Updated August 16, 2026: This article originally published August 6, 2026, before the Senate vote referenced below was confirmed. It has been revised throughout to reflect the Senate’s confirmed 90-6 passage on August 8, 2026, and the fact that the House and Senate have passed two different continuing resolutions that remain unreconciled. See the “Correction and update” note near the end for a summary of what changed.
The Senate passed its continuing resolution 90-6 in the early hours of August 8, 2026, and that bill would bar the White House Office of Management and Budget from finalizing or enforcing its contested rewrite of federal grantmaking rules until December 11, 2026. But the Senate’s bill is not the only continuing resolution in play, and it is not yet law. The House had already passed a different stopgap, H.R. 9770 (the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027), by a vote of 220-205 on July 21, 2026 — a bill that funds the government only through December 4, 2026, and contains no language touching the OMB rule at all. The two chambers have not reconciled their bills, current government funding lapses October 1, 2026, and the political-appointee grant rule remains, as of this writing, neither blocked nor final.
What Each Chamber Has Actually Done
| Chamber | Bill | Vote | Funds government through | Touches the OMB grant rule? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| House | H.R. 9770, Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027 | Passed 220-205, July 21, 2026 | December 4, 2026 | No — a “clean” stopgap with no provision addressing OMB’s rulemaking |
| Senate | Its own continuing resolution (Collins-Murray text) | Passed 90-6, August 8, 2026 | December 11, 2026 | Yes — would bar OMB from finalizing or implementing its “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance” rewrite through December 11, 2026 |
Because the House and Senate bills differ — in funding duration, in the presence or absence of the OMB-rule provision, and in other add-on items each chamber included — neither is current law on its own. The two chambers must reconcile the bills into a single text, and that reconciled bill must pass both chambers again and be signed by the President, before either the funding extension or the OMB-rule provision takes effect. The House had not yet acted on the Senate’s version as of this writing; government funding lapses October 1, 2026, which is the effective deadline for that reconciliation to happen. Until it does, describing the OMB rule as “blocked” is not accurate — the most precise statement is that the Senate has voted to block it, the House’s own bill does not, and which version (if either) becomes law is unresolved.
What the Senate’s Provision Would Do, If Enacted
According to Roll Call’s reporting on the Senate bill, the provision would delay OMB from finalizing its “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance” — the formal name of the proposed rewrite of 2 CFR Part 200, the Uniform Guidance that governs how federal grants are administered — and would prohibit OMB from issuing or finalizing any substantially similar rule before December 11, 2026. It would not repeal or withdraw the proposed rule; it would pause OMB’s ability to finalize it. The rulemaking itself would remain open on OMB’s docket, and OMB would regain the ability to finalize it once the Senate CR’s own window expires on December 11, 2026, unless Congress acts again before then.
How the Rule Got Here: A Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| August 7, 2025 | Executive Order 14332 directs agencies to revise discretionary grant terms, including termination-for-convenience rights and review of F&A cost treatment. See CASRAI’s EO 14332: What It Changes for Discretionary Grants. |
| May 29, 2026 | OMB publishes the proposed rule in the Federal Register (Federal Register document FR 2026-10817) under docket OMB-2026-0034, including the provision requiring senior political-appointee sign-off on discretionary awards before issuance and language recasting scientific peer-review recommendations as advisory rather than binding. The rule proposes an effective date of October 1, 2026. See CASRAI’s OMB Grants Rule Would Give Political Appointees Final Sign-Off. |
| July 13, 2026 | The rule’s public comment period closes. |
| July 21, 2026 | The House passes H.R. 9770, the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027, by a vote of 220-205 — a stopgap funding the government through December 4, 2026, with no provision addressing the OMB rule. |
| August 2, 2026 | Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) release the text of a competing, bipartisan continuing resolution funding the government through December 11, 2026, including the provision blocking the OMB rule. |
| August 8, 2026 | The Senate passes its continuing resolution 90-6. Senators opposing the bill for varying reasons included Republicans Bill Cassidy and Rand Paul and Democrats Tim Kaine, Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, along with independent Bernie Sanders. |
| October 1, 2026 | Current government funding lapses if the House and Senate have not reconciled their two bills and gotten a single text signed into law by this date. |
| December 4 or December 11, 2026 | Whichever CR is ultimately enacted determines this date — the House bill’s window closes December 4; the Senate bill’s window, including its OMB-rule block, closes December 11. |
What Applies to Your Award Right Now
Research offices are already fielding questions about which rules govern a given award today. As of this writing, nothing has actually changed in the regulatory text: the proposed rule is still just proposed, and neither chamber’s continuing resolution has been enacted. The table below separates what is currently in force from what is still contingent on future action.
