that the higher energy prices are increasingly being passed on to sales prices. "Fuel and heating oil have already become noticeably more expensive, and energy providers are likely to raise electricity and gas prices this winter. At the same time,the price pressure on many goods and services will continue to increase," says Timo Wollmershauser, Head of Forecasts at ifo. "Overall, the inflation rate will climb to over 3% in the coming months." Crude oil prices have risen sharply again, particularly following the blockade of the Bab al-Mandab Strait. Natural gas and electricity prices also reached their highest levels since the end of 2022 in mid-September.
In September, price expectations rose in most of the economic sectors. The rise was particularly marked among energy-intensive manufacturing companies, where the indicator climbed to 24.8 points, up from 19.5 points* in August.
Among non-energy-intensive companies, it rose to 20.4 points, up from 19.2* points. However, price expectations also rose sharply in trade, with the indicator climbing from 30.0* to 35.6 points. By contrast, service providers are planning less frequently to raise prices. The figure here dropped from 20.9* to 19.8 points.
*Seasonally adjusted
* * *
More Information
Survey (https://www.ifo.de/en/facts/2026-09-30/higher-energy-prices-germany-increasingly-being-passed)
* * *
Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-09-30/higher-energy-prices-germany-increasingly-being-passed
[Category: ThinkTank]
Ifo Business Climate in Eastern Germany Brightens Again (September 2026)
MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 1 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release:
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30 September 2026
ifo Business Climate in Eastern Germany Brightens Again (September 2026)
The ifo Business Climate Index for Eastern Germany brightened again noticeably in September compared to August. The barometer of business sentiment for the regional economy in Eastern Germany went up from 89.8 points in August to 91.1 points in September. The eastern German companies surveyed assessed the current business situation as considerably better and at the same time were somewhat more optimistic about their business ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 1 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release: * * * 30 September 2026 ifo Business Climate in Eastern Germany Brightens Again (September 2026) The ifo Business Climate Index for Eastern Germany brightened again noticeably in September compared to August. The barometer of business sentiment for the regional economy in Eastern Germany went up from 89.8 points in August to 91.1 points in September. The eastern German companies surveyed assessed the current business situation as considerably better and at the same time were somewhat more optimistic about their businessexpectations.
In eastern German manufacturing, the business climate improved markedly in September. The manufacturing companies surveyed reported a considerably better business situation than in the previous month and marginally lowered their expectations for future business.
In eastern Germany's service sector, the business climate noticeably improved in September. The service companies surveyed assessed the current business situation as marginally better than in August and raised their assessments considerably with regard to future business expectations.
In eastern German trade, the business climate grew somewhat gloomier in September. While wholesalers raised their assessment of the situation only marginally compared to August, retailers assessed their current business situation as noticeably better. Companies in wholesale were considerably more pessimistic about future business development than in the previous month. Retailers marginally lowered their expectations for future business.
The business climate in eastern German construction brightened slightly in September. The construction companies surveyed assessed the current business situation as marginally better than in August and were somewhat more optimistic about future business.
Joachim Ragnitz und Marcel Thum
Executive Directors, Dresden Branch of the ifo Institute
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Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-09-30/ifo-business-climate-eastern-germany-brightens-again-september-2026
[Category: ThinkTank]
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30 September 2026
ifo Business Climate in Eastern Germany Brightens Again (September 2026)
The ifo Business Climate Index for Eastern Germany brightened again noticeably in September compared to August. The barometer of business sentiment for the regional economy in Eastern Germany went up from 89.8 points in August to 91.1 points in September. The eastern German companies surveyed assessed the current business situation as considerably better and at the same time were somewhat more optimistic about their business ... Show Full Article MUNICH, Germany, Oct. 1 -- ifo Institute issued the following news release: * * * 30 September 2026 ifo Business Climate in Eastern Germany Brightens Again (September 2026) The ifo Business Climate Index for Eastern Germany brightened again noticeably in September compared to August. The barometer of business sentiment for the regional economy in Eastern Germany went up from 89.8 points in August to 91.1 points in September. The eastern German companies surveyed assessed the current business situation as considerably better and at the same time were somewhat more optimistic about their businessexpectations.
In eastern German manufacturing, the business climate improved markedly in September. The manufacturing companies surveyed reported a considerably better business situation than in the previous month and marginally lowered their expectations for future business.
In eastern Germany's service sector, the business climate noticeably improved in September. The service companies surveyed assessed the current business situation as marginally better than in August and raised their assessments considerably with regard to future business expectations.
In eastern German trade, the business climate grew somewhat gloomier in September. While wholesalers raised their assessment of the situation only marginally compared to August, retailers assessed their current business situation as noticeably better. Companies in wholesale were considerably more pessimistic about future business development than in the previous month. Retailers marginally lowered their expectations for future business.
The business climate in eastern German construction brightened slightly in September. The construction companies surveyed assessed the current business situation as marginally better than in August and were somewhat more optimistic about future business.
Joachim Ragnitz und Marcel Thum
Executive Directors, Dresden Branch of the ifo Institute
* * *
Original text here: https://www.ifo.de/en/press-release/2026-09-30/ifo-business-climate-eastern-germany-brightens-again-september-2026
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center on Budget & Policy Priorities: Congress Should Block OMB Grantmaking Rule Permanently to Rein In Administration Abuses
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report:
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Congress Should Block OMB Grantmaking Rule Permanently to Rein In Administration Abuses
September 30, 2026 | Sam Berger, Jacob Leibenluft and Devin O'Connor
In May, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a proposed rule that would upend the federal grantmaking process by politicizing both how grant recipients are selected and when their grants can be canceled.[1] The rule has received robust pushback from a broad -- and bipartisan -- set of voices concerned about its impact.[2] Critics ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report: * * * Congress Should Block OMB Grantmaking Rule Permanently to Rein In Administration Abuses September 30, 2026 | Sam Berger, Jacob Leibenluft and Devin O'Connor In May, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a proposed rule that would upend the federal grantmaking process by politicizing both how grant recipients are selected and when their grants can be canceled.[1] The rule has received robust pushback from a broad -- and bipartisan -- set of voices concerned about its impact.[2] Criticsrange from scientists working on cutting-edge research to law enforcement officials concerned about its impacts on public safety to cities, states, and nonprofits that serve local communities.
That pushback helped convince Congress to agree on a bipartisan basis to prevent this unprecedented rule from being finalized or taking effect through December 11, the duration of the temporary spending measure for fiscal year 2027. This agreement, which reflects widespread public concern over the rule's likely impact, offers a temporary reprieve. However, addressing this issue permanently will require Congress to ban finalization of the rule when it provides appropriations for the remainder of the 2027 fiscal year.
Doing so is especially important because the Administration's actions to date provide clear evidence of the harm the rule would cause. Just in recent weeks, it was reported that the Administration considered issuing an executive order to create an "external committee" of political appointees who would review and veto scientific grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health that they view as conflicting with the President's political agenda, borne out of the President's frustration that certain universities are not being sufficiently punished for disagreeing with his views.[3] This would come on top of a much broader set of actions the Administration has taken - both publicly and behind the scenes - to interfere with grantmaking across a wide range of agencies and programs.
This paper outlines four different ways the Administration has already sought to abuse grantmaking processes; the OMB's proposed rule would codify these practices and make them regular parts of federal grantmaking. They include:
* coercing potential grant recipients through the grant selection process;
* interfering with grants and adding delays through political review;
* cancelling grants based on issues unrelated to the purpose of the grant, including potentially partisan political issues or political vendettas; and
* inappropriately using grant terms and conditions to slow funding to those legally entitled to it.
Importantly, while the rule's threat to scientific research - which would set back our country's leadership and hamper life-saving breakthroughs - has been much discussed, the threat extends far more widely, affecting everything from public safety to education to clean and affordable energy. (See Figure 1.)
By blocking the rule permanently, Congress can help deter future abuses and prevent the Administration from further undermining federal grantmaking and Congress's power of the purse.
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FIGURE 1: The Trump Administration's Assault on Federal Grantmaking
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Coercing Potential Grant Recipients Through the Grant Selection Process
OMB's proposed grants rule would abuse the grantmaking process to advance the President's interests through unlawful mechanisms. Under the rule, senior political appointees (or their designees) would review all competitive grant awards prior to finalization to determine whether each one "demonstrably advance[d] the President's policy priorities." These decisions would be left purely to the political appointees' discretion, without review. A political official could block an application as unlikely to advance the President's priorities even if the official's real motivation was to punish the applicant for insufficiently supporting an unrelated policy or view of the President, or merely because the President doesn't like the potential grantee.
The Administration has already shown how it would wield this provision abusively. For example, on grants dealing with issues such as terrorism prevention and law enforcement, the Administration has attempted to unlawfully condition funding or coerce applicants over policy interests unrelated to the purpose or performance of the grant.
