This email was sent to all PIs and Co-PIs on federal grants and RIO staff and forwarded to to UMN associate deans for research, Sponsored Financial Reporting and Sponsored Projects Administration staff, the UMN Certified Approvers group, and the Grants Management User Network by the Research and Innovation Office.
We are writing to provide you with our latest guidance on federal Executive Orders (EOs) and OMB Memoranda, and to ask for input to assist the University to understand the potential impacts should these Executive Orders be implemented in the future.
You are probably aware that some agencies sent directives last week to stop certain activities on active awards, due to either OMB Memorandum M-13-25 issued on January 27 or the President’s Executive Orders. Most frequently, this included activities relating to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA). A list of the agencies and the directives received by the University is available on the SPA Executive Orders and Other Policy Directives website.
The issuance of OMB M-13-25 resulted in two lawsuits filed in federal court, and shortly thereafter, on January 29, the Trump Administration rescinded OMB M-13-25. Despite the rescission, the courts allowed the lawsuits to continue and have issued two temporary restraining orders (TROs) concerning the memo: one issued by a federal court in Rhode Island on January 31 and one issued by a federal court from the District of Columbia on February 3. The federal government complied with the U.S. District Court in Rhode Island’s directive (see Notice of Court Order) by notifying agencies of the court’s order and instructing them to communicate it to their grantees, among others by 9:00 am on Monday, February 3. SPA has received the Notice of Court Order from most of the agencies that issued directives in the last two weeks. (SPA is following up with any agencies that issued directives but did not communicate the Notice of Court Order.) The Notice of Court Order directs that federal agencies cannot “pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate any awards or obligations on the basis of the OMB Memo, or on the basis of the President’s recently issued Executive Orders.” These temporary restrictions apply to both existing awards and future awards.
In practice, this means that federal agencies must continue to issue awards and associated funding, and must pay costs properly incurred on active awards, until such time as the TRO is further modified or a permanent decision is reached. While the TRO is in place, agencies will continue to review awards for activities as directed by the Executive Orders, but they may not violate the TRO. This means changes to grant terms are likely to be limited to reasons unrelated to the Executive Orders or the OMB Memo, such as failure to meet deliverables or other violations of award terms.
At this time, we ask that you continue to operate your awards normally and not stop activities because of the broad agency messages that you might have seen last week. An exception to this is individual stop-work orders on specific projects. The University has received a handful of individual project stop work orders, and those do remain in place – SPA will be in touch with you if you are impacted by one of these.
Overall, this remains a rapidly changing environment – so far, developments have occurred daily. We expect further changes as the legal situation continues to evolve. We will do our best to update you as rapidly as possible. In the meantime, the University is undertaking several activities (e.g., database searches and data collection described below) to help us understand the impact of the Executive Orders should we need to implement them. We ask for your help with one such activity:
Requesting your Help
To better understand what work and costs on active awards could be affected in the event that the agencies issue changes to awards based on the language in the Executive Orders, we would like to gather more information. This information will not affect current research activities unless federal agencies specifically require changes as permitted by law, but it will help senior leaders at the University to ascertain the potential impact of the most recent Executive Orders.
- Please review closely your award to ascertain whether you believe that there are any activities that are covered by federal Executive Orders (most commonly, this includes DEIA activities, gender ideology, foreign financial assistance, or green energy*) included in your Statement of Work or budget. We realize that this is difficult absent concrete definitions of these terms; please just do the best you can. We ask that you focus on current activities or anticipated future activities only; there is no need to review past activities.
- Please complete this Executive Orders Potentially Impacted Activities form describing what activities you might have to stop, and what costs are in your budget either explicitly or estimated to cover those activities. Please also describe any impacts to your project that you feel are important for the University to know, and, if applicable, indicate whether you would expect to want to rebudget these funds for allowable tasks. This will help us understand the potential impact to the University for these changes. This information may be shared with institutional leadership, including your collegiate or RRC leadership.
We would appreciate all PIs completing this form. If you do not have any activities, you may complete only the top part of the form and simply click on the option that indicates “No activities.” This will help your research associate deans and others have a more complete picture.
Thank you for your help with this challenging issue. We will share updates as soon as those are known.
* The Executive Order most cited in agency directives is linked; see the full list at https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/.
Best regards,
Pamela Webb
Associate Vice President for Research and Innovation
JoonHyung Cho
Assistant Vice President for Research and Innovation