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Tuesday, December 5th, 2017

Still No Science Advisor at the White House

Author:     Emily Mullin
Source:     MIT Technology Review
Publication Date:     November 22, 2017
 Link: Still No Science Advisor at the White House
Stephan:   If you talk to people in the research community as I do almost daily you are beginning to hear stories of how research in many areas is being hamstrung because funding is drying up. You also hear that the United States is beginning to fall behind in many critical areas of science. All of this is the result of the disdain Republicanism has for a fact-based reality, and nowhere is this clearer than in the White House. Here's the story.

President Donald Trump Credit: AP/Alex Brandon

Ten months into his presidency, Donald Trump has yet to name a science advisor. It’s the longest amount of time a modern president has taken to nominate someone to the position since at least 1976, when Congress established the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Other key positions in the White House’s OSTP also remain vacant. That worries members of Congress and science experts, adding to concerns that the president is less than friendly to science.

To address this gap in the administration, a group of Democratic senators sent a letter last week to President Trump urging him to appoint “well-qualified” science and technology experts to fill these positions (see “The Gaping, Dangerous Hole in the Trump Administration”).

The authors note that OSTP currently has fewer than 50 people on its staff, down from more than 130 in the past. Meanwhile, they say numerous issues in the news during the first nine months of Trump’s presidency could have benefited from expert advice, like climate change, […]

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