In June, the Administration released new application requirements for over $1 billion in fiscal year 2026 grant funding for states and territories through three Department of Homeland Security (DHS) terrorism-prevention programs collectively known as the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). Until now, all states have routinely received their full share of these formula-based, congressionally provided funds, whose purpose is to "enhance the ability of state, local, tribal and territorial governments to prevent, prepare for, protect against, and respond to potential terrorist acts and other hazards." Yet DHS, describing applying for this funding as "voluntary," attempted to condition receipt of this funding on states' and territories' compliance with Administration demands concerning state election policies, such as those outlined in the President's non-binding and unenforceable March 2025 executive order on election security.[4]
In July, 25 states and the District of Columbia sued to block the new requirements, describing them as part of an "unprecedented campaign to leverage the billions of dollars in federal funding that they [i.e., DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency] administer to coerce States into adopting the Administration's preferred policies."[5] In 2025, a number of states successfully sued the Administration on similar grounds, invalidating its earlier attempts to condition the receipt of DHS funds like HSGP on cooperation with federal civil immigration law enforcement and to re-allocate HSGP funding away from states that did not comply. A federal court found that DHS was unlawfully attempting to "hold hostage funding for programs like [HSGP] based solely on what appear to be [the Administration's] political whims."[6] In September, a federal judge ruled that the Administration's 2026 actions were also illegal, striking these new requirements and finding that "Congress in no way authorized FEMA to withhold grant funds to achieve the federal government's policy ends at state and local expense."[7]
Similarly, in June, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released application requirements for $3 billion in law enforcement support funds provided in the 2025 Republican reconciliation law. Under the new requirements, which the reconciliation law did not allow for, state and local governments must "fully participate" in an otherwise voluntary Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 287(g) partnership (which authorizes state and local law enforcement to carry out certain federal immigration enforcement duties) and in a Homeland Security Task Force operation or other major DOJ enforcement effort to be eligible for funds.[8]
In yet another example, a DOJ grant opportunity released earlier this year for $300 million to state, local, and tribal governments to strengthen investigative and prosecutorial capacity required applicants to have a "letter of support" from DOJ or another member of a federal Homeland Security Task force. This effectively means that only applicants supported by the Trump Administration would be eligible for funds.[9]
Finalizing the OMB grants rule would further encourage this type of coercive behavior, including by shielding such actions from meaningful oversight and review by Congress, the courts, and the broader public.
Interfering With Grants and Adding Delays Through Political Review
The potential for abuse and coercion through OMB's proposed rule is particularly significant because the rule would place unprecedented power in the hands of political appointees. It not only requires that "senior appointees" -- a term referring to political staff -- be responsible for the pre-issuance review of grants but also specifies that these appointees (or their designees) "must not ministerially ratify or routinely defer to the recommendations of others, but must instead use their independent judgment when evaluating Federal award proposals." In other words, the rule mandates political interference in the grantmaking process, explicitly stating that peer review processes should be purely "advisory" and thus superseded by the preferences of political decision-makers.
Already the Administration has repeatedly interjected political appointees into the grantmaking process, undermining programs in at least two ways. First, it has replaced merit, as assessed by people with relevant expertise, with political considerations in determining who gets money and who does not. There are reported instances of agencies prioritizing applicants who are well connected while excluding others solely on the basis of their political views or unrelated policy disputes.[10] Second, it has slowed the grant selection process in ways that hurt grantees and the communities they serve by impeding the flow of funds they need to provide key services.
A prominent example of the latter is the grantmaking process at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest federal grantmaking agency. At HHS's National Institutes of Health, the addition of layers of political review has created what one senior official called a "graveyard for grants," as funding that has already gone through peer review and been approved by multiple offices lingers for weeks or months awaiting final approval.[11] Nature reports, "These new layers of review have delayed delivery of funds to labs and research institutions -- and have even resulted in the outright rejection of some applications that had been approved by outside and agency scientists," an outcome that, prior to 2025, was "unheard of."[12] Similarly, the HHS process for reviewing funding opportunities recently led to "unprecedented delays" in the release of funds to support the 988 suicide hotline, provide treatment for opioid addiction, and combat global disease.[13]
Similar damage is occurring at a number of other agencies:
* At DHS, a contractor closely tied to then-Secretary Kristi Noem and her top aide Corey Lewandowski was reportedly given control over which grants went out the door; she used the power to block grants to disfavored states like California and to Muslim groups and steer grants to Florida for a favored project.[14] Allies of Secretary Noem allegedly directed the winners of even some small-dollar grants, avoiding the typical competitive awards process, while Lewandowski is under investigation for seeking to use his position for self-enrichment.[15] This bottleneck in the DHS grant review process resulted in widespread funding delays.[16]
* Political review of grants at the Interior Department created a backlog of 1,400 grants accounting for $362 million in National Park Service funding as of earlier this summer, delaying funds meant to support youth programs and prevent washouts in parks.[17]
* At the State Department, senior appointees reportedly presented their "own list of organizations that should be funded" in an effort to "bypass the normal open bidding process" and fund favored groups in Europe and South Africa aligned with conservative and anti-immigration movements.[18]
* The National Endowment of Humanities saw nearly 10 percent of its budget go last year to the two largest grants in its history, which were reportedly "handpicked" by political appointees outside the agency's normal processes. The politicization of the agency led one scholar to describe a potential "chilling effect" discouraging researchers from applying because they do not believe they will receive a fair hearing.[19]
Cancelling Grants for Reasons Unrelated to Programmatic Performance, Including Partisan Politics and Political Vendettas
OMB's proposed rule would allow an agency to terminate discretionary grants at any time if the agency decides it's in the agency's, or the nation's, interest to do so. Grants could be cancelled even if the recipients were successfully meeting the goals and requirements of a program established in law. Because an agency's determination of its interest or the national interest is essentially undefined and unbounded, individual grantees could be targeted for essentially any reason -- including unrelated personal grievances that the President or other political decision-makers might have toward grantees -- with little notice and without an ability to contest the decision.
That the Administration may wish to cancel grants on the basis of political animus is no idle threat. Nor is it pure speculation to suggest that the Administration might mislead the public and grantees about its motivation for cancelling grants, including in areas like clean energy and transportation investments and public health services.
In October 2025, OMB Director Russell Vought announced the cancellation of over $7 billion in clean energy grants to 16 states, none of which had voted for President Trump in the 2024 election, at a time when the President had expressed interest in finding ways to punish Democrats over the government shutdown then occurring.[20] In a press release, the Department of Energy (DOE) claimed the cancellations were based on the determination that those projects "did not adequately advance the nation's energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars."[21] However, the Administration later admitted in court that its decision to cancel these grants "was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state, i.e., whether the recipient's location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State," and was not "based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor."[22]
Similarly, after the President publicly criticized the jailing of a political ally in Colorado following her conviction for election machine tampering, a White House staffer issued a non-public directive to federal agencies to "prioritize Colorado for the purposes of ensuring grants and federal support are in line with administration priorities."[23] Departments were instructed to find "immediate actions" they could take.[24] Shortly thereafter, the Department of Transportation announced it was cancelling over $100 million in grant projects in Colorado, stretching from rail safety improvements to electric vehicle infrastructure investments. Rather than acknowledging the White House's directive, the agency announced it was cancelling the projects because they were "redundant" or out of alignment with the President's agenda.[25]
Some of the clean energy grant cancellations have already been blocked by federal courts as illegal, while the cancellation of the grants to Colorado is being challenged. In both cases, legal challenges have produced stipulations or discovery of evidence showing that the public justifications for the cancellations were at best dishonest and incomplete. Adoption of the OMB rule would allow more agencies to abusively target discretionary grants for cancellation based on flimsy claims of national or departmental interest -- and require lawsuits (and rely on the existence of written evidence) to show when ulterior or illegal motivations were hidden.
An administration could wield this provision of the proposed rule to harm not only individual grantees but also entire programs. Recent history shows that a program can be thrown into turmoil virtually overnight by a determination that all existing grants no longer serve the national interest. In January 2026, the Administration announced that it was terminating roughly $2 billion in HHS grants to more than 2,000 nonprofits to provide public health services, including substance abuse and mental health services.[26] Despite strong bipartisan support for the grants in Congress, the Administration said the current grant awards no longer effectuated "the program goals or agency priorities" and that "no corrective action could align the award with current agency priorities."[27] The Administration had previously proposed in its budget to significantly cut federal support for behavioral health and substance abuse treatment and prevention, but Congress had rejected the proposal on a bipartisan basis.
Though the Administration quickly restored the grants following a public outcry and bipartisan political pressure, its actions demonstrated how an Administration could essentially suspend an entire program on the flimsiest of pretexts, at least for a time. Even if HHS had planned to run a new competition for these funds using its new definition of its priorities (rather than attempting to illegally impound the funds under the guise of reprioritization), the process of competently and fairly recompeting the funds likely would have taken several months at best. The Administration's first-year cuts of over 40 percent to the staff of the agency in charge of administering the grants, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, would have made the process even more difficult.[28] And nothing in the proposed rule would seem to prevent an administration from subsequently determining that the newly recompeted awards no longer met the agency's or the national interest and restarting the process over again without having delivered the services that Congress funded in law.
Inappropriately Using Grant Terms and Conditions to Slow Funding to Those Legally Entitled to It
OMB's proposed rule would give federal agencies a legally dubious new ability to change the terms and conditions of an award, without the grantee's agreement, after a grant agreement has already been signed.
Even when a state or local government is entitled to a share of federal funding by a formula set in statute, its use of the funds must comply with the terms and conditions of the award, so having those rules be clear from the outset is critical. But under the proposed rule, an administration could unilaterally add onerous new conditions midstream for reasons unrelated to meeting the purpose for which the grant was provided -- putting grantees out of compliance or placing grant activities on hold.
The Administration has already attempted to do just that. In January 2026, it tried to block formula-based child care and other social service funding by imposing additional conditions on a small handful of states, all led by Democratic governors.[29]
HHS announced that, due to "serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in state administered programs," it would temporarily freeze the ability of state governments in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York to receive reimbursement from their share of federal child care and other family assistance funds.[30] HHS provided no evidence or details about its purported concerns. Instead, it informed the five states that their access to the funds would be restricted "until additional fiscal accountability requirements are implemented and necessary information is provided."
While HHS did not fully define the new process for satisfying its demands or formally state it was changing the grant terms and conditions, it told states they needed to submit certain information within two weeks to relieve the freeze. For example, for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), states were required to provide "the complete universe" of administrative data in the states' possession going back as many years as possible, as well as the Social Security number, address, and birthdate of every TANF recipient, among other data. The states told a court this task would be "impossible" in the timeframe provided even if it were legally allowed. In other words, the addition of the new requirements meant that these targeted states would not be compliant with the requirements of the grant for at least some period of time.
