Dismas Locaria spoke with the Wall Street Journal on cancellations of federal grants. The following is an excerpt:
In 2020, after the administration tried and failed to stop money going to certain projects, the Office of Management and Budget adjusted the language of the regulation governing federal grants to allow the termination of projects “if an award no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
Now, in the president’s second term, the administration is terminating hundreds of grants, according to news releases issued by the agencies. It isn’t clear how many of the termination letters reference the OMB’s 2020 language, but examples of letters across government agencies examined by The Wall Street Journal or sources interviewed for this article refer to the text.
“This change in priorities is absolutely across every agency that I’ve been dealing with grants from,” said Dismas Locaria, a lawyer in government contracts and grant law at Venable LLP in Washington, D.C.
Locaria said he has seen the language in termination letters issued by the NIH, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Education Department, State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Click here for the article.