Gosh, Who Knew?!? Laying Off 1,000s Of Federal Scientists & Engineers Makes It Hard To Find Oil On Federal Land
The Trump administration may end up chainsawing itself in the foot with aggressive science-related cuts at agencies like EPA and the Interior Department. Through a messy combination of mass layoffs, targeted office closings, encouraged retirements and frozen funding, the federal agencies are remaking their once-vigorous science programs.
All of which, scientists and their allies warn, will hurt the government’s ability to perform, even when it comes to implementing President Donald Trump’s agenda. Scientists are crucial to plan, permit, regulate and conserve, whether it’s a decision to protect a species, site a solar farm, build a pipeline or allow a chemical to enter the market. “The administration is slashing funding for scientific agencies, terminating grants to scientists, defunding their laboratories, and hampering international scientific collaboration,” more than 1,900 leading U.S. scientists wrote in an open letter last month.
Mary Lou Zoback, for one, is a former U.S. Geological Survey senior research scientist who warns that the science cuts could end up undermining the Trump administration’s own ability to secure speedier permits for mining and energy development projects on federal lands. “There’s nothing to permit if you don’t know what the mineral potential is, or the oil and gas potential,” Zoback said, adding that “all that analysis on federal land is done by the USGS.”
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In addition to the direct impact from the loss of scientists and other staffers, Zoback noted the indirect impacts that include widespread demoralization among those who stay. “I get so angry when people say dismissive things about the federal workforce,” said Zoback, who formerly oversaw the USGS earthquake program for the western United States. “They are the most dedicated people. They really believe in public service.” Paul Segall, a former USGS geophysicist who is now a professor in Stanford’s Department of Earth Sciences, said that graduate students are “seriously depressed” about their job prospects, which will lead to the potential long-term loss of talented recruits. “People will leave the field,” Segall said. “They will go work on some data mining thing, or, God forbid, crypto. Some people here on visas will have to leave the country, and it will be a reverse brain drain. We will lose talent, there’s no question.”
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https://www.eenews.net/articles/the-scientists-trump-needs/