The Trump administration’s crusade against unwelcome science has deep-sixed a first-of-its-kind “national nature assessment” just weeks before an early version was scheduled to surface.
First announced in April 2022 and formally initiated in 2023 by the Biden administration, the ambitious assessment was being overseen by the multi-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program. A draft version of the assessment’s 12 planned chapters was expected to become public soon, and the final report was scheduled for completion in late 2026.
Instead, the assessment’s director, University of Washington professor Philip Levin, was told Jan. 10 by the White House Office of Science and Technology that he was to stop working on the project. He was voluntarily leaving White House service that day.
President Donald Trump’s subsequent executive order entitled “Unleashing American Energy” and the rescinding of a Biden administration executive order were subsequently cited in an email announcing the project’s end.
