Shortly after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States on Monday, Donald Trump signed a number of executive orders that could reshape science at home and abroad. The order directs federal action but cannot change existing law and is aimed at changing policy and priorities on several scientific issues, including climate and public health. It could also reduce the number of government employees, including scientists, and reduce their authority.
The weight of many of the orders remains unclear, but policy experts we spoke to said: nature It is a clear signal of the direction Trump intends to take the United States during his second term in the White House.
“A lot of the power of the executive order is in the message,” said Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. And so far, she says, the message is clear. “The government is trying to undermine not only the government experts themselves, but also the process by which we make science-based decisions within government.”
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here nature We examine some of the executive orders most relevant to science.
climate change
President Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement in an order, as he did during his first presidency from 2017 to 2021. Citing national security concerns and the effects of soaring energy prices that would “devastate” Americans, President Trump also declared a “national energy emergency” in the country. This could allow governments to green light fossil fuel-based energy projects.
Trump’s emergency order is one of many focused on energy issues, according to the president, and will force U.S. energy projects that are blocked by federal regulations and laws protecting endangered species and other species from moving forward. This will allow government agencies to identify them. That would give government agencies the power to move more quickly to approve projects, including using “legitimate emergency authorities.”
But Mark Maslin, an earth system scientist at University College London, says there are limits to what Trump can accomplish because “the economy beats Trump” in many ways. For example, Maslin says it’s now much cheaper to invest in renewable energy sources like solar and wind than it used to be, which means investment in these technologies is here to stay.
Comparatively speaking, it would be easy for President Trump to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement, which commits some 200 countries to limiting global warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. During his first administration, the Trump administration had to wait more than three years before formally withdrawing from the agreement due to the terms of the agreement. Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump as US president, quickly returned. This time, the withdrawal process will only take one year.
Although the Paris Agreement will continue to operate without the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, many academics fear that its withdrawal will inevitably reduce pressure on other countries to act. This comes after the Earth reached its highest temperature on record last year, and scientists say countries need to step up efforts to curb emissions to meet global targets.
“Delaying or canceling that effort will result in loss of life on the ground,” Goldman said.
Withdrawing
As expected, President Trump also signed an order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), which the new president claims has mishandled the coronavirus pandemic. He also said the United States pays a disproportionate amount of dues to the organization compared to other member countries.
President Trump announced in May 2020, during his first term as president, that the United States would withdraw from the WHO, but since the process would take a year, Biden blocked it on his first day in office in 2021.
Public health researchers say leaving the WHO would undermine the country’s ability to respond quickly to new health threats and damage the country’s reputation as a leader in global health. With its annual contributions accounting for more than a tenth of the organization’s multibillion-dollar budget, a U.S. withdrawal from the organization could undermine its mission. “This is a very concerning signal to the international community of how serious we are as partners in protecting health,” said epidemiologist Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Brown University Pandemic Center in Providence, Rhode Island. says.
WHO member states share information and expertise on infectious disease outbreaks and other threats, and without this critical knowledge and data (e.g., DNA sequences of emerging viruses), the U.S. response to the crisis would be difficult. It’s going to be slow, Nuzzo said. Moreover, she says, withdrawal creates “opportunities for other countries to intervene and assert themselves in ways that are inconsistent with U.S. interests.” For example, she added, the United States has been at the forefront of demanding strict biosecurity measures when building new pathogen research centers around the world.
If the U.S. withdraws from the WHO, cooperation with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) could be in jeopardy, said David Heyman, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and former WHO deputy director-general. . Who? The US’s flagship public health agency operates more than a dozen WHO collaborating centers in areas ranging from influenza surveillance to antimicrobial resistance. “It’s a loss for the CDC, but it’s also a loss for the WHO,” he says.
It is unclear whether President Trump could use an executive order to withdraw from the WHO, since the United States joined the organization through a law passed by Congress in 1948. Therefore, withdrawal may require parliamentary approval. Lawrence Gostin, a health law and policy expert and director of the WHO Collaborating Center at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., said on social media platform X that he is considering challenging the order in court. said.
deep cut
Several of President Trump’s orders on Jan. 20 focus on federal employees, including about 280,000 scientists and engineers. The Trump administration aims to reduce its size and regulatory authority.
In one, President Trump said he would freeze federal hiring for 90 days and direct a reduction in the size of the federal workforce once that period expires. Other orders could induce federal employees to quit their jobs voluntarily. For example, President Trump is requiring federal employees to return to office full time and requiring government agencies to recognize only two genders: male and female. Prohibit employees from indicating their preferred gender on official documents.
All of this is part of a broader effort to reduce spending and the size of government. For many observers, the message for science is clear. “This is the world we’re heading into,” says Robert Atkinson, president of the Foundation for Information Technology Innovation, a nonprofit think tank based in Washington, D.C. “We’re not going to stretch the science. We’re going to actually cut it.”
Yet another executive order focuses on changing the rules governing civil servants hired based on their expertise rather than as political appointees. The order states that all federal employees who serve in “policy-influencing positions” must be accountable to the president, a move the Trump administration tried to implement during its first term. It reinstates the policy known as Schedule F. That would have made it easier for the government to fire tens of thousands of workers, including many government scientists, and replace them with political allies. The Biden administration rescinded that order and also introduced new rules aimed at increasing protections for public employees. Nevertheless, the Trump administration is moving forward with changes to Schedule F, which unions representing public employees have already challenged in court.
“This represents an unprecedented politicization of public service,” said Don Moynihan, a political scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “Traditionally, there has been a clear line between political appointees and career civil servants. Schedule F aims to blur that line, if not completely.”
Some areas of science and technology, such as AI and quantum computing, are expected to benefit under the second Trump administration, but a slew of executive orders on the first day did not inspire confidence among researchers and policy experts. Ta. “In fact, I’m more worried now than ever,” Atkinson says. “I think the stars are aligning in a way that could cause significant damage to the scientific community at the federal level.”
With additional reporting by Ewen Callaway and Miryam Naddaf.
This article is reprinted with permission. first published January 21, 2024.
