Dear UCS supporter,
I've got good news and bad news. First, the good news: we recently called on the UCS community to comment on a proposed government-wide rule that would politicize federal research funding, including NSF funding, in unprecedented ways. And boy did the UCS community show up big-time.
We submitted over 26,000 comments to the public record in defense of keeping science in federal policy free from political interference. Our supporters like you turned this into one of our best-performing actions ever, I am so proud of this community for matching the urgency of the Trump administration's attack with clear resolve and one voice: politics DO NOT belong in science.
Since the start of this second Trump administration, UCS has risen repeatedly in defense of the National Science Foundation. We've publicly rejected a nominee to lead the National Science Foundation (NSF) who is not a scientist or engineer. We have taken legal action to prevent NSF from closing its National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), and gathered support from all of you writing letters to your Senators to Save NCAR. We've sent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to NSF to release the responses to its Dear Colleague Letters and its own internal decision-making for greater transparency in these proposals. We've sounded the alarm on proposals to restructure the NSF. We're going to keep pulling out all the stops to defend science, and we will continue to need your help.
And now the bad: The Trump administration is at it again. As we know from tracking this administration's attacks on science, they have their sights set on the federal scientific enterprise, and they will not let up. So, neither can we. NSF has just proposed major changes in its procedures for awarding research grants. Essentially, the proposed rules — which are now open for public comment — would codify within NSF the damaging changes OMB proposes to make government-wide. This administration just doesn't seem to understand that we don't want one person deciding for the entire country what to spend our money on, including our science dollars. It would destroy credibility by dismantling NSF's merit review process for everything: research grants, fellowships, training grants, center grants, undergraduate research opportunities and more by making it subject to review and approval by a political appointee. When the best available science is replaced by political preferences, everyone pays the price.
If you don't agree with taking a sledgehammer to this country's cutting-edge scientific enterprise, submit a comment to this docket.
