// SPACE.COM — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
'This is actually taking a page out of the Communist Party playbook': New White House proposal could deny scientists funding based on their political opinions
"It replaces expertise with political appointees, globally decouples the U.S. and completely guts our scientific ecosystem."
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The White House has proposed massive changes to the scientific process in the U.S. which, if passed, could make science funding dependent on the whims of political appointees.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed a new rule called "Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance" on May 28. This rule would give political appointees the power to change, limit, or even fully overturn support and funding for scientific grants. Not only would political appointees have authority over science funding — and therefore the science that gets done — but the decisions they make could also depend on whether scientists' social media and personal lives align with the values of the current political party.
To clarify, political appointees are government employees who are given those positions by elected officials. Their position is not dependent on educational background, expertise, or experience. "This is an insidious set of proposals put forward through the most dry and uninteresting sounding processes that you can imagine," Casey Dreier, Chief of Space Policy at The Planetary Society, told Space.com.
If finalized, this proposed rule would allow political appointees the power to change science funding no matter what has been decided through the traditional peer review scientific process. The rule states that scientific peer review "remains advisory and does not replace agency discretion."
"You replace merit review, peer review, with partisan political review," Dreier said.
What this means is the appointees could make the choice to go against peer review decisions based on their evaluation of the science itself — as well as whether or not they think that the personal lives of the scientists involved are aligned with the current political party.
"If you are part of a peaceful protest, if you post something on social media saying you disagree with the policy of the administration," Dreier said, that "can be actually used against you. [They can] just quietly deny you, your graduate students, [or] your staff access to scientific research money that you otherwise would have earned by merit."
And while this rule is being proposed by the current Trump administration, Dreier warns that even those who align with the current political party in charge should be concerned.