Berkeley Lab scientists feel like they have Trump’s ‘ax hanging above their head’

There’s a sense of dread at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab these days as thousands of scientists, researchers, students and staff wait to see whether entire divisions will be decimated by budget cuts.

President Donald Trump’s Department of Energy proposed a budget in May that would slash support for biological and environmental research by 54% and support for energy efficiency and renewable energy by 74%. The cuts would impact research into climate change, carbon capture technologies, sustainable transportation, hydrogen and fuel cell technology programs, alternative fuels, and wind and solar energy — all areas in which Berkeley Lab scientists are involved. Some divisions could lose their entire funding.

The cuts are part of Trump’s decimation of funding for science that goes well beyond the diversity programs and other “woke” initiatives he says he’s targeting. Since taking office in January, he has fired more than 100,000 employees and experts from government agencies, terminated or suspended grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Department of Health and Human Services. His administration has eliminated programs monitoring climate change, fired scientists tracking weather at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and rolled back EPA regulations on clean water and carbon emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency has exempted coal-fired power plants from adhering to mercury and air toxics emission limits, among other actions. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in July that said Trump has “carried out more than 400 attacks on science in six months.”

There are scientific endeavors that the Trump administration supports, however, and its proposed budget would maintain or increase funding for fusion energy research, quantum computing projects and infrastructure, and artificial intelligence. In late May, to show the administration’s support for those initiatives, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright visited the lab. Joined at a press conference by Berkeley Lab Director Mike Witherell, Wright announced a partnership between the government and private industry to develop a new supercomputer named after Jennifer Doudna, who won a Nobel Prize for her work at the lab on the gene-editing technology CRISPR.

Congress will ultimately decide how much to fund the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which UC Berkeley manages for the Department of Energy, and has a $1.5 billion annual budget. But projected budget constraints, as well as the administration’s earlier clawback of millions in science grants, have already led to layoffs of about 3% of the lab’s more than 3,000 employees, according to a lab spokesperson. Most came from operations, not the scientific side of the lab, according to people who work there. That could be as many as 114 people. More may be coming.

“Future decisions about staffing levels will be made as we receive additional information about funding for research programs and projects,” Witherell wrote in an email to staff on Aug. 27, the week after a round of layoffs. “Throughout this period, we will focus on maintaining the Lab’s core capabilities and protecting the Lab’s mission and people as much as possible.”

Witherell announced in late July that he would retire from his post next June.

During Trump’s first administration, he proposed deep cuts to science as well, but Congress largely restored them.

This year, the House, controlled by Republicans, passed a bill that would maintain DOE funding at levels similar to those of FY25, but with cuts in key areas. It would revoke $5.1 billion from one of President Joe Biden’s key legislative initiatives, the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure and Jobs Act. That would lead to cuts in programs that support “hydrogen, direct air capture, carbon dioxide transportation infrastructure, battery recycling, and energy improvements in public schools,” according to a press release put out by the Democratic Congressional minority. 

The Senate has not yet passed its proposed budget. A shutdown looms if a budget isn’t passed by Sept. 30.

Berkeley Lab staff are scared and largely silent

The uncertain nature of the budget cuts appears to be making top scientists at the lab cautious about expressing their concerns about Trump’s approach to science funding publicly. Berkeleyside reached out to more than 15 people in fields that Trump wants to cut, and most of them declined to talk, even anonymously. 

“Apologies, I cannot help you on this story,” one scientist emailed. “I am not in a position to be able to discuss, sorry about that,” said another.

“People are scared,” said Ruby Kharod, a fourth-year graduate student in chemistry who works on carbon capture projects at the lab. She said she was comfortable speaking out because she has the backing of her union, UAW 4811. “The fact that no one wanted to talk to you is indicative of the mood of people. The average person feels like they have to keep their head down. There’s an assumption that if Trump doesn’t know that we do cool things, like climate change science, he’ll forget about the lab, and we’ll go unscathed. People don’t want to talk about the work they do and how it’s under attack, because they’re hoping that somebody will miss them.”

“Everybody definitely feels like there’s an ax hanging above their head right now,” said Trace Thompson, a mechanical engineering technician who is represented by University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE-CWA 9119).

“People are nervous,’ said Kwado Kumi-Amankwah, a mechanical engineering machinist. “There’s definitely a good amount of trying not to think about it, and just kind of moseying through the day. We just don’t know what’s going to be decided.”

The budget cuts, in addition to leading to job losses, are impacting the lab in other ways, said Kharod. Fall is the time when professors offer jobs to graduate students and post-doctoral fellows for the following year. This year, professors are delaying those decisions.

“There just is so much uncertainty about what the final budget is going to be,” she said. “I’ve seen professors unwilling to support students, to take students, just because they don’t know what is going to be happening.”

“Hiring has been slowed down at the lab,” said one top scientist who has worked there for decades. “It requires extra permissions right now because we don’t want to hire someone and then have to lay them off. That’s lousy for everyone.”

Kharod, like many graduate students, is funded by the National Science Foundation. The NSF has not yet announced if it will provide funding next year, meaning many budding scientists don’t know if they will be able to do further work in their field.

When she does apply for grants, she has been told to downplay any language that might alert the federal government she is working on climate change (which Trump has called a “hoax”).

“We have been asked to take the words climate change, carbon dioxide, green transition, any of those things out of our new proposals, which, when you work on carbon capture for climate change mitigation, is a little bit of a difficult thing to do,” said Kharod. The term “climate change”  is on a list of terms the Trump administration regards as “woke” and has banned, according to a list of words uncovered by the New York Times.

“There is anxiety over every detail and distrust of the decision makers in ways I have never seen before,” said one scientist/engineer who has been at the lab for more than 25 years. He asked that Berkeleyside not use his name. 

