Trump Administration

Our experts and analysts weigh in on the latest developments in the Trump administration.


Fighting for Facts and Family: What Will We Tell Our Kids?

, Research Director, Center for Science and Democracy

October 19, 2018 2:18 PM EDT

They call my name. I walk to the stage and sit at the mic. I feel the eyes of the government decision-makers in front of me and the audience watching below. I start to speak. I’m interrupted by a baby crying. My baby. He’s four weeks old and strapped to my chest. I look down and frantically try to put a pacifier in his mouth. I lose my place in my notes. An awkward pause. The audience hears only my baby crying as I struggle find the words I scribbled down in a notebook earlier. I finally find them, press on to the end of my testimony, and step off the stage. Read more >

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Three Reasons Bernard McNamee is a Horrible Choice for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

, senior energy analyst

October 10, 2018 2:57 PM EDT

President Trump’s nomination of Bernard McNamee to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) may not grab a lot of headlines but make no mistake – it’s a blatant (and oft repeated) move by the Trump administration to pollute an independent regulatory body with political operatives intent on carrying out his crony capitalism. A hearing to consider McNamee’s nomination is already set for Tuesday, October 16th – a clear sign that Trump’s political allies are trying to ram through his appointment without thoughtful consideration. But here’s three reasons McNamee is a horrible choice to be a FERC commissioner and why his potential confirmation should worry all of us. Read more >

Photo: Ryan McKnight
Photo: Tammy Anthony Baker/Wikimedia Commons
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Kids Deserve to Have Healthy Lives: The Uncertain Fate of EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection

, executive director

October 4, 2018 4:02 PM EDT

The future of EPA’s Office of Children’s Health Protection (OCHP) is in doubt after its director was abruptly placed on administrative leave. Read more >

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Trump’s USDA vs. Science

, director, Food & Environment Program

October 3, 2018 10:05 AM EDT

The United States has a complicated history when it comes to science. The very birth of the nation is bound up with the European Scientific Revolution and Age of Enlightenment, culminating in the notion that reason should inform the self-government of free peoples. President Jefferson wrote that science “is more important in a republic than in any other government.” Decades later, President Lincoln established the National Academy of Sciences to “provide independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology.” Read more >

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Action Needed to Address the US Military’s PFAS Contamination

, fellow

September 25, 2018 9:30 AM EDT

There was dead silence at a community meeting last week in Portsmouth, New Hampshire after Nancy Eaton spoke before a panel of top federal health officials planning a study of per- and polyfluoroalkyl (PFAS) contamination at the former Pease Air Force Base. She described how her husband David, who was healthy all his life, died quickly in 2012 at 63 from pancreatic cancer. Eaton’s sentiments were echoed by Andrea Amico, a co-founder of Testing for Pease, a group of parents whose children drank contaminated water at the site’s daycare center, and whose demands for a thorough investigation of PFAS harms have now resulted in establishing Pease as a key location in the first nationwide federal study of those harms. Read more >

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