Trump Policy Threatens to Silence Scientists We Rely On

The rule will strip 50,000 career federal employees of their long-held job protections, allowing the administration to replace independent civil servants charged with protecting the public good with a federal workforce of de facto political appointees. Employees given this new status can be removed for diverging from the president's political preferences.

One hallmark of authoritarian rule is efforts to centralize and personalize power and eliminate checks and balances. That is exactly what this bill does.

The rule includes the following language:

"Employees in Schedule Policy/Career positions who perform well, and faithfully implement the President's agenda to the best of their ability, have little reason to fear dismissal based on non-merit factors."

This language clearly threatens punishment for federal employees who dare to do anything that doesn't align with the president's wishes. That could include researching or publicizing scientific data that counters the administration's political messaging, or efforts to make sure proposed rules are in line with the law.

Additionally, there is no provision for independent review of dismissals or protections against politically motivated or retaliatory dismissals under this scheme.

More than 35,000 comments were submitted in response to this proposed rule-94% of those comments in opposition. Putting federal employees completely under the thumb of a political agenda weakens public trust in government and could result in less effective and equitable policies. This new rule further erodes the capacity of a federal workforce that has lost tens of thousands of staff due to the administration's reckless cuts and an increasingly hostile environment for public servants.

"This rule is a monumental threat to evidence-based governance and democracy," said Jennifer Jones, the Director of the Center of Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "This approach would make federal employees accountable solely to the President's whims, not to the law and the public good."