Policy Update (1 October 2025)

The government has officially shut down today, 1 October, after Congress failed to reach an agreement on a Continuing Resolution, a short-term stopgap used to extend the previous year’s funding levels. The AAS policy team is closely monitoring the funding situation and its impact on our community. If you have been directly affected by the shutdown, please share your story here. These stories will be crucial to our engagement with lawmakers as the policy landscape continues to evolve. All information gathered here will be used completely anonymously in any communications, unless you indicate that you are comfortable with your name being shared. 

To see how NASA and NSF will be affected by the shutdown, please check out the NASA shutdown plan and the NSF shutdown plan. For more information on the shutdown, check out: 

• Government shutdown 2025: A guide to what’s still open, what’s closed, and what’s fuzzy (Politico) 
• The government is shut down. Now what? (Punchbowl) 
• US scientists gird for yet another government shutdown (Science)
• Federal Science on Pause Amid Shutdown (AIP FYI)

The AAS asks you to take action in support of the federal science agencies — including the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, NASA, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and National Science Foundation — that help power America’s research ecosystem. Use this Action Alert, led by the American Physical Society, to easily reach out to your members of Congress. It only takes a few minutes.

A coalition of more than 50 societies, including the AAS, issued a letter to the United States Congress today, expressing concerns over provisions in the 7 August 2025 Executive Order titled “Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking.” The letter urges Congress to provide necessary oversight at federal science agencies to prevent potentially significant damage to US leadership in scientific and medical research. You can read more about it in our press release here. 

On 29 September, the AAS submitted a comment to Kristi Noem, Secretary of Homeland Security, in response to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the "duration of status” rule for student visas. The AAS argues that the proposed rule would undermine academic flexibility for international students and would be harmful to the US scientific enterprise. You can read our full comment here. 

The AAS and over a dozen other partner organizations are making final preparations for the Save NASA Science Day of Action on 6 October 2025. A historic number of participants will hold congressional meetings on the Hill to preserve NASA Science funding for FY2026 and ensure that active science missions are not prematurely canceled. 

If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected].