Last week, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) released a new, interactive tool that shows the number of attacks on science and potential scientific integrity violations committed by the second Trump administration. UCS has documented a shocking 576 attacks and 188 potential scientific integrity violations between January 20, 2025 and June 29, 2026.

The Attacks on Science Tracker is a transparent, fully accessible analytical platform backed by a rigorous methodology. It acts as a public record of elected officials politicizing federal science, from the start of the second Trump administration into perpetuity. And it vividly illustrates not just how elected and political officials attack federal science, but how it affects all of us—undermining the science, including climate science and medical information, that we need to stay safe and healthy.  It also shows how many of these attacks could be prevented by passing the Scientific Integrity Act.

Introducing the Attacks on Science Tracker

The UCS Attacks on Science Tracker is the culmination of an effort I’ve led over the past several months (with the help from an entire village worth of people!) to evolve the Center for Science and Democracy’s methodology to track attacks on science. We undertook this effort in response to the second Trump administration’s ferocious and systemic attack on federal scientific systems and on our democracy. 

The Center has been tracking attacks on science and advocating for scientific integrity protections since 2001, and this work continues more than two decades later through research, community organizing and outreach, and policy advocacy. The Tracker and its methodology were created to support all these avenues of work within and outside of UCS.

This means that anyone who cares about science can take advantage of the tool’s interactive features, robust data, and transparent methodology to hold elected officials accountable, document harms from the past into the future, and advocate for evidence-informed policy and scientific integrity protections. These are all necessary for a healthy and functioning democracy, one that exists to protect all its people.

We need the Scientific Integrity Act

Scientific integrity protections, in particular, are critical, because they help keep science independent from political, corporate, and financial influence. These policies help federal scientists conduct and communicate their scientific work about toxic chemicals, vaccine safety, climate change, and other topics free from the threat of alteration, suppression, or censorship. With independent science, all of us—the public and decisionmakers—can hear the full story, and can make both policy and personal decisions based on the best available science.

A major feature of the new Attacks on Science Tracker and its methodology is that it identifies which of the documented attacks constitute potential scientific integrity violations. Anybody can use this data and interactive visualizations to advocate for scientific integrity protections and the passing of the Scientific Integrity Act.

Not every attack on science is a scientific integrity violation, but these concepts are inherently linked. Think of “attacks on science” as a broader umbrella term that encompasses all the various ways that elected and political officials politicize science.

In the recently released Attacks on Science Tracker, we categorize attacks on science into 11 differenttypes of attacks to contextualize how officials politically interfere with science.

Passing and enforcing the Scientific Integrity Act would have helped to prevent about a third of the total number of attacks on science we’ve documented since January 20, 2025. That’s almost 190 instances of political interference that have implicated climate science, equity, the environment, and health and safety.

How we categorize attacks

In our data, potential scientific integrity violations are specific types of attacks on science. We chose these types of attacks on science based on the most current text of the Scientific Integrity Act. The bill doesn’t explicitly define scientific integrity violations, but does list several examples of the types of political interference (like censorship) the bill would help prevent.

We use the bill text as a metric for which attack types to classify as potential scientific integrity violations. However, there may be potential discrepancies between our attack type definitions and what is considered a scientific integrity violation based on current bill text. Thus, our potential scientific integrity violation data should be used for informational purposes, not treated as the final determination of the presence of a scientific integrity violation.

Based on the most current bill text, we classify the following five (out of 11) of our attack on science types as potential scientific integrity violations. We’ve seen the Trump administration commit many examples of each since inauguration, and these attacks come at the expense of all of us, by undermining the science and science-based policies we depend on.

Altering Study Results: This variable captures when elected or political officials edit, misrepresent, or manipulate a federal (or federally funded) scientific study. Between January 20, 2025 and June 29, 2026, the Attacks on Science Tracker has documented 38 of these types of potential scientific integrity violations. As an example, the Trump administration altered over 100 federal datasets related to public health and safety to align with its anti-science and anti-trans executive orders. In another incident, a political official in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence urged analysts to redo an analysis because its results conflicted with the White House’s policy priorities.

Changing the results of a study or the data that informs them is blatant politicization and could ultimately call the reliability and accuracy of the study into question. Trusting this information and making informed personal and policy decisions becomes much harder to do in the short term. In the long term, this can change the scientific record on many different topics and sideline the ability for future researchers to assess the best-available science when conducting new studies.

Censorship: This represents when elected or political officials stop or control federal scientists’ public communication. There are 26 censorship attacks recorded in the Attacks on Science Tracker, encompassing various instances when federal agencies and officials have instituted additional political review of projects before they’re published in peer-reviewed journals, stymied communication and materials related to the administration’s prohibited topics, and halted all external health agency communication shortly after President Trump’s second inauguration.

When their communications and messaging are restricted or halted, federal scientists may not be able to relay accurate and important scientific information, either in a timely manner or at all. This interference is especially concerning when the restricted information is about public health, like emerging infectious diseases or cancer treatments and diagnoses.

Data Accessibility: This variable captures when elected or political officials eliminate federal data or scientifically informed information or make it less accessible to the public. We documented 58 data accessibility attacks in the Tracker as of June 29, 2026. The administration’s efforts to scrub federal websites and scientific guidance that includes any mention of transgender, non-binary, and intersex people is a prime example of this type of attack. But there have been several others that have unfolded since, including when the Environmental Protection Agency removed materials from their website that drew connections between human actions and climate change.

Removing taxpayer-funded scientific information from federal websites like this alters the critical information researchers, decision-makers, and entire communities need. And suppressing the availability of information that goes against the administration’s priorities can sow doubt in established scientific facts.

Data Collection: This encompasses instances where elected or political officials interfere with or stop the data collection of a scientific study. There are 87 such attacks in the Attacks on Science Tracker, including an incident where the Trump administration, using explicit political language, canceled ongoing research that would help determine the safety of pipelines that transport hazardous materials to the environment and nearby communities. In another incident, the administration canceled an annual survey that helped assess the state of food insecurity in the US, claiming it had become “politicized”.

Looking at this type of attack, I often think of the popular adage: “only what gets measured gets managed.” Halting data collection makes it difficult for the government to assess the true scope of any given topic and provide the necessary resources and support in response. Refusing to see a problem can be an excuse for simply declining to address it at all. And in the case of canceling ongoing studies—or studies that have already used federal resources and compiled data—it’s simply wasteful.

Restrictions from Professional Engagement: This refers to incidents where elected or political officials cancel federally sponsored research events, bar federal scientists from attending such events, or investigate scientists for their involvement in such events. 20 of these types of attacks are documented in the Attacks on Science Tracker. As soon as the first week after President Trump returned to office in January 2025, all travel and grant review panels were paused indefinitely in federal health agencies and at the National Science Foundation. And during a time of increased bird flu infections and uncertainty of how it could spread, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered the National Academy of Sciences to cancel a workshop that was meant to provide guidance to medical professionals and farmers on best practices for protecting themselves against infection.

This type of attack has far-reaching and, perhaps, less visible consequences. Pausing grant review panels indefinitely halted the ability for federal agencies to review and disseminate federal research grant applications, throwing people’s projects, jobs, and entire careers into jeopardy. And preventing federal involvement in conferences and workshops can prevent collaboration among resources or undermine the timely dissemination of critical information needed to help communities navigate natural disasters and keep people safe from emerging diseases.

We’re not just watching—we’re pushing back

The Attacks on Science Tracker provides unique and robust documentation of political interference in federal science and presents many opportunities for people to advocate for evidence-informed policies and scientific integrity protections. This is the type of advocacy that recently brought the Scientific Integrity Act back to the Senate for the first time in seven years. You can help us keep the momentum going by:

• Getting acquainted with the Attacks on Science Tracker and its many interactive features. UCS is hosting a webinar tomorrow, on July 1 (4-5p ET), in support of efforts to protect federal science. During the webinar, I’ll introduce the audience to the Tracker and walk through some examples of how it can be used to advocate for scientific integrity protections, and my colleagues will provide an update on the Scientific Integrity Act. Join us!
• Urge your Congresspeople to co-sponsor the Scientific Integrity Act, which can help prevent the very types of attacks I laid out here. Use this easy link to contact your Representatives in the House, and this link to contact your Senators.
• Spread the word about the Tracker by sharing our posts on Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn.
• And stay up to date on UCS’s other advocacy actions by regularly checking our website.

Unfortunately, the FEMA Review Council report misses the moment we’re in. We’re facing triple crises: the fossil-fueled impacts of climate change are worsening disasters, which are colliding with the affordable housing shortage and day-to-day affordability challenges people are facing, as well as the harms caused by Trump’s authoritarian government.

Admittedly, this version of the council’s report is an improvement to the disastrous draft leaked back in December, led by former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem. However, if implemented, this report’s recommendations would make drastic changes to disaster aid (both public and individual assistance) leaving communities, especially lower income disaster survivors, with fewer resources to recover. The recommendations also would: push the privatization of federal flood insurance, place more responsibilities—such as trainings—onto state, local, tribal and territorial governments (SLTTs) and “rebalance” FEMA’s workforce, ultimately reducing staff even more. Most of the recommendations in the report would require congressional action to be implemented—and Congress should make sure that never happens!

UCS opposes FEMA Review Council report’s ten recommendations which, if implemented, would continue the Trump administration’s harmful plan to place the extraordinary burden of responding to disasters onto the shoulders of SLTTs while leaving the most vulnerable more exposed to harms from disasters with fewer resources. FEMA was established to coordinate and support SLTTs, not to recreate 56 different response and training entities.

As written, the recommendations have numerous flaws and contradictions and would exacerbate inequities faced by households and communities with fewer resources, including many communities of color and Tribal communities.  

I submitted a letter to the council on behalf of UCS, criticizing the council’s omission of critical science-based context like climate change which heightens dangers facing the US. You can read UCS’s full set of comments here, and below is a brief summary.

Climate change risk, administration’s FEMA cuts ignored

The first problem with the report is its failure to acknowledge climate change-related risks and impacts or the need to invest in pre-disaster mitigation and adaptation. This year (as of March 31, 2026), there have been 5 extreme weather and climate disasters that each met or exceeded one billion dollars with a loss of 176 lives and a total economic cost of $12.4 billion. These losses come on the heels of years of record-breaking climate impacts that fossil-fueled climate change had a role in worsening. Climate change:

• Increased the strength of Hurricane Erin (August of 2025) from a category 4 to a category 5 storm, increased windspeed by 10mph, and warmed the water temperature in the path of the hurricane by 1.2°C.  
• Increased Hurricane Helene’s (September 2025) windspeed by 10 mph, made the waters over which it passed 1.2°C warmer and made the 20-30 inches of rainfall at least 10% heavier.
• Made the heatwave in mid-July of 2025 at least three times more likely for nearly half of the US population and the extensive mid-March heat wave this year three to five times more likely.
• Increased the Fire Weather Index an estimated 6% for the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires (Palisades and Eaton wildfires) and made the wildfires 35% more probable.

The council members wrote the final recommendations without regard to these harsh realities or the Trump Administration’s ongoing dismantling of FEMA. The chaos and consequences of the last eighteen months should have informed the final recommendations on the future of FEMA given the implications of the numerous destructive actions by President Trump, former DHS Secretary Noem, and three former Senior Officials Performing the Duties of the Administrator (SOPDA).

These destructive actions have included:

• Reducing FEMA’s workforce by one-third, including a significant loss of senior expertise
• Delaying and politicizing disaster assistance
• Cancelling grant programs (only to have them brought back through litigation)
• Canceling FEMA’s national and technical advisory committees
• Establishing a work environment based on fear and retaliation, and
• Slow-walking or withholding of Congressionally appropriated funds, among others.

Trump’s hand-picked council embraced disinformation

You may recall that President Trump established the 12-member FEMA Review Council in January of last year by executive order to develop this final report. The council held three publicly noticed meetings and had a series of drama filled moments and delays, including the leaked December 11, 2025 draft, last-minute cancellation of a key meeting, and the President’s extension of the council (until ten days after the final report is submitted to the president or May 29, whichever came first).

The council released the final report at their last public meeting on May 7. True to form, the council only opened the Federal Register for public comments just one week prior to the final FEMA Review Council meeting, again allowing insufficient time for meaningful input. There were 148 public comments submitted by the June 8, 2026 deadline.

There were many logistical issues regarding the council that ensured its insular vision and lack of policy specifics including the fact that:

1. The small ten-member board (not counting the board chairs DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth) lacked diversity;
2. It disincentivized meaningful public input by misaligned timelines;
3. The council violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act which requires all meetings to be publicly noticed and the proceedings documented; and
4. It embraced disinformation in the final report multiple times.

Specifically, the council spoke to how the recommendations and report messaging aligned with its own survey results, but a review of that survey in the report’s addendum demonstrates respondents’ support for a strong FEMA that supports SLTTs, the need to invest in pre-disaster mitigation, and the need for funding to help SLTTs, among others. This is not simply a contradiction between recommendations and survey results, it’s a misrepresentation of the survey results.

FEMA, Congress shouldn’t implement council’s recommendations

The next steps regarding the implementation of the FEMA Review Council report are unclear. As mentioned above, one key thing to recognize is that most of the report recommendations require congressional action.

Many of us who attended the Association of State Floodplain Managers conference think FEMA will try to implement as much as it can under its likely new administrator, Cameron Hamilton (yes, the same person President Trump fired last year, now nominated to lead the agency). During the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs confirmation hearing, Senators grilled Cameron Hamilton on the politicization of disaster assistance among other issues. Nevertheless, by all estimates he will be confirmed as the first FEMA administrator after President Trump’s 16 months in office and four SOPDA’s or temporary administrators.

It’ll be bad news for the nation and FEMA if Cameron Hamilton moves forward with implementing the parts of the report he thinks he can without Congressional action. It’ll mean:

• Fewer disaster declarations even as the harms of extreme weather and climate-fueled disasters mount;
• Less disaster assistance for disaster survivors with fewer resources and more assistance to wealthier communities;
• More unfunded responsibilities shifted to SLTTs for training, response, and recovery;
• Gutted FEMA workforce; and
• Fewer resources directed to pre-disaster mitigation.

As disaster and emergency management expert Dr. Samantha Montano summarized, sadly the report is a political exercise, gets many things wrong and is not a vision for a more “effective, efficient, and equitable” emergency management system. If you really want to dig into the details of why this is, check out her excellent FEMA Review Council Report Analysis.

Legitimate ways get your voice heard to modernize FEMA

The FEMA Review Council was not a legitimate process for public input, and its recommendations are a far cry from what the nation needs. My hope is that the report will be completely ignored by the likely future FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton and Congress.

Speaking of Congress, the House passed out of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure the “Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act of 2025” or the FEMA Act on September 3, 2025, by an overwhelming vote of 57 to 3. The bill now has 83 co-sponsors. While this bill isn’t perfect (no bill really is), it has many good pieces for example it would:

• Return FEMA to a cabinet level agency;
• Increase length of assistance available to disaster survivors;
• Improve accessibility to disaster assistance by requiring the development of a unified disaster assistance application; and
• Advance transparency by requiring the development of an Individual Assistance dashboard.

The Senate has yet to introduce a companion bill.

Additionally, we need to keep track of FEMA’s budget and ensure Congress is supplementing the Disaster Relief Fund. We’re also in Danger Season, the time of year between May and October when extreme weather in North America becomes most intense and frequent, with heat, flooding, wildfires, drought, and hurricanes posing the highest risk. While it’s projected to be a slightly lower than normal Atlantic Hurricane season, just one hurricane making landfall would be disastrous, especially after a year and a half long assault on FEMA and unqualified leadership at the helm.

You can take action now and: Tell Congress: Stop Trump’s Dismantling of FEMA and Disaster Relief.

The August congressional recess is an excellent opportunity to speak to your members of Congress when they are back in state or in district on the need to fortify FEMA and assistance to disaster survivors, not knock them down. UCS has a great August Congressional Resource Action Toolkit to assist you with how to reach out to your legislators.

Reflecting on 250 years

As I prepare for the trip to this famed American tourist destination and as we approach the 250^th anniversary of American independence, I’ve been thinking about our country’s experiment with democracy and how to articulate it to my kids. The founders didn’t know how the bold new project they started would turn out. Democracy, separating church and state, insisting on the equality of all—these weren’t what most nations were based on in 1776. (Although, the Haudenosaunee Confederacy in what’s now called upstate New York is recognized as one of the earliest participatory democracies on Earth and its constitution is believed to have been the model for the American Constitution.) And the founders didn’t get it all right, of course: inequality of women, enslaved people, and subjugation of Indigenous Peoples, for starters.

While we’ve made significant progress since the days of our nation’s founders, many societal inequities persist, and indeed, we are now backsliding on democracy, science, civil rights, and more, as we stare down elevated threats to our long-celebrated system of government from a president with no interest in respecting it. The Trump administration has been making a mockery of our Constitution, disregarding the rule of law, and dismantling the critical checks and balances we all rely on.

Science and democracy are interconnected

The US science enterprise is a critical part of those checks and balances and a foundation of our democratic system. It is federal statistical agencies that collect and share reliable data and analysis on our economy, our health and our safety; it is federal scientists that help ensure science and research is conducted and used with integrity, and speak up when it is misused; and it is federal agencies that hold true to their missions to use science to advance public health, safety, security, and opportunity. 

Unfortunately, science—and the critical role it plays in our democracy—has not been spared from the administration’s path of destruction. In a new tool released this week from the Union of Concerned Scientists, we find that between January 20, 2025, and May 30, 2026, the Trump administration carried out a staggering 574 attacks on science, including efforts to politicize research funding, fire or sideline federal scientific experts, censor scientific communications, weaken scientific integrity protections, and place political appointees and advisors with records of promoting misinformation or anti-science views into decision-making positions.

These attacks on science undermine the government’s ability to make evidence-based decisions that protect our health and safety. They reduce transparency and make it more difficult to hold the administration accountable for its actions. And they represent a dire threat to the future progress of our democracy.

A future for all of us

So how should we mark the nation’s 250^th in all its complexity? And what should I tell my kids about how they should feel about it? I think back to my scientific training. Scientists don’t start research projects with the outcomes in mind (at least, they shouldn’t), and when they make errors in their process, or end up with unexpected results, they don’t give up. Likewise, the US is a grand experiment well worth our blood, sweat, and tears to keep refining and keep improving.

Next month, I want my kids to stare in awe at Niagara Falls. I want them to understand our nation’s history in all its messiness. As they grow older, I want them to use their talents to help make our country and the world better.

The American project has never been perfect but we must all commit to keep it moving forward. To stand up for what’s right. To help those in need. To continue to strive for something more. This is the America all our kids deserve and I won’t stop fighting for it.

It’s been one year since the White House’s Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP) published guidelines for agencies to institute President Trump’s “Restoring Gold Standard Science” executive order. In the past year, federal agencies have invoked this amorphous and highly discretionary “gold standard” as justification for removing scientific information from public access, sowing doubt in established science, and using political preference to dictate the fate of research findings. Agencies have also leaned on “gold standard science” to dismiss scientific expertise, disband federal science offices and advisory boards, and consolidate research under political appointees, all of which is likely to accelerate the suppression and misrepresentation of science to the public. 

