The nothingburger

I somehow missed this, but a couple months ago the Trump Administration abandoned its effort to cut indirect cost reimbursements for federal grants to colleges and universities to 15%. Just before I retired, the indirect cost rate at Saint Louis University was 51.5%, so this cut would have been devastating to research at SLU.

When I asked my chairman, who is a Republican and who assured me in 2016 that Trump would “be good for America” what he thought about the cuts, he called them “a nothingburger.” Turns out he was right.

“In January, a federal court of appeals ruled that the NIH policy to cap indirect cost reimbursement rates at 15% is unlawful. The Trump administration had until April 6 to appeal the ruling—and did not. It also did not appeal a similar ruling against Department of Energy cost rate caps.”

Apparently, the administration is working to find another way to cook the nothingburger.

Trump Administration gives up on capping indirects on federal research grants