A federal court issued a stay, finding that the Administration had acted contrary to law and exceeded its statutory authority, and that HHS had failed to identify "any binding or persuasive authority" that would allow it to require the additional requested documentation prior to releasing funds.[31]
The unlawful manner in which the Administration acted raises serious concerns that its publicly stated claims about fraud were merely a pretext to add burdensome requirements that would push the states out of compliance and justify freezing their funding. In either case, the Administration's actions highlight the potential for abuse inherent in a rule that would allow for unilateral changes in the terms and conditions of grants midstream.
Why Congress Needs to Act
Congress can take action to stop the Administration's assault on nonpartisan grantmaking. While courts can and have played a role in stopping these abuses in specific instances, congressional action is needed to more effectively address these issues on a government-wide basis.
Moreover, the fact that the Administration has already engaged in these abuses does not minimize the importance of blocking the OMB rule before it is finalized. Congressional action to block the abuses proposed in the rule would likely deter some of these abuses in the future and make it easier to stop them in court, given a clear congressional response. Also, if the rule takes effect, it would push even reluctant agencies to standardize the use of these abusive tactics.
Finally, if unchecked, the Administration would likely go even further. For example, while it has often provided a public pretext, however flimsy, for its coercive actions to date, the rule would make it easier for agencies to abuse their powers with even less transparency, by allowing political appointees to select, reject, or cancel grants without having to justify such decisions publicly.
Conclusion
Since its early days, the Trump Administration has made clear it intends to use the grantmaking process to coerce organizations, researchers, universities, states, and localities into complying with demands unrelated to the purposes of the grants and punish its perceived enemies while rewarding its friends. These destructive practices have already touched every part of the grantmaking world, from medical research to public safety to transportation.
The proposed grant rule is intended to make these types of abuses both easier and more widespread. It would explicitly require a politicized grantmaking process where Administration appointees intervene in award decisions, give the Administration unprecedented opportunities to select new grantees and cancel existing grants for political and policy reasons unrelated to the grant in question, and claim a legally dubious authority for the Administration to change grant terms and conditions midstream.
History has repeatedly shown that governments that allow for this level of systemic corruption perform worse than an American system grounded in impartiality, fairness, and merit.[32] Congress was right to recognize the threat the OMB grants rule poses and prevent its implementation during the short-term continuing resolution. Now, Congress must permanently prohibit implementation of this rule and any similar practices when it passes full-year funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
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End Notes
[1] Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance, 91 Fed. Reg. 32198 (May 29, 2026). Proposed rule available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance.
[2] Tony Romm, "White House Faces Stiff Pushback on Subjecting Grants to Political Review," New York Times, July 16, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/us/politics/white-house-federal-grants-political-review.html.
[3] Carolyn Johnson et al., "White House Moves to Take Control of N.I.H. Grants," New York Times, September 20, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/science/nih-omb-grants-bhattacharya-vought.html; Dan Diamond and Riley Beggin, "Vought pushes for scrutiny of NIH grants in Oval Office clash," Washington Post, September 18, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/09/18/vought-pushes-scrutiny-nih-grants-oval-office-clash/.
[4] Reed Shaw, "No, Trump Can't Withhold Anti-Terrorism Funds to Pressure States to Change Their Election Rules," Just Security, July 23, 2026, https://www.justsecurity.org/148665/trump-cant-withhold-antiterrorism-funds/; Department of Homeland Security, "DHS Requires States to Adopt Common-Sense Election Security Measures Before Receiving Federal Funds," July 10, 2026, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/07/10/dhs-requires-states-adopt-common-sense-election-security-measures-receiving-federal.
[5] Samantha Valentino, "Beshear joins multistate lawsuit over FEMA, DHS grant conditions," WKYT, July 24, 2026, https://www.wkyt.com/2026/07/24/beshear-joins-multistate-lawsuit-over-fema-dhs-grant-conditions/.
[6] United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island, "Memorandum and Order," Case 1:25-cv-00495-MSM-PAS, December 22, 2025, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.60525/gov.uscourts.rid.60525.53.0_1.pdf.
[7] United States District Court for the District of Columbia, "Memorandum Opinion," Case 1:26-cv-02886-AHA, September 28, 2026, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.295627/gov.uscourts.dcd.295627.42.0.pdf.
[8] U.S. Department of Justice, "DOJ FY 2026 Bridging Immigration-Related Deficits Experienced Nationwide ("BIDEN") Program," July 15, 2026, https://www.ojp.gov/funding/docs/bja-2026-172641.pdf.
[9] U.S. Department of Justice, "OJP FY 2026 Special Attorneys Program," April 21, 2026, https://www.ojp.gov/funding/docs/bja-2026-172587.pdf.
[10] Brianna Sacks, Maria Sacchetti, and Marianne LeVine, "What spending probes at DHS reveal about Kristi Noem's time in office," Washington Post, April 7, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/04/05/noem-trump-dhs-fema-contracts/.
[11] Paige Winfield Cunningham, "'Graveyard for Grants': NIH Is Holding Up Medical Research Funding," Washington Sun, August 17, 2026, https://washingtonsun.com/health-science/nih-holding-up-medical-research-funding-status-19.
[12] Max Kozlov, "Inside the new political screening that's stalling NIH grants," Nature, June 26, 2026, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01924-8.
[13] Eric Katz and Paige Winfield Cunningham, "The Trump Administration Is Holding Up Billions in HHS Funding," Washington Sun, June 19, 2026, https://www.washingtonsun.com/health-science/trump-administration-hhs-health-funding-rfk-jr-robert-f-kennedy-grant-money.
[14] Sacks, Sacchetti, and LeVine, op. cit.
[15] Tarini Parti et al., "Chasing Side Deals, Flexing Influence: Lewandowski's Power Moves at DHS," Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2026, https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/corey-lewandowski-influence-dhs-43d3fe03?msockid=3be4e315a9e666360c2af423a850677a.
[16] Sacks, Sacchetti, and LeVine, op. cit.
[17] Eric Katz and Anna Kramer, "Political Reviews Are Causing a Huge Grant Backlog at the National Park Service," Washington Sun, June 9, 2026, https://washingtonsun.com/climate-environment/political-reviews-grant-backlog-national-park-service.
[18] Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Sharon Lerner, "Trump Officials Want to Use Human Rights Aid to Advocate for White South Africans and Right-Wing Causes in Europe," ProPublica, July 17, 2026, https://www.propublica.org/article/human-rights-aid-right-wing-causes.
[19] Jennifer Schuessler, "Fired Scholars and Big Grants to Favored Projects: Inside Trump's N.E.H.," New York Times, November 16, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/arts/national-endowment-humanities-trump.html.
[20] Amelia Benavides-Colon, "Trump Admin Says It's Canceling Energy Projects in 16 Blue States," Washington Sun, October 1, 2025, https://washingtonsun.com/trump-white-house/russell-vought-trump-administration-cancel-energy-projects-blue-states-california-new-york; Ivan Pereira, "Trump openly threatens to use shutdown to target Democrats for cuts," ABC News, October 2, 2025, https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-openly-threatens-shutdown-target-democrats-cuts/story?id=126151790.
[21] Department of Energy, "Energy Department Announces Termination of 223 Projects, Saving Over $7.5 Billion," October 1, 2025, https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-announces-termination-223-projects-saving-over-75-billion.
[22] Department of Energy, "Exhibit F(1) Department of Energy Stipulation," July 15, 2026, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.450653/gov.uscourts.cand.450653.211.6.pdf.
[23] Reis Thebault, "Colorado Was Targeted as Trump Fumed Over Election Denier, Email Shows," New York Times, August 14, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/us/colorado-trump-tina-peters.html.
[24] Karen Morfitt, "Colorado cites White House email as key evidence in lawsuit against Trump administration," CBS Colorado, August 21, 2026, https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-cites-white-house-email-key-evidence-lawsuit-against-trump-administration/.
[25] Jesse Paul and Taylor Dolven, "Trump administration cancels $109M in environmentally focused transportation grants for Colorado," Colorado Sun, December 16, 2025, https://coloradosun.com/2025/12/16/trump-administration-cuts-transportation-grants-colorado/.
[26] Brian Mann, "Trump administration sends letter wiping out addiction, mental health grants," NPR, January 14, 2026, https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5677104/trump-administration-letter-terminating-addiction-mental-health-grants.
[27] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, "Notification Letter to Recipient for Termination of Federal Award for Non-Alignment with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Priorities," January 13, 2026, https://www.nabh.org/download/samhsa-grant-termination-letter/.
[28] Office of Personnel Management, "Federal Workforce Data," September 9, 2026, https://data.opm.gov/explore-data/data/table-builder. The number of SAMHSA employees declined roughly 43 percent between January 2025 (943) and January 2026 (544). As of July 2026, SAMHSA reported 520 employees.
[29] Nick Gwyn, "Trump Administration's Five-State Funding Freeze Is Unlawful, Harmful, and a Major Threat to People in Every State," CBPP, January 23, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/trump-administrations-five-state-funding-freeze-is-unlawful-harmful-and-a.
[30] HHS, "HHS Freezes Child Care and Family Assistance Grants in Five States for Fraud Concerns," January 6, 2026, https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-freezes-child-care-family-assistance-grants-five-states-fraud-concerns.html.
[31] United States District Court, Southern District of New York, "Opinion & Order," Case 1:26-cv-00172-VSB, March 10, 2026, https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/new-york-vs-administration-for-children-and-families-opinion-and-order.pdf.
[32] International Monetary Fund, "Fiscal Monitor: Curbing Corruption," April 2019, https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fm/issues/2019/09/27/fiscal-monitor-april-2019-curbing-corruption-46532.
