John Holdren worries about cuts in research, climate change funding under Trump

President Donald Trump’s election was a precursor to the expected reversal of policy in many areas, including health care, immigration, energy, and, many feel, in the attitude of the Oval Office towards science.

“President Obama was more interested in science and technological innovation than any previous president,” said John Holdren, who served as the president's science adviser for Obama’s eight years in office and recently returned to the Woods Hole Research Center, where he served as CEO before heading to Washington.

Holdren, who lives in Falmouth, will advise the center on climate change research. He is also rejoining the Harvard Kennedy School faculty as the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy.

When he assumed his role as Obama’s science adviser in January of 2009, Holdren was buoyed by the presidential Inaugural Address promise to “restore science to its rightful place.”

Based on Trump’s campaign speeches, cabinet picks and his most recent budget proposals, Holdren is concerned that science in general, and the office of science adviser in particular, will not enjoy the same prominence it did under the preceding administration.

“When President Trump was campaigning and said that climate change was a hoax, then told the New York Times he would be open-minded, then appoints an EPA administrator (Scott Pruitt) who appears to be opposed to taking any action on climate change and wants to reduce the EPA’s role, that’s not a good sign,” Holdren said during a recent interview.

He is concerned with Trump’s recent announcement of cuts in discretionary funding to federal agencies to pay for a $54 billion increase in the defense budget.

“That means tremendous cuts in basic research, environmental research, energy, agriculture. It has the scientific community very worried,” Holdren said, noting that the science adviser helps craft those research budgets.

After the Russian launch of the world’s first manmade satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower named James Killian, the president of MIT, as the first Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. While Killian’s advice was sought in making policy decisions, presidential science advisers that came after President John F. Kennedy were far less influential, Roger Pielke and Roberta Klein concluded in a 2009 paper analyzing the importance of the position.

But under Obama, that changed. Holdren's Office of Science and Technology Policy had a staff of 135, two to three times the number employed under President George W. Bush. They played key roles in crafting policy on climate change, and in lowering the cost for wind and solar power to the point where they now compete with fossil fuels and nuclear power. Holdren argued that Obama’s scientific programs had much broader reach than just climate change, including promoting math and technology education in schools, job training, technological innovation, support for entrepreneurs, and environmental protection.

“He had a tremendous interest in making use of all the relevant interests that were available to him,” Holdren said.

The Office of Science and Technology is currently operating with a staff of 30, holdovers from the previous administration. Current representatives of the office did not respond to a request for an interview.

Obama had his senior science adviser staff in place by Inauguration Day, Holdren said. Trump has yet to name any candidates for the top position, although David Gelernter, a Yale professor and computer scientist, and Princeton physicist William Happer have been discussed as possibilities. Both men have expressed skepticism about the scientific consensus on climate change.

“To be a successful science adviser, you need … to be broadly informed across a range of scientific disciplines, and you need to reach out and listen to what experts in other fields are telling you,” Holdren said. “You have to have the respect of the scientific community, and you have to have diplomatic skills.”

“Being a climate change contrarian is not a great prescription for having respect from the scientific community,” he said.

One of the most important ways to make sure science is incorporated into decision making is to have the science adviser appointed as a special assistant to the president, the key to the inner circle. Without that title, an adviser must communicate through memos, passed on through an intermediary, and also needs to make appointments to see the chief executive.

Holdren had direct access, meeting with Obama two to three times a week, he said.

“There were many different contexts under which I met with the president,” Holdren said.

“A concern in the new administration is who will get the last word with Donald Trump,” Holdren said.

That is especially important in an administration Holdren said he sees as “not only unfriendly to science, but unfriendly to evidence.”

Nicolas Loris, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, said that if Trump needs scientific advice, he will ask for it and get it.

“That doesn’t mean he’s anti-science,” said Loris, who saw budget cuts that affect science funding as a way to prioritize the research and remove “the politicization of science and the lack of transparency at places like the EPA.”

“Now is the time to … really focus on eliminating things not based in science,” he said, pointing to Energy Department research he said he felt was geared towards commercializing products such as wind turbines and solar panels.

It’s time, Loris said, for the private sector to step forward with money.

“A lot of people will leave, if they believe they are not respected,” Holdren warned. “I worry about the scientific and technology talent, which Obama built up very substantially. I’m afraid that will be reversed and it will be harder and harder for the government to recruit and retain talent.”

— Follow Doug Fraser on Twitter:@dougfrasercct