Author: Joseph McCartney Waggle
I’d love to write something about how science will fare in the Trump administration. I’d love to look forward to some semblance of equilibrium between the far-right ideology that got Trump elected and the mandate for innovation and progress in the sciences. I’d love to simply be able to say that science will survive the Trump administration.
But so far there’s no science to speak of in the administration at all.
There are 46 science and technology positions for which the President must send nominations to the Senate for confirmation. These range from commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the director of the Census Bureau, comprising many scientific different disciplines and levels of bureaucracy. All of these positions are meant to advise the administration — sometimes the President directly, as in the case of the empty chair of the Council on Environmental Quality — on the most important science-related issues facing the nation and the world today.
But so far there’s no science to speak of in the administration at all.
There are 46 science and technology positions for which the President must send nominations to the Senate for confirmation. These range from commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to the director of the Census Bureau, comprising many scientific different disciplines and levels of bureaucracy. All of these positions are meant to advise the administration — sometimes the President directly, as in the case of the empty chair of the Council on Environmental Quality — on the most important science-related issues facing the nation and the world today.
Government civilian science will not receive much support from the White House in the next four years, and this lack of support won’t be a central story in the media. What does that mean for the future of federal civilian science?
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