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Original text here: https://www.cbpp.org/research/governance/congress-should-block-omb-grantmaking-rule-permanently-to-rein-in
[Category: ThinkTank]
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Congress Should Block OMB Grantmaking Rule Permanently to Rein In Administration Abuses
September 30, 2026 | Sam Berger, Jacob Leibenluft and Devin O'Connor
In May, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a proposed rule that would upend the federal grantmaking process by politicizing both how grant recipients are selected and when their grants can be canceled.[1] The rule has received robust pushback from a broad -- and bipartisan -- set of voices concerned about its impact.[2] Critics ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities issued the following report: * * * Congress Should Block OMB Grantmaking Rule Permanently to Rein In Administration Abuses September 30, 2026 | Sam Berger, Jacob Leibenluft and Devin O'Connor In May, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a proposed rule that would upend the federal grantmaking process by politicizing both how grant recipients are selected and when their grants can be canceled.[1] The rule has received robust pushback from a broad -- and bipartisan -- set of voices concerned about its impact.[2] Criticsrange from scientists working on cutting-edge research to law enforcement officials concerned about its impacts on public safety to cities, states, and nonprofits that serve local communities.
That pushback helped convince Congress to agree on a bipartisan basis to prevent this unprecedented rule from being finalized or taking effect through December 11, the duration of the temporary spending measure for fiscal year 2027. This agreement, which reflects widespread public concern over the rule's likely impact, offers a temporary reprieve. However, addressing this issue permanently will require Congress to ban finalization of the rule when it provides appropriations for the remainder of the 2027 fiscal year.
Doing so is especially important because the Administration's actions to date provide clear evidence of the harm the rule would cause. Just in recent weeks, it was reported that the Administration considered issuing an executive order to create an "external committee" of political appointees who would review and veto scientific grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health that they view as conflicting with the President's political agenda, borne out of the President's frustration that certain universities are not being sufficiently punished for disagreeing with his views.[3] This would come on top of a much broader set of actions the Administration has taken - both publicly and behind the scenes - to interfere with grantmaking across a wide range of agencies and programs.
This paper outlines four different ways the Administration has already sought to abuse grantmaking processes; the OMB's proposed rule would codify these practices and make them regular parts of federal grantmaking. They include:
* coercing potential grant recipients through the grant selection process;
* interfering with grants and adding delays through political review;
* cancelling grants based on issues unrelated to the purpose of the grant, including potentially partisan political issues or political vendettas; and
* inappropriately using grant terms and conditions to slow funding to those legally entitled to it.
Importantly, while the rule's threat to scientific research - which would set back our country's leadership and hamper life-saving breakthroughs - has been much discussed, the threat extends far more widely, affecting everything from public safety to education to clean and affordable energy. (See Figure 1.)
By blocking the rule permanently, Congress can help deter future abuses and prevent the Administration from further undermining federal grantmaking and Congress's power of the purse.
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FIGURE 1: The Trump Administration's Assault on Federal Grantmaking
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Coercing Potential Grant Recipients Through the Grant Selection Process
OMB's proposed grants rule would abuse the grantmaking process to advance the President's interests through unlawful mechanisms. Under the rule, senior political appointees (or their designees) would review all competitive grant awards prior to finalization to determine whether each one "demonstrably advance[d] the President's policy priorities." These decisions would be left purely to the political appointees' discretion, without review. A political official could block an application as unlikely to advance the President's priorities even if the official's real motivation was to punish the applicant for insufficiently supporting an unrelated policy or view of the President, or merely because the President doesn't like the potential grantee.
The Administration has already shown how it would wield this provision abusively. For example, on grants dealing with issues such as terrorism prevention and law enforcement, the Administration has attempted to unlawfully condition funding or coerce applicants over policy interests unrelated to the purpose or performance of the grant.
In June, the Administration released new application requirements for over $1 billion in fiscal year 2026 grant funding for states and territories through three Department of Homeland Security (DHS) terrorism-prevention programs collectively known as the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP). Until now, all states have routinely received their full share of these formula-based, congressionally provided funds, whose purpose is to "enhance the ability of state, local, tribal and territorial governments to prevent, prepare for, protect against, and respond to potential terrorist acts and other hazards." Yet DHS, describing applying for this funding as "voluntary," attempted to condition receipt of this funding on states' and territories' compliance with Administration demands concerning state election policies, such as those outlined in the President's non-binding and unenforceable March 2025 executive order on election security.[4]
In July, 25 states and the District of Columbia sued to block the new requirements, describing them as part of an "unprecedented campaign to leverage the billions of dollars in federal funding that they [i.e., DHS and the Federal Emergency Management Agency] administer to coerce States into adopting the Administration's preferred policies."[5] In 2025, a number of states successfully sued the Administration on similar grounds, invalidating its earlier attempts to condition the receipt of DHS funds like HSGP on cooperation with federal civil immigration law enforcement and to re-allocate HSGP funding away from states that did not comply. A federal court found that DHS was unlawfully attempting to "hold hostage funding for programs like [HSGP] based solely on what appear to be [the Administration's] political whims."[6] In September, a federal judge ruled that the Administration's 2026 actions were also illegal, striking these new requirements and finding that "Congress in no way authorized FEMA to withhold grant funds to achieve the federal government's policy ends at state and local expense."[7]
Similarly, in June, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released application requirements for $3 billion in law enforcement support funds provided in the 2025 Republican reconciliation law. Under the new requirements, which the reconciliation law did not allow for, state and local governments must "fully participate" in an otherwise voluntary Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) 287(g) partnership (which authorizes state and local law enforcement to carry out certain federal immigration enforcement duties) and in a Homeland Security Task Force operation or other major DOJ enforcement effort to be eligible for funds.[8]
In yet another example, a DOJ grant opportunity released earlier this year for $300 million to state, local, and tribal governments to strengthen investigative and prosecutorial capacity required applicants to have a "letter of support" from DOJ or another member of a federal Homeland Security Task force. This effectively means that only applicants supported by the Trump Administration would be eligible for funds.[9]
Finalizing the OMB grants rule would further encourage this type of coercive behavior, including by shielding such actions from meaningful oversight and review by Congress, the courts, and the broader public.
Interfering With Grants and Adding Delays Through Political Review
The potential for abuse and coercion through OMB's proposed rule is particularly significant because the rule would place unprecedented power in the hands of political appointees. It not only requires that "senior appointees" -- a term referring to political staff -- be responsible for the pre-issuance review of grants but also specifies that these appointees (or their designees) "must not ministerially ratify or routinely defer to the recommendations of others, but must instead use their independent judgment when evaluating Federal award proposals." In other words, the rule mandates political interference in the grantmaking process, explicitly stating that peer review processes should be purely "advisory" and thus superseded by the preferences of political decision-makers.
Already the Administration has repeatedly interjected political appointees into the grantmaking process, undermining programs in at least two ways. First, it has replaced merit, as assessed by people with relevant expertise, with political considerations in determining who gets money and who does not. There are reported instances of agencies prioritizing applicants who are well connected while excluding others solely on the basis of their political views or unrelated policy disputes.[10] Second, it has slowed the grant selection process in ways that hurt grantees and the communities they serve by impeding the flow of funds they need to provide key services.
A prominent example of the latter is the grantmaking process at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the largest federal grantmaking agency. At HHS's National Institutes of Health, the addition of layers of political review has created what one senior official called a "graveyard for grants," as funding that has already gone through peer review and been approved by multiple offices lingers for weeks or months awaiting final approval.[11] Nature reports, "These new layers of review have delayed delivery of funds to labs and research institutions -- and have even resulted in the outright rejection of some applications that had been approved by outside and agency scientists," an outcome that, prior to 2025, was "unheard of."[12] Similarly, the HHS process for reviewing funding opportunities recently led to "unprecedented delays" in the release of funds to support the 988 suicide hotline, provide treatment for opioid addiction, and combat global disease.[13]
Similar damage is occurring at a number of other agencies:
* At DHS, a contractor closely tied to then-Secretary Kristi Noem and her top aide Corey Lewandowski was reportedly given control over which grants went out the door; she used the power to block grants to disfavored states like California and to Muslim groups and steer grants to Florida for a favored project.[14] Allies of Secretary Noem allegedly directed the winners of even some small-dollar grants, avoiding the typical competitive awards process, while Lewandowski is under investigation for seeking to use his position for self-enrichment.[15] This bottleneck in the DHS grant review process resulted in widespread funding delays.[16]
* Political review of grants at the Interior Department created a backlog of 1,400 grants accounting for $362 million in National Park Service funding as of earlier this summer, delaying funds meant to support youth programs and prevent washouts in parks.[17]
* At the State Department, senior appointees reportedly presented their "own list of organizations that should be funded" in an effort to "bypass the normal open bidding process" and fund favored groups in Europe and South Africa aligned with conservative and anti-immigration movements.[18]
* The National Endowment of Humanities saw nearly 10 percent of its budget go last year to the two largest grants in its history, which were reportedly "handpicked" by political appointees outside the agency's normal processes. The politicization of the agency led one scholar to describe a potential "chilling effect" discouraging researchers from applying because they do not believe they will receive a fair hearing.[19]
Cancelling Grants for Reasons Unrelated to Programmatic Performance, Including Partisan Politics and Political Vendettas
OMB's proposed rule would allow an agency to terminate discretionary grants at any time if the agency decides it's in the agency's, or the nation's, interest to do so. Grants could be cancelled even if the recipients were successfully meeting the goals and requirements of a program established in law. Because an agency's determination of its interest or the national interest is essentially undefined and unbounded, individual grantees could be targeted for essentially any reason -- including unrelated personal grievances that the President or other political decision-makers might have toward grantees -- with little notice and without an ability to contest the decision.
That the Administration may wish to cancel grants on the basis of political animus is no idle threat. Nor is it pure speculation to suggest that the Administration might mislead the public and grantees about its motivation for cancelling grants, including in areas like clean energy and transportation investments and public health services.
In October 2025, OMB Director Russell Vought announced the cancellation of over $7 billion in clean energy grants to 16 states, none of which had voted for President Trump in the 2024 election, at a time when the President had expressed interest in finding ways to punish Democrats over the government shutdown then occurring.[20] In a press release, the Department of Energy (DOE) claimed the cancellations were based on the determination that those projects "did not adequately advance the nation's energy needs, were not economically viable, and would not provide a positive return on investment of taxpayer dollars."[21] However, the Administration later admitted in court that its decision to cancel these grants "was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state, i.e., whether the recipient's location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State," and was not "based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor."[22]
Similarly, after the President publicly criticized the jailing of a political ally in Colorado following her conviction for election machine tampering, a White House staffer issued a non-public directive to federal agencies to "prioritize Colorado for the purposes of ensuring grants and federal support are in line with administration priorities."[23] Departments were instructed to find "immediate actions" they could take.[24] Shortly thereafter, the Department of Transportation announced it was cancelling over $100 million in grant projects in Colorado, stretching from rail safety improvements to electric vehicle infrastructure investments. Rather than acknowledging the White House's directive, the agency announced it was cancelling the projects because they were "redundant" or out of alignment with the President's agenda.[25]
Some of the clean energy grant cancellations have already been blocked by federal courts as illegal, while the cancellation of the grants to Colorado is being challenged. In both cases, legal challenges have produced stipulations or discovery of evidence showing that the public justifications for the cancellations were at best dishonest and incomplete. Adoption of the OMB rule would allow more agencies to abusively target discretionary grants for cancellation based on flimsy claims of national or departmental interest -- and require lawsuits (and rely on the existence of written evidence) to show when ulterior or illegal motivations were hidden.
An administration could wield this provision of the proposed rule to harm not only individual grantees but also entire programs. Recent history shows that a program can be thrown into turmoil virtually overnight by a determination that all existing grants no longer serve the national interest. In January 2026, the Administration announced that it was terminating roughly $2 billion in HHS grants to more than 2,000 nonprofits to provide public health services, including substance abuse and mental health services.[26] Despite strong bipartisan support for the grants in Congress, the Administration said the current grant awards no longer effectuated "the program goals or agency priorities" and that "no corrective action could align the award with current agency priorities."[27] The Administration had previously proposed in its budget to significantly cut federal support for behavioral health and substance abuse treatment and prevention, but Congress had rejected the proposal on a bipartisan basis.
Though the Administration quickly restored the grants following a public outcry and bipartisan political pressure, its actions demonstrated how an Administration could essentially suspend an entire program on the flimsiest of pretexts, at least for a time. Even if HHS had planned to run a new competition for these funds using its new definition of its priorities (rather than attempting to illegally impound the funds under the guise of reprioritization), the process of competently and fairly recompeting the funds likely would have taken several months at best. The Administration's first-year cuts of over 40 percent to the staff of the agency in charge of administering the grants, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, would have made the process even more difficult.[28] And nothing in the proposed rule would seem to prevent an administration from subsequently determining that the newly recompeted awards no longer met the agency's or the national interest and restarting the process over again without having delivered the services that Congress funded in law.
Inappropriately Using Grant Terms and Conditions to Slow Funding to Those Legally Entitled to It
OMB's proposed rule would give federal agencies a legally dubious new ability to change the terms and conditions of an award, without the grantee's agreement, after a grant agreement has already been signed.
Even when a state or local government is entitled to a share of federal funding by a formula set in statute, its use of the funds must comply with the terms and conditions of the award, so having those rules be clear from the outset is critical. But under the proposed rule, an administration could unilaterally add onerous new conditions midstream for reasons unrelated to meeting the purpose for which the grant was provided -- putting grantees out of compliance or placing grant activities on hold.
The Administration has already attempted to do just that. In January 2026, it tried to block formula-based child care and other social service funding by imposing additional conditions on a small handful of states, all led by Democratic governors.[29]
HHS announced that, due to "serious concerns about widespread fraud and misuse of taxpayer dollars in state administered programs," it would temporarily freeze the ability of state governments in California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York to receive reimbursement from their share of federal child care and other family assistance funds.[30] HHS provided no evidence or details about its purported concerns. Instead, it informed the five states that their access to the funds would be restricted "until additional fiscal accountability requirements are implemented and necessary information is provided."
While HHS did not fully define the new process for satisfying its demands or formally state it was changing the grant terms and conditions, it told states they needed to submit certain information within two weeks to relieve the freeze. For example, for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), states were required to provide "the complete universe" of administrative data in the states' possession going back as many years as possible, as well as the Social Security number, address, and birthdate of every TANF recipient, among other data. The states told a court this task would be "impossible" in the timeframe provided even if it were legally allowed. In other words, the addition of the new requirements meant that these targeted states would not be compliant with the requirements of the grant for at least some period of time.
A federal court issued a stay, finding that the Administration had acted contrary to law and exceeded its statutory authority, and that HHS had failed to identify "any binding or persuasive authority" that would allow it to require the additional requested documentation prior to releasing funds.[31]
The unlawful manner in which the Administration acted raises serious concerns that its publicly stated claims about fraud were merely a pretext to add burdensome requirements that would push the states out of compliance and justify freezing their funding. In either case, the Administration's actions highlight the potential for abuse inherent in a rule that would allow for unilateral changes in the terms and conditions of grants midstream.
Why Congress Needs to Act
Congress can take action to stop the Administration's assault on nonpartisan grantmaking. While courts can and have played a role in stopping these abuses in specific instances, congressional action is needed to more effectively address these issues on a government-wide basis.
Moreover, the fact that the Administration has already engaged in these abuses does not minimize the importance of blocking the OMB rule before it is finalized. Congressional action to block the abuses proposed in the rule would likely deter some of these abuses in the future and make it easier to stop them in court, given a clear congressional response. Also, if the rule takes effect, it would push even reluctant agencies to standardize the use of these abusive tactics.
Finally, if unchecked, the Administration would likely go even further. For example, while it has often provided a public pretext, however flimsy, for its coercive actions to date, the rule would make it easier for agencies to abuse their powers with even less transparency, by allowing political appointees to select, reject, or cancel grants without having to justify such decisions publicly.
Conclusion
Since its early days, the Trump Administration has made clear it intends to use the grantmaking process to coerce organizations, researchers, universities, states, and localities into complying with demands unrelated to the purposes of the grants and punish its perceived enemies while rewarding its friends. These destructive practices have already touched every part of the grantmaking world, from medical research to public safety to transportation.
The proposed grant rule is intended to make these types of abuses both easier and more widespread. It would explicitly require a politicized grantmaking process where Administration appointees intervene in award decisions, give the Administration unprecedented opportunities to select new grantees and cancel existing grants for political and policy reasons unrelated to the grant in question, and claim a legally dubious authority for the Administration to change grant terms and conditions midstream.
History has repeatedly shown that governments that allow for this level of systemic corruption perform worse than an American system grounded in impartiality, fairness, and merit.[32] Congress was right to recognize the threat the OMB grants rule poses and prevent its implementation during the short-term continuing resolution. Now, Congress must permanently prohibit implementation of this rule and any similar practices when it passes full-year funding for the upcoming fiscal year.
* * *
End Notes
[1] Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance, 91 Fed. Reg. 32198 (May 29, 2026). Proposed rule available at https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance.
[2] Tony Romm, "White House Faces Stiff Pushback on Subjecting Grants to Political Review," New York Times, July 16, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/us/politics/white-house-federal-grants-political-review.html.
[3] Carolyn Johnson et al., "White House Moves to Take Control of N.I.H. Grants," New York Times, September 20, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/science/nih-omb-grants-bhattacharya-vought.html; Dan Diamond and Riley Beggin, "Vought pushes for scrutiny of NIH grants in Oval Office clash," Washington Post, September 18, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/09/18/vought-pushes-scrutiny-nih-grants-oval-office-clash/.
[4] Reed Shaw, "No, Trump Can't Withhold Anti-Terrorism Funds to Pressure States to Change Their Election Rules," Just Security, July 23, 2026, https://www.justsecurity.org/148665/trump-cant-withhold-antiterrorism-funds/; Department of Homeland Security, "DHS Requires States to Adopt Common-Sense Election Security Measures Before Receiving Federal Funds," July 10, 2026, https://www.dhs.gov/news/2026/07/10/dhs-requires-states-adopt-common-sense-election-security-measures-receiving-federal.
[5] Samantha Valentino, "Beshear joins multistate lawsuit over FEMA, DHS grant conditions," WKYT, July 24, 2026, https://www.wkyt.com/2026/07/24/beshear-joins-multistate-lawsuit-over-fema-dhs-grant-conditions/.
[6] United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island, "Memorandum and Order," Case 1:25-cv-00495-MSM-PAS, December 22, 2025, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.rid.60525/gov.uscourts.rid.60525.53.0_1.pdf.
[7] United States District Court for the District of Columbia, "Memorandum Opinion," Case 1:26-cv-02886-AHA, September 28, 2026, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.295627/gov.uscourts.dcd.295627.42.0.pdf.
[8] U.S. Department of Justice, "DOJ FY 2026 Bridging Immigration-Related Deficits Experienced Nationwide ("BIDEN") Program," July 15, 2026, https://www.ojp.gov/funding/docs/bja-2026-172641.pdf.
[9] U.S. Department of Justice, "OJP FY 2026 Special Attorneys Program," April 21, 2026, https://www.ojp.gov/funding/docs/bja-2026-172587.pdf.
[10] Brianna Sacks, Maria Sacchetti, and Marianne LeVine, "What spending probes at DHS reveal about Kristi Noem's time in office," Washington Post, April 7, 2026, https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2026/04/05/noem-trump-dhs-fema-contracts/.
[11] Paige Winfield Cunningham, "'Graveyard for Grants': NIH Is Holding Up Medical Research Funding," Washington Sun, August 17, 2026, https://washingtonsun.com/health-science/nih-holding-up-medical-research-funding-status-19.
