News
President's Latest Executive Order Takes Aim at Grant Reviews
- By: USAging
- On: 08/15/2025 09:28:08
- In: Policy & Advocacy
The EO directs agencies to set up a new system to ensure that funding announcements have prior approval by the senior political appointee of the agency before being issued. It further states that any awards granted “must, where applicable, demonstrably advance the President's policy priorities.” This could apply, for one instance, to competitive grants issued by ACL to the field, such as current efforts around falls prevention, ADRCs and other discretionary grants.
Further, the EO references earlier EOs of this President's, noting that:
“Sec. 4 (b)(ii) Discretionary awards shall not be used to fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate:
(A) racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the grant recipient, including activities where race or intentional proxies for race will be used as a selection criterion for employment or program participation;
(B) denial by the grant recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic;
(C) illegal immigration; or
(D) any other initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.
(iii) All else being equal, preference for discretionary awards should be given to institutions with lower indirect cost rates.”
(A) racial preferences or other forms of racial discrimination by the grant recipient, including activities where race or intentional proxies for race will be used as a selection criterion for employment or program participation;
(B) denial by the grant recipient of the sex binary in humans or the notion that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic;
(C) illegal immigration; or
(D) any other initiatives that compromise public safety or promote anti-American values.
(iii) All else being equal, preference for discretionary awards should be given to institutions with lower indirect cost rates.”
USAging will continue to update our members on any forthcoming details on this latest EO, but to reiterate, funding from the OAA and block grants are exempt.