Tea Party passions run high (Image: Michael Reynolds/EPA/Corbis)

Science is under fire in the US midterm election campaign, with anti-science views popular and stimulus spending on research described as waste

AMERICA is angry: about lost jobs, the ballooning deficit, and the apparent failure of massive “stimulus” spending to improve the lot of citizens hammered by the worst economic slump since the 1930s. Above all, Americans are angry with politicians who promised change for the better.

As the country gears up for the midterm elections on 2 November, seen as a referendum on President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party’s control of Congress, science has found itself in the firing line. Populist Tea Party candidates, some espousing anti-science views, have tapped into the angry mood, and stimulus spending on research is being painted in some electoral races as emblematic of government waste.


“What should be seen as an investment is now being seen as a cost, and the rhetoric we hear is that costs need to be reduced,” says Mary Woolley, CEO of Research!America, which lobbies for biomedical science.

Brian Fisher, an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, has experienced this harsh political climate. His research has been pilloried by Republicans trying to oust Democratic senators in Texas, California and Oregon. In Oregon, a TV ad run by challenger Jim Huffman features a man complaining to his wife that Senator Ron Wyden “spent $2 million to study exotic ants”. Sarcastically, he adds: “And you thought he was out of touch.”

This refers to a project headed by Fisher, funded by the National Science Foundation from the stimulus, to catalogue ant species in Madagascar and complete AntWeb, an effort to digitise information on ants worldwide. “I’ve got emails that say: ‘You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re not doing cancer research’,” Fisher says.

Other scientists fear worse than angry emails. In a recent opinion piece in The Washington Post, climatologist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University at University Park warned of a hostile investigation of climate science if, as expected, the Republicans regain control of the House of Representatives. “The truth is that they don’t expect to uncover anything,” Mann claimed. “Instead, they want to continue a 20-year assault on climate science.”

These elections may be remembered for shaking up the establishment in both parties. The new guard will need to be convinced of the benefits of science – as will a disgruntled public. Fisher has responded to the attacks by explaining how his project will help create a “Dow Jones Index” to measure threats to global biodiversity. He urges other researchers to follow his lead: “Scientists have to take on the challenge of being advocates.”

The entire House, more than a third of the Senate and 37 state governorships are up for grabs. Here, New Scientist highlights electoral races with implications for science, technology and the environment.

California

You may not have heard of Proposition 23 – six out of 10 Californians polled in September hadn’t either. Yet this ballot measure, together with the race for governor between Meg Whitman (R) and Jerry Brown (D), has nationwide implications: it will determine whether California continues to lead the rest of the US towards a greener future.

Proposition 23, heavily bankrolled by Texan oil companies, would suspend California’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act until the state’s unemployment rate drops to 5.5 per cent or less for a year – conditions that have been met only three times since 1980. If it passes, measures to return California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 – including a cap-and-trade system that could be introduced in 2012 – will be delayed.

Neither candidate for governor supports Proposition 23, and polling suggests voters will agree. Jon Krosnick of Stanford University in California, who studies public opinion on environmental issues, argues that voters don’t see a simplistic “jobs versus the planet” equation.

But the Global Warming Solutions Act, signed into California law by outgoing governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), has other threats. Whitman, former CEO of eBay, argues that the act blunts California’s competitiveness, and will suspend it for at least a year. Career politician Brown, running for an office he held from 1975 to 1983, backs most of the act’s provisions.

With many “don’t knows” on Proposition 23, and with Brown and Whitman in a close race, this is the state to watch for environmental policy. As California goes, they say, so goes the nation. Peter Aldhous

Nevada & Delaware

Tea Party favourite Sharron Angle (R) claims global warming does not exist and wants to scrap the Environmental Protection Agency. Standing between her and a seat in the Senate is majority leader Harry Reid (D), a close ally of the president. Reid won plaudits from medical organisations for his role in shepherding Obama’s healthcare reforms through the Senate, but his prominent position in the Senate has made him unpopular in Nevada, which has been hit hard by the financial crisis.

Angle is just one of many Tea Party candidates with an anti-science bent. Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell (R) opposes embryonic stem cell research and in 1998 described evolution as a “myth”. When challenged about that assertion, she asked: “Well then, why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?” Jim Giles

Arizona

Although incumbent Gabrielle Giffords is a Democrat like Obama, she has been a thorn in his side as far as plans for NASA are concerned. Giffords, who is married to an astronaut, chairs a House of Representatives committee that oversees NASA and has sharply criticised the president’s plan to outsource trips to orbit to private companies, citing safety concerns. Opponent Jesse Kelly (R) has stayed out of this debate. A loss for Giffords could ease the administration’s efforts to implement the new plan by removing one of its most vocal critics. David Shiga

Kansas

Sam Brownback (R), a senator from Kansas who is the clear favourite in the race to be the state’s next governor, explained his views on evolution in The New York Times a few years ago. “Man was not an accident and reflects an image and likeness unique in the created order,” he wrote. Theories that undermine this “truth”, he added, should be firmly rejected.

Kansans are used to such views. In the last decade or so, proponents of intelligent design (ID) and creationism mounted two successful attempts to influence the teaching of evolution in the state. Both sets of changes have since been reversed, but the campaigners have not gone away.

The governor has no direct power over school curricula, but could use the podium or back-room meetings to advocate for ID. “The governor can put the pressure on in all sorts of ways,” says Joshua Rosenau of the National Center for Science Education in Oakland, California. Jim Giles

Missouri

Soon after the midterms, the Senate is expected to vote on whether to ratify the New START Treaty, signed in April by the US and Russia to reduce the number of nuclear weapons deployed by each side. Senate candidate Robin Carnahan (D) strongly supports the new treaty, while rival Roy Blunt (R) opposes it and says the US should develop a new generation of nukes. The treaty cannot go into force without Senate approval in what is expected to be a close vote, so the outcome of the Missouri race could be key. David Shiga

Florida

Remember the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Charlie Crist hopes so. The Florida governor, who is running for the Senate as an independent, hinged his campaign on the calamity, reversing his previous support of offshore drilling. He initially took the lead in the state’s contentious three-way race, but then BP plugged its unruly well, and his numbers plummeted. Competitor Marco Rubio (R) has now leapt to first place, despite – or maybe thanks to – his unwavering support of offshore drilling. Should Rubio and other Republicans gain control of the Senate, they could bolster support for oil companies by eliminating oil spill liability limits and pushing to expand offshore drilling. Sujata Gupta