He said he had been discussing a new central data storage collection system with a colleague, which the government is implementing. While a centralized system can make sharing scientific data simpler, his colleague also wondered if it would make it easier for the Trump administration to delete all the climate science data.

“I see people trying to do their best to do open, trusting scientific work, but they are more paranoid about who they speak to,” he said.

Budget cuts could diminish scientific expertise 

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was founded in 1931 and has shaped the world in fundamental ways since then. 

Its scientists have won 15 Nobel Prizes, 15 National Science Medals and numerous other awards. They have discovered 16 elements on the periodic table. While much of the public is unaware of the lab’s scientific discoveries and how they advance innovation, many of them have found their way into common use. Work at the Advanced Light Source, a synchrotron light source, contributed to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine. Researchers identified good and bad cholesterol, improved the understanding of breast cancer, and figured out that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs. They have developed a recyclable plastic and confirmed the existence of dark matter. Scientists at the lab have vastly improved the energy efficiency of appliances, lowering consumers’ energy costs with the Energy Star program. (Trump has proposed eliminating that program.)

Much of the work is collaborative, with scientists from different disciplines working together. These teams may disappear if funding is cut, said one of the scientists Berkeleyside interviewed. Experiments will shut down and scientists and researchers will have to leave or pivot if they don’t have funding. The scientist mentioned energy efficiency as an example. 

“The lab has world-class energy expertise, for energy efficiency, energy systems in different countries, for new energy technologies for windows or HVAC or batteries, and if they’re lost, everybody loses,” the scientist said. “When you have a group that’s been developed over decades, it’s really good and it’s trusted around the world. So I think that’s a really huge risk.”

While scientists leave the lab every year for new opportunities, at least one climate scientist Berkeleyside interviewed said she was taking a job in Scandinavia because she was so dismayed at the anti-science attitude of the Trump administration. She said she wanted to move to a country where her work was not vilified. 

“The uncertainty hanging over us now is extremely stressful, not knowing if I will have a job in the next couple of months,” the scientist told Berkeleyside in June as she was contemplating moving overseas. “It’s difficult to be doing climate research when it’s not being valued.”

Pushback against proposed cuts to science

On Wednesday, at his first formal meeting with the Board of Regents, newly appointed UC President James B. Milliken discussed the threat that Trump’s cuts pose to the University of California’s science programs. The 10-campus system currently receives about $7 billion for research and $10 billion in Medicare payments annually. 

“The University of California the world has come to know is now at risk,” said Milliken, following that with remarks that specifically focused on the administration’s push to rescind $500 million in research grants at UCLA and levy a $1 billion fine to restore them. “It casts a dark shadow over our entire future, calling into question the viability of our institutions, and threatening the future of our state and our nation.”

California’s two senators, Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, have denounced Trump’s proposed cuts to the national labs, stating that “American technological, economic, and military superiority will be put at risk if our national labs are not operating at full strength.” Gov. Gavin Newsom told UC officials not to “sell their soul” to Trump on Aug. 7. 

UC has joined a number of lawsuits against the administration, including one challenging a cap on indirect grants to 15% —a move that would cost the system $100 million annually. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked that move. 

However, UC officials have not engaged in a war of words with the Trump administration. Many speculate that officials are negotiating a deal, similar to the one Brown and Columbia did, rather than pushing back loudly, as Harvard has. 

The lab has already made changes to comply with the Trump administration’s preferences. In January, the lab closed its office of diversity, equity and inclusion and folded it into another office, according to the Daily Californian. (Five years ago, upon orders of Trump’s first administration, the lab had suspended its diversity training for employees.) This summer, the lab also withdrew official recognition and financial support for employees to march in San Francisco’s Pride Parade, the paper noted.

UC is trying to elevate the importance of the science its campuses produce with a new campaign, “Speak Up for Science.” The site shows off research and encourages people to call their representatives.

“Science makes our lives better,” says the site. “Now it’s at risk. Join us in asking Congress to reject drastic cuts to research.”

A large coalition of unions is fighting back

Last Tuesday, a coalition of unions representing faculty, staff, labor unions, and graduate students filed a lawsuit in federal court against the Trump administration. The suit alleges that pressure from the administration, specifically the threat of withholding funds, is compelling the University of California to infringe upon employees’ First Amendment rights. 

“The punishments inflicted on UC as part of this campaign of ideological control exceed

what is permitted under the law,” reads the lawsuit. “In defiance of applicable law, Defendants have unilaterally and without warning punished the UC by cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in essential research grant funding, with threats to withhold more, before any finding has been made by any competent tribunal of wrongdoing, without any hearing, and without providing the UC and other affected stakeholders with their right under federal law to contest any finding of wrongdoing.”

The White House did not agree with that explanation, according to the New York Times.

“The American public deserves responsible stewardship of federal dollars, and the Trump administration intends to fulfill that promise,” said Liz Huston, a spokesperson for the White House who characterized those who filed the lawsuit as a “bunch of victimhood-seeking professors,” according to the Times.

The invisibility of science

Protesters have demonstrated against DOGE cuts in front of the Tesla dealership on Fourth Street in Berkeley, against ABC for suspending Jimmy Kimmel’s show because of a statement he made about Charlie Kirk, and have been arrested in San Francisco for trying to block ICE agents from detaining immigrants.

There have also been demonstrations against the cuts to science, including one on Sproul Plaza in February, organized by UAW Local 4811, which represents ​​48,000 workers at the University of California, including academic student employees, postdocs and academic researchers. 

But some at Berkeley Lab say the general public is not as focused on the science cuts as other Trump initiatives.

“It just feels like you’re very invisible,” said one lab scientist. “There’s no constituency on the outside. There’s very little constituency outside of science, right?”