Attack on Science – Trump Administration Cancels Federal Advisory Committee Meetings
What Happened: On January 22, the Trump Administration indefinitely canceled a wide range of federal advisory committee meetings, including those reviewing grants and science funding and providing scientific advice to government agencies.
Why This Matters: Federal science advisory committees are the principal means by which federal agencies bring together scientists from outside of government to consider critical information and help the agencies carry out their missions. Cancelling these meetings will delay decision-making, grant-making, and planning for many agencies. Since, at the moment, the delays are indefinite with no clarity on when or if meetings will be rescheduled, some agency efforts will be on indefinite hold.
The Details
The cancellation of science advisory committees affects agencies across the federal government, including the Department of Defense, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Food and Drug Administration and other parts of government large and small that rely on external scientific advice to do their work. Advisory committee play a host of important roles. They review scientific research funding proposals, new information that agencies rely on for their policy work, and provide external peer review and expertise to ensure agencies’ work is of highest standard and based on the best information available. These committees are an important way for academic scientists and other to directly share their knowledge and experience with agency staff and decision-makers.
I have served on several federal advisory committees reviewing grant proposals, agency strategic plans, and helping to investigate new opportunities and information. It is a rewarding experience for a scientist, and I inevitably learned a lot and worked with some truly great fellow scientists. And furthermore, I could see how the committee’s input help guide federal actions. I always advised students and early career scientists to look for opportunities to contribute to advisory committee work. Generally, participation on advisory committees is a volunteer effort, uncompensated except for travel costs. But it is worth it. And it is a critical, low-cost means to bring outside expertise to virtually every agency.
Committees operate under strict rules for appointments, dealing with conflicts of interest, and ensuring meeting and committee information is publicly available. When I first encountered the rules, they seemed burdensome, but their importance quickly became clear, and they were pretty easy to work with. Each committee has an agency staff person responsible for ensuring the committee can get its work done efficiently.
Canceling committee meetings is NOT the normal course of business for a new administration. After all, just scheduling a fairly large number of experienced scientists to get together isn’t always that easy. And the advice isn’t binding on agencies in most cases, it is advisory.
So why did the Trump Administration cancel these meetings? No rationale was given. Here are a few possibilities:
This administration isn’t really interested in scientific advice for most (any) issues. They appear to be ideologically driven and that’s the antithesis of asking for scientific evidence for decision-making.
The new administration wants to fill all the committees with people who already accept the President’s view rather than hear from independent experts. The whole basis of independent committees is to obtain scientific information from a range of sources and experience. This administration is dismissive of the very idea of “independence”.
The new administration is under the mistaken impression that canceling meetings results in cost savings. But as noted the costs of bringing in this expertise is minimal and frankly trivial in agency budgets. These were already scheduled meetings, so any costs were likely already incurred (since travel may not be refunded at a late date or rebooking costs would exceed savings).
The weirdly named Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) committee led by Elon Musk (and until he and Musk disagreed, Vivek Ramaswamy) has been criticized and now sued for not abiding by the rules for federal advisory committees. These rules include transparency in the appointment process, ensuring committee material and committee deliberations are made public, a publicly available committee charter and a clear and strictly applied conflict of interest policy.
I am sure many other scientists can think of other reasons why the Trump Administration would cancel advisory committee meetings That might make a good party game. But, in any case, this is clearly an attack on science.
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“The new administration wants to fill all the committees with people who already accept the President’s view rather than hear from independent experts. The whole basis of independent committees is to obtain scientific information from a range of sources and experience. This administration is dismissive of the very idea of ‘independence’.”
Exactly. The new executive branch is not interested in finding facts. They are only interested in things that support what they already believe.