Gil’s Corner: September Sprinting and Webinar September 26
September Sprinting
After a quiet August recess, DC roared back to life with a raucous September that is still promising an even louder final few days as Congress races toward the funding deadline at midnight on September 30th. Let’s review and look ahead!
✅ Register here for Gil’s webinar on September 26.
Shutdown Update
State of Play: It’s looking like a shutdown, folks. Congress has not passed any of the 12 full-year appropriations bills to fund the government for FY 2026. Congressional leadership are not conversing meaningfully. Leader Schumer sounds defiant in his posturing that this is on Republicans to figure out and to negotiate with Democrats. Leader Thune is backing the Continuing Resolution (CR) that creates a “clean” seven-week funding extension that passed the House but failed in the Senate (interestingly with Democratic Senator Fetterman as a YES and Republican Senators Paul and Murkowski as a NO).
Unless the House and the Senate can pass the same funding legislation and get it signed by President Trump, the government will shut down Oct. 1, the start of the new fiscal year.
Democrats: Democrats would prefer their version of a short-term extension which would fund the government until Oct. 31, extend health care subsidies, roll back Medicaid cuts, and restore rescission cuts. Democrats strongly feel this needs more negotiation, but Republicans are making that difficult. President Trump cancelled a planned meeting with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Tuesday (9/23) after being briefed on their CR plan that takes funding into late November.
Democrats also need assurances that money appropriated will actually be spent, as the Trump administration continues budget practices that amount to illegal impoundment.
Republicans: Schumer and other Democrats noted that Trump has publicly called on House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), not to sit down and negotiate with Democrats on the short-term funding bill. According to Speaker Mike Johnson, “Chuck Schumer chose to try to make this a partisan exercise, and Hakeem Jeffries as well. And it’s wrong to do that. And so if they choose to vote against this clean, completely nonpartisan CR, then they will be choosing to shut the government down, and they will own the consequences of what happens following that.”
What Happens if the Government Shuts Down?
Getting into a shutdown is the easy part, getting out is much harder. Both sides will be looking to pin responsibility on each other, and the court of public opinion will have a major role to play as to who has the most leverage for getting us out.
In a “shutdown,” federal agencies must discontinue all non-essential discretionary functions until new funding legislation is passed and signed into law. Essential services continue to function, as do mandatory spending programs. Each federal agency develops its own shutdown plan, following guidance released in previous shutdowns and coordinated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The plan identifies which government activities may not continue until appropriations are restored, requiring furloughs and the halting of many agency activities. Essential services – many of which are related to public safety – continue to operate, with payments covering any obligations incurred only when appropriations are enacted.
There are a number of exceptions and implications that the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget explains in detail here. This page will be your best friend during the likely shutdown.
What Happens to Science and Research in a Shutdown?
Researchers can expect to continue performance under their federal awards and subawards during a lapse in appropriations, provided funds are authorized during the period of performance of the grant or cooperative agreement has not expired. That said, federal agencies cannot issue new grants or contracts, or renew existing projects during a shutdown. Agencies also will not be able to provide assistance during a shutdown. As a result, government employees at the agencies will not be able to answer phone calls, respond to emails or update informational resources. (As FAS has previously noted, any government shutdown is a science shutdown.)
What Happens to Higher Ed in a Shutdown?
The American Council on Education has a handy webpage on exactly this. According to them, typically, institutions of higher education do not feel many negative effects from a short-term government shutdown. Since most student aid programs are funded a year in advance, they should not be impacted by a short-term shutdown. The Department of Education (ED) would likely cease almost all operations during a shutdown, however, so expect any correspondence to go unanswered.
Next Steps
Both parties are going to have to talk to each other eventually. Leader Thune is expected to bring the “clean” CR up for a vote when senators return early next week. He could hold repeated votes on that measure, along with others aimed at targeted re-openings and paying the military, to name a few. House Republicans have cancelled votes next Monday and Tuesday, leaving just the day of Wednesday Sept. 30th until midnight for any shutdown-averting votes.
“Eventually, ultimately, the White House and Schumer are going to have to probably sit down,” Thune said in a brief interview earlier this month. “But I think right now what we’re talking about is short-term.”
There are significant implications to consider if a CR is agreed upon, such as a lack of earmarks (formally known as Congressionally Directed Spending that gets funding directly to local communities), no specific direction from Congress on exactly how to spend the money, and of course stagnated funding that stalls in the face of general inflation.
Tracking the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
We are seeing real-life impacts play out across states from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), the Republican-led reconciliation package that passed into law in July 2025. There are a great many deadlines and timelines associated with the bill. Beyond the $3 trillion in national debt that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects the bill to add over the next decade, state impacts are happening right now. To give a sense of how that is manifesting, some headlines include:
Rural Health Clinics Closing: Rural health clinics are closing and many, if not all, are feeling intense financial pressure. Gubernatorial candidates are campaigning on it. Rural health providers that (overly) rely on Medicaid funding were already under strain before the OBBBA cut federal health spending by up to $900 billion over the next decade.
