February 27, 2025
On February 26, 2025, the White House issued a new executive order on implementing DOGE in federal agency spending. In order to transform federal spending, each agency must work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to ensure transparent government spending. This executive order includes all “covered contracts and grants,” which means all discretionary spending on contracts, grants, loans, and related instruments. However, it does exclude direct assistance to individuals (e.g., FEMA award to a person), payments related to immigration enforcement, law enforcement, the military, public safety, and the intelligence community, and other “critical, acute, or emergency spending, as determined by the relevant Agency Head.”
- This executive order directs agency heads, along with their DOGE team lead, to build a centralized system within each agency to record every payment issued by the agency pursuant to contracts and grants, as well as brief written justification for each payment requested. These written agency justifications are to be made public.
- This order directs agency heads to review with DOGE, “all existing covered contracts and grants and, where appropriate and consistent with applicable law, terminate or modify (including through renegotiation) such covered contracts and grants to reduce overall Federal spending or reallocate spending to promote efficiency and advance the policies of my Administration.” This process shall commence immediately and shall prioritize the review of funds disbursed under covered contracts and grants to educational institutions and foreign entities for waste, fraud, and abuse. Each Agency Head shall complete this review within 30 days of the date of this order.
- This order directs each agency to work with DOGE to “conduct a comprehensive review of each agency’s contracting policies, procedures, and personnel” within 30 days.
- Only after this review is complete (in #3) will the agency be able to issue new contracts, except on a limited case-by-case basis.
- This order prohibits all non-essential travel for federal employees and a freeze on all government credit cards for 30 days.
This executive order may potentially conflict with the current court order entered in U.S. District Court for Rhode Island staying enforcement of the prior executive orders. It is also unclear how this current executive order may impact grants and contracts to universities.
SRS is closely monitoring guidance and updates from federal agencies on this and other executive orders and will keep you informed of any changes that may affect your externally sponsored research projects. Please bookmark this page and check back for updates.