Budget chief Russ Vought proposed cutting $72 million for universities after promising lawmakers the funding would remain untouched.
By Marcia Brown
The White House is canceling millions of dollars that dozens of universities use to research food production, despite budget chief Russ Vought’s promise to leave that money untouched.
Using a controversial loophole to cancel federal cash at the end of the fiscal year — which comes to a close at midnight Tuesday — President Donald Trump has targeted $4 billion in federal spending on international aid and development. That includes $72 million for USAID’s Feed the Future Innovation labs, which is popular with Republicans.
Vought’s reversal is the latest example of how Trump’s sweeping attempt to claim authority over the federal budget without congressional approval is running into his own party’s priorities.
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), whose state hosts the Fish Innovation Lab through Mississippi State University, sought assurance from Vought at a congressional hearing earlier this year that the funding would be preserved.
“The lab’s work truly illustrates the proverb, ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime,’” Hyde-Smith said. “Rather than giving other countries food, we are teaching them how to feed themselves through modern aquaculture practices.”
Vought assured her at the time he didn’t intend to target the labs’ funding.
“We will still have $5 billion nearly in this funding for priorities and programs like this, of which this will be protected,” he said. “We have no desire in this rescission package to touch that funding that seems to be so successful.”
Then, in August, Vought declared the unilateral cancellation of every dollar in the account that funds the labs, in an end-run around Congress. The Supreme Court has since ruled that Trump can withhold billions of dollars in question, effectively blessing the gambit the president is using to cancel federal cash without Congress’ consent.
The Office of Management and Budget and Hyde-Smith didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Vought has repeatedly disputed assertions by lawmakers from both parties, the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office and legal experts that the maneuver — a so-called pocket recession — is illegal.
One person who formerly worked on Feed the Future programming said that the labs’ research didn’t just help other countries, but also the U.S. It has helped develop ways to counter a pest abroad, which can in turn set the U.S. up for success when the pest arrives on American shores.
“Climate change, weather extremes, pressure from pests, all of that stuff is just increasing and we’re really just shooting ourselves in the foot,” said the person, who was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “Those are things that are not going to stop just because we decide to take funding away from it.”