The Trump administration has also engaged in unprecedented information suppression across taxpayer-funded federal websites. These sites are the primary means of communication between the federal government and the public, and the information they present influences peoples’ understanding and actions. The Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI), where we work, has documented over 1,000 instances of information suppression by the second Trump administration, spanning information on environmental justice, climate change, public health, clean energy, and more. Here, we trace the administration’s use of “gold standard science” across agency websites to remove, undermine, and manipulate scientific information for the public, and to commandeer scientific oversight in service of an unbridled deregulatory agenda.

Scaling back and censoring science

For 15 years, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s flagship climate science communication platform, climate.gov, provided authoritative, accurate, and accessible information about climate change to the public and policymakers. However, in June 2025 NOAA abruptly discontinued climate.gov and redirected users to noaa.gov/climate, with a banner stating: “In compliance with Executive Order 14303 (“Restoring Gold Standard Science”)… you have been redirected to NOAA.gov.”

The Trump administration hasn’t provided any information about how or what part of “gold standard science” climate.gov violated. Science integrity scholar Jacob Carter details how climate.gov actually epitomized the longstanding scientific values of transparency, reproducibility, and peer review that are cited in the executive order. Rather than encouraging high quality science, the Trump administration is disingenuously invoking “gold standard science” as a means to suppress it.

Sowing doubt in science

Under the guise of scientific rigor, the Trump administration is pushing the false narrative that the “gold standard” for science is absolute certainty, which not only dismisses the care and specificity scientists use to interpret their findings, but also holds scientific research to unattainable standards. Comparing real scientific findings to unrealistic expectations of certainty would allow the administration to rebuke nearly every scientific conclusion ever made. 

A striking example of the Trump administration invoking “gold standard science” to decrease confidence in rigorous research can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website. Since at least 2024, the CDC’s webpage for “Autism and Vaccines” has stated clearly that vaccines do not cause autism, and prior to being sworn in as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS, which contains CDC), Robert F Kennedy, Jr. committed to not remove this language. However, since November 2025, the page’s header “Vaccines do not Cause Autism” has been surrounded by statements that undermine it. The page reads, “…the statement ‘Vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim. Scientific studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines contribute to the development of autism.” The page goes on to call into question epidemiological evidence because it “cannot prove causality.” 

These statements are all egregiously misleading; the conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism is based on decades of rigorous scientific research. Because actual high-quality research requires measured and nuanced hypothesis testing and interpretation, studies do not definitively “prove” or “rule out the possibility” of all possible factors; they build a body of evidence and carefully discern findings. For more than half a century, epidemiologists have agreed on and iteratively refined guidelines for how to evaluate evidence to infer causation, which is at the heart of epidemiology as a field of study. To claim that it is not “evidence-based” to state that “vaccines do not cause autism” is a gross misrepresentation of the scientific record.

Political determinants of science

The Trump administration also has used “gold standard science” as a means to select which science to lift up, and which to dismiss. For example, in March 2026 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed to significantly weaken ethylene oxide (EtO) regulations “to ensure consistency with the law and gold standard science.” In a fact sheet about proposed EtO regulation changes, the EPA describes the scientific evidence showing the highly toxic nature of EtO as “outdated,” and in a section titled “Trump EPA’s Commitment to Gold Standard Science,” it implies that new epidemiological studies discredit the studies underpinning the Biden EPA’s strict regulations on EtO. 

However, what goes unsaid is that the handful of newer studies that suggest EtO is less toxic were conducted by chemical industry consultants and funded by the American Chemistry Council, Vantage Specialty Chemicals, and the opaquely funded Center for Truth in Science. Many other recent studies affirm EtO as a carcinogen, and still more shed light on its mechanisms of toxicity. This misrepresentation of the scientific record on EtO coincided with pervasive information suppression about the issue. EDGI documented the removal of more than 60 federal webpages related to EtO, which housed information about its toxicity, its risk to communities, EPA’s regulation of the chemical, and more. 

The Trump administration’s EPA again espoused “gold standard science” to dismiss scientific findings about the toxicity of formaldehyde, and hand-pick statements and industry-funded studies to weaken formaldehyde regulations. In a hypocritical move, the EPA describes its efforts to consider the peer review record of the existing formaldehyde risk evaluation to conclude that it needed to develop a new risk calculation, while simultaneously asserting that peer review is not necessary for its new draft risk calculation.The Trump administration is leveraging its uncurtailed discretion to dismiss and discount valid research and usher in politically motivated science.

Instituting political interference

These patterns of suppressing and manipulating scientific information are likely to escalate as the Trump administration’s extensive reorganization of federal science offices and boards take effect. In February 2026, the EPA dissolved its Office of Research and Development (ORD), the agency’s main research arm. EPA spokesperson Carolyn Holran stated it was a “science-centered decision” that was “based on gold-standard science.” This doublespeak betrays the reality of a move that undermines the EPA’s role as an independent scientific authority. ORD was replaced with the Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions (OASES), with roughly 1,200 fewer employees than ORD. While ORD was an independent office, OASES is housed under political appointees, within the Office of the Administrator. An EPA memo about OASES’ “Science Actions and Deliverables” states that scientific research and projects “must be supported by appropriate political leadership,” a statement that corroborates many experts’ concerns about an uptick in political interference in agency science under the banner of “gold standard science.” 

The Trump administration has significantly reduced independent scientific oversight at federal agencies as well. An analysis by Nature reveals that the administration has dissolved over 100 science advisory committees, groups of independent subject matter experts tasked with supporting agency decision-making with the best available science. The administration has also reduced the transparency and independence of the committees that remain. The Department of Energy (DOE) has been significantly targeted, for example, through shuttering its subject-area scientific advisory committees and centralizing them into a single Science Advisory Committee. A news release by the agency cites “gold standard science” as the impetus for the change and frames it as a stride toward evidence-based decisionmaking. However, the move in fact weakens scientific oversight by transferring specific expertise-based input to a more general board and reducing scientific advisory board members from around 150 to 22. Gesturing to “gold standard science,” the DOE is reducing critical oversight on the science the agency produces and relies upon for its work.

The entrenchment of ignorance

By removing scientific research findings, sowing doubt in established science, and manipulating the scientific record in accordance with its political agenda, the administration is weaponizing “gold standard science” to undermine credible science now and into the future. While these methods have largely been discretionary, piecemeal, and inconsistent, the problem becomes more deeply embedded in our governance systems as the administration dismisses and disbands scientific expertise and establishes political approval as a prerequisite for science across the government. 

Perhaps most concerning of all, a recent proposed rule by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) threatens to codify attacks on science by granting political appointees power to reject science not in line with the administration’s priorities.

We are all producers and consumers of evidence-based scientific information, and we all lose when it’s deprioritized and politicized. This proposed rule is open for public comment until July 13, and we encourage you to write a comment to help defend high-quality, independent science and research. The Trump administration’s “gold standard science” undermines and suppresses the real, robust science that forms the foundation of our lives. It is imperative to protect the science that protects us. 

Unfortunately, things got worse. Much, much worse.

In April, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Louisiana v. Callais. Constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky described the ruling as making Section 2 of the VRA “all but a dead letter.” Over 60 years of voter protection were stripped away. This was not a sudden decision but the result of decades of cases slowly dismantling voting protections. Let’s talk about what this means and what comes next.

What happened to the VRA

Let’s start by looking at Shelby County v. Holder, which I discussed in detail in my initial blog post. After that ruling, states could change voting laws without federal preclearance, opening the door to a wave of laws targeting communities in states with histories of Jim Crow-era discrimination. Callais delivered the final blow. Louisiana v Callais revolved around a Louisiana congressional map drawn to give Black voters meaningful representation (a map that itself was the result from a previous VRA-related court case, Robinson v Landry). In his Callais majority opinion, Justice Alito held that states cannot use race as the main factor in drawing districts, even when doing so is required to comply with Section 2 of the VRA. The court ruled that only proof of intentional racial discrimination, not disparate impact, would be a violation. It should be noted, as Justice Kagan noted in her dissent, proving discriminatory intent is “almost always impossible” since lawmakers rarely state their motives so explicitly. In fact, Congress amended the VRA in 1982 to clarify that discriminatory results, not just intent, should be considered.

The consequences of this ruling will be severe.

The history that led us here

Some state legislatures have already begun to redraw district maps and eliminate majority-minority districts free of the need for federal approval. Black voters’ influence can be reduced by breaking up communities and spreading their votes across multiple districts. Combined with the Court’s 2019 ruling in Rucho v. Common Cause, which put partisan gerrymandering beyond federal court review, state legislatures now have nearly unlimited freedom to redraw maps for electoral advantage. Justice Alito’s decision actually encourages this, with his claims that states have the “prerogative to draw districts…to achieve partisan advantage,” and that maps designed for partisan outcomes are “constitutionally permissible” and “legitimate goals.” As Chemerinsky wrote, “If any one of these cases had come out differently, Louisiana v. Callais would not matter.”

The Callais ruling is not a case of the system failing to work as intended. Our nation was founded on unequal access, and while the VRA still exists, the Callais decision reduced what was once a beacon of hope to a shadow of its former self, realigning our voter laws with the US’s long history of disenfranchisement. Our winner-take-all voting system was always prone to this type of manipulation. This was merely the event that sent an already teetering system over the edge.

In our current system, the candidate winning the most votes wins 100% of that district. All others receive nothing. If your preferred candidate loses, you will have no one you voted for representing you, even if your candidate received 49% of the vote. This structural flaw is what makes gerrymandering so devastating. By breaking up majority-minority districts and spreading those voters across multiple districts, their votes and voice are effectively silenced. After Callais, partisan actors in the states can carry out this effort with almost no legal risk.

There is a systemic solution: Proportional Representation

In my career, I have spent years working on voting rights and democracy issues. More often than not, we were playing defense against the latest attack, relying on the VRA to protect multi-racial democracy. That status quo is gone. The Callais decision demands bigger thinking.

That bigger thinking should include adopting proportional representation (PR), which has been proposed for years by organizations like FairVote, Protect Democracy, and New America. Under PR, districts would have several seats and parties would obtain seats based on their share of the vote. If Republicans received a third of the votes, they get a third of the seats. Voters would generally end up with at least one representative who actually shares their values. PR is already being used in a few parts of the U.S., including Portland, Oregon for all city officials; Cambridge, Massachusetts for its city council; and Minneapolis, Minnesota and Eastpointe, Michigan for local offices. By electing multiple officials from a district, PR is a system that increases fairness and makes it far more difficult, if not impossible, to gerrymander voters out of their voice.

It is worth noting that, across the globe, PR is the dominant electoral system, while the US’s “first past the post,” winner-take-all system has long been the exception. Our democratic process once made our nation unique, but the structures we operate within have instead led to deep and entrenched in inequality across racial and economic levels.

Protect Democracy found that, with lower thresholds to win each seat, the tactics that make gerrymandering effective under the winner-take-all system stop working. And as Eastpointe, Michigan and Newburgh, New York found, minority representation improves too, without requiring race-conscious line-drawing that Justice Alito claimed, in his Callais opinion, made the Louisiana map unconstitutional. Research also shows PR reduces polarization by producing multi-party coalitions and increases community engagement by making more elections genuinely competitive. It’s also worth noting that PR tends to encourage more political parties and greater competition, ultimately leading to less two-sided polarization and more opportunity for compromise.

Science, facts, and electoral reform

In 2022, over 200 political scientists wrote in a letter to Congress that our winner-take-all system “is fundamentally broken.” Political sociologist Larry Diamond wrote that winner-take-all systems are particularly ill-suited to countries with “deep ethnic, regional, religious, or other emotional and polarizing divisions.” Those observations describe where we are today. Despite what Justice Alito insists, race and partisanship are closely connected in the U.S.

Research has found that countries that use proportional representation tend to elect legislatures that better reflect their constituencies’ values, and are more likely to adopt policies that the majority of citizens want. Additionally, studies show that these governments are more likely to adopt stronger environmental protections and to invest more in education and infrastructure, as summarized by Fair Vote Canada in their review of research on proportional representation’s outcomes.

None of those arguments are partisan. In fact, they point to structural problems that, if addressed, would benefit all Americans. I have sat through enough meetings about how to patch the VRA after another protection is stripped away. The real question we should be asking is how to build a voting system that works for everyone.

What we can do

I won’t sugar coat the situation. All of this is bad.

The names behind the VRA’s passage—including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., John Lewis, Clarence Mitchell Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Hosea Williams, along with other known and unknown names—worked countless hours and risked their lives for those protections. The disproportionate racial impact of this decision will be real and lasting. But this is not the time to be or feel hopeless. Now more than ever is the time for what the late, great John Lewis called “good trouble.”

First, efforts to restore the Voting Rights Act must continue with renewed intensity. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 14) must stay on the agenda, pass both chambers, and be enacted.

Second, we should support state and local proportional representation efforts. As I noted earlier, several cities have already implemented ranked-choice voting and other reforms. These efforts deserve renewed attention in the wake of the Callais decision.

Third, scientists and researchers need to stay engaged. Data, evidence, and public analysis of how maps and electoral rules affect real communities are essential accountability tools. Even when courts won’t act, the public needs to understand what is happening and why. Science also has a role to play in supporting the transition to proportional representation. There are different approaches that can advance a more proportional system, and communities deserve to have a say in which system is adopted. That is why UCS is doing this work in collaboration and partnership with democracy experts and local communities. Through statistical modeling and other research methods, scientists can demonstrate the effectiveness of different approaches that communities can consider based on their local values and needs.

This week marks Juneteenth, a long-running celebration of Black liberation and Black participation in public life. We can’t let the shadow of decisions like Callais halt the progress we’ve made.

This road forward will not be easy, but protecting democracy, working for civil rights and fighting against authoritarianism never is. The VRA’s passage in 1965 because millions of Americans refused to accept an inequitable and unequal democracy. That is still the standard we are fighting for, and it is still worth fighting for.

It feels like every time I check the news, there’s another hindrance to the fight for climate justice. Policy rollbacks, hard won protections quietly being dismantled, fossil fuel executives sliding into key government positions, clean energy projects stalled—sometimes it’s hard not to wonder if we’re moving backward when we so desperately need to move forward.  

And it’s easy to believe these problems are too big to fix—which is exactly how doomerism takes hold. Doomerism, or the belief that we’re past the point of no return, has gained traction in recent years as people grapple with the scale of the climate crisis. But as environmental researcher and data scientist Dr. Hannah Ritchie reminds us, it’s not the full picture. 

In her Big Think video, Ritchie reflects on how she, too, once felt a sense of hopelessness. But after stepping back and examining the data, she realized something powerful: humanity has tackled and solved massive environmental challenges.

Take the ozone layer, for instance—once on the brink of collapse due to harmful CFCs, it was saved through global cooperation under the Montreal Protocol. Acid rain in the 1970s and 80s? Tackled by reducing sulfur dioxide emissions through policies like the Clean Air Act, which allowed ecosystems to recover. Even leaded gasoline, once a major pollutant, got phased out—globally—improving air quality and reduced health risks, especially for children. The throughline to these stories is clear: when people refuse to look away from a crisis—and instead organize, cooperate, and demand action—real change becomes possible. 

Lessons from history: humanity’s energy transitions 

These achievements are part of a long history of humanity adapting to and solving existential environmental challenge. One of the most profound examples lies in our energy transitions. Across centuries, humanity has responded to environmental, economic, and societal pressures by reimagining how we power ourselves. These transitions weren’t smooth, fast, or universally embraced—but they happened. And they hold lessons for us today. 

For much of human history, wood was our primary energy source. It was accessible, familiar, and deeply tied to daily life. But as populations grew and forests became depleted, societies were forced to innovate. By the 18^th century, coal emerged, not because it was preferred, but because it became necessary.  

Coal’s rise wasn’t instant. The transition began in the early 1700s, but coal didn’t surpass wood as the dominant fuel until around 1900. Over those two centuries it reshaped economies and infrastructure, powering the Industrial Revolution amid fierce debates about labor, pollution, and the proper role of government in managing public resources.  

Those debates weren’t abstract. In 1902, over 140,000 coal miners walked off the job, demanding safer conditions and fair pay, bringing the nation’s energy supply to the brink during winter. The strike became a turning point—forcing the federal government to intervene not to break the workers, but to broker a resolution, signaling a shift in how power, labor, and public need would be negotiated in the energy system. 

Then, in the 20th century, oil and natural gas began to overtake coal. This shift unfolded against a backdrop of global political change: wars, globalization, the rise of consumerism, and Cold War energy politics. Though oil was commercially produced in the 1800s, it wasn’t until the 1960s that it officially surpassed coal as the world’s primary energy source, a transition that took nearly a century.  

None of these shifts were purely technical. Over time, they became shaped by waves of public pressure, like miners demanding safer conditions, communities pushing back against pollution, and reformers calling for government oversight of powerful industries. Energy systems didn’t change simply because new fuels appeared. They change because people kept demanding something better than what existed.  

Today, we stand in the midst of another energy revolution: the global shift from fossil fuels to clean energy. And this time, the stakes are even higher.  

Because unlike past transitions, this one isn’t just about resource depletion, human health impacts, and economic advantage: it’s about survival. The science is unequivocal: burning fossil fuels is destabilizing our climate, intensifying wildfires, hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, and floods. Communities on the frontlines–especially Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities—are bearing the brunt of these impacts, from respiratory illness to displacement to energy insecurity.  

We need this transition not only because renewable energy options like wind and solar are affordable and abundant, but because the continued use of fossil fuels is incompatible with a livable future. And we’re already seeing momentum.  In many ways, we’re only a few decades into this transition—but already, wind and solar have become some of the cheapest sources of electricity in the world. Electric vehicles are gaining market share rapidly across many countries. Investment is shifting and momentum is building.  

Like the transitions before it, this one is messy. It’s marked by inequity in who continues to bear the burdens of older energy systems, corporate pushback, policy rollbacks, and deep uncertainty. Change always brings anxiety—that’s human. But what we often forget is how that anxiety can be shaped, amplified, even manipulated by those with a stake in keeping things the same. The question isn’t whether change feels unsettling. It’s who gets to define what that change means—and who it’s for.  

In moments like this, despair can feel like a natural response. But it’s also a useful one for those invested in maintaining the status quo. When people believe change is impossible, they’re less likely to demand it. 

Because this transition, like those before it, is being driven by necessity and by communities refusing to be left behind.  

Energy revolutions don’t happen in a moment, they are rarely linear, never perfect, and always political. But they are possible. And they stretch across generations. And if history tells us anything, it’s that change happens not just through innovation, but through insistence—through people fighting for systems that better reflects the values and needs.  

The shifts weren’t clean arcs; they were uneven, messy, full of protest and debate and, ultimately, progress. This one will be no different. But it can be faster, fairer, and more just—if we demand it.  

The lesson and the reality 

Again and again, it wasn’t just new technologies that led the way—it was people demanding something better. 

