20240925
This was originally presented in a public forum, where I responded to a question:
The question was to describe my experience of working in the federal government and to analyze what a second term of Donald Trump would mean to the federal agencies responsible for scientific research, weather forecasts and warnings, and environmental security.
In short, it is not pretty, and the prospect of Project-25 makes it uglier.
—
Before coming to the University of Michigan, I was an executive at NASA.
I was there more than 20 years, and I saw how a President and Vice President can shape what the agencies do in normal circumstances.
It is quite substantial, ranging from limiting work in certain fields, for example, climate, to influencing what civil servants say in public.
In 2016, the Trump Administration tossed normal circumstances out the door.
As he promised, President Trump immediately withdrew the U.S. from the UN’s Paris Agreement and started a full-scale attack on the EPA.
The Biden Administration, in 2020, started to repair the damage.
During the Biden Administration three bills were passed that are the most substantive climate legislation in our history. These repairs and advances will be temporary if Trump is elected again.
Indeed, a 2nd Trump administration would be far more damaging to climate capabilities and the US science enterprise in general.
There are two reasons.
First, because of the skills they learned between 2016 and 2020, a 2nd Trump administration would, simply, be far more effective in dismantling and quieting the science agencies.
The second reason is Project 2025.
Project 2025 is a plan for the deconstruction of federal government capacity and expertise across the board.
It is not exactly new, as many parts of it have been on the conservative’s agenda for years … for example, the Supreme Court’s Chevron Decision.
It is not limited to NOAA, or weather, or climate – or even science.
It does, however, target the many aspects of science that produce knowledge that might be inconvenient to those in political power. Virtually all research that focuses on the environment falls into that category of inconvenient.
Even more, Project 2025 targets the federal agencies charged with enforcing health and environmental regulations. At the bullseye is the Environmental Protection Agency.
More pernicious than these efforts to diminish and end agencies is the call for civil servants to be servants of the President, rather than servants to the Nation and its citizens.
If that were to come to pass, then government scientists could not only be prohibited from speaking and writing about inconvenient environmental truths, but they could be prohibited in participating in worldwide scientific conferences and the United Nations’ assessments of climate, health, security, and the environment.
The gap, the chasm, left by the absence of US scientists would have severe damage to the country and to the world.
When the US left the Paris Agreement in 2017, it showed that the largest economy and the 2nd largest emitter of greenhouse gases was an unreliable partner.
Though our scientists, mayors, and governors remained serious and present, we always had to overcome the fact that our federal government had taken a position contrary to evidence and scientific knowledge. If this happens again, with a more tuned and capable Trump administration, then the losses will be greater, and the consequences grave.
For this reason, I view this election as more than science versus non-science.
I view it as governance versus deconstruction of government, and all that follows from that deconstruction.
That is why, more than ever before, I am volunteering, urging people to vote, and doing what I can to organize voters.
This election, up and down the ballot, is our future.
Thank you
Richard B (Ricky) Rood
20240925
Here is a 5 minute video of this piece on YouTube