Trump slashed medical research. A Maryland lawmaker fears the next move.

Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has throttled billions in grants for health and science research through orders and foot dragging. There may soon be a rule to set this approach in stone.

It’s a sweeping change that would give GOP political appointees major new veto power over money from a range of federal agencies. And that’s sending new shock waves through Maryland’s large biomedical research community.

Late Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Montgomery County, whose district includes the National Institutes of Health, launched the Democrats’ opposition.

The Trump administration defends its approach as fiscally responsible. But Raskin wrote in a letter to Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget and a Trump appointee, that the proposed rule is “disastrous and likely unlawful” and it is destined to stifle healthcare innovation for generations.

The long-standing grantmaking system built on expert reviews has made the country exceedingly good at producing innovative treatments and cures, wrote Raskin, who has been a Trump critic. At the center often have been Maryland-based agencies and universities, already struggling with chaotic job and funding cuts.

Efforts to cut or control medical funding have faced bipartisan pushback in Congress, though the letter is signed by only Raskin and more than 125 fellow Democrats, including Maryland Reps. April McClain Delaney, Steny Hoyer and Sarah Elfreth.

Democrats’ ability to stop new regulations is limited, given Republicans’ power in the White House and both houses of Congress. The letter is a first formal step to oppose the proposed rule, filed May 29 in the Federal Register, before critics could take the issue to court.

These proposed rules are published and then, after public comments, the president’s administration can tweak a rule before it comes final. After that, rules may be legally challenged for being unlawful or exceeding the government’s authority.

Public comments for the proposed rule, affecting health and scientific research, and other grants and contracts, remain open for the next couple of weeks.

Raskin’s letter said the move would be a fundamental shift in the longtime grantmaking system, from a nonpartisan, peer-reviewed one to a “political obstacle course.”

But the Trump administration argues the move protects taxpayer dollars. OMB and multiple other agencies proposing the regulation wrote that it would “improve transparency, accountability and oversight for federal awards across the federal government.”

Dr. Georges Benjamin, president of the American Public Health Association and a former Maryland health secretary, challenged that view, saying in an interview that the proposed rule codifies political interference in the process from the Trump administration over the past year and a half.

“They are trying to put into the rule everything they tried to do illegally in office,” said Benjamin, whose group has joined suits against previous efforts to cut health-related funding.

“It’s one reason we were able to successfully sue them,” he said, “because there was no rule.”

A new regulation could make future legal challenges tougher. Benjamin’s group and others are combing the 412-page rule and assessing legal options and congressional action.

Benjamin said the rule would move decisions from the long-standing peer-review process to political appointees who can unilaterally block grants or cancel them midstream if they “don’t like someone a researcher associates with.”

The rule blocks all so-called diversity, equity and inclusion-related grants, foreign collaborations and possibly attendance at certain scientific meetings.

Raskin and other Maryland lawmakers represent thousands of federal and university researchers who already had millions of their biomedical funding cut and stalled.

None of those had more severe cuts than the Johns Hopkins University, which reported researchers received 43% less federal funding for new and ongoing programs, a loss of more than $500 million.

“Moving away from merit-based funding decisions will erode the integrity of the innovation ecosystem and undermine confidence in federally funded science,” Doug Donovan, a university spokesperson, said of the proposed rule.

Hopkins researchers and patients also have submitted their personal views on the proposed rule.

Steven Farber, a biology professor who volunteers to review proposed NIH grants, urged OMB to abandon the rule, saying it would “introduce unprecedented risk to the scientific community, public health and national security.”

Hopkins previously joined other universities, including the University of Maryland, to legally challenge other cuts, including a successful suit to stop caps on “indirect” costs that are added to research grants and pay for overhead expenditures in the lab.