This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy, and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) opened a hearing on Wednesday with sharp criticism of the Trump administration’s cuts to scientific funding, the termination of federal scientists, and the resultant policy uncertainties that could jeopardize the United States’ standing in global scientific leadership.
As the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Collins emphasized that the administration’s sudden grant cancellations and layoffs had insufficient justification. “These decisions endanger our leadership in biomedical innovation and must be reversed,” she stated.
This warning aligns with a newly released study from American University’s Institute for Macroeconomic & Policy Analysis, which indicates that significant reductions in federal funding for scientific research could inflict economic consequences akin to those of a severe recession.
During the initial 100 days of what has been dubbed Trump 2.0, approximately 1,300 employees from the National Institutes of Health—the world’s leading funder of biomedical research—have been dismissed, and over $2 billion in federal research grants have been canceled.
Recently, the administration also terminated the employment of all scientists associated with the upcoming landmark assessment of climate change impacts in the United States.
A specific example of these fund cuts included the near $4 million deduction in federal support for Princeton University’s climate research department, following the determination that their work did not align with the goals of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
A statement from the White House indicated that Princeton’s research, which covers critical topics such as sea level rise, coastal flooding, and global warming, was deemed to present “exaggerated and implausible climate threats,” as noted in a press release by the US Department of Commerce earlier this month detailing the funding cuts.
Looking ahead, the White House is anticipated to propose further discretionary spending reductions as part of the upcoming annual budget process. Essential federal bodies, including the NIH and the National Science Foundation, remain key players in the funding of both basic and applied scientific research.
The recent study from the team at American University represents one of the pioneering efforts to estimate the macroeconomic costs associated with the Department of Government Efficiency’s actions and the Trump administration’s reductions in public spending on scientific research.
