Scientific policy this week: March 31, 2025

Trump zero on the NSF construction budget for FY25

The National Science Foundation cannot receive the $ 234 million appropriate by the Congress for major construction projects during the year 2025 after President Donald Trump decided last week do not designate
Financing as “emergency” expenses. The Congress has classified the NSF construction account as emergency expenses within the framework of the final budget agreement for the previous financial year as a means of bypassing tight ceilings on global federal expenses. The emergency designation applies to a total of 27 expenditure line articles between agencies, but Trump has chosen to remove 11 from this list. His decision was challenged by the first Republican and Democrat in the Senate credits committee, which wrote
At the Office of Management and Budget arguing that the action is illegal and that the final budget agreement for the 2025 financial year continued the emergency designations of the previous year. In addition to the NSF money, the ranking member Patty Murray (D-WA) highlighted
How the decision compromises $ 100 million in funding for supply and construction projects at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Main installation projects currently funded
By the NSF construction account includes infrastructure upgrades in the databases in Antarctica, a supercalculator
At the University of Texas in Austin expected to start operations next year and various infrastructure projects halfway through the country. Many other planned installations are also competed in NSF construction money, such as
The giant magellan telescope and the thirty meter telescope. If Trump’s decision is, it is not clear if NSF would be able to transfer money from other accounts to cover the construction deficit for construction. The hole of $ 234 million in the agency’s budget represents a 2.6% drop in its balance sheet for the year 2024 of $ 9 billion.

Concession and contract endings proliferate

Cups of subsidies and active contracts are starting to prove to be more scientific agencies. For example, last week NASA finished
$ 420 million in unpertified contracts that “have been determined as redundant or ill -aligned with our basic mission priorities,” said NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens. The press has surfaced some examples of cutting projects, such as a grant sponsoring the annual conference of the National Society of Black Physicians, according to
Science. At the Ministry of Defense, secretary Pete Hegseth has directed
The termination of $ 580 million in unpertified programs, contracts and subsidies. The Ministry of Health and Social Services has published a List of subsidies completed,
many of which have been funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Nature has reported
The NIH reduces subsidies for research and COVVI-199 projects linked to transgender populations, gender identity, environmental justice and diversity, equity and inclusion in scientific workforce. The agency has also published internal guidelines saying that it no longer supports research on COVVI-19, DEI, “transgender problems”, vaccine hesitation or research in China, and it too Directed staff
To compile a list of subsidies related to the fight against disinformation or disinformation. However, certain long -term subsidies have since been restored.
NIH staff have been informed that new grants will now be revised
By HHS and the Ministry of Effectiveness of the Government to ensure that research aligns with the priorities of the Trump administration, according to
Science.

More NIH layoffs planned in the context of hhs workforce reduction

The Ministry of Health and Social Services has announced the scanning cuts
Last week, including a commitment to dismiss around 10,000 full -time employees and consolidate its 28 divisions in 15. Constituted with other layoffs, early retirement and the offers of the road fork which have already taken place within the department, the estimated HHS levels would drop from 82,000 to 62,000 full -time employees. HHS information sheet
On restructuring, the National Institutes of Health would reduce its workforce by around 1,200 employees “by centralizing supply, human resources and communications” in its 27 institutes and centers. “We are carefully focused on the development of excess administrators while increasing the number of scientists and front -line health providers so that we can do a better job for the American people,” said HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. video
announcing the restructuring. The classification member of the Senate credit committee, Patty Murray (D-WA), said in a declaration
Let the cut on the HHS workforce “defies common sense” in the middle of the bird flu and epidemics of measles.

Trump asks the Director of the OSTP to revitalize American research

President Donald Trump wrote a letter
Last week, the director of science and technology policies was recently confirmed, the ending to revitalize the American scientific company. Evoking a letter
That President Franklin D. Roosevelt Wrote to his Science and Technology Advisor Vannevar Bush During World War II, Trump Outlined Three Challenges for Kratsios: 1) SECURING THE US ‘Position as the “UNRIVALED World Leader in Critical and Emerging Technologies,” 2) “Redefining The Business of Discovery ”Through innovative funding models and reduced administrative Burden, and 3) ENSURING THAT Advances in Science and Technology“ Fuel Economic Growth That and Better the Life of all Americans.

“Today, rivals abroad seek to usurp the position of America as the largest manufacturer of wonders of the world and producer of knowledge,” wrote Trump. “We have to resume the urgency that has propelled us so far in the last century.” President Joe Biden wrote a similar letter
To its director of the OSTP at the start of its administration, which also invoked Vannevar Bush and the successes of the post-second scientific company.

Climate risks are no longer included in the Intel annual assessment

References to climate change are absent from the 2025 Annual threat evaluation
Released last week by the office of the National Intelligence Director. The report gives an unskilled overview of the assessment of the entire intelligence community for threats to which the United States has been confronted, and previous editions have frequently identified climate change as a contributor to several disturbing trends. For example, the 2024 report has listed climate change as a major challenge for American security, predicting that the worsening of droughts, floods and extreme storms would increase state instability and aggravate economic problems that feed terrorism and illicit drug. The latest report also omits any reference to droughts, storms, water resources or air quality, subjects that past editions have regularly reported as concerns for American security. For example, the 2018 report,
Delivered more than a year to the first mandate of President Donald Trump, assessed that “extreme weather events in a warmer world have the potential for larger impacts and can worsen with other engines to increase the risk of humanitarian disasters, conflicts, water and food shortages, population migration, labor deficits, price shocks.”

Questioned by Senator Angus King (I-ME) about the lack of mention of climate change, the director of the ODNI, Tulsi Gabbard, said: “Obviously, we are aware of the occurrences in the environment and their impact on operations, but we are focused on direct threats to the security of the Americans, well-being and security.” The report emphasizes the fight against drug trafficking and retains the attention of previous years on competition with China in science and technology, among other subjects.

Also on our radar

• Energy secretary Chris Wright made a prescription
  Last week, which delegates certain project management authorities to national laboratories and reduces the number of project exams required for major projects. The order also provides for a new approach to meet occupational safety requirements and an evaluation of the advantages and risks of removing certain provisions of the work agreement for the construction of laboratory contracts. The order was reported for the first time by Fox News.
  
• The United States has developed Export restrictions
  Of dozens of foreign companies and research institutes last week. The restrictions are mainly aimed at limiting China access to AI and quantum technologies with potential military applications.
• The President of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Mike Lee (R-UT) Demanding information
  From three National Labs DOE which would have financed research involving superordinators in China.

• The deputy candidate of the Energy Secretary James Danly will appear before the Senate Committee for Energy and Natural Resources Wednesday
  With the candidate for the deputy secretary of the Interior.
• Results of a investigation
  Experiences of scientists who apply for short -term American visas will be presented Thursday by a National Council of Academies.
• The house pass
  A package of bipartite invoices last week focused on research security, interinishing research collaboration and remote sensing, among other subjects. They are now awaiting the Senate measures.