Take the fight against acid rain. In the 1970s and ’80s, forests, lakes, and wildlife were being decimated by sulfur dioxide emissions. Grassroots groups—especially in the Northeast—raised the alarm, documented the damage, and pressured lawmakers to act. Their advocacy transformed a scientific concern into a national priority. The result? The 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, which created the first-ever cap-and-trade system to cut emissions. Thanks to those efforts, ecosystems that once seemed lost have rebounded. 

Or consider Warren County, North Carolina, in 1982. When officials tried to dump toxic PCB-contaminated soil in a predominantly Black, rural community, residents said no. They laid in the streets, staged nonviolent protests, and sparked a national reckoning. While the landfill went through, their resistance ignited the modern environmental justice movement and revealed—through research and lived experience—how environmental harm is too often racially and economically targeted. 

That fight echoed forward. In the 1990s, farmworkers and advocates successfully pushed to ban pesticides poisoning agricultural workers. In Flint, Michigan, residents forced a national spotlight on a water crisis that exposed deep governmental negligence and systemic racism. 

Each of these moments reinforces a deeper truth: meaningful change is rarely top-down. It starts with people—especially those most impacted—organizing, resisting, and refusing to settle for systems that harm them. 

Today’s energy transition is no different. 

What needs to be reiterated 

Each of these victories wasn’t just about government action—it was about people demanding better. These changes didn’t happen because industries or policymakers suddenly saw the light. They happened because communities organized, fought back, and refused to accept toxic air, poisoned water, or a deteriorating planet as inevitable. 

In my work at the Union of Concerned Scientists, through partnerships with community-based groups like Soulardarity in Michigan and GreenRoots in Massachusetts, we’ve worked alongside communities actively shaping the transition in real-time—pushing for policies that don’t just shift where energy comes from but also who benefits, who holds power, and who gets to decide what a sustainable future looks like. In our Let Communities Choose project, for example, we worked together to analyze what a just transition means in real economic terms—navigating tough questions around affordability, ownership, and long-term stability.  

Together, these elements can help us envision not just surviving climate change, but actively building a future that works for all of us. 

Progress doesn’t trickle down. It grows from the grassroots up. 

So, what if we get it right? 

What if in this moment—fueled by crisis, but also by care—is our chance to build something better? A future where clean energy is not only abundant, but accessible, but within reach. Where climate policy doesn’t just lower emissions, but redistributes power. Where frontline communities–often Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-income—are not afterthoughts, but architects.  

As Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, marine biologist, policy expert, and writer, highlights in her work What If We Get It Right?, the transition to a sustainable world needs to be rooted in justice, equity, and collective progress. It asks more of us than reducing emissions—it asks us to reimagine how society functions, and who it works for.  

Wherever you are reading this, there is an opportunity to help shape that future—one grounded not just in cleaner energy, but in fairer systems. A future where communities long burdened by pollution and disinvestment are not just included, but leading—bringing the vision, experience, and knowledge needed to build energy systems that are resilient, accountable, and rooted in care.  

However, achieving this vision requires addressing not only environmental injustices but also the economic realities of a just transition for workers in fossil fuel industries. History shows that when transitions leave workers behind, they create long-lasting social and economic scars. 

And we’re seeing this tension play out in real time. While political narratives promise a revival of industries like coal, the same communities are often facing cuts to health protections and losing critical investments meant to support their transition. What’s being offered is not a pathway forward, but the illusion of one—while the hard, necessary work of building new economic opportunities is abandoned. 

Any economic transition is difficult. It takes real investment, long-term commitment, and trust. That’s why investing in retraining, creating good jobs, and protecting workers’ rights must be central—not optional—to these transitions. By doing so, we can ensure this transition uplifts all communities. Lessons from past energy transitions remind us that while change brings opportunity, it demands careful planning and inclusive leadership to ensure no one is left behind. 

Progress doesn’t happen in silos: it’s a collective effort, supported by data, guided by community voices, and focused on equity.  

Where we are now 

The fires are growing. But so is the movement. That’s the paradox—we are living through destruction, yes, but also through determination. But this is not a story where hardship was necessary for growth. It didn’t have to be this way. The scale of loss we’re witnessing is the result of choices—made, delayed, avoided. 

The solutions aren’t future tense. They’re already being built, block by block, policy by policy, neighborhood by neighborhood. You just have to look closely. It’s your community that still shows up. That gives you reason to continue showing up, and that will show up when you’re tired. 

Which is why now, more than ever, we need storytellers and systems thinkers, data scientists and dancers, builders and believers—people who refuse to accept that change is impossible. 

Hope is a discipline 

And that’s what doomerism misses. It flattens the fight into a foregone conclusion when, in reality, the future is still being shaped by those refusing to accept the status quo. History is being made, every single day. The communities most impacted by environmental harm aren’t waiting for permission to act; they are leading, as they always have, whether or not the world is watching.  

Doomerism tells us the arc of history is fixed. But history tells us otherwise. Every community-led solar project, every climate justice bill, every story shared, and every system challenged says otherwise.  

Change doesn’t always announce itself with grand speeches or breaking news alerts. It happens in the quiet power of a courtroom victory against polluters. In neighborhoods where solar panels rise on rooftops. In workers fighting for—and winning—better wages and a just transition. Policymakers are forced to listen because the voices demanding justice are too loud to ignore.  

This revolution is rarely televised. But it’s happening. And has been occurring behind the scenes, moving us all forward.  

Doomerism tells us there’s nothing left to fight for. But that kind of resignation has never been neutral. It creates the conditions for inaction—for systems to continue unchanged, unchallenged, and unaccountable. 

The solutions to climate change are within our reach. The question is, will we allow the illusion of inevitable doom to prevail—or will we seize those solutions and build something better, together? 

People and businesses nationwide are reckoning with rapidly rising electricity costs. Last year, 80 million people struggled to afford their utility bills. At the same time, electricity demand is newly surging from the AI-driven buildout of massive data centers, threatening even higher electricity costs to come.

The need for change is clear, and so is the solution: boosting investments to deliver an affordable, reliable and clean electricity system.

By repeatedly using taxpayer dollars to bail out the coal industry, the Trump administration is instead pursuing a reckless and costly gambit that fails on all three counts. This is not the path to a better future; this is a short-sighted attempt to yoke the nation to faltering relics of the past. For this failure in vision, we all will pay the price, in higher costs, less reliable power, and a worse climate and health.

In this newest action, the administration announced plans to sink another round of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to prop up over a dozen expensive and unreliable coal plants; support the speculative development of several more; and facilitate the construction of a highly contested coal export terminal.

This comes on the heels of already attempting to force the nation’s military to run on coal-fired electricity generation, spending hundreds of millions of additional taxpayer dollars on prior subsidies for coal plant repairs,  requiring ratepayers to pay hundreds of millions of dollars and counting to keep online a handful of would-be-retired coal plants, and slashing safeguards around harmful coal plant pollution, including mercury, toxic wastewater, coal ash and carbon dioxide.

Given how much the Trump administration is asking “we the people” to pay to bail out the coal industry, it’s worth interrogating what we the people are really getting in return.

We are not getting a more affordable electricity system. Coal-fired power plants are expensive, so much so that they are routinely more costly to continue running compared to building new renewables, the overwhelmingly most cost-effective resource available. If we want a more affordable electricity system, we should be doubling down on supporting the buildout of renewable resources. By forcing the perpetuation of coal-fired power plants instead, the Trump administration is driving electricity costs up, not down.

We are not getting a more reliable electricity system. Coal-fired power plants are now the least reliable resource in our electricity system. Despite the towering cost, the administration’s subsidization of plant repairs will amount to little more than bubble gum and string. The nation’s coal fleet is old, outdated, and increasingly unsuited for a modern grid—meaning hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars sunk into propping up power plants that are doomed to obsolescence.

We are not getting a cleaner electricity system. Coal-fired power plants are heavily polluting, full stop. Repeatedly invoking “beautiful, clean coal” won’t make it so: from harmful air pollution, to toxic wastewater discharged into local waterways, to hazardous coal ash, the consequences of coal use on public health, worker health and the environment are severe. Worse, the administration is slashing even the most basic of existing polluter accountability safeguards, meaning long-fought-for gains are rapidly being erased.

So neither affordable, nor reliable, nor clean—and in reality, the full picture is even more damaging. That’s because the Trump administration is attempting to hardwire coal into the nation’s electricity system; it’s also doing everything it can to block the construction of solar and wind projects nationwide.

These resources are overwhelmingly the fastest and cheapest resources to bring online. When coupled with investments in energy efficiency, energy storage and a strategic expansion of the electricity grid, the pieces are in place to chart a real and true forward course to an affordable, reliable and cleaner electricity system.

Meanwhile, in the one way coal workers and coal communities most need support—through policies that actually reckon with the individual- and community-level implications of a rapidly evolving energy future—the Trump administration is leaving them out in the cold, abandoning worker health protections, abandoning forward-looking investments, abandoning commitments to reality in favor of cynical, empty promises of a future that will never come.

In this moment, people need leaders to provide real solutions to real challenges. This reckless, costly coal bailout, which will enrich a handful of coal executives at the expense of everyone else, unequivocally isn’t it.

Esto es particularmente importante ya que los costos de la energía se han convertido en un tema de discusión cotidiano para las familias, las empresas y los responsables de las políticas energéticas de Massachusetts. El alto costo de la energía durante uno de los inviernos más fríos en años recientes obligaron a muchas familias a mantener sus hogares a temperaturas inseguras. Una brutal tormenta de nieve dejó a oscuras a cientos de miles de hogares de Massachusetts durante varios días. Y ahora los precios del gas y el petróleo se están disparando debido a la guerra de Estados Unidos e Israel contra Irán. Todos estos acontecimientos reflejan el mismo problema: nuestro sistema energético requiere atención inmediata para que las decisiones que se tomen tengan un impacto real en la asequibilidad, la resiliencia y la confiabilidad de nuestra red eléctrica, ahora y en el futuro.

No es de extrañar que el proyecto de ley sobre la asequibilidad energética que se presentó en la Cámara de Representantes de Massachusetts y la reciente orden ejecutiva de la gobernadora Maura Healey sobre el suministro de energía se incluyera la energía solar como una solución clave para ayudar al estado a cubrir sus crecientes necesidades energéticas y  lograr que el costo de la electricidad sea más asequible. A medida que estas conversaciones avanzan, es fundamental recordar no solo el valor para el sistemas eléctrico que aportan los recursos energéticos distribuidos como los paneles solares en los techos y el almacenamiento en baterías, sino también la importancia de asegurar que los beneficios lleguen a todos los habitantes del estado, especialmente a las comunidades más vulnerables donde estas inversiones tienen un mayor impacto tanto en la asequibilidad como en la resiliencia energética.

Un nuevo informe de Applied Economics Clinic (AEC), comisionado por la Unión de Científicos Conscientes (UCS, por sus siglas en inglés), Clean Energy Group y Vote Solar, ofrece información clave para orientar los esfuerzos estatales para aprovechar el gran potencial solar y de almacenamiento energético en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental, donde viven personas racial y étnicamente diversas, de bajos ingresos y con dominio limitado del inglés. El informe Electrificación equitativa II estima el potencial técnico de la energía solar distribuida (también conocida como solar distribuida (también conocida como detrás del medidor, o BTM, por sus siglas en inglés) y de la energía solar distribuida con almacenamiento energético en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental. También analiza las características de las viviendas para diseñar mejor los programas a fin de facilitar la instalación de estos sistemas por parte de los usuarios finales y mapea la conexión con datos sobre el calor extremo y las cargas energéticas. El informe también ofrece información sobre las barreras y sus soluciones para desbloquear la implementación de estos sistemas en las comunidades de justicia ambiental. Este informe complementa otro reciente informe de AEC, el cual analiza de manera más amplia los retos y las oportunidades de la energía solar distribuida y los sistemas de almacenamiento energético en Massachusetts (estos términos se simplifican como “energía solar distribuida y almacenamiento energético” en este blog). Este informe se elaboró en colaboración con un comité asesor que contó con perspectivas de diferentes sectores, incluyendo organizaciones indígenas y de justicia ambiental, vivienda asequible y compañías de energía limpia, con el fin de reflejar las experiencias y prioridades de los vecindarios de justicia ambiental.

Los siguientes son algunos hallazgos clave sobre el potencial técnico de la energía solar distribuida con almacenamiento energético, así como los principales obstáculos y recomendaciones para aprovechar estos valiosos recursos exitosamente.

Potencial de energía solar y almacenamiento en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental

Los vecindarios de justicia ambiental en Massachusetts tienen un enorme potencial para implementar sistemas de energía solar distribuida. AEC calcula que el potencial técnico de la energía solar distribuida en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental de Massachusetts es de 31 gigavatios (GW) de energía solar, lo suficiente para abastecer de energía a los casi 3 millones de hogares que hay en el estado. Se estima que el potencial de los sistemas de almacenamiento energético asociados con energía solar distribuida es de 13 GW.

La activación de este recurso es clave para cumplir con los objetivos estatales de descarbonización y asequibilidad. Se prevé que la demanda pico de electricidad en Massachusetts alcanzará los 24 GW para el 2050, lo que equivale al doble de los 12 GW de demanda pico registrados en el 2020. Esto significa que el potencial técnico de la energía solar distribuida con almacenamiento energético en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental es mayor que el aumento previsto de la demanda pico. Este potencial contrasta con las instalaciones a la fecha en comunidades de justicia ambiental. A pesar del éxito general que ha tenido el programa SMART al facilitar el crecimiento de la energía solar y de los sistemas de almacenamiento en Massachusetts, los datos demuestran que solo el 1 % de la capacidad solar asignada por el programa se ubica en propiedades de bajos ingresos.

Massachusetts depende en gran medida del gas fósil (también conocido como gas natural), el cual provee provee más del 65% de la generación neta de electricidad del estado. Es crucial cubrir el aumento en la demanda pico con generación limpia, dado que más del 80% de las centrales eléctricas contaminantes, con los riesgos de salud que implican, se ubican en vecindarios de justicia ambiental o a menos de una milla de ellos. 

Además, los usuarios de sistemas de energía solar distribuida con almacenamiento energético no son los únicos que se benefician al  ahorrar directamente en sus facturas de electricidad, sino que estos sistemas benefician a todos los usuarios de la red eléctrica, ya que estos recursos contribuyen a reducir la demanda pico.  Esta reducción hace que disminuya la necesidad de realizar inversiones costosas en sistemas de transmisión y distribución, logrando que se reduzcan los precios de la electricidad al por mayor.De hecho, durante un evento en el que se observaron temperaturas pico de 100°F en junio del 2025, un estudio del Acadia Center reveló que el uso de sistemas de energía solar distribuida ahorró a los consumidores de Nueva Inglaterra al menos $8,2 millones de dólares en uno de los días más costosos del año para la red eléctrica. Esos ahorros son especialmente impresionantes si se considera lo reducida que ha sido la implementación de los sistemas de energía solar distribuida en todo Massachusetts, por lo que resulta aún más atractivo aprovechar todo su potencial. 

El acceso a la energía solar distribuida puede disminuir el costo de las facturas de electricidad y reducir las cargas energéticas de los hogares.

La carga promedio de los costos de energía (es decir, el porcentaje de los ingresos del hogar que se destina al pago de la energía) en Massachusetts es de aproximadamente el 3%. Esta cifra puede ser de hasta el 10% en el caso de las poblaciones de bajos ingresos y llega hasta el 31% en ciertos vecindarios. Al analizar los vecindarios de justicia ambiental que enfrentan una carga de los costos de energía mayor al promedio estatal, los autores del estudio determinaron que existe un potencial técnico de 11,4 GW de energía solar combinada con 4,9 GW de almacenamiento en estas zonas. Por otra parte, un estudio realizado por el Laboratorio Nacional Lawrence Berkeley en el 2024 reveló que la energía solar en los techos redujo la carga promedio de los costos de energía en el 2021 del 7,7% al 6,2% para los usuarios de bajos ingresos, lo que demuestra el valor que la energía solar distribuida puede aportar para reducir los costos de energía para quienes más lo necesitan.

Los sistemas de energía solar distribuida con almacenamiento pueden mejorar la seguridad energética y apoyar la resiliencia de las comunidades. Las comunidades de justicia ambiental suelen vivir en zonas de alta densidad urbana y en vecindarios que carecen de espacios verdes, lo que las expone al efecto de la isla de calor urbana. También es más probable que estas comunidades vivan en lugares con sistemas de calefacción y aire acondicionado ineficientes, lo que supone un mayor gasto de energía para estos hogares. En este estudio, AEC concluyó que más del 90% del potencial total de energía solar distribuida y almacenamiento energético en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental se encuentra dentro de las zonas más calurosas, lo que destaca el valor que puede aportar la instalación de sistemas de energía solar en estas áreas.

Un estudio realizado en el 2025 por el Laboratorio Berkeley determinó que los hogares de ingresos bajos a moderados que cubren entre el 80% y el 100% de sus necesidades de electricidad mediante sistemas solares instalados en los techos logran reducciones significativas en sus facturas de energía. Esto permite que los residentes mantengan sus viviendas a temperaturas cómodas, especialmente cuando se enfrentan a olas de calor extremo. El acceso a la energía solar distribuida y al almacenamiento energético también puede proporcionar energía de respaldo en caso de un fallo de la red eléctrica, incluso para centros de resiliencia en centros comunitarios y refugios, permitiendo el funcionamiento de los sistemas de aire acondicionado y otros servicios esenciales durante los cortes de energía. 

Barreras que impiden aprovechar este potencial solar

Aunque el estado ofrece un conjunto de programas de energía, clima y vivienda, el potencial de la energía solar distribuida y de almacenamiento energético en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental no ha sido aprovechado en su mayoría.

El estudio reveló que las principales barreras para la implementación de estos sistemas incluyen dificultades financieras, problemas técnicos, obstáculos laborales, condiciones del mercado y falta de coordinación de los programas. La falta de incentivos para los inquilinos y propietarios de condominios requiere especial atención, ya que solamente un tercio del potencial técnico de la energía solar distribuida en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental se encuentra en viviendas unifamiliares.

El estado cuenta con objetivos energéticos claros y requisitos de abastecimiento de tecnologías específicas como la energía eólica marina, pero no existen requisiciones específicas para los recursos de energía distribuida, incluyendo los sistemas de energía solar y almacenamiento energético. Del mismo modo, la mayoría de los programas de energía limpia carecen de incentivos y metas de participación equitativa, lo que dificulta que los beneficios lleguen a quienes más los necesitan.

Soluciones para aprovechar este potencial solar

El estado tiene el mandato de garantizar la distribución equitativa de los beneficios energéticos y ambientales. Sin embargo, hasta la fecha la mayoría de las políticas y los programas estatales en materia de energía solar y almacenamiento no cuentan con disposiciones de equidad explícitas y aplicables.

