Ranking Member Lofgren Demands Answers on Over a Billion of Withheld FY26 Funds at NSF

(Washington, DC) - This week, Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) sent a letter(link is external) to Brian Stone, Chief of Staff at the National Science Foundation, demanding answers on the status of over one billion dollars of unspent congressionally appropriated funds. The money was due to be spent by the end of Fiscal Year 2026, which was September 30, 2026.

"NSF has violated Congress' power of the purse and the rightful separation of powers in our constitutional system by refusing to spend $1.4 billion in congressionally appropriated funds last fiscal year (FY), or nearly 20 percent of the agency's research budget," Ranking Member Lofgren writes in her letter(link is external). "Contrary to the recent lofty - and unearned - rhetoric from NSF and the White House, NSF's effectiveness has been diminished by these, at best, quasi-legal actions."

The Ranking Member continued, "The Committee has yet to receive an explanation from NSF about why it chose not to spend nearly 20 percent of its congressionally appropriated research budget. But the amount of money withheld from FY 2026 award-making is broadly similar to the amount of funding that will reportedly be diverted to the OSTP-backed frontier initiatives agenda. The Committee has already obtained evidence that the Trump White House has routinely influenced decision-making at NSF in unprecedented ways. The damage to the U.S. research enterprise from a $1.4 billion cut in federal funding is significant."

The letter can be found here(link is external).