BACKGROUND:
We of the ClassACT HR73 Environment and Climate Change Working Group offer our support to the scientists and employees in federal agencies, most recently the National Science Foundation (NSF), who protest devastating cuts to staff and funding as well as new policies that sidestep the scientific review process. We join with those scientists in warning that the ongoing destruction of these invaluable centers of research will harm the U.S. environment, economic dominance, and national security for decades to come.
We urge you to join us in backing these scientists at key government research institutions. Thousands have lost not only their livelihoods but also projects and laboratories that ultimately serve us all. In response nearly 1200 scientists and other employees at the NSF, the National Institutes for Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have signed letters protesting the cuts and policy changes that are crippling their agencies and undermining scientific integrity. For many, like the 144 EPA employees suspended for signing that critical letter, the personal costs have been great.
At the NSF alone since January more than 1600 active grants have been terminated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and approximately $2.2 billion of the NSF’s 2025 fiscal budget of $9 billion has been withheld by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The Trump administration’s FY2026 proposal submitted to Congress in May promises to slash NSF’s budget by 56 percent, with biological sciences, engineering and STEM education taking the hardest hits. Since April more than 1200 NIH employees have been fired, and this global leader in fighting disease has suffered more than $2.4 billion in cancelled and frozen grants and contracts. The proposed legislation will result in an additional 37 percent cut to the agency.
One promising sign that these drastic cuts to science can still be blunted during Congress’s current appropriation process occurred on July 24. The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 26-2 to approve an FY2026 EPA spending plan that is only 5 percent less than the previous fiscal year’s EPA budget. In contrast, the Trump administration wants to cut the environmental agency’s budget by 55 percent. The Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Sen. Susan Collins (R- Me.), also voted to preserve the EPA’s Office of Research and Development as well as to fully fund the agency’s Office of Atmospheric Programs, essential to responding to climate change. Two days earlier, however, the House Appropriations Committee had voted 33 to 28 for a 23 percent cut for their version of an EPA FY2026 spending plan.
The impact of all these cuts extends far beyond shuttered government labs in Bethesda, MD or offices in Alexandria, VA. Scientists working across the nation and the globe rely on grants from the NSF, the NIH and other agencies to conduct vital research on projects, such as cancer drugs, climate change, biodiversity protection, and telescopes that see beyond our galaxy. Scientists connected to America’s great university system carry out this work in conference rooms in both red and blue states, in international research stations in Antarctica, or on the shores of Maine. As these drastic cuts take hold, the very existence of America’s university system – the envy of other nations – is threatened. At the top of the list of endangered universities is Harvard, which has had at least $148.1 million in NSF grants cut. Harvard’s loss is ten percent of the agency’s total cancellations.
Experts fear that this unprecedented assault on science will drive talented researchers to find work in other countries, such as Australia, France, Canada and China who are now courting them. Senior researchers worry about losing a whole generation of young scientists in the U.S. because the fellowships and grants they depend on at the start of their careers have evaporated. And scientists warn that the nexus of public and private research that has fueled decades of U.S. innovation and economic growth as well as scientific advances can easily disappear in a very short time.
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CALLS TO ACTION
To stand in solidarity with scientists inside and outside the US government whose work is threatened by these cuts, we of ClassACT HR73’s Environment and Climate Change Working Group urge the following actions:
- Ask our representatives and senators in Washington to help preserve funding for NSF, NIH, EPA, and other government scientific agencies in the FY26 budget.
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- Here is the link to the telephone numbers of House of Representative members
- Here is the link to the phone numbers of all one hundred U.S. Senators
- Attend town halls sponsored by our representatives and senators when they return home during the August recess. Raise concerns about the severity of cuts and their impact.
- Express our solidarity with government scientists and our worries about threats to their agencies through social media posts. Alert friends who are unaware of the scale and meaning of these cuts.
- If you are a scientist and/or physician, write letters of support for government scientists and research agencies to the editors of peer-reviewed journals. Sponsor resolutions and urge our professional organizations to protest these cuts to agencies like NSF and NIH.
- Write op-ed pieces for local newspapers and publications that can inform a general audience about what the costs of these cuts to staffing and funding will mean for us all.
- Spread the word and accelerate our efforts by sharing this ClassACTion Alert to five or more people and/or post it on your social media platforms.
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OTHER RESOURCES & OPINION:
“Amid Fear of Retaliation, N.S.F. Workers Sign Letter of Dissent,” New York Times, July 22, 2025
“16 States Sue Trump over $1.4 Billion in Science Cuts” New York Times, May 28, 2025
“Employees’ protests against Trump science policies spread to NSF” Science, July 22, 2025
“Trump’s ‘Gold Standard’ for Science Manufactures Doubt” The Atlantic, July 20, 2025
“The Mystery of Trump’s Science Cuts” Politico, May 22, 2025
“ ‘A disaster for all of us’: US scientists describe impact of Trump cuts” The Guardian, July 20, 2025
“How Trump's budget cuts could affect 2 iconic space telescopes: Hubble and James Webb” Space.com, July 8, 2025
“Q&A: A feared return to the “dark ages of science” seen in EPA’s dismantling of research unit” The New Lede, July 21, 2025
“Why the federal government is making climate data disappear” Grist, July 14, 2025
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The ClassACT HR73 Environment & Climate Change Working Group plans to release announcements about critical issues and opportunities for anyone concerned to support scientific integrity and environmental protection. We hope to organize an open meeting soon to discuss our role in addressing the environment, biodiversity loss, and climate change. If you are a member of HR73 and want to join our efforts, please email John Kress at KRESSJ@si.edu.
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