Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Notable

Restore religious waivers of HHS grant conditions for faith-based agencies

Attempted

478 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“ACF and OCR should also survey their programs to consider whether additional waivers of HHS grant conditions—waivers the Biden Administration revoked in 2021—are needed for faith-based agencies.”

What has happened

  1. Attempted

    HHS OCR disavowed the three November 2021 letters - two from OCR to Michigan and Texas and one from ACF to South Carolina - that had withdrawn the March 2020 letters granting those states religious exemptions under RFRA from the 45 CFR 75.300(c), (d) grant conditions, and repudiated the RFRA analysis they rested on. That is a completed action on the waivers this Quote names, but it delivers neither limb of what this Quote asks: neither ACF nor OCR has published the survey of programs the ask calls for, and no additional waiver has been granted to any faith-based agency. OCR's own reasoning notes that the underlying grant conditions were removed entirely by the 2024 grants rule, which makes further waivers largely moot. Leveled `attempted` rather than `partial` on 2026-09-01: the same notice is `partial` on #1393, which asks that the waivers be reestablished and to which repudiating their withdrawal delivers a piece, and reaches no further here because a survey is not a waiver and undoing a revocation is not an *additional* waiver.

  2. Attempted

    Executive Order 14359 section 4 directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services, with the White House Faith Office, to 'take appropriate action to address State and local policies and practices that inappropriately prohibit participation in federally-funded child-welfare programs by qualified individuals or organizations based upon their sincerely-held religious beliefs or moral convictions' and to increase partnerships with faith-based organizations. A directive with no waiver granted or program survey published yet.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The three letters OCR disavows are identified in the notice by their archived URLs; the ACF letter to South Carolina is at acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/withdrawal-of-exception-from-part-75.300-south-carolina-11-18-2021.pdf.

  • HHS has a pending rulemaking implementing EO 14205 for faith-based participation in its programs (RIN 0991-AC44, Equal Participation of Faith-Based Organizations in HHS’s Programs and Activities, amending 45 CFR parts 87 and 1050, NPRM scheduled 11/2026). It is noted here rather than cited, because it is a departmental rule about faith-based participation generally rather than about the 2021 waiver revocations this Quote names, and because the same agenda entry should not be counted again under #1334 and #1336.

  • #1324 covers the repeal of the grant conditions themselves.

  • Shared instrument with #1393, and not merged with it (settled on review, 2026-09-01). Both items rest on FR 2026-01434, Deregulation Item 2, and both were leveled partial on it independently, which is what flagged the pair. Tested against the rule that one ask gets one Recommendation, and refused: this Quote asks ACF and OCR to survey their programs and consider whether additional waivers are needed, while #1393 asks HHS to reestablish the waivers and to rescind case-by-case evaluation. Shared Evidence, different acts, so no single instrument would satisfy both. What they needed instead was consistent leveling on the shared notice, which is the partial → attempted move recorded in the 2026-01-26 event above: the notice delivers a piece of #1393’s first limb and delivers no piece of either limb here, so it must not be read as carrying both asks the same distance.

  • EO 14332 grant-process review (2026-09-29). Executive Order 14332 (2025-08-07) puts every agency’s funding announcements and discretionary awards under senior-appointee review and a test of the President’s priorities. Under the rule settled on 2026-09-29, it counts only where an ask’s object is review, clearance or priority-alignment of an agency’s awards. This Quote’s object is religious waivers of HHS grant conditions. Status unchanged.

Action
restore
Object
HHS grant condition waivers for faith-based agencies
ID
1325