“American know-how,” “American ingenuity” — these were terms many of us grew up with to describe the innovation and advancement powered by United States leadership in science that has made life easier, healthier, and longer, and that continues to open new worlds to us.
With the challenges of AI, medical technologies, returning to the moon (and beyond), and powering a world whose energy needs are projected to expand exponentially, maintaining our leadership could certainly benefit from an organization that provides independent, objective advice to policymakers.
Well, we have one. Or at least we think we do.
The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine was congressionally chartered in 1863 to do just that. However, as with so many of our venerated institutions in recent years, it has dived head-first into many progressive policy priorities and fallen prey to other destructive influences.
Science is suffering from a reproducibility crisis, where identifying bogus, manipulated, and politicized research has become a cottage industry. This is due in no small part to torch-wielding activists burning down institutions that produce research that fails to support the “right” conclusions. Rather than fighting it, the National Academies have too often given fuel to the torch-wielders. NASEM’s tepid, caveated 2020 report on school reopening was a de facto invitation for teachers’ unions to throw their weight around, prolonging the damaging closures. As if that weren’t bad enough, the report included an epilogue on “the epidemic of systemic racism.” Predictably, the students NASEM professed to be most concerned about were most harmed by the closures the report helped prolong.
Last month Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency announced it was beginning the process to reverse the 2009 Clean Air Act Endangerment Finding, which granted the feds authority to regulate CO2. Since its inception, skeptics have worried that this policy was driven by progressive special interests. A recent dump of public records suggested the Obama-era officials’ finding was pre-determined — a no-no under the Administrative Procedures Act. This kicked off a very profitable period for researchers, consultants, and environmental NGOs who rushed to gorge at the trough of what they termed the climate crisis. NASEM, technically a non-profit foundation which has not only received significant government money to promote climate alarmism but has actively solicited private donations for that cause, decided it ain’t gonna take the EPA’s recent move lying down.
Marcia McNutt, president of NASEM’s National Academy of Sciences, declared the organization will be conducting a “fast-track review” studying “the latest scientific evidence on whether greenhouse gas emissions are reasonably anticipated to endanger public health and welfare in the U.S.” In other words, NASEM, tasked with providing advice to the federal government “whenever called upon,” is taking the extraordinary step of proactively second-guessing the EPA’s decision and advising the government, whether the government asked for it or not. Historically, it has been a responsive organization, weighing in to provide expertise to support the government’s needs. Thus, it is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for NASEM to insert itself into a federal agency process absent a request to do so — and certainly to wade into a politically fraught subject at the center of a pending high-profile regulatory effort, such as rescinding the Endangerment Finding.
Ideology aside, NASEM appears to be heavily dependent on government support — receiving approximately $200 million from government coffers in 2023. That is, until the Department of Government Efficiency began auditing federal research dollars suspected of being used improperly or to promote progressive policy priorities such as DEI, gender ideology, and climate alarmism.
TRUMP’S CULTURE WAR OFFENSIVE IS WORKING
The audit has hit NASEM hard. Contract cancelations and stop work orders have undoubtedly left the organization scrambling, with Ms. McNutt announcing in May that 250 of its 1100 staffers could lose their positions over substantial funding cuts. Staff reactions to scrubbing “wokeness” haven’t mollified critics. One report revealed NASEM “members [] expressed outrage when staff were ordered to purge words such as ‘health equity’ and ‘marginalized populations’ from complete or near-complete reports this winter,” and Ms. McNutt and NASEM chief operating officer Greg Symmes dissolved the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, “citing executive orders from Trump and NASEM’s obligations as a federal government contractor.”
Ms. McNutt and NASEM’s decision to insert themselves further into the political fray is likely to attract more scrutiny. It is not far-fetched to think that fungible taxpayer funds that have yet to be fully DOGE’d might be deployed for this self-initiated activist effort to stop the EPA from derailing what many see as a climate alarmism gravy train. As a long-time VIP rider on the train, opposing the EPA may make sense to NASEM climateers. To outside observers, it looks like sour grapes soaked in evident financial conflicts.
Michael Chamberlain is the director of Protect the Public’s Trust.