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

2. Executive Office of the President · Notable · Needs Congress

Transfer ONDCP's two grant programs to DOJ and HHS

Attempted

62 2. Executive Office of the President

“The ONDCP administers two grant programs: the Drug-Free Communities Support Program and the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program. While it makes sense to transfer these programs eventually to the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services, respectively, it is vital that the ONDCP Director ensure in the immediate term that these grant programs are funding the President's drug control priorities and not woke nonprofits with leftist policy agendas.”

What has happened

  1. Attempted

    The administration has formally asked Congress for exactly this transfer, and asked for it twice over in the same document. ONDCP's FY2027 Congressional Budget Submission requests **$0** for every grant program the office runs — HIDTA falls from $298,579,000 enacted to zero, Other Federal Drug Control Programs from $136,150,000 to zero, including $109,000,000 for the Drug-Free Communities Support Program — and its Note 2 states the reason: "For FY 2027, the Budget proposes to transfer the HIDTA program to the Department of Justice. Also, the Budget proposes to transfer the DFC program, the Anti-Doping Activities program, and WADA Dues to the Department of Health and Human Services." The submission also carries the statutory language the transfer needs, as a proposed general provision: a new Sec. 203 amending section 703 of the Office of National Drug Control Policy Reauthorization Act of 1998 (21 U.S.C. 1702) to strike the Director's duty to "administer the Drug-Free Communities Program, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas" program, explained as language that "enables the transfer of grant programs from ONDCP to the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services". `attempted` and not more, under §3b: a President's Budget request is a formal administration request and no further. Congress has not acted on it and both programs are still ONDCP's — as late as 2026-08-14 the office was publishing Paperwork Reduction Act notices in its own name for the DFC Support Program and the CARA Local Drug Crisis Program national evaluation, and the White House announced two newly designated HIDTAs in September 2025 and a further $277 million for cartel and trafficking work in July 2026. The Quote also wants the transfer to be to Justice and Health and Human Services "respectively" — DFC to HHS, HIDTA to DOJ — which is what the Budget proposes.

Research log

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

Research notes

Correction and Status move, 2026-09-06: not started → attempted. The earlier research note asserted that “the FY2027 Budget Appendix keeps both programmes in the ONDCP accounts”. That sentence is wrong, and the document that disproves it was opened for a different question on the same printed page — the open question on #97 asked for ONDCP’s FY2027 Congressional Budget Submission to see who heads its budget office. The submission proposes precisely the transfer this Quote asks for. The stale not started event is replaced rather than followed by a new one.

Dating. The FY2027 Budget carries no transmittal date on its face: the OMB volume’s letter from the Director is signed “April 2026” with no day, and both it and the ONDCP submission were posted among the site’s April 2026 uploads. The event is therefore dated from the ONDCP submission’s own PDF creation date, 2026-03-31, because a document’s creation date beats the date we observed it. The FY2027 Budget volume carries a creation date of 2026-04-01 and was last modified on the server on 2026-04-03, so the two agree to within days.

A search of bills and public laws (congress.gov) for “drug-free communities” or “high intensity drug trafficking” still finds no enacted or introduced transfer legislation, which is why the rung stops at attempted. The Quote’s immediate-term instruction — that the grants fund the President’s priorities and not “woke nonprofits” — is tracked as #99.

Action
transfer
Object
Drug-Free Communities Support Program and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program
ID
98