"As soon as he learned about the proposal, one of the U.S. scientists who took part in the landmark project rushed to file his objection with the federal government.

"These experiments take decades to build and require sustained, cooperative international investment," University of Chicago physics professor David W. Miller wrote in a public comment.

"The experiments will continue, without American leadership. ... The United States will not just fall behind. It will step aside."

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The rule's implications reach far beyond physics. Proposed by the Office of Management and Budget, a little-known but powerful part of the White House that guides federal spending, it would give the administration's political appointees across dozens of federal agencies significant discretion over how grants are awarded and terminated. The appointees don't have to know anything about science or the subjects of the grants they're reviewing.

"Russell Vought, who runs the office and has made expanding presidential control over federal spending one of his signature goals, has put the philosophy into practice over the past two years, helping to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development and, in another controversial move, blocking funds already allocated by Congress.

Vought's decision last year to cancel 284 Department of Energy grants drew renewed criticism after an agency lawyer recently admitted in court records that the terminations were "based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state" " in other words, blue states."

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Joe Goebbels would be proud!