| Status | What it means for your award |
|---|---|
| Currently in force, unaffected by either CR | The existing 2 CFR Part 200 Uniform Guidance (as revised April 2024) still governs cost principles, audit requirements, and award administration. Standard agency peer-review and merit-review processes at NIH, NSF, and other grantmaking agencies continue to operate as they do today. |
| Still just a proposal, not yet in effect | OMB’s May 29, 2026 rewrite — including the political-appointee pre-issuance sign-off, the “peer review is advisory only” language, elimination of fixed amount awards and subawards (proposed §§200.201/200.333), and expanded termination-for-convenience authority (proposed §200.340) — has not been finalized. It cannot lawfully take effect until OMB publishes a final rule. |
| Passed by the Senate, not yet law | The Senate’s continuing resolution, including its provision blocking OMB from finalizing the rule through December 11, 2026. It still requires House action on this specific text (or a reconciled version) and the President’s signature. |
| Passed by the House, not yet law | H.R. 9770, funding the government through December 4, 2026, with no OMB-rule provision. If this version (rather than the Senate’s) is what ultimately gets enacted, OMB’s rule would face no congressional funding-bill obstacle to finalizing on its original schedule. |
What the Proposed Rule Would Change, If Finalized
Independent of the funding-bill fight, it is worth being precise about what OMB’s underlying proposal actually does, since that has not changed. The proposed rule would rename 2 CFR Part 200 the “Uniform Grants Regulation” (UGR), retiring the “Uniform Guidance” name in federal usage. Beyond the political-appointee sign-off and peer-review provisions already covered in CASRAI’s companion piece, two other proposed changes are significant for grants and subawards professionals: proposed §§200.201 and 200.333 would eliminate fixed amount awards and fixed amount subawards as an available funding mechanism, and proposed §200.340 would expand agencies’ termination-for-convenience authority, citing Executive Order 14332 sections 5 and 6 as its basis. None of this is in effect; all of it remains part of the same still-open, still-unfinalized rulemaking docket.
Why This Matters
Scientific societies and research-advocacy organizations spent the comment period arguing that the political-appointee sign-off and advisory-only peer-review language would shift effective control over which research grants get funded away from technical merit reviewers and toward political appointees at each agency. Congressional Republicans joining Democrats in the Senate to at least temporarily check that specific piece of the rule — by a wide 90-6 margin — is notable, but it is only half the story: the House’s own bill does not carry that provision, and the two chambers now have to produce one reconciled bill before October 1, 2026, or risk a funding lapse. Research administrators should treat the Senate’s action as a real, but not yet binding, development, and should watch specifically for whether the House takes up the Senate’s text, negotiates a merged bill, or lets funding lapse — each of which has a different effect on whether and when the OMB rule can be finalized.
Correction and Update, August 16, 2026
This article was originally published August 6, 2026, two days before the Senate vote. At that time, the article correctly noted that “final Senate passage… had not been confirmed” and asked readers to treat the situation as “real but not yet final.” That caveat has now been resolved on one point and remains open on others: the Senate did pass its bill, 90-6, on August 8, 2026. What was not yet known or reported at original publication is that the House had already passed a competing bill (H.R. 9770, July 21, 2026) that funds the government on a different schedule and does not include the OMB-rule block. This revision updates the timeline, adds the House/Senate comparison table above, and corrects every reference that implied the OMB rule was already blocked. It is not: the Senate has voted to block it; the House has not yet agreed; reconciliation and enactment are still required.
Sources
- Roll Call, “Funding patch passes Senate to head off fall shutdown,” August 8, 2026
- Roll Call, “Funding extension passes House, heads for Senate rewrite,” July 21, 2026
- Roll Call, “Senate’s funding patch adds Trump requests but blocks grant rule,” August 2, 2026
- Office of the Clerk, U.S. House of Representatives, Roll Call Vote 272, H.R. 9770, 119th Congress, 2nd Session, July 21, 2026
- Congress.gov, H.R.9770 – Continuing Appropriations Act, 2027, 119th Congress
- National Association of Counties, “Senate passes bill to fund government through December 11 and delay OMB Rule”
- COSSA, “Senate Advances Continuing Resolution That Would Temporarily Block OMB Rule”
- Federal Register, “Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance,” document FR 2026-10817, docket OMB-2026-0034, published May 29, 2026
