The New York Times. (June 15, 2020). A War Against Climate Science, Waged by Washington’s Rank and File. Retrieved September 3, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/climate/climate-science-trump.html

 

Recent reports and surveys indicate that some government bureaucrats have been undermining climate science in (presumably) a bid to protect their jobs and funding, and preserve good faith with top-level officials. These mid-level managers have imposed their will on their subordinates, censoring certain content, taking funding, and separating government grants and endorsements from certain words and ideas. One survey found that more than 63,000 federal employees viewed the E.P.A. and Department of Interior as the least trustworthy in matters of “scientific integrity”. There have been multiple examples of researchers at government organizations being forced to distance their papers from the government, as well as an example of funding being gutted from researchers who disobeyed a politically charged request by their manager. 

 

While the Constitution prohibits the firing of civil servants on political or ideological grounds, this article makes it clear that they can still be manipulated. The idea that federal agencies are somehow interfering with the publication of scientific findings in any way is concerning. Executive agencies have long been viewed as having a certain degree of stability: the bureaucrats doing much of the actual work are not appointed, less political and ideological, and last much longer than the election cycle. However, if they can be intimidated in other ways their work can be obstructed. I don’t think we’ve seen that on a large scale yet, but the thought that government organizations are making science political is truly scary.