Este análisis identifica un conjunto de recomendaciones para enfrentar estos desafíos, incluyendo la incorporación de opciones de financiamiento, incentivos, objetivos y fondos presupuestarios enfocados en la equidad, con el fin de resolver satisfactoriamente la falta de inversión en los vecindarios de justicia ambiental y garantizar que estas comunidades tengan acceso directo a los beneficios que la energía solar y los sistemas de almacenamiento in situ pueden ofrecer. A fin de que las comunidades de justicia ambiental comprendan mejor el valor que ofrece la energía solar y los sistemas de almacenamiento, es necesario prestar una mayor atención a la comunicación y difusión de la información, adaptándolas al contexto local. También es crucial que los promotores de energía limpia den importancia a la transparencia para generar confianza y proteger a las comunidades de justicia ambiental. Además, al garantizar oportunidades de empleo para los aprendices, se puede ayudar a fortalecer la economía de energía limpia del estado.

El estudio completo detalla las deficiencias existentes en los programas y ofrece recomendaciones para impulsar de manera eficaz una transición equitativa hacia la energía limpia.

Necesitamos acción por parte de los legisladores de Massachusetts

La energía solar distribuida y los sistemas de almacenamiento energético son tecnologías probadas que tienen mucho que ofrecer al estado y, en particular, a sus poblaciones más vulnerables. Es muy importante impulsar estos recursos en las comunidades de justicia ambiental para abordar la crisis de la asequibilidad energética, mejorar la salud pública y hacer que las comunidades sean más resilientes ante el clima extremo.

Las recomendaciones que se incluyen en el nuevo informe Electrificación con equidad II son soluciones con sentido común basadas en los programas existentes y se fundamentan en la experiencia probada en Massachusetts y en otros lugares.

La más reciente versión del proyecto de ley sobre la asequibilidad energética, energía limpia y competitividad económica (Proyecto de Ley de la Cámara de Representantes 5175), contiene disposiciones que respaldan el uso de sistemas de energía solar distribuida y almacenamiento energético, incluyendo la energía solar portátil y la concesión de permisos solares. Mientras los legisladores de Massachusetts consideran opciones para fortalecer este proyecto de ley, nuestras recomendaciones se enfocan en ofrecer incentivos que garanticen la participación equitativa y en el alistamiento del sistema eléctrico para facilitar la instalación de recursos energéticos distribuidos.

Esto implica establecer objetivos de participación equitativa e incluir metas de implementación para los recursos energéticos distribuidos. El proyecto de Ley de Equidad de la Energía Limpia (Proyecto de Ley de la Cámara de Representantes 3540, Proyecto de Ley del Senado 2303) establece un marco para la distribución justa de los beneficios de la energía limpia. Por otro lado, el proyecto de Ley de Maximización y Optimización de Activos a Pequeña Escala en las Comunidades (Proyecto de Ley de la Cámara de Representantes 3521, Proyecto de Ley del Senado 2270) establece metas para la implementación de recursos energéticos distribuidos en el estado, incluyendo la energía solar y el almacenamiento energético.

Además, necesitamos que los legisladores apoyen a MassSave como un mecanismo eficaz para promover la preparación para la energía solar y el almacenamiento energético. Los recortes propuestos a MassSave en un momento en que este programa beneficia a un mayor número de hogares de ingresos bajos y moderados, contradicen cualquier esfuerzo por hacer que la energía sea más asequible y dificultan el uso de los recursos limitados con los que cuenta el programa para apoyar las mejoras eléctricas. Con más del 50 por ciento de la electricidad de nuestra región siendo generada a partir del gas, las familias ya están expuestas a la volatilidad de los precios de los combustibles fósiles. Cortes al presupuesto del programa MassSave solo las hará aún más vulnerables al incremento en costos resultante de aumentos en la demanda energética provocados por el calor extremo y los inviernos muy fríos.

Legisladores de Massachusetts: contamos con ustedes para garantizar que nuestros vecinos que viven en las comunidades de justicia ambiental del estado finalmente puedan disfrutar de los beneficios de una economía de energía limpia.

But clean energy’s favorable economics, its environmental and health advantages, the ability to build it quickly, and its awesome momentum keep pushing it to greater heights—despite the forces looking to drag it down.

That progress is worth celebrating. As we mark Global Wind Day and the summer solstice in these unusual times, it seems good to take note of the wind at our backs, the sun overhead, and what they make possible.

What we’re up against

First, more on these times. The Trump administration began its assault on solar and wind right at the start, with Day-One executive orders in January 2025 that halted different types of renewable energy and looked to “unleash” American energy (by which Pres. Trump meant fossil). And it has continued through a range of administrative actions that have clearly discriminated against those two energy sources.

One recent tactic might be called the $1.8 Billion Scheme. No, not that $1.8 billion scheme. This one involves using US taxpayer money to take energy options off the table, by buying back offshore wind leases from companies that secured them in auctions in recent years, to keep those same companies from moving forward with offshore wind (a particular bête noire of the president’s). The total amounts in the three deals the administration has struck is that $1.8 billion figure (which also happens to be almost the exact amount of proposed cuts in healthcare funding just passed by the US House of Representatives).

The push to hamstring the leading sources of new electricity supply has been abetted by the actions of the administration’s allies in Congress, with the 2025 megabill that further undercut support for clean energy.

The administration has also worked to prop up fossil fuels, including dirty, uneconomic coal. One recent manifestation of that is Pres. Trump’s announcement that he was invoking the Defense Production Act and using other funds to provide up to $850 million to keep online more than a dozen coal plants around the country, and build a couple more. The EPA also just told another about-to-be-shuttered coal plant in Wyoming that it can stay open and is free to operate without new equipment to reduce its harmful air pollution. That support for a fuel that is on its way out is a cruelty to communities desperate for a real future, and by undermining more movement on solar and wind, the administration is pushing toward higher energy bills and worse health impacts in communities nationwide.

These examples are just a taste of the headwinds clean energy is facing.

And yet…

The progress wind and solar are making anyway

Despite Pres. Trump’s irrational animosity toward solar and wind, those sources have repeatedly answered the call for new and cleaner power. Installations of solar panels and wind turbines in the United States have been on a tear in recent years, and recent results show continued progress in increasing that generating capacity. Solar, wind, and energy storage have accounted for more than 90% of new electrical capacity in each of the last two years, for example, and accounted for 96% in the first three months of this year. Solar has been the largest source of new generating capacity for at least 28 straight months.

All that new capacity has been reflected in the ever-increasing amounts of clean electricity in the US supply. One good way to see the progress is to focus on wind and solar power’s contributions over the course of each year. You can do that right here:

Wind and solar generation as a percentage of US electricity supply, January 2001 to April 2026, with thanks to UCS Multimedia Producer Nick Davis-Ianacco (Sources: UCS analysis of EIA data, Ember)

The graph, based on UCS analysis of data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), shows monthly electricity generation from solar—everything from large-scale systems to ones on tops of homes and businesses—and wind, divided by the total generation for that month. The highest wind and solar percentages are typically in the spring and fall, as times when renewable energy generation is stronger and electricity demand is lower (shoulder seasons = less need for heating and cooling).

And here’s some of what the data show:

• Humble beginnings – The EIA data start in 2001, which was still early days for both wind and solar power. Their combined contribution broke the 1% mark on a monthly basis for the first time in 2007—almost entirely thanks to wind. (Solar by itself first passed that 1% mark in 2015.)
• Acceleration – And then things heated up. Wind+solar’s monthly output passed 5% in 2013, and 10% in 2017. In 2021, their combined forces for the first time reached 15%, and 16%, and 17%, and in 2022, the monthly tally blew past 20%.
• Leaps – And now the two technologies together have leapt past another notable threshold: according to preliminary EIA data for April 2026 via global energy think tank Ember, solar and wind together provided 26% of US electricity. That means that more than one of out of every four kilowatt-hours used by homes, businesses, institutions, farms, and communities across the country came from the wind or the sun.

Also remarkable is the fact that in 2025 the lowest monthly total for solar and wind was almost 16% (1/6 of US electricity). And solar generation for the first quarter of 2026 was more than 20% higher than in the same period last year.

The growth of wind and solar’s contributions, 2001-March 2026. Monthly variations reflect changes in both wind and solar generation and overall generation. Source: UCS analysis, EIA data

Keeping up the momentum

It’s clear that clean energy is by far the best option for electricity generation in so many ways, as not just the cleanest source but also often the lowest-cost option for new electricity supply, a key solution to energy affordability challenges, and the option that can get built the fastest. Sustaining clean energy’s momentum, though, will require pushing back on the forces that are looking to prop up fossil fuels and hold back clean energy.

A key source of energy (no pun intended) for renewable energy growth for years has been state action, and that continues to be the case, as governors and legislators look to clean energy for affordability, pollution reduction, and resilience, and look for ways to compensate for the Trump administration’s anti-clean energy actions. One interesting new approach to increasing access to clean energy is plug-in solar, which various states have endorsed with recent laws, starting with Utah in 2025. Plug-in solar, also known as balcony solar, involves households (including renters and people in multi-family buildings) buying solar panels that they can easily install and connect. The solar can cover a portion of their energy use and whittle away at their electricity bills. It’s a generation option that is as grassroots as can be, and one that appeals to people across the political spectrum.

For states and others, another force in favor of wind and solar has been the justice system, as the administration keeps getting challenged in the courts, and keeps losing. A few recent examples from the courthouse:

• Pres. Trump’s push to stop work on the five offshore wind projects under construction failed in each of the five attempts. And the first of those five projects is now fully built (and doing its thing, saving money for Massachusetts electricity customers and helping keep the lights on).
• In a lawsuit against the administration about many of the ways it has discriminated against wind and solar to block deployment, the plaintiffs (including, indirectly, UCS) have won a preliminary injunction against the administration’s actions.
• A coalition sued the administration over the IRS’s anti-solar and anti-wind changes to the tax code, and a federal judge has just ruled that the administration’s actions were indeed “arbitrary and capricious,” and would have had the effect of limiting clean energy development and raising energy costs for consumers.
• Seven Northeastern states have just sued to stop the $1.8 Billion Scheme, with lead plaintiff NY Attorney General Letitia James calling it “a sham deal” and “an illegal agreement” intended to push companies away from offshore wind and toward fossil fuels.

Continued action is needed in each of those areas, and many more, to make sure that the unwise, spurious, and illegal actions of the administration not be allowed to persist and undercut the US’s clean energy future.

Spiraling outward and upward

Meanwhile, wind and solar, and the people who can use them, aren’t taking the Trump administration’s “no” for an answer. While the most recent projections from the solar industries association and energy analyst firm Wood Mackenzie suggest new US solar installations will be down from last year’s, it could still be the third highest year on record.

And the latest data offer what might be the clearest recent illustration of the transition underway—toward clean energy and away from fossil fuels—despite it all: in May 2026, for the first time ever, the United States got more electricity from solar than it did from coal.

As the spirals of our latest graphic of progress, and so many other recent numbers, make clear, clean energy has a whole lot of momentum. The job now is to keep that momentum growing.

Reducing mineral demand, hallelujah

Reusing and repurposing batteries, hallelujah

Committing to a clean energy future, hallelujah

Last week, Colorado made history. The first US electric- and hybrid-vehicle battery recycling policy—with mineral recovery rates, reporting requirements, and measures to lower barriers to battery reuse—was signed by Governor Polis and made law. This will set a standard for the rest of the country.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are essential to reducing both global warming pollution and toxic tailpipe emissions, and they continually outperform their fossil fuel alternatives. But our responsibility for the health of the global community doesn’t stop there. To effectively decarbonize and lessen the impact of our products and transportation, we must reuse, repurpose, and recycle the batteries in our vehicles.

The policy in Colorado ensures that the minerals in EVs today can be used in EVs of the future by requiring recycling and the recovery of lithium, cobalt, and nickel from used batteries. Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) research shows that if the United States adopted recycling and a complementary set of strategies, we could meet about half of future EV battery lithium demand with domestic recycled content by 2050. That means less mining, less emissions, safer communities, and more domestic jobs.

UCS, in partnership with Western Resource Advocates, worked over the past nine months to educate decisionmakers in Colorado about the benefits of recycling and important elements of effective policy. We are ecstatic to see smart policy advance under the leadership of Senators Cutter and Wallace.

But the job isn’t done yet. California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, and Washington State have all introduced bills in the past but were unable to take them across the finish line. Most notably, California SB 615, introduced by Senator Allen, closely resembles this Colorado law. Support from environmental organizations and industry in Colorado demonstrates the desire for a well-thought-out policy that meets stakeholder needs. The time is ripe for this policy to be adopted by other states to create alignment and stability within the market.

Battery recycling means a stronger EV future

UCS is motivated to champion this work because recycling is essential in the creation of a strong and lower-impact EV future. The Colorado law reflects continued negotiation—hours and hours of discussion with industry and environmental partners to get to a place that works for Colorado communities and the future of EV automakers, recyclers, and automotive dismantlers. These stakeholders have come to the table thanks to the years of pressure from environmental organizations. Industry stakeholders have recognized that if left to the market, batteries are bound to slip through cracks, and minerals will not be recovered to their fullest potential. But if we can develop solutions together, we can maximize the mineral recovery and environmental and economic benefits.  

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a group representing the legacy automotive companies, supported the Colorado bill and recognized the benefits of this policy: “This balanced policy approach helps return used EV battery critical minerals to the supply chain, reducing the need for new mineral extraction,” said Nick Steingart, director of state affairs for the Alliance. “By encouraging domestic reuse and recycling of EV batteries, we can create a more resilient local critical mineral supply chain that supports the automotive industrial base and American economic security.”

What does Colorado’s EV battery recycling law do?

The Colorado law supports reuse and recycling goals using several mechanisms:

• Extended producer responsibility. Requires automakers to reuse, repurpose, and recycle batteries they have and those that are unwanted by downstream industries. The commercial entities that handle EVs and their batteries when vehicles retire (think auto dismantlers, mechanics, scrap yards) can reuse or recycle batteries, or have the automaker collect them free of charge.
• Mineral recovery. Requires recyclers to recover 90% of nickel and cobalt, and 50% of lithium, in 2031 (increasing to 80% in 2036) at intermediate form (also known as black mass). These recovery rates effectively prevent smelting, a high-emissions and low-recovery recycling technology.
• Labeling. Requires batteries to be labeled with essential information to increase the efficiency of recycling. This includes the manufacturer, battery chemistry, battery capacity, hazardous substances, and product safety and recall information.
• Battery health transparency. Requires the battery health (including charging capacity) to be accessible by a third party while the battery is in the vehicle. The third party must then document the state of health, which will help downstream entities decide if it is suitable for reuse and repurposing.
• Reporting. Requires automakers to report information about battery collection and recycling to the state. This includes the batteries collected, length of time until pickup reason for non-collection, recycling recovery rates, form of recovered materials, and the percent of batteries reused, repurposed, and recycled.
• Funding. Requires automakers to cover regulators’ costs, ensuring proper oversight by the state.
• Survey of effectiveness. Requires the state to conduct a survey to understand if the program is working and assess if there are any cracks that need to be addressed.

The biggest wins of this policy include holding a centralized party (automakers) responsible for unwanted batteries, and that the recovery of key minerals is required and independent from the mineral market price. By creating a centralized responsible party, regulators can enforce these laws at lower cost to the taxpayer and ensure the minerals are going back into the supply chain.

California, are you next?

California started this conversation in 2019 and made important strides: an advisory group was formed and a report published. Due to the high volume of EV sales in the state, it is clear from this work that there would be large environmental and economic benefits if California EV batteries were reused and recycled.

Senate Bill 615 built off this work by creating a framework that holds producers responsible for recycling EV batteries they have placed on the market. The bill passed the legislature in 2024 but was vetoed by Governor Newsom, who stated that it didn’t fit the typical format for producer responsibility. We at UCS have a good reason for our recommended approach that hinges on the unique nature of EV batteries in terms of safety and market forces.

“Extended producer responsibility” is used in California to hold producers responsible for products including textiles, packaging, mattresses, carpets, paint, pharmaceuticals, sharps, and consumer electronic batteries. These are all low-value products that are unlikely to be recycled, and some of them pose a safety risk when improperly disposed of.

EV batteries partially fall into this category. Some are likely to be recycled, while others aren’t, but all of them pose a risk if improperly stored or disposed of. Because EV batteries fall into multiple categories, the typical extended producer responsibility has been modified through six years of discussion in California, resulting in a policy that meets the product’s needs by providing a safety net when the market isn’t functioning properly.

It is especially important to have automakers be responsible for batteries that are damaged or don’t contain high-value minerals. The modified extended producer responsibility framework ensures that automakers are responsible for the collection and recycling of unwanted batteries, as there is a risk of improper disposal or storage, which could lead to fires and wastes materials that could otherwise return to the supply chain.

There are also batteries that can be reused or repurposed to extend their life in another vehicle or as stationary storage, and companies are building brands to do so, which creates a market for these used batteries. In addition, some batteries contain valuable minerals, such as nickel and cobalt, that recyclers are willing to pay for. When there isn’t a market for the used batteries or materials, the automaker is responsible for collection and recycling.

Overall, EV battery recycling requirements will minimize the mining needed to transition to a sustainable transportation system, reduce environmental impacts, protect our community from potential fires caused by improperly stored or disposed of batteries, and support the US economy. 

Why is UCS tapping the scientific community to speak up, show up, and rise? As UCS President and CEO Dr. Gretchen Goldman and her co-author, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Dr. Erica Chenoweth, wrote in their Science magazine op-ed:

“The ability to tell the truth, especially when it does not suit any particularly partisan aims, is an essential prerequisite for a free society. Scientists can leverage their substantial social standing and trustworthiness to preserve this vital ingredient.”

When decisions that affect our lives are based not on science and evidence, but instead on lies and propaganda, we need truth-tellers. We need people who believe in and are guided by integrity, justice, and science. We need creative people who can reimagine our institutions so that they serve the public, not the powerful. Scientists and their supporters can help protect science and our democracy—by rising together. UCS Senior Director of Strategy and Communications Matt Heid lays out the plan.

AAE: What are the goals of Science Rising?

MATT HEID: Ultimately, we are working to ensure the return of a pro-science, pro-democracy federal government that centers the best available science, facts, and evidence to inform the decisions that affect the health, safety, and well-being of us all.

Our goals are four-fold:

1. Minimize the harm being inflicted by the Trump administration’s anti-science and anti-democratic actions on people and communities across the country.
2. Counter the administration’s ongoing efforts to consolidate and normalize authoritarian rule.
3. Make progress where possible now while laying the groundwork for future progress, with a particular focus on what comes after the 2028 election—the most likely next opportunity for transformative change.
4. Inspire and mobilize the scientific community, and science supporters everywhere, to take action.

In many ways, Science Rising is building upon—and supercharging—the tremendous work we did countering this administration’s actions during its first year and a half in office, and drawing from some of the key lessons we learned about the most effective ways to respond.

AAE: UCS has been in this fight for a while. What are the most successful tactics to defend science?

