November 12, 2026
The Honorable Susan Collins
Chair
U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations
S-128, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Patty Murray
Vice Chair
U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations
S-146, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Tom Cole
Chairman
U.S. House Committee on Appropriations
H-307, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Rosa DeLauro
Ranking Member
U.S. House Committee on Appropriations
1036 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chair Collins, Vice Chair Murray, Chairman Cole, and Ranking Member DeLauro:
On behalf of the Nonprofit Union Coalition within the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO (DPE), I urge you to maintain language from Section 157 of the Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (P.L. 119-103), in any appropriations package negotiated during the final weeks of the 119th Congress. Section 157 bars the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) from issuing or finalizing its proposed Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance (OMB-2026-0034), or any substantially similar rule, but only through December 11, 2026. The proposed rule should never take effect. As appropriators, you can continue to ensure nonprofit organizations, their workers, and the Americans who depend on them are protected from the undue politicization and uncertainty that OMB’s rule would undoubtedly bring.
By way of introduction, the DPE Nonprofit Union Coalition consists of national unions representing more than 900,000 workers across the nonprofit sector’s 12.7-million-person workforce. Union members working in education, advocacy, direct service, and other fields are united by their commitment to the essential nonprofit work that strengthens communities. As you understood when you rightly included Section 157 in H.R. 6500, OMB’s proposed rule would politicize the federal grantmaking process and expose nonprofit organizations and their workers to uncertainty that would threaten their jobs and risk disrupting services that communities across the country rely on.
Federal grants are foundational to nonprofit organizations and their employees, including members of DPE unions. Nonprofits provide services that federal and state governments have determined are best delivered through mission-driven organizations: social services for vulnerable populations, research into disease and environmental risk, housing assistance, workforce development, arts and humanities programming, and much more. When federal funding is disrupted or redirected for political reasons rather than program merit, real people lose services they depend on and real workers lose jobs that support their families.
The proposed rule would expose nonprofit grantees to a new and open-ended vulnerability: the possibility that a grant can be denied or terminated at any time because a political appointee decides the organization's mission, research agenda, or client population is ideologically inconvenient. This uncertainty alone would cause serious harm, chilling nonprofit organizations' willingness to pursue grants for work that is entirely lawful and vitally needed but that might draw political scrutiny. Funders and donors would factor this instability into their own decisions, further destabilizing organizations that have already faced significant headwinds in the current environment.
Federal grantmaking should rest on objective, nonpartisan criteria that nonprofits can rely on when they plan programs and hire the staff who deliver federally funded services. The proposed rule moves in exactly the opposite direction, replacing objective criteria with political discretion and introducing systemic instability into funding streams that nonprofits and their workers depend upon for long-term planning.
The Nonprofit Union Coalition continues to advocate for policies that provide greater stability and certainty in order to support America’s nonprofit sector and its workers. Nonprofit professionals must be free to work without political interference and censorship.
I respectfully ask that you include the Section 157 language, including its bar on any substantially similar rule, in any appropriations bill through the end of the year and that you work to block the rule permanently. On behalf of the DPE Nonprofit Union Coalition, the more than 900,000 nonprofit union members, and the countless Americans who rely on the community services provided by nonprofit organizations, thank you for your consideration.
If you have any questions, please contact me or DPE Legislative Representative Andy Dickson at adickson@dpeaflcio.org.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Dorning, President
Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO