Trump’s proposed 2018 budget slashes climate science funding
White House takes aim (again) at science, innovation and climate change in budget proposal
Trump unveiled his budget for 2018 and it is just as scary as the last one. Sweeping cuts are proposed to the EPA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and climate science funding in general. While the news is not shocking, the proposal paints the clearest picture yet of the long-term intentions of this administration. The message: all climate-related science programs are taking a blow, leaving our health and economic futures in jeopardy.
Every single agency that touches climate change research, from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the Department of Energy, NASA, NOAA and especially the EPA, would see sharp reductions or eliminations of climate research programs.
This puts our nation’s future at risk.
The EPA’s budget alone would be cut 31 percent, similar to the proposed 2017 cuts. Not only do these cuts mean less equipment, travel and fewer jobs for researchers and developers in labs across the nation, but cuts to climate research put the health and well-being of our communities at stake.
Cuts to the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Environmental Health, which is responsible for studying health risks from air pollution, including from fossil fuel refinement and combustion, and the health effects of climate change, also endanger public health. Trump’s budget would slashes its funding by 28 percent.
The Department of Energy’s science programs, which “enhance U.S. security and economic growth through transformative science, technology innovation, and market solutions to meet the nation’s energy challenges,” would be gutted in the 2018 plan, with a 52 percent drop from 2016 funding levels. Within the DOE, the Office for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would be among the hardest hit, with a proposed 69 percent cut from its 2016 budget. These programs helped spur the most important innovations in clean energy, providing the backing that sparked businesses like Tesla.
We can’t defeat a threat we can’t see.
If these proposed cuts are approved, we would lose our eyes and ears, our ability to track climate change as it accelerates. One budget cut at NASA would hit an instrument meant to improve scientists’ ability to monitor the amount of solar radiation entering and exiting the atmosphere. Another would eliminate a mission known as CALIPSO, a satellite instrument aimed at addressing one of the biggest uncertainties in climate science: our understanding of how clouds and aerosols affect the climate.
At the NOAA, the office responsible for helping restore and protect our increasingly vulnerable coasts would be completely eliminated. The agency’s climate research programs, considered to be among the best in the world, would also take a funding cut on the order of 30 percent.
In addition, the U.S. Geological Survey would be cut by more than 10 percent. Even before these cuts, the agency has been having trouble maintaining its network of river gauges that the National Weather Service relies on for triggering flood warnings. So as heavy rains become more common as the world warms, the number of functioning gauges is declining.
Trump’s cuts don’t consider the consequences.
Essentially, the Trump administration is using a copy/replace technique with the nation’s pocketbook, searching for anything for “climate” and replacing it with a severed leg or two.
These budgets cuts will have consequences not only for our ability to anticipate, understand and respond to climate change as it accelerates, but also for future scientists, researchers and innovators of this country.
“The ramifications of these cuts — which are below the FY17 omnibus levels — will have significant impacts on the health and welfare of the nation,” Chris McEntee, the executive director and CEO of the American Geophysical Union, which is the world’s largest organization of Earth scientists, said in a statement.
If the US is no longer a leader in innovation on climate, health and energy research, young people will go to countries that are.
The good news? Congress, the real keepers of the checkbook, understand this. Many members of both parties declared the budget request dead on arrival on Tuesday. They know that cutting science funding means cutting the opportunities of the future. Still, the intention is crystal clear. Trump’s long-term agenda poses a threat to our health, our jobs and our future.
Garrett Blad writes for I Heart Climate Scientists and other publications on climate change, policy and social change. You can follow him @gblad.