MATT HEID: We’ve seen that one of the most effective ways to slow down or stop the administration’s anti-science moves is a powerful and immediate response, followed by sustained and focused action. This is particularly crucial because we know that one of the administration’s primary strategies is to constantly “flood the zone” with outrageous behavior that distracts and draws attention away from its most recent actions.

To that end—and as part of Science Rising—we’re actively developing and deploying more robust capabilities for immediately and forcefully calling out, and successfully pushing back against, the administration’s actions.

AAE: What can regular people do to counter these attacks on science and democracy?

MATT HEID: First of all, you can bookmark www.sciencerising.org. We provide resources and opportunities for scientists and science supporters to take action to protect science and our democracy. (Stay tuned for a guide that will walk you through booking meetings with your elected officials during Congress’ August recess.)

There are many opportunities to get engaged and take action in ways that align with your interests, capabilities, and tolerance for risk. You can pressure your elected representatives, especially those in Congress, to defend science and democracy. You can call out the administration’s propaganda and lies—and advance the real facts and evidence instead—within your own social and community circles, or by authoring an op-ed in your local media. Remember that demonstrations of courage are contagious: participate in and support marches, rallies, and other events to build and showcase solidarity and inspire others to get off the sidelines and engage. And you can support and provide mutual aid for others, especially for those who are most vulnerable to the administration’s attacks.

AAE: What do you see as the role or responsibility of scientists to speak up in our current political climate?

MATT HEID: Scientists have a crucial role to play as trusted messengers in our society. Indeed, most people in the United States—77 percent—trust scientists to act in the public’s best interest, according to a Pew Research poll from January.

Put another way: When scientists speak, people listen. This past year has clearly demonstrated that putting your head down, staying quiet, and hoping for the best is not an effective strategy for countering this administration’s relentless assault on science. At the same time, we recognize that everybody is in a different position, with different levels of risk, and that it’s crucial for scientists to know and evaluate their personal risk tolerance.

Those who can more safely speak out should, and loudly! Those facing greater personal or professional risks should calibrate their actions accordingly. But everybody, no matter what their risk tolerance might be, can do something.

AAE: Science Rising states that the groundwork for reimagining federal science and our democracy will be laid in the future. What can we do better, or get right in the future that wasn’t working for people even before President Trump returned to office?

MATT HEID: We don’t want to go back to the way things were before all this—to return to a status quo that sometimes perpetuated inequities in the ways science was used and applied across different parts of society. Instead, our goal with Science Rising is to develop, support, and advance a better, more equitable vision for science in the future, while simultaneously ensuring that critical science the administration is currently working to suppress can continue unfettered.

For an example of the former, UCS is urging Congress to support the recently introduced Scientific Integrity Act, a critical step toward safeguarding federal science from political interference and ensuring policies that impact everyday people are guided by the best available evidence.

And for the latter, Science Rising includes our Independent Science Initiative, which is working to ensure that critical science continues outside of government. This effort to foster and build an alliance for independent science initially focuses on supporting independent committees that can continue the work of federal science advisory committees the administration has shut down.

AAE: How is UCS looking to its supporters to be part of this campaign?

MATT HEID: One of the core strategies for Science Rising is to build unity within the scientific community, which includes anyone and everyone who is passionate about protecting and advancing science and democracy in these challenging times. If you’re a scientist or other technical expert, you can join the more than 20,000 experts in the UCS Science Network, who have signed up to apply their skills to local and national issues they care about. You’ll find training and opportunities to engage as an advocate within and for your own community.

And beyond that, all of our supporters can help build and strengthen our collective power. That means encouraging and motivating others to get involved, especially those who have been sitting on the sidelines. That means calling out the administration’s authoritarian actions for what they are, and building greater awareness and understanding of the threat and risks to our democracy. And that means spreading the message that we do have the power to build a better, safer, and more just future for us all.

Agencies and programs supporting science would be particularly hard hit. In the proposed budget:

• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would be reduced by 28%, and its research lab and cooperative institutes would be eliminated;
• More than 50 NASA science missions would be cancelled, including most of the agency’s atmospheric sciences and space weather research, and its science budget reduced by 42%;
• The National Science Foundation’s science and research are reduced by 53%;
•  The Environmental Protection Agency’s overall budget is cut by 52%;
• The National Institute of Standards and Technology is cut by 54%;
• The US Geological Survey’s by 37%;
• The Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy would be eliminated;
• The HHS agency supporting transformative biomedical and health research would be cut by 37%; and
• The US Department of Agriculture’s institute for agriculture-related science is facing a reduction of 38%.

The proposed cuts, and the administration’s ongoing assault on science, have ramifications far beyond harming federal programs and their workforce. Last year, nearly $30B in grants from the NIH, NSF, and EPA alone were delayed or terminated. Combined with other threats to universities for “woke programs,” mass student visa revocations, and a misinformation campaign over pressing research topics such as climate, infectious diseases, and gender health, higher education is seeing lower student enrollment, a brain drain of scientists, and the shutdown of vital research studies. And this sudden cancelling of research grants has disproportionately affected women, minorities, and early-career investigators.

The administration’s weak justification that their proposed cuts in discretionary programs are critical to managing the nation’s debt is a non-starter; the proposed savings from federal research and development ($33.7B of $73B for all domestic discretionary cuts) pales in comparison to the $445B increase for the Department of Defense.

The federal budget calendar

The federal fiscal year starts October 1 and ends September 30 the following year. But well before this, agencies begin assembling their desired budgets. They include funds to maintain daily operations and maintenance, research, and staffing, as well as selective initiatives for new programs. In addition, agencies request resources for large capital expenses such as research vessels, satellites, and laboratories. A significant portion of the budgets for federal science agencies are dispersed to universities, states and communities, and private businesses for R&D or projects to improve public health, safety, prosperity, and well-being. For example, over 80% of the NIH budget is awarded in grants for external institutions.

These budgets are submitted in the previous calendar year to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who uses them to prepare a budget proposal based on the administration’s policies and priorities that the President submits to Congress, typically early in the calendar year. The FY27 version was released in April.

As the US Constitution gives it the “power of the purse,” Congress has the exclusive authority to authorize spending. It holds hearings to review and subsequently “markup” or amend the President’s budget, aggregating the appropriations into 12 spending bills. This is what is currently happening in Congress.

They must budget for mandatory spending required by law, such as Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ benefits; interest on the national debt; and discretionary spending. This last category is where the greatest contention arises about balancing the budget versus growing the debt, taxes versus expenditures, defense versus non-defense spending, and funding “kitchen table” issues. Individual members insert “earmarks” that direct federal funds to special projects or localities. Importantly, this is the step where Congress decided not to implement many of the administration’s proposed cuts to science and research in FY26.

During this budget resolution process, the House and Senate ultimately agree upon and pass the joint spending bills, which are sent to the President for signature or veto. Once funding is enacted, OMB allocates funds to agencies for their budget execution. All this is to be done under the review and audit of the Government Accountability Office and independent agency Inspectors General (although notably the Trump administration has illegally fired many of them). Although the law sets a specific calendar for each step in the budget process, including its passage before October 1, Congress often misses these deadlines, requiring a continuing resolution or CR to keep the government operating. Failure to do so may result in a partial or total government shutdown.

The FY27 budget hearings

The first round of hearings on the President’s FY27 budget request with the House (4/15/26) and Senate (4/16/26) Budget Committees included testimony from OMB Director Russell Vought. Not coincidentally, much of his language was lifted directly from Project 2025. There was no effort to inform Congress or address their questions or concerns. Instead, Vought hyped the greatness of the administration; avoided transparency; claimed they are rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse; deflected, denied, and misled; became combative when pressed for details; and blamed previous President Joe Biden. As though that weren’t enough, Vought avoided specifics and refused to answer questions about ongoing expenses, supplementals, and deficit projections. When challenged about delaying, impounding, or repurposing FY26 funds already appropriated, he denied the administration did it, claimed that what they did was within the law, or noted that they wrote a memo stating that the law was unconstitutional. Other Trump officials appearing at subsequent department and agency budget hearings took the same evasive, pugnacious, and mendacious approach.

Science was not a dominant theme of the hearings, although specific programs that protect public safety, human health, the economy, and the environment received bipartisan support. Congress justified investments in R&D as a means to maintain “America’s competitive edge” and “support everyday Americans”. Members are acutely aware of the importance of the science agencies, programs, and staff in their communities, and often cited issues or programs impacting their own state or district. Many also recognize the importance of maintaining the US as a world leader in basic research and innovation. In their questioning, senators and representatives on both sides of the aisle pressed administration officials about the effects of budget cuts on a variety of science-based topics, including preventing and treating disease; wildfire fighting and severe weather warnings; environmental monitoring and offshore wind development; and AI. Here are some key takeaways from the April budget hearings and the initial House appropriation bills.

The administration’s playbook is Project 2025

Much of the text in the FY27 budget is lifted directly from the Project 2025 mandate. Both refer repeatedly to “failed leadership of the Biden administration”, ending the Green New Deal, eliminating “wasteful and ineffective spending”, and “fraud, waste, and abuse in foreign assistance funding”. They attack science for its so-called “radical climate agenda” and “woke activities.” And the recommended actions and cuts in President Trump’s budget mirror those suggested in Project 2025. Independent science advisory boards must be reset; green subsidies for infrastructure and energy-efficient appliances ended. Climate science funding is eliminated. Data collection and observing systems, the task of agencies like NOAA and the EPA, should be moved to the private sector. Federal functions and coordination should be transitioned to states, and research to universities, without additional capacity, and administrative offices and research labs dispersed from Washington, DC.

Specifically, Project 2025 directs the government to dismantle NOAA, reorganize and streamline EPA, consolidate NSF, and eliminate DOI and DOE energy efficiency and renewable energy programs. It calls for the “management” of national forests through increased timber harvests and consolidating and streamlining the regulatory oversight of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act. All of these are included in the FY27 budget narrative or have been accomplished in recent months through OMB-directed shifts and freezes in funding. But this goes far beyond appropriations and budget cuts. From these hearings, it is clear this administration desires to implement Project 2025 with minimal Congressional approval or oversight.

Watch what they do, not what they say

In both its FY26 and FY27 proposed budgets the Trump administration has shown it is willing to run through constitutional and congressionally mandated guardrails, and to ignore or misinterpret the law. It has impounded or dragged its feet in executing appropriated funds. For example, through the end of March, NOAA has executed only 718 grant actions, compared to 2696 for the same time last year. The administration attempted to dismantle NCAR, in part because it “informs regulations on emissions that the administration does not support.” And it abruptly fired the entire NSF National Science Board without cause in April. Many of their destructive actions have been reversed, but only after they were challenged in court. We can expect this behavior to continue in future budget cycles.

The power of the purse abides

Congress takes their constitutional authority over government spending seriously. There is true bipartisan pushback in the budget review and markup process. Initial House markups for most science agencies are similar to their FY26 funding levels, and the Senate is generally even more charitable toward R&D budgets.

The May House markup restores a little over half of the proposed cut to NSF. NASA exploration gets a $1.1B increase compared with 2026, but its science funding would still be cut by $1.25B (vs the $3.3B President’s request). Congress also is protecting several science missions proposed for cancellation and is reining in attempts to shift crewed deep space exploration to commercial providers. Over 90% of NOAA research funds have been restored in their markup.

Resistance is NOT futile: you have a role

Because of the science that our federal agencies conduct and support, lives are saved, property is protected, businesses are vibrant, communities are safer, and ecosystems are healthier. But the proposed cuts to the federal budget threaten these benefits, and the consequences are long-term. The loss of skilled researchers and their programs and institutional knowledge will be lasting.

While Republicans were not as vocal or critical in the budget hearings as their minority counterparts, both parties understand the significance of federal science to our nation and will—as in 2025—defend it against White House attacks. They have staved off much of the proposed degradation to science, but there’s hardly a science-forward atmosphere on the Hill, and we can fully expect the administration will try to slash science again for as long as they are in power. There is still much to be done to repair the DOGE damage to our nation’s science capacity, and to sustain and accelerate funding for critical existing and new R&D programs. Here are some things you can do.

Contact your elected officials

Call or message your representatives and remind them about how you and your community rely on federal science agencies and the work they do and fund. Ask them to fight for the necessary funding for research and to support legislation like the Scientific Integrity Act that protects science independence. Don’t forget to talk to your state, county, and municipal officials as well; their actions have an impact, and trickle up to the federal level.

Engage locally

Contact your local news media; ask them to report on how this administration’s actions harm science and how it will impact your community. Share your story as a scientist or how their work benefits you through LTEs and commentaries, and on social media. Attend local council and board meetings to voice your support for local research labs, offices, and universities, and the federal resources they depend upon.

Support scientific organizations

Many professional organizations and science advocacy groups, such as UCS, are speaking out and urging Congress to reject the administration’s harmful cuts and actions against science. Sign their letters and petitions.

Stay informed about the budget

Follow Congressional budget deliberations and actions, and make sure your representatives act to support and adequately fund science. You can track the status of federal science budgets. Here are the schedules for upcoming House markups  and Senate appropriations.

Think long-term

Project 2025 set the stage for this administration’s remaking of our government. Our nation needs a new vision, one prepared with and backed by thought and logic, to repair the damage it has caused. We must start thinking about an alternative to Project 2025 that will advise the next administration, including how it will restore science to its proper critical place in society. How will those engaged in and benefiting from science inform future executive and legislative branches? What will your role be in designing and creating the future of science? Now is the time to begin these conversations with your colleagues and science supporters. It will be up to us to work collectively and thoughtfully to not only rebuild but build back better a federal science enterprise that benefits our health, safety, security, and well-being.

After an initial outcry from experts tracking this rule closely, major institutions and prominent figures across science world issued statements in response, thousands have tuned in to learn how to respond, and scientists and science supporters are geared up to submit public comments opposing this proposal. Coalitions in the scientific community and beyond are also working to extend the comment period. All told, OMB is poised to be inundated with tens of thousands of unique and powerful public comments on their dangerous and ill-conceived draft rule.

We need this unity beyond the OMB rule

It’s energizing to see this broad and clear response from the scientific community to a proposal that stands to disrupt the federal science research apparatus—an enterprise that is responsible for decades of significant scientific progress, economic development, and global science leadership for the nation.

The OMB proposal is far from the first attack on science and scientists we’ve seen under the second Trump term. It matters if the administration dismantles the US scientific research apparatus. It also matters how that research is used (or dismissed) to make government decisions that affect communities across the globe. It matters if key subject matter experts are fired from government service. It matters if federal investments designed to address longstanding inequities in underserved communities are clawed back. And it matters if the administration takes a sledgehammer to the safeguards that protect science and scientists from political interference.

The strong and loud response to the proposed OMB rule has demonstrated the broad unity and collective response that’s possible when we all work together. The scientific community would do well to apply this same level of activation to the larger assaults on science and democracy that are harming communities across the country.

Signs of bravery in a culture of fear

In a moment when we are still seeing significant fear and hesitancy to criticize the administration from pockets of the scientific community, this kind of solidarity is desperately needed.

Last week, at the American Diabetes Association’s annual meeting in New Orleans, police officers expelled five scientists from the conference for distributing an editorial criticizing the Trump administration’s politicization of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), ahead of a planned keynote from NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya. These researchers were simply sharing information about how the NIH is not living up to its promises and harming the communities they serve, including people living with diabetes. The editorial in question is free to read and available to all online. And yet, this peaceful and evidence-based criticism was met with expulsion by armed officers.

This display of censorship sends a chilling effect through the scientific community for anyone willing to speak up about the harms happening. And unfortunately, this event is not an isolated incident, but it instead is among many instances in which the science community has chosen to be silent or capitulate when faced with an opportunity to speak up about the Trump administration’s actions. We need scientific leaders and institutions to step up, not silence those showing us that bravery.  

Now is the time for courage

So let’s step up. Let’s be brave. There are many issues that can now use our sustained and collective attention. You can join the Science Rising Action Corps, and hold members of Congress accountable to protect science and democracy. You can urge your elected officials to fund FEMA now to protect our communities from disasters, to pass the Scientific Integrity Act that will allow federal scientists to do their jobs free from political interference, to save one of the most important climate research centers, to preserve the US Forest Service, and to close dangerous loopholes in nuclear weapons regulations.

You can rally your community to turn out and protest Trump administration policies. You can join the UCS Science Network and learn the most effective ways to engage with elected officials. You can learn about creating and supporting alternative, independent structures for scientific decisionmaking. You can speak up in your own social and professional circles, show up for your neighbors, and make your values clear.

This week shows what we are capable of. Let’s keep going.

Primarily, this visit was about setting the tone for a year in which the two leaders may meet up to four times, as well as for the rest of the Trump administration. With this in mind, the most important outcome was an agreement on how the bilateral relationship should be framed: government readouts from both sides mentioned that the two leaders agreed on building a US-China relationship shaped by “constructive strategic stability.”

I’ll get to what that means exactly in a second, but the bottom line is that this is a positive first step toward resetting what has become an increasingly fraught relationship over the past decade. It could also lay the foundation for increased cooperation on nuclear weapons.

What is strategic stability?

Traditionally, the term refers to a stasis between two nuclear-armed states where neither side has the incentive to strike the other first, as both sides are assured of their (and their opponent’s) ability to retaliate with devastating effect. The constructive strategic stability that Trump and Xi agreed to in Beijing, however, is a broader and more abstract concept. Per Xi’s comments from the official Chinese readout, it refers to a stable relationship characterized by cooperation, benign competition, peace, and manageable differences. Essentially, a balanced equilibrium that acknowledges differences while making space for cooperation.

Xi stating that managed, healthy competition should be the goal is actually a change to China’s position. Over the past decade, comments from Chinese leadership have repeatedly insisted that competition is a fundamentally unhealthy framing of the relationship. When Xi met Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing in 2023, he said that “great power competition does not accord with the times and cannot solve the United States’ problems.”

While China’s approach to its relations with the United States mostly remains unchanged from 2023, the pivot to “managed competition” is notable. It reflects acceptance that at the end of the day, the two global leaders are naturally going to compete for influence and leadership in a number of sectors, and that it is important to clarify exactly what harmful competition would look like and what both sides’ red lines are. It is a tentative agreement between two parties that there is mutual interest in avoiding tension and direct confrontation, while also maximizing cooperation in areas where interests align.

This is not an especially high bar, but it is a good start. “Stability” is about avoiding bad outcomes, but the “constructive” part suggests working together and not simply accepting the conditions of the relationship as they currently exist.

Will it stick?

China will be watching whether a Trump administration prone to wild swings in rhetoric and policy actually sticks to this framework. Beijing’s issue with the United States has typically been what it sees as a tendency to call for guardrails and stability-creating measures, only to turn around and provoke confrontation or crisis through its China policy. China wants to focus on crisis prevention over crisis management. Meanwhile, the United States criticizes China for abandoning or ignoring crisis management measures to protest US actions in other parts of the relationship; Washington wants guardrails that are “siloed” from other bilateral developments.

