In late April, President Trump fired the National Science Board (NSB), yanking a federal science institution that had operated largely out of the public eye for more than 75 years into the center of a national controversy. Given the cuts and terminations that have already roiled the National Science Foundation (NSF)—the agency the board was created to govern—these firings were widely interpreted as another manifestation of the White House’s multifront “war on science.”
A little more than a month later, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed a new rule that would give political appointees the power to approve, reject, or terminate research grants to ensure compliance with the administration’s policy agenda. The OMB guidance and the NSB firings are only the latest examples of the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to exert more political control over the federal science bureaucracy, engendering public condemnation from elected representatives, leading scientists, and scientific institutions.
The National Science Board was controversial when it was created, precisely because critics—who were, at the time, New Deal Democrats, not MAGA Republicans—feared it would empower an unaccountable scientific elite. By contrast, many scientists and their allies in Congress—then conservative Republicans—insisted on independence from partisan, specifically presidential, control.
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The presidency is neither the only nor the best means of ensuring democratic accountability of federal science. In principle at least, Congress is better positioned than the White House to represent Americans’ diverse views and interests—as well as to translate these into durable policy through deliberation and compromise.
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