[12] Max Kozlov, "Inside the new political screening that's stalling NIH grants," Nature, June 26, 2026, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01924-8.
[13] Eric Katz and Paige Winfield Cunningham, "The Trump Administration Is Holding Up Billions in HHS Funding," Washington Sun, June 19, 2026, https://www.washingtonsun.com/health-science/trump-administration-hhs-health-funding-rfk-jr-robert-f-kennedy-grant-money.
[14] Sacks, Sacchetti, and LeVine, op. cit.
[15] Tarini Parti et al., "Chasing Side Deals, Flexing Influence: Lewandowski's Power Moves at DHS," Wall Street Journal, September 7, 2026, https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/corey-lewandowski-influence-dhs-43d3fe03?msockid=3be4e315a9e666360c2af423a850677a.
[16] Sacks, Sacchetti, and LeVine, op. cit.
[17] Eric Katz and Anna Kramer, "Political Reviews Are Causing a Huge Grant Backlog at the National Park Service," Washington Sun, June 9, 2026, https://washingtonsun.com/climate-environment/political-reviews-grant-backlog-national-park-service.
[18] Anna Maria Barry-Jester and Sharon Lerner, "Trump Officials Want to Use Human Rights Aid to Advocate for White South Africans and Right-Wing Causes in Europe," ProPublica, July 17, 2026, https://www.propublica.org/article/human-rights-aid-right-wing-causes.
[19] Jennifer Schuessler, "Fired Scholars and Big Grants to Favored Projects: Inside Trump's N.E.H.," New York Times, November 16, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/arts/national-endowment-humanities-trump.html.
[20] Amelia Benavides-Colon, "Trump Admin Says It's Canceling Energy Projects in 16 Blue States," Washington Sun, October 1, 2025, https://washingtonsun.com/trump-white-house/russell-vought-trump-administration-cancel-energy-projects-blue-states-california-new-york; Ivan Pereira, "Trump openly threatens to use shutdown to target Democrats for cuts," ABC News, October 2, 2025, https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-openly-threatens-shutdown-target-democrats-cuts/story?id=126151790.
[21] Department of Energy, "Energy Department Announces Termination of 223 Projects, Saving Over $7.5 Billion," October 1, 2025, https://www.energy.gov/articles/energy-department-announces-termination-223-projects-saving-over-75-billion.
[22] Department of Energy, "Exhibit F(1) Department of Energy Stipulation," July 15, 2026, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.450653/gov.uscourts.cand.450653.211.6.pdf.
[23] Reis Thebault, "Colorado Was Targeted as Trump Fumed Over Election Denier, Email Shows," New York Times, August 14, 2026, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/us/colorado-trump-tina-peters.html.
[24] Karen Morfitt, "Colorado cites White House email as key evidence in lawsuit against Trump administration," CBS Colorado, August 21, 2026, https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-cites-white-house-email-key-evidence-lawsuit-against-trump-administration/.
[25] Jesse Paul and Taylor Dolven, "Trump administration cancels $109M in environmentally focused transportation grants for Colorado," Colorado Sun, December 16, 2025, https://coloradosun.com/2025/12/16/trump-administration-cuts-transportation-grants-colorado/.
[26] Brian Mann, "Trump administration sends letter wiping out addiction, mental health grants," NPR, January 14, 2026, https://www.npr.org/2026/01/14/nx-s1-5677104/trump-administration-letter-terminating-addiction-mental-health-grants.
[27] Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, "Notification Letter to Recipient for Termination of Federal Award for Non-Alignment with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Priorities," January 13, 2026, https://www.nabh.org/download/samhsa-grant-termination-letter/.
[28] Office of Personnel Management, "Federal Workforce Data," September 9, 2026, https://data.opm.gov/explore-data/data/table-builder. The number of SAMHSA employees declined roughly 43 percent between January 2025 (943) and January 2026 (544). As of July 2026, SAMHSA reported 520 employees.
[29] Nick Gwyn, "Trump Administration's Five-State Funding Freeze Is Unlawful, Harmful, and a Major Threat to People in Every State," CBPP, January 23, 2026, https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/trump-administrations-five-state-funding-freeze-is-unlawful-harmful-and-a.
[30] HHS, "HHS Freezes Child Care and Family Assistance Grants in Five States for Fraud Concerns," January 6, 2026, https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-freezes-child-care-family-assistance-grants-five-states-fraud-concerns.html.
[31] United States District Court, Southern District of New York, "Opinion & Order," Case 1:26-cv-00172-VSB, March 10, 2026, https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/new-york-vs-administration-for-children-and-families-opinion-and-order.pdf.
[32] International Monetary Fund, "Fiscal Monitor: Curbing Corruption," April 2019, https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fm/issues/2019/09/27/fiscal-monitor-april-2019-curbing-corruption-46532.
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Original text here: https://www.cbpp.org/research/governance/congress-should-block-omb-grantmaking-rule-permanently-to-rein-in
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Sec. Simon "Very Proud" of System That Allows Non-citizens to Vote
MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Oct. 1 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary:
* * *
Sec. Simon "very proud" of system that allows non-citizens to vote
Written by Bill Walsh | September 30, 2026
That thing that never happens happened again. The U.S. Department of Justice announced today the indictments of ten non-citizens who somehow voted in the 2024 election in Minnesota. Secretary of State Steve Simon has repeatedly assured Minnesotans that combining drivers' licenses for all with ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Oct. 1 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary: * * * Sec. Simon "very proud" of system that allows non-citizens to vote Written by Bill Walsh | September 30, 2026 That thing that never happens happened again. The U.S. Department of Justice announced today the indictments of ten non-citizens who somehow voted in the 2024 election in Minnesota. Secretary of State Steve Simon has repeatedly assured Minnesotans that combining drivers' licenses for all withautomatic voter registration would not lead to illegal voting. Simon testified in the Minnesota Legislature and to the U.S. House of Representatives that non-citizens won't vote in Minnesota because of the deterrent effect of a felony conviction and instant deportation. He also assured us their computer systems will ferret out anyone who is not eligible to vote before it gets dangerous.
Simon told Congress earlier this year:
- "We have a back end AVR automatic voter registration system and the only folks who are eligible to even be in the pile to be considered to be registered to vote are those who produce citizenship affirming documentation at the time they apply for that ID."
But these indictments were entirely predictable when Minnesota combined drivers' licenses for illegals with automatic voter registration. We're not talking about widespread voter fraud here, although how would we know? Today's indictments highlight obvious vulnerabilities in the system Simon and his allies in the legislature have set up with the intention of making voting "easy" for everyone. Too easy.
Simon was also asked at this congressional hearing about Minnesota's biggest election vulnerability:
- Questioner: So, if you find out that they weren't registered voters, their vote still counts.
- Simon: Theoretically, that would be the case.
- Questioner: Do you not see that that's a potential problem?
- Simon: Well, I think it's a balance in that vouching is only for residency.
Therein lies the problem. Even if we catch every non-citizen who votes illegally, THEIR VOTE STILL COUNTS!
Provisional ballots
When Simon was asked if Minnesota has provisional ballots, he gave a slippery answer. He said, "No, because we're NVRA exempt, we don't do provisional ballots in Minnesota." He's referring to Minnesota's exemption from the National Voting Rights Act of 1993. It's more a grandfathering than an exemption. The NVRA does not allow a voting scheme like Minnesota's with no photo ID, same day voter registration and the lack of a provisional ballot. But our NVRA exemption does not prevent us from enacting provisional ballots like Simon tries to imply in his answer. Minnesota remans the only state in the U.S. with same day registration and no provisional ballots. It should be at the top of the election reform agenda for the next Minnesota legislature and governor.
Finally, Simon was asked, "What steps has Minnesota taken to minimize opportunities for illegal voting by non-citizens? His answer is laughable in light of today's indictments.
- "We are very proud of the processes that we have in place for filtering and screening and vetting non-citizens and anyone who's eligible to vote. I think we all share that goal. So, as I said in my introductory remarks, this is a perpetual process. This isn't something that we just do once a year or even once a month. Depending on the data set, it is sometimes daily that we are vetting and screening for exactly this kind of thing. So, we're proud of that system and I think it's withstood the test of time."
Steve Simon continues to be the top cheerleader for Minnesota's voting system instead of performing his constitutional duty to administer a free and fair election, where only U.S. citizens get to vote.
Details on the accused, who were arrested by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), per the Department of Justice:
Liberian national Bhator Konah Bryant, 61, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote. She is alleged to have falsely claimed United States citizenship when registering to vote on October 18, 2024.
Lithuanian national Edvile Vaidoto Edmunds, 59, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of voting by alien. She is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota on November 8, 2022.
Ghanaian national Joshua Frederick Kofi Edzie, 63, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on two counts of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota on August 11, 2026, and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on October 23, 2024 and August 11, 2026.
Liberian national, Alan Barbu Kargbo, 48, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
German national Paul Kras, 78, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota on November 5, 2024.
Bosnian national Fadil Rasim Ozegovic, 58, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
Brazilian national Aparecido Donizetti Padovan, 62, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
Liberian national Chis Adam Pettiquoi, 43, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
Canadian national Christian Liam Schenk, 47, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
South African national Hester Sophia Weihmann, 69, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. She is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
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Bill Walsh is the Vice President of Communications at Center of the American Experiment. bill.walsh@americanexperiment.org
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Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/sec-simon-very-proud-of-system-that-allows-non-citizens-to-vote/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Sec. Simon "very proud" of system that allows non-citizens to vote
Written by Bill Walsh | September 30, 2026
That thing that never happens happened again. The U.S. Department of Justice announced today the indictments of ten non-citizens who somehow voted in the 2024 election in Minnesota. Secretary of State Steve Simon has repeatedly assured Minnesotans that combining drivers' licenses for all with ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Oct. 1 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary: * * * Sec. Simon "very proud" of system that allows non-citizens to vote Written by Bill Walsh | September 30, 2026 That thing that never happens happened again. The U.S. Department of Justice announced today the indictments of ten non-citizens who somehow voted in the 2024 election in Minnesota. Secretary of State Steve Simon has repeatedly assured Minnesotans that combining drivers' licenses for all withautomatic voter registration would not lead to illegal voting. Simon testified in the Minnesota Legislature and to the U.S. House of Representatives that non-citizens won't vote in Minnesota because of the deterrent effect of a felony conviction and instant deportation. He also assured us their computer systems will ferret out anyone who is not eligible to vote before it gets dangerous.