The Trump administration, especially Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, has emphasized the need for more robust military communication between the two countries. The apparent US willingness to talk with and listen to China is positive, but Beijing will still be waiting to see if actions spoil these words. The second Trump administration features fewer establishment figures with a negative view of China. Whoever is currently influencing China policy in the White House, it is not John Bolton or Mike Pompeo from the first Trump administration, who were dead set against any constructive relationship with Beijing.

Thus, while we shouldn’t overreact to constructive strategic stability just yet, the simple fact that both sides agreed to it is notable and promising. Speaking on the Shēng Dōng Jī Xī podcast, Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University, made the point that the United States agreeing to a concept for the bilateral relationship posed by China is a first. Its inclusion in the White House’s readout as something Xi and Trump agreed to, he argued, is a positive indication that the United States is willing to take Chinese concerns seriously and work on a mutually acceptable framework.

Similar to the question of crisis management versus crisis prevention, the United States has preferred to jump straight to resolving specific issues without addressing bilateral ties more broadly, which is the opposite of China’s approach. To Da Wei, agreeing on constructive strategic stability may be the first step toward resolving this bottleneck.

The nuclear side

Constructive strategic stability may also lay the groundwork for strategic stability in the more traditional context of nuclear weapons.

Chinese arms control experts have already laid out how the most likely type of arms control between China and the United States is risk reduction, as opposed to treaties like New START that restricted the deployed number of US and Russian warheads and launchers. China’s smaller, asymmetric nuclear force has led it to keep its exact warhead numbers and launcher locations secret while engaging on multilateral treaties—but showing limited interest in bilateral agreements.

Chinese experts increasingly worry that the United States is unconcerned with nuclear strategic stability, especially after the announcement of Golden Dome, a missile defense system designed to defend against not only small nuclear threats but also nuclear powers like Russia and China.

While China’s nuclear arsenal has grown in recent years, in large part due to worries about US advances in missile defense and conventional military capabilities, it maintains its policy of “no first use” and continues to insist that it keeps its arsenal at the minimum level necessary for national security. Still, greater confidence in the ability of its arsenal to survive a first strike removes one barrier to China engaging more on nuclear risk-reduction measures. If the United States demonstrates a commitment to building constructive strategic stability across all parts of the relationship, the likelihood of progress on nuclear dialogue will increase.

However, such progress will require some accommodations from the Trump administration. Specifically, China has long wanted the United States to accept a state of mutual vulnerability between the two sides. This means accepting that neither side can fully prevent the other from launching a retaliatory strike, a key underlying factor for strategic stability.

A year ago, it would have been hard to imagine this administration considering that for even half a second. Then again, few would have predicted a meeting in Beijing where Trump agreed that the two sides should pursue constructive strategic stability. To get this relationship on the right path, we need to agree on where we want to go. Constructive strategic stability may be a vague destination, but it’s a start.

The world is virtually certain to overshoot 1.5°C of warming and climate impacts are rapidly worsening everywhere. Meanwhile, the world’s largest historical emitter, the United States, under the reckless authoritarian Trump administration, has launched an all-out assault on US and global climate policies. Geopolitical tensions are running high, with the illegal war against Iran, tariff fights, and multiple humanitarian crises unfolding alongside a crushing economic toll from the fossil energy crisis ensuing from the war.

The need for a safer, more just world is more desperately clear than ever. Despite the cruel impulses of many governments and the boundless greed of the fossil fuel industry, tendrils of climate progress continue to sprout, and renewable energy expansion is now unstoppable.

Here are six major themes on my mind as I head to the upcoming UN climate meeting in Bonn, Germany which will be held June 8-18:

1: The durability of global multilateral climate action

In January, President Trump exited the Paris Agreement for a second time, this time sinking to a new low by also ditching the bedrock UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. But the rest of the world is staying the course and continuing to engage in the UN climate talks. Progress is not easy or as rapid as needed—as we saw at COP30 in Brazil last year—but no other country has followed the U.S. for now.

In some ways, the mundane back-and-forth of climate negotiations, the preparations for COP31—billed as the ‘COP of the Future’—are an antidote to harmful pyrotechnics of the Trump administration. But we can’t let the low bar of complacency and business-as-usual serve as “good enough,” given the deepening climate crisis. Durability is crucial but the international climate system must also deliver robust results. At Bonn and in the lead-up to COP31 in Türkiye later this year, political leaders need to show genuine commitment to working through disagreements and standing up to the malign influence of fossil fuel interests to secure necessarily ambitious outcomes.

2: The rapid and dangerous acceleration in climate impacts

Climate change is unfolding around the world in terrifying ways. The recent extended heatwave in India and Pakistan caused numerous deaths and exposed millions of people to dangerous conditions, and is just one recent example of the perilous world created by political inaction and continued burning of polluting fossil fuels. Europe also experienced record-breaking deadly extreme heat in May. Super typhoon Sinlaku—a rare early season Cat 5-equivalent storm—exerted a deadly and costly toll in the Micronesian region of the Pacific in April.  

We are living in an era of climate-fueled drought, floods, extreme heat, intensifying storms, threats to water supplies—and all of this is happening in the context of an ongoing global hunger crisis, threatening to make it far worse. With a potentially strong El Niño predicted later this year, we could see record-breaking temperatures in 2027, changes to rainfall patterns, and further stresses on global food supplies.

Here in the U.S., the UCS team is tracking Danger Season, that time of year when climate impacts peak for people across the country. So far, we’ve already seen intense early season heatwaves, an early start to an active wildfire season, record low snowpack, and drought.

3: The unstoppable ascendance of renewable energy

Despite the Trump administration’s attacks on renewable energy in the U.S., and its attempts to undercut progress by boosting fossil fuels, data show that globally clean energy continues to expand rapidly—and is even beginning to displace fossil fuels.

Recent reports from Ember, IRENA and the IEA show the spectacular global surge in solar power in particular—and that trend is also evident in the United States. Steep cost declines in solar and battery storage are quickly making these the new electricity resources of choice, outcompeting fossil fuels, to meet demand in many places. Encouragingly, according to the Global Clean Energy Monitor, 2025 data show that in China and India renewable energy met most of new demand and helped turn down coal generation. Solar power was also a huge contributor to meeting peak electricity demand during India’s recent heatwave.

And while the fossil energy crisis unleashed by the US-Israel war against Iran is causing some countries to make short-sighted—or, in some cases, being forced to make short-term, existential—moves toward fossil fuels, it is also reinforcing that the only smart strategy ultimately is to chart as rapid a course as possible away from the economic risks of fossil energy price volatility. Those risks are playing out in particularly crushing ways for lower income countries and those who have historically relied on liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports from currently disrupted supply chains, where people are struggling to pay for basic necessities, including food and energy. But the energy affordability challenges are global—and in the U.S. being actively worsened by additional Trump administration actions. High fertilizer prices, triggered by the war’s upheaval of the fossil energy-related supply chain, are also exacting a steep toll on farmers and contributing to higher food prices.

4: The resurgence in demands for a transition away from fossil fuels

A recent bright spot has been the resurgence in explicit demands for a global transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy—evident at the April Santa Marta conference, and high on the agenda at the upcoming UNFCCC meeting in Bonn. Fenceline communities who bear the burden of pollution from fossil fuels and fossil fuel infrastructure, and climate advocates, have long called for a fast, fair, funded fossil fuel phaseout. After securing a win by getting language on a transition away from fossil fuels into the final agreement at COP 28, it had since seemed as if policymakers were once again falling into the thrall of the fossil fuel industry and resisting any real action.

That all changed at COP30 in Brazil last November, where this issue quickly rose to the top of the agenda. Although the overall final outcome was disappointing, civil society pressure did succeed in securing a just transition mechanism. And the frustrations that boiled over in Belém have led to a renewed focus on practical ways countries can turn down fossil fuels, turn up renewables and ensure the economic and public health benefits of that transition accrue to all communities including those that have been historically marginalized.

There are continued deliberations within the UNFCCC through a process initiated by COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago to create a Roadmap for Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in a Just, Orderly and Equitable Manner. At Bonn, we expect to hear more insights from a process to solicit input from all parties on this and potential options for an agreement at COP31. And countries at the Santa Marta conference have announced a second conference in Tuvalu (jointly hosted by Tuvalu and Ireland) next year.

A new report from IRENA also points out the infrastructure and technology shifts that will be needed for such a transition: Rapid electrification and renewable deployment will require major expansion of grids, storage and system flexibility, alongside stronger system integration and strategic planning for the phase-out of fossil fuel infrastructure.

5: The undermining, and defense, of climate science

The authoritarian anti-science Trump administration continues to double down on its attacks on federally funded climate science, scientific agencies, staffing, data and resources—including attacks on NOAA and NCAR.

UCS is fighting back hard against the Trump administration’s attacks on science, alongside many others in the scientific community.

The administration is also steadily defunding investments in scientific research at universities and other research institutions. A recent proposal from the administration would put political appointees in charge of making all decisions on federally funded scientific research, completely undermining scientific integrity. The Trump administration has also abandoned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is trying to prevent US federal scientists from collaborating with their international peers. Across the administration, spewing lies and propaganda about science is now the norm. Their climate science disinformation echoes talking points and tactics that the fossil fuel industry has long propagated.

These actions are chilling for US-based scientists and they’re having a real impact on the US climate science enterprise, long considered the crown jewel of the global ecosystem. Scientists around the world are alarmed at this rapid erosion of US climate science. Agencies like the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and others are continuing to step up and meet the needs of the hour but it’s not easy—or even possible—to fill the gap completely.

This dire situation is also underscoring that a truly resilient global scientific enterprise that serves the needs of people all over the world requires collaborative, distributed, well-funded science without borders.

A recent WMO bulletin on the El Niño is just one illustrative example. The credits say: The WMO El Niño/La Niña Update is prepared through a collaborative effort between the WMO and the International Research Institute for Climate and Society (IRI), USA, and is based on contributions from experts worldwide, inter alia, of the following institutions: Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), Centro Internacional para la Investigación del Fenómeno El Niño (CIIFEN), China Meteorological Administration (CMA), Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) and Pacific ENSO Applications Climate (PEAC) Services of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States of America (USA), European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), Météo-France, India Meteorological Department (IMD), Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM), International Monsoons Project Office (IMPO), Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), Met Office of the United Kingdom, Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS), WMO Global Producing Centres of Seasonal Prediction (GPCs-SP) including the Lead Centre for Seasonal Prediction Multi-Model Ensemble (LC-SPMME).

Isn’t that a beautiful exemplar of what global scientific collaboration should look like?

6: The urgent need for climate finance

To make the transition to a climate-resilient world powered by clean energy, we’ll need to redirect trillions of dollars away from fossil energy to clean energy. And as climate impacts accelerate, there’s an urgent need for climate adaptation funding, which has been sorely neglected for too long. Lower income nations—where billions of people are on the frontlines of acute loss and damage from climate impacts and millions still do not have access to modern forms of energy—cannot make the transition to clean energy and climate resilience without funding from richer nations most responsible for climate change. This is not charity, it is justice. And it is the only practical way to advance rapid progress globally.

Richer nations have long fallen short on their climate finance obligations. And now, unfortunately, the Trump administration’s gutting of USAID and other internationally focused programs and budgets has led to deep cuts in investments in global development and health across the board, including investments to advance climate resilience and clean energy. Other countries too, including the UK and some European nations, are reneging on their climate finance commitments. This couldn’t be happening at a worse time for lower income countries punished by high energy prices and worsening climate impacts.

Climate finance must be a key metric for how international climate action is evaluated. And for climate advocates in the Global North, it’s crucial to elevate this priority domestically and put pressure on their policymakers to deliver robust finance, alongside demands for reductions in heat-trapping emissions and a transition away from fossil fuels.

Clearing a path through turbulence

The Trump administration’s hostile upending of global norms is intersecting with long-term economic and political trends to create a turbulent geopolitical reality now—AND it is also accelerating the emergence of a multipolar world order, with new risks and opportunities.

Regardless of what happens under future U.S. administrations, the world has learned (repeatedly) that the United States can be an unreliable partner. That loss of credibility is sobering, especially since the U.S. is the largest historical contributor to heat-trapping emissions and the world’s richest nation. But it also leaves room for progress to emerge from new spaces, with new alliances and different imperatives to embrace climate action.

At the forthcoming climate negotiations in Bonn, countries must lay the groundwork for real progress at COP31—grounded in the latest climate science and climate justice—including on cutting emissions, transitioning away from fossil fuels, advancing climate resilience, and unlocking climate finance.

Today’s dark realities, while undeniable, cannot obscure real progress that is still happening against all odds. And they cannot make us lose sight of that better, brighter world that people and the planet need.

Almost as shocking as the scale of these changes are the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the very scientific instruments that enable us to understand them. We’ll get there. But first, a little immersion into our water planet to better understand what it means to overheat it and force the ocean to compensate.

Earth, despite the name, is a water planet

A quick refresher on Earth’s ocean. I mean, where did it even come from, all this water?

After Earth’s molten formation 4.6 billion years ago, the planet gradually cooled below the boiling point of water and, fueled by steam released from volcanoes, it rained for thousands of years, filling the low-lying surface of the planet. An era of bombardment by icy asteroids provided a huge additional volume of water. And voila, a water planet was born, almost entirely covered by one massive ocean. Tectonic activity eventually produced large land masses and, over time, both plate movement and global temperature fluctuations have greatly changed the shape of the ocean–and the land, our default perspective–e.g., tying more or less water up in ice. But with the exception of a couple of global ice ages, the liquid ocean has always dominated Earth’s surface. We’ve almost always been a “blue planet,” and always a water planet.

Water manages heat—and thus life—on Earth

This water was the birthplace of life on Earth. Indeed, water is considered the birthplace of carbon-based life anywhere, which is why scientists search for it in other solar systems. It took at least 500 million years for the first life to form in the ocean (~4.1 billion years ago), and once it did, life remained simple and aquatic for the vast majority of Earth’s history. It took fungi, plants, and especially animals big evolutionary leaps to venture out of the ocean (and much of it did not; today, nearly 80% of Earth’s animal life, measured in biomass, lives in the oceans), first to the tidal zone, then the coasts, and even today, with terrestrial life spanning most dry land, the ocean continues to exert tremendous influence on that life. It does this through a range of mechanisms. Chief among them, our ocean plays the dominant role in managing the Earth’s heat and making large regions of the planet habitable.

A core way the ocean does this is by absorbing solar radiation at tropical latitudes and distributing that heat via vast ocean currents to cooler parts of the world. These currents then distribute water that has cooled at the poles back toward the equator. Without this mechanism, the heat that makes life possible even in the otherwise frigid latitudes would remain concentrated around an intolerably hot equator. In this sense, the oceans are a great regulator of the global climate, tamping down extremes and supporting Goldilocks-style just-right regional climates around the world.

The oceans are also the primary source of moisture and precipitation–basically, weather–to land. As the sun heats ocean surface water, it evaporates, creating humid air that is transported by forces like winds and the Earth’s rotation, delivering precipitation, the water that makes terrestrial life possible.

So, if the role of the ocean in managing Earth’s temperature is fundamental to life on Earth, what happens when we overheat it?  

The ocean: an unfathomably huge heat buffer

The ocean is estimated to have absorbed 91% of the excess heat, caused mainly by the burning of fossil fuels, that has been trapped in the Earth’s atmosphere. This heat storage is possible because of the ocean’s specific heat capacity – i.e., water takes a lot more energy to warm than land or air. Direct absorption of sunlight, the main way the ocean absorbs heat, depends on the level of albedo present, where darker surfaces, like the ocean surface, absorb more of the sun’s energy than light surfaces, like polar ice caps, which reflect it back to space. But other mechanisms, like heat exchange with the atmosphere warm the ocean, too.

Without that excess-heat absorption and storage in recent decades, life on land would have been thrown into chaos (at best) by skyrocketing temperatures by now. According to one study, the heat taken up by the upper layer of the ocean between 1955 and 2010 was enough to warm the atmosphere by a jaw-dropping 36 degrees C. This massive, climate-mediating role of the ocean puts our thus-far unsuccessful human efforts to keep warming to 1.5 or 2 degrees C in sharp relief. That is, the ocean has spared us land-dwellers from the true, ~36 degrees C consequences of our fossil-fuel burning actions. And we can’t tackle 1.5 degrees?

The buffer is getting thin

The vastness of the ocean means it requires tremendous inputs to respond. But the excess heat that carbon emissions have trapped since the start of the Industrial Revolution is one such tremendous input. Major recent research captures the scale in this way, according to one of a new study’s 50 authors, John Abraham: the heat absorbed by the ocean in 2025 alone is “like 12 Hiroshima bombs being detonated each second, for every minute, hour, and day for the entire year.”

The absorption of that heat means that the average temperature of the oceans has been steadily rising, and now those temperatures are reaching levels that fuel impacts, including on land, that we will be unable to ignore.

Overall, the ocean has broken average temperature records every year for the past nine years. Temperatures have increased most at the surface, where sea surface temperatures have warmed roughly 0.8C between 1901 and 2020, and recently broke new monthly high records for thirteen consecutive months, starting in mid-2023. But deeper layers are warming, too. The chart below shows ocean heat content at different depths. And while slow ocean circulation constrains the movement of heat to great depths, ~20% of total warming is occurring below 700 meters.

So, where are we today?

The NOAA sea surface temperature (SST) data in the chart below shows 2026 SSTs rising to rival the record-breaking levels of 2024. This is influenced by the formation of a Super El Niño. Outlooks point toward new record high ocean temperatures this year, potentially creating the new hottest year on record for Earth in 2027.

Climate change is the clear driver here. Thanks to tools like Climate Central’s Climate Shift Index (CSI), we can now see the role of climate change in daily sea surface temperatures, and thus in marine heat waves and other anomalies. According to the CSI, this week, both the notable heat in the Indian Ocean and that in the Equatorial Pacific (where the El Niño is forming) are made substantially more likely due to climate change.

Symptoms of the ocean’s fever

These temperatures are now manifesting in impacts around the world and pointing toward accelerating change. In follow up blogs, we will unpack these symptoms in some detail, but to name significant ones:

Warmer water hastens the melting of “ocean-terminating” ice sheets (i.e., land-based ice connected to the ocean), contributing to sea level rise; creates a warming feedback loop by shrinking sea ice and increasing the ocean-warming albedo affect; enhances ocean stratification, where warmer surface and cooler deep waters fail to mix and redistribute heat; this in turn can drive hypoxic conditions, starving deeper waters of oxygen; can slow major ocean currents (thermohaline circulation), which are driven by changes in density, in turn driven by water temperature and salinity; and can super-charge storm systems, from tropical cyclones to Nor’easters, causing stronger and more rapidly-accelerating storms.

Then there is the acute heat that manifests in marine heat waves, a condition that is now chronic and widespread in oceans around the world. In 2023, an estimated 96% of the ocean by area experienced a marine heatwave. The most significant heat waves (all recent) have disrupted marine food webs and caused major ecological harm, resulting in widespread, prolonged coral reef bleaching, large-scale wildlife deaths, and damaged commercial fisheries.

