Executive Orders

The White House continues to issue executive orders that make good on a number of campaign promises, and federal agencies have started taking steps to enact those orders. This week, federal agencies and some grantees received memos directing compliance with the executive orders on gender (OPM memo on gender EO implementation) and DEI (OPM memo on DEI EO implementation) released last week. Federal grantees should check their Grant Solutions accounts for any communication related to these executive orders.

New executive orders were released this week addressing race and gender in K-12 schools and gender-affirming care for people under age 19.

Funding Freezes and Legal Action

On Monday, January 27, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a memo announcing a broad federal funding freeze that would stop all payments for programs, grantees, and other federally funded projects starting at 5:00 PM on Tuesday, January 28. Even before this announcement, some federal grantees had started experiencing delays or difficulties drawing down grant payments. In response to the memo, two groups – a coalition of nonprofits and 22 attorneys general from a coalition of states – filed lawsuits in federal courts. In response to the suit brought by nonprofits, a federal judge issued an administrative stay until Monday, February 3. The stay temporarily paused the freeze. In response, the OMB released a memo that rescinded the initial memo. The freeze may be reinstated after Monday’s court hearing or OMB may issue a more carefully worded memo that accomplishes the same goal.

Further causing concern was a 52-page document circulated by the OMB ordering agencies to answer 14 questions by the end of next week for each program that has funding activities planned through March 15. The spreadsheet covers various federal agencies approximately 430 federally funded programs (including the STD Prevention program ).

RFK Jr.

This week, the Senate Finance and HELP committees held hearings to vet Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the role of HHS Secretary. Kennedy answered questions about his views on vaccines, HIV, and more. The hearings can be viewed here and here.

OMB Director

Meanwhile in the Senate, Republicans advanced Russ Vought’s nomination for the OMB director despite a Democratic boycott of the vote due to their concerns with the emerging OMB policies. With concerns about the funding freeze still looming, Republican senators signaled they had no further questions for Vought as new OMB directives continue to roll out.

Appropriations

House and Senate Appropriations leaders have not been successful in agreeing to topline numbers for the FY’25 budget. The negotiations have been complicated by this week’s federal funding freeze, which has added a new dynamic around spending control in Washington. Lawmakers will continue to try to work toward an agreement on the topline number as the March 14 expiration of the current CR approaches.

Reconciliation

During a retreat for Republican lawmakers earlier this week, Speaker Johnson moved lawmakers closer to a timeline and strategy on reconciliation. However, ongoing disagreement throughout the week between different Republican groups and House and Senate leadership leave a path forward in doubt. If disagreements with the House continue, Senate Republicans have prepared a backup budget plan broken up into two separate bills.