Senate leaders are deciding whether to block President Donald Trump from finalizing a plan to put political appointees in charge of approving grants, Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins said Thursday.
“I have made very clear that I oppose the new rule,” the Maine Republican told reporters. “So I hope we’ll take advantage of this opportunity to delay it. But that’s up to the leadership.”
Senate leaders are working to finalize a bipartisan stopgap bill to keep federal agencies funded beyond the Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune reiterated Thursday that he hopes to pass the measure next week.
The South Dakota Republican did not say, however, whether the legislation will stifle the Trump administration’s proposed regulation to do away with the peer-review process for awarding billions of dollars each year to state and local governments, community groups, education institutions and nonprofit organizations.
“There are a handful of issues still under consideration,” Thune told reporters Thursday afternoon. “And I’m hoping that both sides can come together and figure the last couple of remaining issues out.”
Blocking the Trump proposal is among the demands Democratic senators have included in their offers to Republicans in funding negotiations. Every Senate Democrat called earlier this month for White House budget director Russ Vought to rescind the proposal.
Some Republican senators, including Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, have also been publicly supportive of heading off the regulation the Office of Management and Budget is moving to finalize as soon as this summer.
“There have been thousands, hundreds of thousands, of comments against it,” Collins said Thursday, noting that she urged Vought to hold off weeks ago, while Murkowski said that she thinks White House officials “need to pull back” on the plan.
“Everybody’s coming unglued about this,” the Alaska Republican told reporters, noting outrage from nonprofit groups, community leaders and tribal organizations. “When you start issuing grants based on political connections, that’s not good for the system here.”
Democrats are also pushing to use the upcoming funding bill to stop the Trump administration from unilaterally canceling funding Congress has approved and to reverse the cancellation of grants the Trump administration recently admitted in court that it terminated based “solely on the political identity” of the state leaders where the grants went. Republicans rejected Democrats’ calls to do the same on prior bills.
Jordain Carney contributed to this report.
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