Given the ocean’s significant role in driving or influencing vastly-consequential terrestrial climate patterns, like the Asian Monsoon, ocean overheating has implications for the human systems that are attuned to those patterns, from water supply, to agriculture and food security, energy production, and more. We’ll be tracking ocean temperatures, reporting on developments, and digging into these implications in subsequent blogs.

An age of consequence for warming a water planet

The tremendous capacity of the ocean to store away heat meant that the consequences of warming our planet were slower to be made visible. It now means that an enormous amount of excess heat energy now exists in the oceans, to be gradually released to other Earth systems in forms like direct heat to the atmosphere (as we see in El Nino years), melting of ice, and the supply of sea-surface heat that fuels tropical cyclones, to name a few.

It also means that releasing of that heat, slowing ocean warming, and eventually cooling the ocean cannot be accomplished on practical human timescales, but rather in hundreds to thousands of years. We have created an era of ocean heat consequences and now we must figure out how to live in it, even as we work to correct it.

Our need to understand our changing planet meets the Trump administration

An essential requirement for meeting the era of ocean heat is better understanding how our oceans and climate are changing, and for this, we have global ocean and climate monitoring infrastructure. Here in the US, the Trump administration is attempting—through staff cuts, budget cuts, eliminating data and information (e.g., datasets and websites taken down), and dismantling our monitoring infrastructure—to make ocean, land and atmospheric change harder to see.

Most recently, the administration ordered the “descoping” of the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observing Infrastructure Project, a system of sensing and data gathering infrastructure distributed in the North Atlantic and Pacific. Information is still sparse about this dismantling; the process is not transparent. What’s clear is that, at a time when ocean heat, the slowing of the Gulf Stream, and other major changes are sending shock waves through scientific and decision-making circles, we need greater understanding of what we’re facing, not self-imposed blind spots. Sending taxpayer-funded ships on taxpayer-funded missions to essentially unplug functional taxpayer-funded ocean monitoring systems is baffling. Given the fossil fuel industry’s influence on the Trump agenda, it could look like a massive attempted cover up, except that the crime—warming the planet—is ongoing, and there’s really no covering up the changing climate, because we live here.

The ocean has become easy for the wealthier people of the world to ignore: a place to extract resources and dump waste. But this titan is now rumbling into a new kind of activation, more central character than backdrop. It’s hard to think of a more monumental failure than overheating an ocean planet and handing it off to younger generations. History won’t look kindly on the leaders of this time who ignore the science and the obvious signals. May it reflect that they were forced by their people, in time frames that made a difference, to phase out fossil fuels and invest in a safe and just climate future for all on this rare water planet.

Under the rule proposed by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), political appointees would have far more power over who gets billions of dollars of federal funding for research. And the rule explicitly conditions this funding not on scientific merit but primarily on whether the grant project and the applicant conform to “the President’s policy priorities” —allowing them to suspend or terminate “grantees out of alignment.”

Traditionally, scientific experts serve on peer review panels and their recommendations drive research grant award decisions. As part of that process, reviewers must be free of conflicts of interest. While peer review may not be perfect, bringing experts together to evaluate and debate the merits of a funding proposal typically ensures that the proposals of the highest quality and potential impact for the public good rise to the top. But this new rule would allow individual political appointees—with no scientific background or expertise—to judge the merit of research proposals, override decisions by subject matter experts, and interfere with federal funding that doesn’t conform to presidential priorities.

This proposed rule would govern the grant-making process for the entire federal government, including (but not limited to) the approximately $200 billion spent annually in research and development, as well as discretionary funding that comes through agencies like FEMA. This rule is an escalation of the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on science and evidence-based policymaking in every policy domain. The Trump administration dubiously claims that their proposed changes will improve transparency, accountability, and oversight to prevent wasteful spending and mismanagement of federal funds. Yet over the last year, this same administration fired 55% of inspectors general across federal agencies—opening the door for waste, fraud, and abuse throughout government by kneecapping their ability to conduct investigations in federal agencies. This same administration also proposed a $1.8 billion slush fund to funnel taxpayer dollars to Trump allies.

This proposed rule is about one thing: the Trump administration’s hunger to exert control over the federal scientific enterprise and re-direct it toward their own political agenda. It’s an attack on scientific integrity and scientific independence that will come at the public’s expense. Read on for why this matters—and what you can do.

An authoritarian move to centralize power

By replacing scientific merit with a political loyalty test, the proposed rule is another strategy straight out of the authoritarian playbook to concentrate power, control information, and suppress politically inconvenient truths. The rule proposes that “agencies may consider an applicant’s history of questionable practices based on publicly available and verifiable information.” In other words: it’s a litmus test for any public statements by a researcher that the administration might find objectionable, a dire attack on the First Amendment rights of every scientist. Over the last year, we’ve watched the administration attack higher education and try to bend institutions across civil society to its will. If enacted, this proposed rule will allow the administration to further weaponize government and our taxpayer dollars—dangling money or threatening its withdrawal to coerce publicly-funded universities and federally-funded researchers into supporting its ideological agenda.

Undermining scientific integrity and independence

You may be familiar with scientific integrity as it relates to the adherence to professional practices and ethical behavior in research. But when a political appointee disregards the principles of honesty and objectivity when managing, using the results of, and communicating about science and scientific activities, that also violates scientific integrity. Those violations could include censorship, altering findings or data, or firing scientists over the results of their research. Hallmarks of scientific integrity include transparency, inclusivity, accuracy, and protection of research and scientific findings from suppression, manipulation, and inappropriate influence. Scientific integrity in grantmaking is also a driver of innovation and economic advancement. The proposed rule states explicitly that political appointees, regardless of experience or qualification, would have the last word on funding decisions. The record of the Trump administration so far gives all of us reason to worry about how they’ll make these decisions—especially since this rule came from OMB, led by Project 2025 architect Russell Vought.

A policy change that sacrifices the public good

US federal research funding makes scientific and medical breakthroughs possible and tangibly improves our lives. NIH-funded research has paved the way for treatments that have helped make diseases like cancer less deadly and reduced children’s exposure to pesticides. NSF-funded research grants led to the development of the internet and the technology in our cell phones, including touchscreens and lithium-ion batteries. NASA-funded space research enabled GPS through satellite infrastructure and helped map the eye to diagnose conditions and improve vision-correction surgery. USDA-funded research protects our lives, property, and health by mitigating risks in high-wildfire prone areas, informing evacuation decisions, and preparing us for future climate threats. And NOAA relies on research and data to track weather patterns to help manage and predict droughts that impact farmlands, forests, and grazing lands, also impacting the food and water supply. None of that work can happen if the Trump administration gets a political veto over what researchers are allowed to study.

What we can do now to fight back

Do not let the administration get away with these attacks on science. Here are three actions you can take to fight back:

1. Submit a public comment by July 13^th. This is one of the most high impact ways that you can let the administration know how this proposal will devastate the scientific enterprise—including halting vital research that you lead or depend on—even more than their reckless funding cuts to scientific agencies, institutions, and the workforce. Check out our resources for getting involved and submit your comments opposing this proposed rule.
2. Sign this petition to demonstrate your support for the Scientific Integrity Act. This bill was recently re-introduced in the US Senate and would establish stronger safeguards to protect federal scientists from political interference, require agencies to maintain scientific integrity policies and ensure government decisions are informed by evidence rather than political agendas. At a moment when independent science is under immense and increasing pressure, Congress must move swiftly to advance this bill and strengthen available guardrails. Studies are already being halted by political appointees who want to suppress the data. The OMB’s proposed rule frames research on topics like equity and public health as “wasteful spending.” It serves as an example of how political agendas get ingrained into science funding at a systemic level. The Scientific Integrity Act gives watchdogs, courts, and the public the tools to fight back. Congress must pass it now.
3. Spread the word and share this blog post with your network. We need overwhelming pushback to make the administration reconsider this proposed change to gut independent science.

In March 2025, the agency announced that it planned to eliminate its Office of Research and Development (ORD)—the EPA’s hub of independent scientific research. As I highlighted last year, ORD’s closure constitutes a huge loss for independent science at EPA. ORD was intentionally created as a standalone office outside of EPA’s policy offices (like the Office of Air and Radiation and the Office of Water, among others), so that scientific research could be conducted without undue influence from political appointees who might have conflicts of interest. Several of the major environmental laws that EPA is tasked with enforcing, like the Clean Air Act and Toxic Substances Control Act, explicitly require the agency to rely on scientific evidence in decisionmaking. ORD exists for exactly that reason—so that EPA decisions are informed by the best available scientific evidence, not by ideology or the demands of politically-powerful interests.

EPA replaced the independent ORD with a new Office of Applied Science and Environmental Solutions (OASES), which sits within the EPA’s Office of the Administrator.  That puts science under direct control of political appointees: a recent memo sent to OASES employees outlines the new project approval process, emphasizing that political appointees must approve new research projects.

After a year of continuously chipping away at EPA’s capacity to regulate pollution, enforce regulations, conduct rigorous scientific research, and protect public health, the Trump administration is undeniably increasing the risks Americans face from toxic chemicals.

IRIS, the small ORD program that saved lives

EPA’s Integrated Risk Information System, or IRIS, was a program that sat within ORD’s Center for Public Health and Environmental Assessment. For decades, the scientists in IRIS worked to understand and explain the health risks associated with exposure to chemicals. This research informs pollution regulations at the federal, state, and local level. As the EPA’s own website states, “The placement of the IRIS Program in ORD is intentional. It ensures that IRIS can develop impartial toxicity information independent of its use by EPA’s program and regional offices to set national standards and clean up hazardous sites.” IRIS’ toxicological assessments are considered best practice, undergoing a rigorous review process to evaluate the degree to which chemicals like formaldehyde or ethylene oxide are associated with certain health effects, including cancer.

This effort to target IRIS didn’t just emerge—the Trump administration is implementing a long-running plan. The chemical industry sought to kill the IRIS program for years, propping up misleading and false excuses to undermine a program whose work might challenge their interests. Project 2025, the right-wing policy roadmap that has guided the second Trump administration, advocates for ending the IRIS program, and members of Congress have introduced legislation that would ban EPA from relying on the 500+ assessments completed by IRIS in agency rulemaking.

Until President Trump came into office, EPA vehemently defended its IRIS assessments, and even the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) have affirmed the use of IRIS values. Now, with President Trump’s appointee Lee Zeldin in charge, the EPA has completely changed course.

A recent internal memo obtained by ProPublica shows David Fotouhi, President Trump’s deputy administrator of the EPA, directing all agency offices to review any IRIS assessments used in past agency decisionmaking and discouraging their use in future regulation.

Ethylene oxide, the cancer-causing gas EPA can’t seem to quit

In the memo, Fotouhi specifically calls out ethylene oxide, an invisible gas used for medical sterilization and produced in chemical manufacturing that IRIS determined was a carcinogen in 2016. Under the Biden administration, EPA undertook long overdue actions to strengthen regulations for several types of industrial facilities that emit ethylene oxide, including medical sterilizers. These actions would have significantly reduced cancer risks for the millions of people in the U.S. and Puerto Rico living or working near ethylene oxide-emitting facilities. But when President Trump once again took office, the agency reversed course and has rolled back many of the regulations limiting emissions of toxic air pollutants like ethylene oxide.

IRIS’ 2016 assessment found that long-term inhalation of ethylene oxide can cause white blood cell and breast cancers, and that the risks are especially pronounced for children. EPA was able to significantly strengthen controls for ethylene oxide-emitting facilities because of IRIS’ scientific conclusions (an assessment that took a decade to complete and included rigorous independent review). Now Fotouhi—who previously represented a medical sterilization company and other polluters as an attorney—is sowing doubt in the IRIS ethylene oxide assessment, echoing unsubstantiated claims made by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and American Chemistry Council for years. Their claims are also counter to conclusions by a NASEM independent committee in 2025, which supported EPA’s methodology for developing IRIS assessments. The agency even went so far as removing information about the health risks of ethylene oxide from its website, depriving the public of crucial information about the harms of exposure. We are witnessing in real-time EPA cutting the science out of decisionmaking to further a profit-motivated deregulatory agenda.

In EPA’s recent proposed rollback of ethylene oxide emissions standards for medical sterilizers—which will expose tens of thousands of people to “unacceptable” cancer risk levels—the agency states that, “it would not be appropriate to rely on the 2016 EtO IRIS value in setting standards,” urging the public to submit “alternative values […] that would be more appropriate…” In the proposal, EPA claims that two new studies introduce uncertainty into the 2016 IRIS value, but if you read the studies, they do not address health endpoints that can be compared to the IRIS assessment. In fact, one of the studies supports the 2016 value. Furthermore, a recent draft cancer risk assessment published by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment includes a literature review from the last decade, arriving at the same conclusions as the 2016 IRIS assessment. You can read more about EPA’s unsupported claims about the 2016 ethylene oxide IRIS assessment in a comment I contributed to and led by our partners at Earthjustice, and our broader comments on the rule here. The science is clear—the Trump administration just doesn’t want to hear it.

Where does that leave us? EPA is giving polluters a free pass, unlawfully eliminating regulations, abandoning the scientific findings that enabled regulation of global warming emissions, no longer considering the benefits of human lives saved by regulation, and now ripping out the scientific foundation that keeps these rules effective. Ultimately, these actions betray the basic job of the EPA. In the Trump administration, EPA leaders are allowing corporations and polluters to evade rules based on science, and secure policies that are convenient for their own profits, at the expense of our health. And in the end, the harm will be foisted upon the American public.

On top of that, the Trump administration’s actions have set off an affordability crisis that further shrinks people’s ability to prepare for, cope with, and recover from disasters. With the North Atlantic hurricane season starting today (June 1 through November 30), we should all be demanding our policymakers do better to protect people and the economy.

2026: the “Triple Danger” of the unchecked Trump administration

Danger Season is the time of year between May and October when extreme weather in North America becomes most intense and frequent, with heat, flooding, wildfires, drought, and hurricanes posing the highest risks. 2026 is feeling different from the past. This year, we’re experiencing the triple crises of climate change, the reckless authoritarian Trump administration, and economic insecurity becoming overwhelming. My colleague Erika Spanger speaks to how these crises begin to collide in her recent post, noting that as the Trump administration delays and attempts to cancel critical programs like FEMA’s preparedness grants, it weakens the ability of local communities to prepare for, cope with and recover from climate impacts—the same communities that are feeling stress from higher gas and food prices and need support the most. The people who will experience Danger Season most acutely are those who can least afford to cope.

And while NOAA predicts a below normal 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, the forecast is for between 8 to 14 named storms, three to six hurricanes and the potential for one to three major hurricanes. On top of the considerable cost of air conditioning in deadly heat, many people lack the wherewithal to prepare for and recover from even one major hurricane.

The current state of FEMA

It’s been an emotional and turbulent whirlwind for FEMA staff under President Trump’s second term, which has reverberated throughout the nation’s communities.

In October of 2025 I wrote about the state of FEMA and its lack of readiness to respond to disasters. There have been changes since then, but the main goal of President Trump’s actions remains the same: to weaken the agency. This is evident as the administration fires experienced staff indiscriminately, politicizes disaster aid, and pushes the burden of disaster response and recovery onto state, local, Tribal and territorial governments.

The new DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin has reversed some of the dismantling conducted during the disastrous term of prior Secretary Kristi Noem, no doubt due to pressure from Congress but also under federal court orders. Secretary Mullin may just be convincing the administration that we need the trainings, grants, and people that they ended, cancelled, and fired. Here are some of the recent reversals to FEMA-related attacks under Trump’s administration.

• DHS Secretary Mullin told members of Congress during his confirmation hearing that he’d do away with former DHS Secretary Noem’s $100,000 expenditure review requirement and that he’d speed up disaster assistance; he’s done the first and made steps in the right direction on the second.
• After two Federal court orders, FEMA finally issued a notice of funding for $1 billion for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program. But this is still far below the $4.6 billion  appropriated by Congress via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) set-aside.
• On May 13, 2026, FEMA released $600 million in Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) grant funding after it had retracted it on February 14, 2025. This grant notice makes funds available for capability and capacity building, individual flood risk reduction projects and individual flood mitigation projects available for communities participating in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).
• On April 30, 2026, FEMA rehired 14 staff that Secretary Noem fired for signing the Katrina Declaration. The declaration warned Congress of the Trump administration’s dismantling cuts and devastating attacks on FEMA’s programs and missions and urged them to act.
• On April 30, 2026, the Washington Post reported that FEMA would be rehiring 100 of its 300 Cadre of On-Call Response and Recovery (CORE) employees that FEMA had not rehired in January as part of Secretary Noem’s plan to cut FEMA’s workforce by 50%. However, the actual number is questionable as some CORE employees declined reinstatement and some had retired so were not eligible for reinstatement. FEMA’s CORE employees are hired for two-to-four-year contracts and deployed to disaster sites where they work within one of the 23 “cadres”—operational or programmatic groups. They make up the largest part of FEMA’s workforce at 39% (8,802) employees, followed by surge capacity who come from other agencies at 35%, permanent employees at 22% and other at 5%.

While these reversals are good news, quadruple stressors at the agency are going to challenge FEMA’s ability to respond to simultaneous disasters and include: 1) unqualified leadership; 2) brain drain—that is, the departure of longtime staff with institutional knowledge—and other staffing losses; 3) grant delays and uncertainty; and 4) radical policy shifts.

Unqualified leadership

Given the very low bar that Secretary Noem set, Secretary Mullin is a step up. But as I wrote in my March blog, he is unqualified to lead DHS, as he is a climate denier, backed extreme immigration policies, spread misinformation about FEMA, and voted against certifying the 2020 elections, among other issues. Former DHS official Miles Taylor, in an NPR interview, recently spoke to how the DHS secretary position is “the hardest job in Washington, I mean, hands down, this is absolutely the hardest job in Washington. And what you don’t want is someone going into that job who doesn’t ask questions, someone who doesn’t speak truth to power.”

After a year and a half in office and three unqualified acting FEMA administrators (Cameron Hamilton, David Richardson, and Karen Evans) President Trump nominated Cameron Hamilton on May 11 (yes, the same man he fired for testifying that FEMA should exist) to lead FEMA. Hamilton admitted to sharing misinformation about the agency on social media, lacks the required qualifications and the 5 years of experience required under law (the Post Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act (PKEMRA) of 2006), and should not be confirmed by the Senate (but he most likely will be).

Roughly half of FEMA’s leadership, 18 out of 38 of top-level positions have yet to be filled as of today, at the start of the Atlantic hurricane season. Empty positions include: FEMA Deputy Administrator, Chief of Staff, Deputy Chief of Staff, Associate Administrator for National Continuity Programs, both positions for Policy and Program Analysis, Deputy Associate Administrator for Mission Support, both positions for Resilience, Deputy Administrator for US Fire Administration and nine Regional Administrators.

Let’s hope Cameron Hamilton fills these essential leadership roles and other critical staff as soon as possible. But the reality is that it can take six months to a year to recruit and onboard a senior executive and a year to hire full-time staff, according to former FEMA chief of staff Michael Coen. Additionally, the Trump administration still has a hiring freeze in place, and FEMA has only been authorized to hire 300 high-priority staff.

