Employees’ protests against Trump science policies spread to NSF

Some 149 employees of the National Science Foundation (NSF) today joined colleagues at three other U.S. research agencies in denouncing steps taken by President Donald Trump and his administration that they say have politicized federal science and are making the country less competitive.

The three-page NSF petition states that “our oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution … compels us to call attention to actions that jeopardize NSF’s mission, independence, and laws that protect the federal workforce from politicization and abuse.” It was sent to Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, who has repeatedly accused Trump of waging an assault on science. The statement follows similar protest letters last month signed by 484 scientists and staff at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and 278 employees at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as well as yesterday’s Voyager Declaration from 287 current and former NASA scientists.