Trump budget puts science under attack

Michael McCabe, a former EPA regional administrator, was on the receiving end of an email blitz last week that challenged the federal agency's finding greenhouse gasses are a threat to public health and national security.

He clicked on the links to read the supporting science.

Instead, what he found was the source was a contrarian blogger who routinely challenges the federal agency's toxicological science.

"It poses as science," he said. "But you realize it's ideological. It's not science."

McCabe calls it "fake science," and he is seeing more and more of it these days.

Real science – the type of inquiry that paved the way for landmark environmental legislation like the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act – is facing significant cuts in the Trump Administration's proposed budget. The president, through executive orders, has already begun a major shift in the country's climate change policies.

That is putting science, as we know it, under attack.

The risk, McCabe said, is ignoring scientific inquiry and data undermines the public's trust in government to protect them from harm.

Others say it stifles innovation, economic prosperity and job creation, and it threatens to demote the United States into a secondary role – rather than lead the way – when it comes to significant research and new discoveries.

On the Delmarva Peninsula, the shift in federal climate change policies could have a profound effect. Delaware is the lowest-lying state in the nation and, as in Maryland and Virginia, sea level rise is happening faster because we are sinking as water levels are rising.

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There are even concerns that long-term monitoring data might be pulled off federal websites.

Science is big business on the Delmarva Peninsula. Researchers from the University of Delaware, Salisbury University and the University of Virginia stand to lose millions of dollars in federal money and, in some cases, the complete loss of programs.

"I think intelligent inquiry is under attack," said Jonathan Sharp, an emeritus professor at the University of Delaware's College of Earth, Ocean and Environment in Lewes. "To me, it's really appalling. I think there's no respect for facts."

Sharp is organizing a Lewes-area rally to coincide with a worldwide March for Science on Earth Day next Saturday. Rather than a march, Sharp is organizing an event with a discussion on key issues in science.

"The rally is not politics," he said. "It's stimulated by politics."

Organizers of the main event to be held in Washington, D.C., describe it as "the first step of a global movement to defend the vital role science plays in our health, safety, economies and governments."

They are not shy about their motivations either.

"Science, scientists and evidence-based policy-making are under attack. Budget cuts, censorship of researchers, disappearing datasets and threats to dismantle government agencies harm us all, putting our health, food, air, water, climate and jobs at risk."

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There will be sister events the same day at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Newark, on the boardwalk near the inlet in Ocean City, Maryland, and a march in Norfolk, Virginia.

There is a lot at stake on the Delmarva Peninsula, where the land is low and vulnerable to rising sea level, where the groundwater sits near the surface and can be tainted in an instant by a chemical spill and where the tourism economy depends on clean beaches, great fishing and a pristine environment.

At Salisbury University, one researcher looks at sea level rise, not where it is now but where it might be decades from now. Many of his customers don't really care why sea level is rising. They want to know how much to expect in the future so they can make preparations.

"They are not terribly interested in where the water is today," said Michael S. Scott, professor and associate dean of GIScience, cartography and environmental hazards. Much of his work in and around the Chesapeake Bay is done for the Maryland Highway Administration.

When they build a bridge or a road, they want to know where sea level will be in 40, 50 or 60 years and what they can expect from a storm. It ends up saving money if they build to be resilient now.

Scott builds maps that show future risk. Frequently, a farmer will call him, he said, usually with the same story. The land was dry when his grandfather tilled it, wet from time to time when his dad farmed it and wetter still now.

They want to know the answer to the million-dollar question. When will the land cease to be viable farmland? Translation: When should they sell?

At the University of Delaware, an internationally renowned program at the Newark Campus and Winterthur Museum, Gardens and Library teaches students how to use cutting-edge science to preserve photographs, furniture and art – artifacts that will inform future generations about how we lived and worked.

The work affects everyone, said Debra Hess Norris, chair and professor of the school's Department of Art Conservation. Norris is a photographic conservator and Henry Francis DuPont Chair in Fine Arts.

After there is a storm – a flood, a hurricane, a tornado – or a fire "that's what we're looking for," she said of the pictures that tell the stories of families and communities.

The program, which heavily depends on science in the restoration process, is funded through the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Trump Administration has proposed the elimination of that federal program.

At the University of Delaware's STAR Campus, scientists are looking for new cures and treatments for common health conditions like stroke and sports injuries.

Amy Arundale, a physical therapy researcher and doctoral student, works with athletes – using a network of cameras, computers and reflective dots – to assess their risk of injury.

The National Institutes of Health has provided a 5-year, $20 million grant to stimulate science innovation in health care. The final year of funding is in 2018.

