The Republican-controlled Congress this week offered the first signs that it will resist at least some of President Donald Trump’s proposals to slash federal spending on science. A key committee in the House of Representatives rejected the administration’s plan to make deep cuts to research programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the leader of the Senate’s appropriations panel called plans for a 40% cut to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) $47 billion budget "disturbing". Members of another Senate committee also signaled bipartisan opposition to cuts at the U.S. Forest Service.

Even at current funding levels, those agencies have been beset by resignations and internal turmoil. Science advocates note even that outcome would not undo the damage they say the Trump administration has already done to many science agencies by terminating or delaying grants and contracts and firing or pushing out staff. At NIFA, about one-quarter of the program’s staff have taken the administration’s “deferred resignation” offer and left their jobs, according to former NIFA Director Sonny Ramaswamy.

Source: https://www.science.org/content/article/congress-shows-first-signs-resisting-trump-s-plans-slash-science-budgets

Another high-profile case has interested scientists. Read now