TN SNAP: Looming cuts to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP, could place Tennessee taxpayers on the hook for more than $110 million annually as the federal government shifts a portion of the financial burden for the food assistance program to states. More than 700,000 Tennesseans — or one in every 10 state residents – rely on the SNAP program to put food on the table.
WY Losses on Oil and Gas Leases: OBBBA’s royalty rate reduction on federal oil and natural gas leases could see Wyoming taxpayers lose $11 million in revenue compared to rates before the bill’s passage.
AK Impacts Hard to Fully Predict: A conversation with an economics professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage provides useful context for why some impacts are obvious and why most are harder to anticipate in a state highly dependent on the federal government.
Executive Branch Updates
R&D for FY27: The White House released National Science & Technology Memorandum-2: FY2027 Research & Development Budget Priorities. This memo sets the Admin’s S&T priorities, and calls on federal agencies to prioritize and invest in:
1. Emerging technologies, such as AI, quantum, and advanced manufacturing
2. Affordable, reliable, and secure energy technologies like nuclear fission and fusion
3. National security technologies, with a focus on the Golden Dome and other readiness systems for cyber threats and natural disasters
4. Biotechnology and biosecurity, to tackle America’s greatest health challenges, counter biological threats, and improve U.S. biomanufacturing
5. Space dominance through cutting-edge tech that fuels discovery, empowers commercial ventures, and revolutionize capabilities
These are lofty goals, and largely in the right place, but it’s unclear how the Administration would deliver outcomes if they continue their disruptive funding practices, which include using every tool in their kit to slow roll and virtually halt funding approvals and disbursing (which we discussed in August’s post).
Immigration Policy Implications: Foreign talent is essential to the American science and research enterprise – and the Trump administration’s new rules on H-1B visas, chiefly the requirement that employers will pay a new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas, stand to kneecap the STEM talent pool and directly threaten innovation. Businesses and startups reliant on this workforce are scrambling to comply and respond to these significant changes.
NSF: Positive news – The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) program announced 15 finalists advancing to the next stage of the program’s second competition — spanning critical technologies and applications ranging from enhancing energy grid security to maximizing the yield of critical minerals mining extraction to advancing quantum computing. The finalist teams, many of whom have been building their regional coalitions for a year or longer, are led by a range of organizations, including universities, nonprofits and private industry from across the United States.
NIH: More positive news! The National Institutes of Health (NIH) looks like it might be able to spend its entire $47 billion budget before the Sept. 30 deadline. That’s a significant milestone as researchers were dreading the possibility of missing out on funding completely if they didn’t get the money out the door fast enough. We have strong advocacy to thank for this, including a letter led by Senator Katie Britt (R-AL) pushing for such an outcome. Speaking up works, folks.
Also, a fascinating look into NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya explores the challenges he is facing, his outlook on them, and some insights into what he thinks about “settled science,” vaccines, and more.
EPA: Environment Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin stepped into the AI arena in a big way with his Powering the Great American Comeback initiative prioritizing American AI dominance. He held a roundtable and published an op-ed outlining how his deregulation agenda will spur data center growth and work to meet rising energy demands.
Dept of Ed: This month, the Department of Education announced that it will end discretionary funding to several Minority-Serving Institutions (MSI) grant programs that discriminate by conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas. It followed up with an announcement that it is making historic investments in charter schools, American history and civics programs, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs).
We continue to see the Trump administration exert its will over higher education with sweeping rule changes and funding priorities.
Innovation at the Department of Transportation: As we try to focus on the positive news to balance out all the uncertainty, I did want to plug the important progress at the Department of Transportation with the ARPA-I program. The Federation of American Scientists has been a thought leader and champion of the ARPA-I initiative, and we’re excited about the ARPA-I Ideas Challenge that will seed future progress too. With the expiration of the Surface Transportation Authorization Act in September 2026 which includes reauthorization of ARPA-I, we will be working hard to ensure continued support and development of this exciting program.
We invite any and all who are interested in learning more about ARPA-I to reach out at GRuiz@FAS.Org so we can explore how to keep the momentum going towards improving the future of transportation innovation
Science Advocacy At-Large
Protecting Science and American Innovation: Coalitions of science, health, and advocacy organizations have been coming together to address the escalating threats to federal science and innovation funding amid the looming government shutdown. They continue to assess and respond to the growing risks posed by budget rescissions, cuts to grants, attacks on higher education, and pressures on immigration policies that support the scientific workforce.
Advocates are being forced to get louder and more creative with their approaches. For example, Stand Up for Science organized the renting of a NASA space suit to bring with them to Capitol Hill this summer to dramatize the stakes of proposed cuts to space and research funding.