"If the cuts that Trump has proposed take effect," said Stuart A. Binder-Macleod, the Edward L. Ratledge Professor & Associate Deputy Provost for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Delaware's  Department of Physical Therapy, "the program probably wouldn't be funded."

The Trump Administration has proposed $50 million in cuts in the NIH Idea Program, he said.

"That's an attack," Binder-Macleod said,"It's a great program ... because it helps improve patients directly."

In Lewes, where the University's Sea Grant College Program operates, scientists are trying to learn more about the harmful algal blooms in local waters.

"There's still a lot we don't understand," said Tye Pettay, a post-doctoral researcher, who is taking a closer look at these environmental invaders. They can make people sick, cause fish kills or simply discolor the water.

Sea Grant is proposed for elimination and much of Pettay's research money comes from that, he said.

"It's not just giving out research grants," Pettay said. "It's educating the public."

No one is certain how the proposed budget might impact state programs or environmental initiatives like the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary, the Center for the Inland Bays or the Maryland Coastal Bays Program. The Trump budget, however, eliminates the Chesapeake Bay Program and the National Estuarine Reserve programs that study a variety of issues including the resilience of coastal wetlands.

"We never used to argue about the science, the data," said Charles G. Riordan, Vice President for Research, Scholarship & Innovation and professor of chemistry & biochemistry at the University of Delaware. "We argued about the interpretation." But without the science "we run into the danger of decisions being made without facts."

The likely impact to research and development programs at the University of Delaware alone is about $20 million a year, he said.

With the proposed cuts, the university would likely lose about $6 million a year in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health, $2.6 million from the National Science Foundation, $1.5 million from the Delaware Sea Grant, $3.5 million from the Department of Energy and $1.8 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said.

But this isn't the only problem. On the Eastern Shore of Virginia, scientists have been gathering data about changes along the coast for years. The data gathered in Virginia is part of a nationwide effort to monitor keystone environmental systems over long periods of time. What happens, some researchers ask, when that data collection is interrupted?

Elvis Ebikade is in his first year as a doctoral student at the University of Delaware. His home is in Nigeria, but in a lab in Newark, he takes potato peels, dries them and grinds them to a fine powder. He then uses chemistry to break the bonds that hold the pieces of the potato together: the starch, the cellulose and the carbs. But it is not the pieces of the potato that spark Ebikade's curiosity; he wants to find the value in a food waste like potato peels.

In this catalyst lab, researchers are trying to figure out how to break the bonds of common things – poplar trees and potatoes, for instance  – and turn them into new products.

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Dionisios G. Vlachos, the Allan and Myra Ferguson Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Professor of Physics & Astronomy and director of the Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation and the Delaware Energy Institute, said so much is at stake whether it's finding new sources of energy or new chemicals that can turn garbage into materials that can be used as the feedstock for new products.

At the energy innovation center, researchers are looking at solar, wind, fuel cells, batteries, biofuels and a host of other initiatives.

"There is a lot of job creation," Vlachos said.

The coal industry may have lost 150,000 jobs, he said. But there are 2.5 million jobs in renewables.

"The technology is moving forward," he said. "It's all economics. It's economics 101."

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As for those coal workers, "I think we need to retrain them."

With federal funding cuts, Vlachos said it would be likely that students and postdoctoral researchers would be the first to feel the pinch.

But the bigger problem, he said, would likely be the key role that the United States plays as an innovator.

If science and research slow here, it will keep on growing in China, Asia and Europe, he said.

The new jobs will be in China and the big innovations will happen elsewhere, he said.

"The long-term impact is going to be tremendous for the country," he said

This week Sen. Tom Carper visited the University of Delaware Lewes Campus.

Carper and Sen. Chris Coons signed a letter urging the Trump administration to restore money for the Sea Grant Program.

"I definitely see a shift away from science with the new administration, Carper said. "Essentially, they want to dismantle the science-based aspects of the EPA" and many of the programs that deal with climate change issues, Carper said. You look at EPA ... and we have built up some of the best environmental science in the world."

Mohsen Badiey, acting dean of the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment said there are both short and long-term impacts.

"We cover a lot of basic research," he said. "We also go into the policy of how it can be applied."

Badiey said he fears that even the hint of funding cuts will push bright and promising students into research fields that are less vulnerable to political influence. That impacts the pipeline of new scientists entering fields and could ultimately lead to gaps.

"They are so smart, they can do other things," he said. "The field will suffer."

Badiey said he has another fundamental concern.

When policies are made, "you need to have the basic understanding of the science," he said. "Not having the knowledge is like you're blindly making decisions."

Contact Molly Murray at (302) 463-3334 or mmurray@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @MollyMurraytnj.