WASHINGTON, June 14 -- For seventy years the question of which American scientists get federal money has been answered, in the main, by other scientists. A proposed White House rule would change that answer to: whoever the president has put in charge. A 412-page proposal issued by the Office of Management and Budget would give political appointees the final say over federal research grants and demote the scientific peer review that has underpinned American discovery to the status of advice the government may take or leave. It is the most sweeping attempt to politicize the machinery of US science funding in living memory, and it is happening now, in an open comment period, while researchers race to stop it.

The core of the plan is a singl...