Simon told Congress earlier this year:
- "We have a back end AVR automatic voter registration system and the only folks who are eligible to even be in the pile to be considered to be registered to vote are those who produce citizenship affirming documentation at the time they apply for that ID."
But these indictments were entirely predictable when Minnesota combined drivers' licenses for illegals with automatic voter registration. We're not talking about widespread voter fraud here, although how would we know? Today's indictments highlight obvious vulnerabilities in the system Simon and his allies in the legislature have set up with the intention of making voting "easy" for everyone. Too easy.
Simon was also asked at this congressional hearing about Minnesota's biggest election vulnerability:
- Questioner: So, if you find out that they weren't registered voters, their vote still counts.
- Simon: Theoretically, that would be the case.
- Questioner: Do you not see that that's a potential problem?
- Simon: Well, I think it's a balance in that vouching is only for residency.
Therein lies the problem. Even if we catch every non-citizen who votes illegally, THEIR VOTE STILL COUNTS!
Provisional ballots
When Simon was asked if Minnesota has provisional ballots, he gave a slippery answer. He said, "No, because we're NVRA exempt, we don't do provisional ballots in Minnesota." He's referring to Minnesota's exemption from the National Voting Rights Act of 1993. It's more a grandfathering than an exemption. The NVRA does not allow a voting scheme like Minnesota's with no photo ID, same day voter registration and the lack of a provisional ballot. But our NVRA exemption does not prevent us from enacting provisional ballots like Simon tries to imply in his answer. Minnesota remans the only state in the U.S. with same day registration and no provisional ballots. It should be at the top of the election reform agenda for the next Minnesota legislature and governor.
Finally, Simon was asked, "What steps has Minnesota taken to minimize opportunities for illegal voting by non-citizens? His answer is laughable in light of today's indictments.
- "We are very proud of the processes that we have in place for filtering and screening and vetting non-citizens and anyone who's eligible to vote. I think we all share that goal. So, as I said in my introductory remarks, this is a perpetual process. This isn't something that we just do once a year or even once a month. Depending on the data set, it is sometimes daily that we are vetting and screening for exactly this kind of thing. So, we're proud of that system and I think it's withstood the test of time."
Steve Simon continues to be the top cheerleader for Minnesota's voting system instead of performing his constitutional duty to administer a free and fair election, where only U.S. citizens get to vote.
Details on the accused, who were arrested by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), per the Department of Justice:
Liberian national Bhator Konah Bryant, 61, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote. She is alleged to have falsely claimed United States citizenship when registering to vote on October 18, 2024.
Lithuanian national Edvile Vaidoto Edmunds, 59, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of voting by alien. She is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota on November 8, 2022.
Ghanaian national Joshua Frederick Kofi Edzie, 63, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on two counts of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota on August 11, 2026, and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on October 23, 2024 and August 11, 2026.
Liberian national, Alan Barbu Kargbo, 48, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
German national Paul Kras, 78, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota on November 5, 2024.
Bosnian national Fadil Rasim Ozegovic, 58, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
Brazilian national Aparecido Donizetti Padovan, 62, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
Liberian national Chis Adam Pettiquoi, 43, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
Canadian national Christian Liam Schenk, 47, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. He is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
South African national Hester Sophia Weihmann, 69, a lawful permanent resident has been charged on one count of making a false claim of citizenship in order to vote and one count of voting by alien. She is alleged to have voted illegally as an alien in Minnesota and falsely claimed United States citizenship in order to vote on November 5, 2024.
* * *
Bill Walsh is the Vice President of Communications at Center of the American Experiment. bill.walsh@americanexperiment.org
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/sec-simon-very-proud-of-system-that-allows-non-citizens-to-vote/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Minnesota is Trying to License a Worldview With Its New Ethnic Studies Rules
MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Oct. 1 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary:
* * *
Minnesota is trying to license a worldview with its new ethnic studies rules
Written by Catrin Wigfall | September 30, 2026
The Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) plans to adopt a package of new teacher licensing rules without a public hearing unless at least 25 people request one. Included is a new license for teaching ethnic studies to students in grades 5 through 12 and a companion ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Oct. 1 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary: * * * Minnesota is trying to license a worldview with its new ethnic studies rules Written by Catrin Wigfall | September 30, 2026 The Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) plans to adopt a package of new teacher licensing rules without a public hearing unless at least 25 people request one. Included is a new license for teaching ethnic studies to students in grades 5 through 12 and a companionendorsement for social studies teachers. According to PELSB, K-6 teachers are "already eligible to teach ethnic studies."
The proposed pathways are not ideologically neutral. Teachers will have to "analyze social and human relationships with the natural world through Indigenous, precolonial, decolonial, and postcolonial lenses" and apply critical frameworks to "historical and ongoing social constructions of race and white supremacy" as well as "the history of slavery, settler-colonialism, genocide, neocolonialism, imperialism, and capitalism."
Teachers must also understand how counter-narratives "deconstruct dominant narratives that reproduce the status quo, power, and oppression" and how identity is "constructed by systems of power and people in positions of privilege." Both the full license and the endorsement require teachers to understand "the historical relationship between educational debt among low-income children, Black and Indigenous children, and other children of color and the erasure of ethnic studies in Minnesota." The full license adds that teachers must know how to "hold schools accountable to colonial structures in educational settings."
These standards go well beyond teaching students about different cultures and histories, which is how supporters have often pitched ethnic studies. The proposed rules make that distinction themselves. Teachers must know "the difference between ethnic studies and multiculturalism, diversity, equity, and inclusion."
Activism shows up too, as teachers must "understand and apply critical frameworks to analyze histories of collective liberation, resistance, and social transformation," and know about counter-narratives of "resistance and activism." The community section requires teachers to understand "skills central to community organizing." For the full license, assessments should help build "student agency in their communities."
With no apparent expectation that teachers examine competing interpretations or criticisms of these frameworks, the proposed rules look less like a list of content knowledge and more like a prescribed worldview for analyzing history and society. The rules also do not define or explain the loaded and contested vocabulary used throughout, such as "white supremacy," "settler-colonialism," "neocolonialism," "oppression," and "decolonial."
Needed and reasonable?
PELSB says the ethnic studies pathways are needed now that Minnesota requires ethnic studies content in schools. "Since these classes are being formalized to meet an academic requirement, the Board has determined it necessary to define and set knowledge requirements for teachers of these courses." The proposed license, PELSB says, will help ensure that teachers are "ready to teach a stand-alone course."
But the new licensure pathways would not take effect until July 2027, even though the requirements that high schools offer an ethnic studies course and that schools teach new K-12 social studies standards incorporating ethnic studies are already in effect.
The push for a separate ethnic studies license came from working groups facilitated in 2022 and 2023 by the Minnesota Ethnic Studies Coalition. The Coalition's mission is to "center" K-12 public school instruction on groups "erased from mainstream curricula due to persistent racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, and linguistic imperialism."
Brian Lozenski, an organizer with the Coalition, has been "instrumental" in the development of ethnic studies in Minnesota, including with the PELSB licensure requirements, according to his bio.
In a 2022 Convergence magazine article, Lozenski explicitly acknowledges ethnic studies' political agenda and its anti-Israel sentiments. "Ethnic Studies explores the colonial roots of the dispossession of Palestinian land and the creation of Zionism," Lozenski wrote. "Given the devastating impact of Israeli colonialism," "studying Israeli settler colonialism in comparison to U.S. settler colonialism" is "at the heart of the discipline of Ethnic Studies." The article's co-authors denounced, by name, "Islamophobic and Zionist organizations" like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Lozenski also made headlines in 2024 for comments he made during an online discussion in 2022:
* So if the nation-state as constructed is irreversibly racist, then it must be done with, it
* must be overthrown, right. [Critical race theory] is about overthrow. ... You can't be a critical race theorist and be pro-U.S. ... It is an anti-state theory that says
* the United States needs to be deconstructed, period.
The Coalition lobbied for Minnesota's 2023 ethnic studies legislation, and Lozenski was the chief testifier.
According to PELSB, the Coalition's working groups concluded that social studies teachers are licensed to teach ethnic studies content in a social studies class, "but are not well-prepared to do so." Outside of this conclusion from the working groups, though, PELSB does not cite a survey, study, teacher-performance data, or other empirical evidence showing this.
It is also unclear whether the new license would be required. Nothing in the proposed rule text says existing teachers would be barred from teaching ethnic studies, and PELSB doesn't say the license will be mandatory.
These proposed rules build on the alarming shift in Minnesota's K-12 education system toward embedding ideological frameworks into teacher training and classroom instruction, and that shift should not be allowed to continue.
Request a public hearing!
A public hearing on the proposed ethnic studies rules will be conducted by an administrative law judge only if 25 or more people submit written requests for one.
Those requests must be received by 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 2, 2026 and must include the person's name, address, and which part of the ethnic studies rules they object to, or that they oppose the two rules in their entirety. The proposed ethnic studies rules to reference are 8710.4810 (the grades 5-12 ethnic studies license) and 8710.4815 (the grades 5-12 ethnic studies endorsement for social studies teachers).
