Critics of President Trump were expressing fury over the weekend after the president added to the shakeup of American scientific research by firing everyone on the panel responsible for overseeing the National Science Foundation.All members of the National Science Board, created by Congress in 1950 and responsible for National Science Foundation policy and financing for much of the country’s $9 billion scientific research agency, received email notices from the president’s personnel office on Friday that they were “terminated, effectively immediately.”Several members of boards that review National Institutes of Health science and research were also dismissed, the Washington Post reported.The move comes after the foundation canceled more than 1,000 active research grants last yet and announced an organizational realignment in December. “This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation,” the ranking member of the House Science Committee, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren said in a statement. “It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the foundation. Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won’t stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries? A real bozo the clown move,” she added.The board, made up of 24 members and a chairman appointed by the president, is drawn from members of industry and universities, and represents a variety of geographic areas and science and engineering disciplines. One-third of the board is appointed every two years. Mr. Trump made seven new appointments in 2020 and reappointed one member. President Biden appointed the rest of the board members. The term of at least one of Mr. Trump’s appointments had been scheduled to end next month. The board advises Congress and the president on the activities of the National Science Foundation. It typically meets four times a year. Its next meeting was scheduled for May 5.“I am deeply disappointed, though I cannot say I am entirely surprised,” a terminated board member, Willie E. May, told the New York Times. “I have watched the systematic dismantling of the scientific advisory infrastructure of this government with growing alarm, and the National Science Board is simply the latest casualty.”President Trump’s 2027 budget request seeks to cut the foundation’s funding by more than 50 percent. He has also moved to put more loyalists into leadership positions. In March, he nominated the former deputy secretary of Health and Human Services, Jim O’Neill, to lead the foundation. Mr. O’Neill’s nomination is still pending in the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.A spokesman for the National Science Foundation declined to comment to The New York Sun about the dismissal and directed inquiries to the White House. The administration didn’t immediately return a request for comment.The foundation posted in a December statement that the restructuring of the organization will empower “staff and the scientific and research community to be more responsive in a rapidly evolving science and technology environment.”“These changes reduce the number of layers in the organization, which allows the agency to more effectively interface with our staff, while achieving faster response times for review and making awards,” the statement reads.The president’s allies have long complained about the politicization of science as well as scientists with whom they disagree politically. One such scientist, a longtime and vocal critic of the president, the “Science Guy” Bill Nye, has received major funding from the National Science Foundation for years. He called on Congress to step in and restore funding.Mr. Trump has carried out several dramatic changes to the country’s health and science agenda since returning to office. Last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all members of a committee that advises on vaccine policies. He appointed several new members who have a history of anti-vaccine views. Just last week, the head of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, opted to kill a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on the Covid-19 vaccine, claiming the long-used methodology for determining its effectiveness was questionable.
