March 27, 2019 10:16 AM EDT
Over the past two years, Bernhardt has played a prominent role in sidelining science in policy decisions at the Department of the Interior (DOI). How egregious are these attacks on science? Here are three that stand out, including one that just came to light and puts more than 1,200 endangered species at risk. Read more >
January 28, 2019 9:21 AM EDT
Today, UCS is releasing the report “The State of Science in the Trump Era: Damage Done, Lessons Learned, and a Path to Progress.” This report is truly a culmination of the state of science in the Trump era to date. In it, we have detailed the administration’s attacks on federal science and scientists during the past two years, highlighted successes that the scientific community and their supporters have had in pushing back against these attacks, and outlined a path forward for a new Congress to hold this administration accountable for these attacks.
October 11, 2018 11:30 AM EDT
When science is sidelined, there is often an underlying story of the people who are hurt by these decisions and it is often children. Read more >
September 5, 2018 1:37 PM EDT
The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) rushed a scientific assessment on the endangered American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) in Nebraska, seemingly because the agency didn’t want to disrupt agribusiness. Two biologists that were working on the assessment, Wyatt Hoback and Douglas Leasure, told the Washington Post that the FWS pushed them to conduct their science on an extremely constrained timeline. The beetle has been a source of contention in federal government research since 2013. The species was listed as endangered after 1989 when scientific evidence showed that the beetle had disappeared from over 90% of its historic range in the US.
August 14, 2018 2:49 PM EDT
In February and March of this year, the Union of Concerned Scientists, in partnership with Iowa State University’s Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology, sent a survey to over 63,000 federal career staff across 16 federal agencies, offices, and bureaus. Our goal was to give scientists a voice on the state of science under the Trump administration as we had during previous administrations. Read more >