Email requests to Steven Rollin at PELSB.rules@state.mn.us with "Request for a Hearing" in the subject line, or mail them to:
Steven Rollin
Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board
1021 Bandana Blvd. E
Suite 222
St. Paul, MN 55108
A sample request:
Dear Steven Rollin,
I am writing to request that the Board hold a hearing on proposed rules 8710.4810 and 8710.4815, and I object to both in their entirety.
Thank you,
[NAME]
[ADDRESS]
* * *
Catrin Wigfall is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment. catrin.wigfall@americanexperiment.org
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/minnesota-is-trying-to-license-a-worldview-with-its-new-ethnic-studies-rules/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
Minnesota is trying to license a worldview with its new ethnic studies rules
Written by Catrin Wigfall | September 30, 2026
The Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) plans to adopt a package of new teacher licensing rules without a public hearing unless at least 25 people request one. Included is a new license for teaching ethnic studies to students in grades 5 through 12 and a companion ... Show Full Article MINNETONKA, Minnesota, Oct. 1 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary: * * * Minnesota is trying to license a worldview with its new ethnic studies rules Written by Catrin Wigfall | September 30, 2026 The Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board (PELSB) plans to adopt a package of new teacher licensing rules without a public hearing unless at least 25 people request one. Included is a new license for teaching ethnic studies to students in grades 5 through 12 and a companionendorsement for social studies teachers. According to PELSB, K-6 teachers are "already eligible to teach ethnic studies."
The proposed pathways are not ideologically neutral. Teachers will have to "analyze social and human relationships with the natural world through Indigenous, precolonial, decolonial, and postcolonial lenses" and apply critical frameworks to "historical and ongoing social constructions of race and white supremacy" as well as "the history of slavery, settler-colonialism, genocide, neocolonialism, imperialism, and capitalism."
Teachers must also understand how counter-narratives "deconstruct dominant narratives that reproduce the status quo, power, and oppression" and how identity is "constructed by systems of power and people in positions of privilege." Both the full license and the endorsement require teachers to understand "the historical relationship between educational debt among low-income children, Black and Indigenous children, and other children of color and the erasure of ethnic studies in Minnesota." The full license adds that teachers must know how to "hold schools accountable to colonial structures in educational settings."
These standards go well beyond teaching students about different cultures and histories, which is how supporters have often pitched ethnic studies. The proposed rules make that distinction themselves. Teachers must know "the difference between ethnic studies and multiculturalism, diversity, equity, and inclusion."
Activism shows up too, as teachers must "understand and apply critical frameworks to analyze histories of collective liberation, resistance, and social transformation," and know about counter-narratives of "resistance and activism." The community section requires teachers to understand "skills central to community organizing." For the full license, assessments should help build "student agency in their communities."
With no apparent expectation that teachers examine competing interpretations or criticisms of these frameworks, the proposed rules look less like a list of content knowledge and more like a prescribed worldview for analyzing history and society. The rules also do not define or explain the loaded and contested vocabulary used throughout, such as "white supremacy," "settler-colonialism," "neocolonialism," "oppression," and "decolonial."
Needed and reasonable?
PELSB says the ethnic studies pathways are needed now that Minnesota requires ethnic studies content in schools. "Since these classes are being formalized to meet an academic requirement, the Board has determined it necessary to define and set knowledge requirements for teachers of these courses." The proposed license, PELSB says, will help ensure that teachers are "ready to teach a stand-alone course."
But the new licensure pathways would not take effect until July 2027, even though the requirements that high schools offer an ethnic studies course and that schools teach new K-12 social studies standards incorporating ethnic studies are already in effect.
The push for a separate ethnic studies license came from working groups facilitated in 2022 and 2023 by the Minnesota Ethnic Studies Coalition. The Coalition's mission is to "center" K-12 public school instruction on groups "erased from mainstream curricula due to persistent racism, patriarchy, xenophobia, and linguistic imperialism."
Brian Lozenski, an organizer with the Coalition, has been "instrumental" in the development of ethnic studies in Minnesota, including with the PELSB licensure requirements, according to his bio.
In a 2022 Convergence magazine article, Lozenski explicitly acknowledges ethnic studies' political agenda and its anti-Israel sentiments. "Ethnic Studies explores the colonial roots of the dispossession of Palestinian land and the creation of Zionism," Lozenski wrote. "Given the devastating impact of Israeli colonialism," "studying Israeli settler colonialism in comparison to U.S. settler colonialism" is "at the heart of the discipline of Ethnic Studies." The article's co-authors denounced, by name, "Islamophobic and Zionist organizations" like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Lozenski also made headlines in 2024 for comments he made during an online discussion in 2022:
* So if the nation-state as constructed is irreversibly racist, then it must be done with, it
* must be overthrown, right. [Critical race theory] is about overthrow. ... You can't be a critical race theorist and be pro-U.S. ... It is an anti-state theory that says
* the United States needs to be deconstructed, period.
The Coalition lobbied for Minnesota's 2023 ethnic studies legislation, and Lozenski was the chief testifier.
According to PELSB, the Coalition's working groups concluded that social studies teachers are licensed to teach ethnic studies content in a social studies class, "but are not well-prepared to do so." Outside of this conclusion from the working groups, though, PELSB does not cite a survey, study, teacher-performance data, or other empirical evidence showing this.
It is also unclear whether the new license would be required. Nothing in the proposed rule text says existing teachers would be barred from teaching ethnic studies, and PELSB doesn't say the license will be mandatory.
These proposed rules build on the alarming shift in Minnesota's K-12 education system toward embedding ideological frameworks into teacher training and classroom instruction, and that shift should not be allowed to continue.
Request a public hearing!
A public hearing on the proposed ethnic studies rules will be conducted by an administrative law judge only if 25 or more people submit written requests for one.
Those requests must be received by 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 2, 2026 and must include the person's name, address, and which part of the ethnic studies rules they object to, or that they oppose the two rules in their entirety. The proposed ethnic studies rules to reference are 8710.4810 (the grades 5-12 ethnic studies license) and 8710.4815 (the grades 5-12 ethnic studies endorsement for social studies teachers).
Email requests to Steven Rollin at PELSB.rules@state.mn.us with "Request for a Hearing" in the subject line, or mail them to:
Steven Rollin
Professional Educator Licensing and Standards Board
1021 Bandana Blvd. E
Suite 222
St. Paul, MN 55108
A sample request:
Dear Steven Rollin,
I am writing to request that the Board hold a hearing on proposed rules 8710.4810 and 8710.4815, and I object to both in their entirety.
Thank you,
[NAME]
[ADDRESS]
* * *
Catrin Wigfall is a Policy Fellow at Center of the American Experiment. catrin.wigfall@americanexperiment.org
* * *
Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/minnesota-is-trying-to-license-a-worldview-with-its-new-ethnic-studies-rules/
[Category: ThinkTank]
AFPI Submits Testimony to Senate on Autonomous AI Cyberattacks
WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release:
* * *
AFPI Submits Testimony to Senate on Autonomous AI Cyberattacks
September 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) today submitted written testimony from Joel Thayer, senior fellow for AI and Emerging Technology, to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Disaster Management, on autonomous AI cyberattacks.
The "Hugging Face incident," resulted in more than 700 experimental OpenAI agents escaping their training environment, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release: * * * AFPI Submits Testimony to Senate on Autonomous AI Cyberattacks September 30, 2026 WASHINGTON, D.C.--The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) today submitted written testimony from Joel Thayer, senior fellow for AI and Emerging Technology, to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Disaster Management, on autonomous AI cyberattacks. The "Hugging Face incident," resulted in more than 700 experimental OpenAI agents escaping their training environment,coordinating on a hidden message board, and hacking a web platform.
Current law wasn't written to account for AI acting on its own, making it unclear whether anyone can be held responsible. AFPI argues that someone must be held accountable, and answer for harms caused by their autonomous agents.
"When a company builds a product that harms people, we expect that company to be held accountable, and AI should be no different," said Thayer. "We can close this gap by making clear that developers are responsible when their agents break out and attack third parties."
Read AFPI's full statement here (https://americafirstpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AFPI_Autonomous_Cyberattacks_Testimony_with_Exhibit14.pdf). Watch the Senate hearing here (https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/dmdcc/hearings/rogue-ai-securing-the-homeland-against-ai-agent-attacks/).
* * *
Original text here: https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-submits-testimony-to-senate-on-autonomous-ai-cyberattacks/
[Category: ThinkTank]
* * *
AFPI Submits Testimony to Senate on Autonomous AI Cyberattacks
September 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C.--The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) today submitted written testimony from Joel Thayer, senior fellow for AI and Emerging Technology, to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Disaster Management, on autonomous AI cyberattacks.
The "Hugging Face incident," resulted in more than 700 experimental OpenAI agents escaping their training environment, ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release: * * * AFPI Submits Testimony to Senate on Autonomous AI Cyberattacks September 30, 2026 WASHINGTON, D.C.--The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) today submitted written testimony from Joel Thayer, senior fellow for AI and Emerging Technology, to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Subcommittee on Disaster Management, on autonomous AI cyberattacks. The "Hugging Face incident," resulted in more than 700 experimental OpenAI agents escaping their training environment,coordinating on a hidden message board, and hacking a web platform.
Current law wasn't written to account for AI acting on its own, making it unclear whether anyone can be held responsible. AFPI argues that someone must be held accountable, and answer for harms caused by their autonomous agents.
"When a company builds a product that harms people, we expect that company to be held accountable, and AI should be no different," said Thayer. "We can close this gap by making clear that developers are responsible when their agents break out and attack third parties."
Read AFPI's full statement here (https://americafirstpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/AFPI_Autonomous_Cyberattacks_Testimony_with_Exhibit14.pdf). Watch the Senate hearing here (https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/subcommittees/dmdcc/hearings/rogue-ai-securing-the-homeland-against-ai-agent-attacks/).
* * *
Original text here: https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/afpi-submits-testimony-to-senate-on-autonomous-ai-cyberattacks/
[Category: ThinkTank]