Unfortunately, the White House seems ill-equipped to deal even with short-term weather emergencies like Harvey, much less the long-term impact of global warming. Although the Senate confirmed Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency in June, the president’s budget-gutters have proposed slashing nearly $1 billion from the agency’s funding. And Scott Pruitt, the climate denier in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency, immediately (and inaccurately) lashed out at the scientific integrity of the carefully researched report.

As Hurricane Harvey barrels toward the coast of Texas — a potential Category 3 storm in the making — the Trump administration’s environmental officials might want to get around to reading the new federal report on climate change.


This speaks to a sad truth: Trump marched into Washington vowing to drain the swamp, but instead is draining the life out of the nation’s scientific leadership. Inexcusable gaps abound in scientific firepower. NASA and NOAA, which run weather satellites and collect crucial data about the health of the planet, don’t yet have permanent administrators. Staffing at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has plunged from 135 under President Obama to 45, according to former director John Holdren, a Harvard physicist. The State Department science envoy resigned this week with a letter that contained a pungent anagram: The first letter of each paragraph spelled out the word “impeach.” Samuel Clovis , Trump’s nominee as the Department of Agriculture science adviser, is a climate denier and conservative radio talk show host with no science background at all.

Put aside any well-founded belief in the intrinsic worth of scientific progress for a moment and consider the impact of research and discovery on the US economy. Much basic research in science is done by universities using federal grants — for projects ranging from the decoding of the human genome to finding a flu vaccine. The health benefits of this work are untold, and the job-creating power is demonstrable. The National Institutes of Health alone provided nearly $25 billion in grants last year, supporting more than 375,000 jobs.


Ultimately, Pruitt’s attack on the peer-reviewed climate report also signals a darker purpose: what Holdren calls the “red teaming” and “blue teaming” of science. Pruitt is reportedly considering pitting a “red team” of government toadies, er, debunkers, against a “blue team” of defenders. This amounts to base political posturing. Holdren, writing in these pages, called it “some combination of naive and disingenuous.”

Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, a ranking member of the congressional subcommittee on space, science, and competitiveness, recently wrote Trump to ask for assurance that there will be no “interference” with the science in the climate report. He’s still waiting for an answer. Even in the context of Trump’s chaotic misrule, the downward arc of US leadership in science could irreparably damage our future.