Suspend the department's external research grants
What the document says“The AS or PDAS for the Office of Policy Development and Research should suspend all external research and evaluation grants”
The proposal sits among the chapter's immediate administrative actions, alongside a task force to identify and reverse prior actions and a review of subregulatory guidance issued outside the Administrative Procedure Act.
What the document actually says“The AS or PDAS for the Office of Policy Development and Research should suspend all external research and evaluation grants”
Pause all outside research grants from this office.
This office pays outside experts to study housing. The book says those grants should stop.
Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking
2025-08-07 · 90 FR 38929
Executive Order 14332 of August 7, 2025 requires each agency head to designate a senior appointee responsible for a process to review new funding opportunity announcements and discretionary grants, and provides that until that process is in place agencies shall not issue any new funding opportunity announcements without prior approval from that appointee, except as required by law. It also requires annual review of discretionary awards by a senior appointee. That is the same shape as the passage: a political appointee halting new external awards pending review. The fit breaks down in that the halt runs only until the review process is in place rather than suspending anything outright, it reaches new funding opportunity announcements rather than grants already awarded, it applies to every agency and names neither the Department of Housing and Urban Development nor its Office of Policy Development and Research, and it does not single out research and evaluation grants.
An order of August 7, 2025 tells each agency to name a senior aide. Until a review plan is in place, new grant notices need that aide's sign off. That is the shape the passage asks for. But the halt ends once the plan is set, it misses grants already made, and it names no one agency.