These efforts to protect science and American innovation continue to emphasize the importance of coalition-building with nontraditional allies like state and local business groups that increasingly recognize the economic value of federal R&D. They have been framing the fight against science funding cuts not just in budgetary terms, but in human ones—whether it’s patient care and public health, local jobs, or U.S. competitiveness with China.
As shutdown politics intensify, the science community needs to be preparing both defensive strategies against harmful cuts and forward-looking ideas to strengthen U.S. science investments in the years ahead.
Higher Ed & Research
Funding Tug-o-War: The Trump administration has leveraged federal research funding to extract concessions from schools. Columbia University ultimately agreed to pay the government $200 million and make a series of reforms to get back $400 million in research grants that the government withheld over claims the school violated the civil rights of Jewish students and faculty. Other schools also reached agreements, while Harvard University remains locked in negotiations over $2 billion in funding.
Former Harvard President Claudine Gray weighed in on Harvard’s situation with some interesting criticisms about its approach to Trump’s demands.
UCLA Gets its Money: A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to restart the flow of about $500 million in funding for scientific research it withheld from the University of California, Los Angeles. In late July, it slashed over $580 million in research grants from UCLA, alleging Jewish students and faculty had been subjected to abuse and discrimination during pro-Palestinian protests. It also accused the school of improperly considering race when deciding on which students to admit. UCLA changed policies in what appears to be an attempt to align with Trump demands.
AI Updates
FAS and AGI: This month, FAS hosted a convening of top AI experts to discuss the future of Artificial General Intelligence and its accompanying risks. It was a stimulating discussion and laid out the groundwork for all the work that is still to be done to make sure that we’re prepared for the inevitable AI future. We’ll have readouts from this coming at you! And reach out if you can’t wait until then to hear more.
AI for America: Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) released his “AI for America” plan, which includes plans for the “AI Horizon Fund.” The trust fund — which would be paid for by tech companies — would support union-led apprenticeships and coordinate state and federal efforts for workers’ development.
AI and Workforce: AI and the future of the workforce is seeing even more attention these days, with Senator Kelly (D-AZ) remarking that “the biggest thing is coming up with a plan for how you’re going to retrain people for other jobs. We do not want to find ourselves in a situation where there are 10 million people that lost their jobs through AI and they don’t have a good option. That’s not good for anyone.” Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee, has plans to keep momentum going with her NSF AI Education Act, a bipartisan bill aimed at advancing STEM learning.
AI Sandbox Act: Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, recently introduced the AI SANDBOX Act, which would give developers space to test AI “without being held back by outdated or inflexible federal rules.” According to Axios, Ranking Member Cantwell’s staffer said the bill is “overly broad, as it gives too much authority to the Office of Science and Technology Policy to determine which federal rules are overly burdensome.”
Senator Cruz reupped his desire to see a moratorium on state-level AI regulation.
State and Local Innovation
State R&D Pushes: Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey is driving passage of a $400 million bill aimed at strengthening Massachusetts’ research and innovation economy. The Discovery, Research and Innovation for a Vibrant Economy (DRIVE) bill aims to attract private investment and preserve research jobs.
California is looking to authorize the issuance of bonds for $23 billion that would create and fund the California Foundation for Science and Health Research to continue developing cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and other diseases, as well as discoveries in climate science, wildfire prevention, pandemic preparedness and other fields.
Look for more states to explore similar measures as they aim to bridge the federal funding gap that threatens local economies.
State and Local More Important than Ever: With the federal funding apparatus for research and development in such flux, we find ourselves keenly focused on state and local partnerships to help fill the gaps and keep progress moving. For example, Brookings has been exploring how a state and local government innovation fund could catalyze a distributed yet connected infrastructure for policy and implementation. We’ve seen institutions like the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine explore this. And the MetroLab Network, of course, always has this on its mind.
What Do You Think?: What are your ideas? What stands out to you as an opportunity to use this moment to strengthen state and local partnerships for research and development? There are many conversations and new thinking at this time, and we want to hear from you!
Ta Ta For Now – Join the 9/26 Webinar!
Keep Reaching Out: We covered a lot, but certainly not everything. Please do reach out with feedback and requests for coverage of specific topics. Many have reached out to help inform these updates and we are mighty appreciative of your input. Keep ‘em coming!
Webinar: We’re excited to invite you to a webinar version of Gil’s Corner where we will expand on this update and answer any questions, especially ahead of next week’s potential shutdown. Sign up here! It’s important that our community hear from each other about our biggest concerns, and create a forum for communication and coordination.
Getting into a shutdown is the easy part, getting out is much harder. Both sides will be looking to pin responsibility on each other, and the court of public opinion will have a major role to play as to who has the most leverage for getting us out.
Fourteen teams from ten U.S. states have been selected as the Stage 2 awardees in the Civic Innovation Challenge (CIVIC), a national competition that helps communities turn emerging research into ready-to-implement solutions.
Our Director of Government Affairs gives you the skinny on the latest from the Hill and White House – and what it means for S&T policy.
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