The federal government is undergoing a seismic loss in scientific understanding since President Donald Trump’s return to office, a prominent civil service group warned.
The Partnership for Public Service released on Tuesday the latest edition of its Federal Harms Tracker, this time focusing on employees leaving science agencies, including EPA, the Forest Service, NOAA and the National Science Foundation. Staffing in those agencies dropped by more than 117,000 employees overall, according to the good-government research group.
Thousands of engineers, researchers and scientists parting ways with the public sector come as the Trump administration pushes to downsize government and politicize federal funding heading into the wider world.
“We’re talking about a generational loss here. This is not something that can be turned on and off like a light switch,” Max Stier, the partnership’s president and CEO, told reporters. “We’re seeing the destruction of something that was invested in over 50 years, and it’s disappearing in the space of so far 18 months.”
