Judge Blocks Trump NSF Cuts as Senate Resists Wider Science Austerity

A federal judge in Boston has stopped the Trump administration from slashing universities’ research support by capping the National Science Foundation’s reimbursement of “indirect” costs—expenses such as building maintenance and computer systems—at 15 % of direct grant spending. U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani ruled on 20 June that the policy, announced in May, was arbitrary, capricious and unlawful, blocking cuts that the University of California alone said would have cost it almost $100 million a year. Plaintiffs also included MIT and Princeton. The injunction preserves tens of millions of dollars in annual funding that underpins work in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, semiconductors and other technology fields. It follows similar court rebukes of administration attempts to limit overhead payments at the Energy Department and the National Institutes of Health. The courtroom defeat lands as Congress shows its own resistance to the White House’s broader science-budget plans. On 10 July, the Senate Appropriations Committee signaled it will reject the administration’s proposal to cut the NSF budget by 57 % and NASA’s science programs by 47 %. A draft bill, advanced on a 15-14 vote before being temporarily withdrawn over an unrelated dispute, would hold NSF funding at roughly $9 billion and maintain key NASA projects, including the Space Launch System and Orion, championed by Senators Jerry Moran and Chris Van Hollen. Outside Washington, a coalition of 10 academic organizations has finalized an alternative model for reimbursing research overheads, aiming to head off future attempts to curtail such payments. Taken together, the court ruling, congressional pushback and sector-led proposals underscore a widening front against the administration’s drive to shrink federal support for U.S. science.