Trump Is Attacking Climate Science. Scientists Are Fighting Back.
All these extraordinary actions came in addition to more pedestrian and constitutional approaches to budget cuts. The president’s Fiscal Year 2026 proposed budget, released in May 2025, was explicitly advertised as “ending the Green New Scam” and “eliminating funding for the globalist climate agenda.” At NSF, the proposed budget cut geosciences funding by more than 40 percent, ocean observations by about 80 percent, and projects explicitly related to global change research by 97 percent. At NASA, the budget cut science funding in general and earth science funding in particular by about half. At NOAA, it eliminated the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. At the U.S. Geological Survey, it eliminated the ecosystems program, which supports most of the agency’s climate-related work. At the Department of Energy, it cut the Biological and Environmental Research program by about 60 percent, effectively eliminating the “Environmental” part. Of course, the Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power to appropriate funds. And on a bipartisan basis, Congress pushed back on the top-line cuts to science-funding agencies. Underneath those top lines, however, within some limited specific constraints from Congress, it seems likely the administration will direct spending following the priorities laid out in the budget request, and many of the programs targeted for cuts in the proposed budget could continue to be crippled. For climate research, the outlook remains grim. Graduate programs, for instance, are essential to building the next generation of American researchers. Yet in the face of a deeply uncertain funding environment, many programs are unwilling to make the multiyear commitments required to bring promising new applicants on board.
Censorship and propaganda
Meanwhile, the administration has been working to control and censor the scientific process across multiple fields, especially public health and climate science. Two executive orders, one issued in May and one in August, require each federal agency to have a senior political appointee sign off on scientific information and approve funding opportunity announcements and grants. NSF—which among all funding agencies has most jealously protected the autonomy of its funding decisions from political micromanagement—is adopting a new structure that reduces the agency’s access to scientific expertise and weakens its independence. The administration has shut down government websites like GlobalChange.gov and Climate.gov, while also removing National Park Service displays about climate change.