And then there’s Gregg Phillips, the Associate Administrator of the Office of Response and Recovery, arguably the second or third most important role at FEMA. He’s also uniquely unqualified for the role. He’s a conspiracy theorist, known for violent rhetoric and has become infamous for his claims of having teleported to Waffle House.

Brain drain and staffing losses

FEMA has lost roughly one-third of its workforce since the beginning of the second Trump administration due to terminations, buyouts, and early retirements. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that last year FEMA started the hurricane season with just 12% of its incident management workforce available. These numbers are staggering when we think back to the 2023 GAO report that noted FEMA already had a 35% staffing gap at that time. Members of Congress were also alarmed and passed a resolution entitled: “Condemning Federal workforce reductions that undermine preparedness, response, and recovery, and expressing concern regarding proposed future staffing cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

But it’s not just the numbers, it’s about the talent that was behind them. Many people who have left had extensive experience in their fields and will be very hard to replace. There are two major lawsuits against the Trump administration involving unfair employment termination. A group of unions as well as local governments and nonprofits brought a lawsuit against a group of US government defendants including President Trump, DOGE, DHS and FEMA for firing CORE employees without the approval of Congress as required under law (you can read the fascinating lawsuit). A second class action lawsuit was filed in federal court on behalf of federal workers claiming the Trump administration unlawfully fired them for working on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

Grant delays and uncertainty

The Trump administration’s attacks on FEMA grant programs have been so broad, state and local governments and their partners have been pushed to using the a tool President Trump knows a lot about: litigation. There are roughly five state and local government lawsuits against FEMA/DHS for placing restrictions on, reallocating, withholding, freezing or terminating preparedness and disaster assistance grant funding.

The Executive Director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers Chad Berginnis provided testimony to Congress on the need for FEMA to be “adequately funded and operationally functional.” Berginnis underscored how local and state partners have “experienced significant operational and funding disruptions,” which can only make it more difficult for them to prepare for hurricane season and be ready to take on more response and recovery when a major disaster does hit.

Thankfully, as mentioned above, many of the grant cancellations or restrictions on funding have recently been reversed. However, President Trump continues to play politics with disaster assistance, delaying and denying disaster declarations especially for blue states. Currently 27 disaster declaration requests remain open. The first of these is from Arizona for storm and flood damage and is dated October 24, 2025. The president has also been denying Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funding to states since March 18, 2025, the first President to do so in 27 years. Typically, Presidents award HMGP along with public and individual assistance once they’ve declared a disaster.  

Radical policy shift

On January 24, the same day President Trump visited parts of North Carolina destroyed by Hurricane Helene, he signed an executive order establishing the FEMA Review Council. The President’s FEMA Review Council held their last meeting on May 7, when the council members discussed and voted to approve the final report that largely aligns with Project 2025. Most of the policy changes proposed require Congressional actions or new regulations (see table on page 15 at the link), and others would need to be implemented in a phased approach over two to three years. If implemented, the ten major recommendations would: force state, local, Tribal and territorial governments to continue to take on more and more of the burden of disaster response and recovery; push to privatize the National Flood Insurance Program; completely ignore pre-disaster mitigation, leaving communities less prepared for climate-fueled disasters; and reform individual assistance in a way that would leave many people behind and less safe after a disaster, among other reckless policies. Comments are due June 8, 2026, and UCS will be weighing in.

Which FEMA will show up this Atlantic hurricane season?

FEMA has been at the crosshairs of the Trump administration since day one. And as the threats and risks mount this Atlantic hurricane season, with the added risks of extreme weather turbocharged by climate change, we all have to wonder, which FEMA will show up? Will it be the same FEMA as last year that implemented DHS Secretary Noem’s draconian funding rule, causing extreme dysfunction in its response to the tragic Texas flash flooding—when acting FEMA administrator David Richardson was unreachable for over 24 hours, phone calls went unanswered, and funding requests went unpaid? Or could it be a degraded but more stabilized FEMA under the new DHS Secretary Mullin and the nominated FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton?

My hope is that it’ll be the latter. The current FEMA acting administrator is FEMA Region IX administrator Bob Fenton: his third time in this role, he comes to the position with decades of experience at FEMA. However, on May 14, 2026, Representatives Bennie Thompson and Timothy Kennedy sent a sharply worded letter to Secretary Mullin and acting administrator Fenton to express their “serious and growing alarm over FEMA’s deteriorating readiness to protect the American people.”

Whichever FEMA shows up, we all need to prepare for the 2026 hurricane season

With the incredible destructive force of hurricanes, it only takes one to cause total devastation for a region. As NOAA says, “early preparation is essential to staying safe all season.” Here are some practical ideas to get ready for hurricane season that go beyond the usual important of advice of 1) make sure you have an evacuation plan; 2) have an emergency kit (Build a Kit); and 3) listen to local officials. Thinking ahead and taking small affordable but sensible steps to be prepared and able to cope in a crisis is something we all need to do— especially under an administration that seems to care little for the safety and wellbeing of everyday people. The veteran-led Team Rubicon does care and has this “7 No-Cost and Low-Cost Ways to Prepare for a Hurricane” checklist—check it out!

Call on Congress to demand FEMA readiness and oversight

We need to keep the pressure on the Trump administration to fill FEMA leadership positions with qualified staff, continue to release funding in a timely way, and ensure communities get the help they need to get back on their feet after disasters. This means we also need to keep up the pressure on members of Congress to ensure FEMA is properly funded and to provide accountability and oversight. Please: Tell Congress: Stop Trump’s Dismantling of FEMA and Disaster Relief.

On April 27, the 191 nations who are parties to the NPT sent representatives to the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York to confer for almost a month. I took three trips to Midtown Manhattan to interview NPT participants at the beginning, in the middle and near the end of their discussions. All expressed a pessimism that was justified by the outcome. The nuclear weapons states thwarted every effort to hold them accountable. I was happy the non-nuclear weapons states refused to agree to a final document that would have made this injustice appear acceptable.

Iran and Ukraine

The wars in Iran and Ukraine significantly influenced the discussions. Both are non-nuclear nations that were attacked by nuclear-armed aggressors. Both were given assurances by the five NPT nuclear weapons states that they would never threaten to attack a non-nuclear member state with nuclear weapons. No fair interpretation of the public statements and media discourse of the aggressors could claim those assurances were honored. The lesson for the rest of the non-nuclear world seems clear. Binding legal commitments from nuclear weapons states mean the least when they matter the most. 

And yet, the nuclear taboo held. Not because of the NPT, or international diplomacy, but because there is something intangible about nuclear weapons that, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, prevented them from being used again. Moreover, the non-nuclear states are, for the moment, defeating their nuclear-armed aggressors on the battlefield. If they prevail when the fighting stops, and the wars officially end, these outcomes may contribute more to nuclear nonproliferation than the treaty their nuclear aggressors failed to honor. Small and medium-sized states with limited defense budgets may be better off investing in cheap drones than in expensive empty threats.

The umbrella states

The most disappointing group of nations attending the conference was the small collection of non-nuclear armed US allies who imagine they enjoy some sort of benefit from the US nuclear arsenal. Shortly after his inauguration in 1969, President Richard Nixon famously told his national security council that the idea there was a nuclear umbrella that covered these allies was “a lot of crap.” Whether any US president would be willing to risk a retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States to aid an allied nation has always been an open and unanswerable question, which may be why there is no explicit nuclear use commitment included in any US mutual defense agreement.

In exchange for this imaginary protection these “umbrella states” consistently work with the nuclear weapons states to thwart efforts by the rest of the non-nuclear world to make the NPT a more effective legal instrument. The most disappointing of all may be the government of Japan, which leverages the remembered suffering of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to burnish its disarmament credentials while secretly lobbying the United States to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons in East Asia.

China

The only other country approaching this level of nuclear hypocrisy may be China, which offered the conference a scathing condemnation of several Japanese behaviors that are not all that different than their own.  It claimed Japan is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from its nuclear energy program and stockpiling the separated plutonium for military purposes. At the same time Chinese officials refuse to address US claims China is using its civilian nuclear energy program to manufacture the plutonium it will need to fill hundreds of new silos with nuclear-armed missiles. China accused the Japanese government of “ramping up its military spending for 14 consecutive years” while it has been doing the same for twice as long. It called upon the international community to insist on “open, transparent and effective measures” to monitor Japan’s nuclear energy program, while at the same time refusing to comment on why it stopped reporting the amount of civilian plutonium China is producing to the IAEA.

China associates itself with an emerging “global majority” of developing nations who seek to rebalance long-standing inequities in the international order. As China’s economic and political influence continues to grow, many nations, including other members of this “global majority,” justifiably wonder what kind of partner China will become. The Chinese government claims it will never seek hegemony, but it’s attitude towards nuclear weapons undercuts that claim. How can there be economic and political equity between a nuclear have and nuclear have nots? What is China saying to the world when it condemns the nuclear energy program of a non-nuclear weapons state – a nuclear energy program exactly like its own – while simultaneously increasing the size and capabilities of its nuclear arsenal?

The nongovernmental

Alongside the official deliberations, concerned civic organizations from all over the world hold events and activities they hope will contribute to a constructive outcome. These often take the form of stern reminders to member states of their treaty obligations, dire warnings of the potential consequences of failing to meet those obligations, and advice on how to succeed. While well-intended, it is difficult to argue, after so many decades, that these reminders, warnings and advice have had any impact. 

What may be more important is that these nongovernmental organizations observe and record what happens with a great deal more objectivity and honesty than the participating member states.  Decades from now, looking back, those reports may reveal that 2026 was the year the non-nuclear weapons states finally decided they’ve waited for nuclear justice long enough.

Early in my career, I got first-hand experience with these systems when my own environmental engineering research was used to inform science-based air quality standards to protect public health for the entire nation. My research fed into a government process that ensured robust science policy decisions were made (even when corporate or political actors opposed it). The system was not flawless, but the transparency of the process and the commitment of the scientific community helped keep us pointed towards progress, and held people accountable when we weren’t. I became a full believer in the power of science to make our lives better through the systems we built to support it. A grounding in science, data, and evidence, provides a solid basis for better policy decisions, and in the US, our country recognizes that.

Science and democracy under threat

But now, that power of science is under threat, as the Trump administration’s assault on science and democracy escalates. My career has been focused on how science is used and misused, but the current attacks threaten the US science enterprise—across government, academia, and the private sector—beyond anything we’ve seen in previous administrations. The administration is gutting federal research investments, devastating federal scientific integrity infrastructure, firing federal scientists, and otherwise undermining the systems of federal science that have been sustained for decades, those very systems I long believed in.  

These attacks on science are happening at the same time as, and indeed are a part of, a rise of authoritarianism under the current administration. We’re living through a disregard of the rule of law and the disempowering of checks and balances across our government—the very same checks and balances that have been critical for ensuring science helps shape decisions, from scientific integrity infrastructure, to the role of Inspectors General, to the federal science advisory committee system, to civil rights protections and federal equity initiatives, with reverberations across sectors. My faith in the system is now shaken.

The power of the scientific community

What should the scientific community do when those systems are disrupted? When long-standing rules and norms are broken? When those reliable science processes and investments are gone? When our trust in the system is undermined?

We must reconnect with what made those systems function in the first place. The power of science was never solely in the system itself. It worked because of us. Because people everywhere insisted on a world where decisions are informed by evidence and experts are trusted. Because the public demanded it. Because scientists everywhere contributed. These systems were never perfect, but we stayed committed to the project, to the pursuit of knowledge, to a system with checks and balances that can guide us down a path to advance the public good. And we can do that again.

Although the speed, scope, and severity of the Trump administration’s attacks on science and democracy are great, we have a playbook. In other countries and contexts, we know what it takes to successfully challenge authoritarians and restore democratic principles—and scientists have played a key role as prominent leaders and dissidents in these movements.

Scientists have power. We have expertise. We have social standing. We can keep the score. We can call out disinformation. We can speak truth to power. We can hold decision makers accountable. This is the power and potential of scientists in this moment. 

Introducing Science Rising

If ever there was a time for scientists to step into our power, it’s now. That’s why the Union of Concerned Scientists is launching Science Rising, an effort that recognizes the gravity of the threats to science and democracy in this moment and harnesses the power of scientists and science supporters to fight back.

Through Science Rising, we’ll band together. We will refuse to live in a world where science is ignored and democracy is decimated. We will demand a world where science is used for public good. We will hold decisionmakers accountable. We will build independent scientific institutions that counter the disinformation and disintegration of scientific infrastructure. We will reimagine what science should look like in this country.

Most importantly, we will not back down. And I hope you will join us. Join our Action Corps and stay connected with this movement in the months to come.

I still believe in the power of science that left me awestruck as an early career scientist. We know at our core that science and scientists make the world better, safer, healthier, and fairer, and that we all deserve that. Let’s rise together, the only way we know how.

Unfortunately, there’s not a link in this chain the Trump administration, and particularly the Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, hasn’t weakened by cutting funding, firing scientists, refusing oversight, evading accountability, and spreading outright disinformation. When climate change impacts collide with an anti-science administration whose policies are hurting us economically, Danger Season is triply dangerous.

What is the “safety chain?”

The “safety chain” is the term I use for the series of links that protect us during Danger Season and climate change-worsened disasters. It’s made up of accurate data that give us clear, easy to understand weather forecasts that, when delivered by trusted communicators, increase public understanding so that individuals and communities prepare effectively and—if needed— respond and recover well.

Who’s breaking the safety chain?

The Trump administration has stopped gathering data and supporting research crucial to understanding our climate system. This assault on federal climate research in turn undermines weather forecasting. And that is further compounded by an administration that is actively spreading disinformation about climate science, echoing long-standing talking points of the fossil fuel industry.

President Trump himself in his previous administration refused to correct an error he made in a hurricane forecast and forced his administration to cover for him during “SharpieGate.” Lying about the path of a hurricane weakens the ability of science communicators, including meteorologists, to inform the public.

Meanwhile, it’s been a 15 month long roller-coaster ride for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) under the Trump administration. The agency has undergone loss of qualified leadership which was replaced by unqualified leadership, leading to a brain drain and raising questions about the agency’s readiness.

President Trump has delayed and denied disaster assistance for blue states and attempted to cancel initiatives within FEMA that would support local preparation, such as the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities or BRIC program. But after two federal court orders, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finally issued a notice of funding for $1billion of the $4.6 billion available appropriated by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund (DRF) set-aside.

FEMA’s disaster response funds were dangerously low even before Danger Season had begun and got a sorely needed boost once Congress ended the DHS shutdown. Even with a slightly milder than average Atlantic hurricane season expected, the DRF will most likely need Congress to provide supplemental appropriations mid-season.

Meanwhile, former acting FEMA administrator Cameron Hamilton, who lacks the qualifications required under law and has admitted to sharing misinformation about the agency on social media, is now back as a nominee to lead the critical agency. 

Given Trump administration actions that have depleted federal emergency management with thousands of job cuts, unstable leadership, and resource reductions, FEMA is less prepared to confront more frequent and intense extreme weather and climate change-fueled disasters. 

How does disinformation break the safety chain?

During climate change-worsened weather disasters, fossil fuel companies, aligned political actors, and affiliated media and advocacy networks have repeatedly spread or amplified disinformation that undermines public understanding, trust in institutions, and support for climate and disaster-response measures. These disinforming claims tend to fall into five main categories:

1. Cause distortion. A social media post that falsely attributes wildfire to arson, for example, breaks the links between accurate data, forecasting, and understanding. People may under- or over-react to risk.
2. Blame distortion. When we don’t see the role climate change plays in worsening weather disasters, we don’t hold the principle corporate drivers of climate change, such as the fossil fuel industry, accountable. We blame the wrong actors and don’t adequately address the root causes of the problem.
3. Trust attacks. Claims that government agencies or officials “don’t know what they’re talking about” or “don’t care about us” break the communication that builds trust and leads to effective preparation. People may ignore warnings or delay action, for example by refusing to evacuate ahead of a hurricane. At the same time, the Trump administration is making it harder to know what government actions or motivations are likely to be.
4. False safety signals, on the other hand, break the chain between understanding, preparation, and response. People may delay evacuation or miss the opportunity to take other needed precautions because they’re getting signals, either from authorities or media, that there is no emergency. It’s important to note that this doesn’t have to be disinformation or other propaganda. For example, showing pictures of people enjoying beach time can send a false safety signal during a dangerous heat wave.
5. Narrative hijacking happens when bad actors deliberately entangle disaster warnings, preparedness, or response with harmful messaging on hot-button issues such as elections or immigration. Targeted people may avoid shelters, services, or official channels of communication.

What can you do?

First, borrow from the Hippocratic Oath, and do no harm. Check your sources, especially before you share something on social media. A host of tools are available to help you conduct a search, check timestamps, and generally trace information to its source. The Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition releases briefs and data monitors showing trends in climate and weather disinformation campaigns.

Secondly, keep good information sources like the National Weather Service and local emergency response agencies on hand. For understanding science-based connections between climate change and extreme weather, keep an eye on UCS’s Danger Season content and on the great work of our partner organization Climate Central. Share good sources when you can; when good information is absent, disinformation will fill the void.

Third, pay attention to the intersection of extreme weather, disasters, and hot-button issues. Watch out if you see distortions and attacks come into play. If you do, use UCS’s host of resources on how to counter disinformation effectively.

Finally, work with us as we demand that Congress fund and oversee the restoration of crucial links in the safety chain, from appropriate oversight to funding for federal climate science and disaster preparedness and response.

The second Trump administration has set about dismantling the institutions of American science.

Over the past 16 months, the administration has eliminated thousands of federal scientific positions, imposed sweeping funding cuts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF), dismantled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory committee, and worked systematically to manufacture political justification for abandoning the evidence that underlies public health and environmental policy.

These attacks are not random. They are interconnected parts of a nationwide strategy to erode shared truth, manufacture doubt, and teach the public to distrust what it once took for granted.

Science has been a testing ground. If you can make people doubt peer-reviewed research, vaccines, and climate data, you can make them doubt anything. An electorate that doubts everything is an electorate that can be told anything.

So as the 2026 elections approach and the administration escalates its efforts to deceive voters and deepen that distrust, it would be fair to assume the scientific community might stay quiet based on its initial response in 2025. When the first attacks came, the impact was profound. Many scientists were paralyzed by fear of losing funding, fear of political retaliation, fear that speaking out would cost them everything they had spent their careers building. Some self-censored, avoided controversy, and waited for the storm to pass.

But something has started to shift. Scientists are fighting back. A resistance that began as individual acts of courage is now taking collective shape, and what has emerged over the past several months is beginning to look like the early architecture of a movement.

Inside out and outside in

Inside federal agencies, scientists and career workers have faced these pressures most directly. The Federal Workers Alliance for Democracy (FWAD) has built a growing coalition of workers and allies mobilizing the federal workforce to refuse compliance with dangerous and illegal orders, building networks across every federal agency in every state. Aisha Coffey, FWAD’s communications director, explains:

“The thing about messing with career civil servants is that those are the same people this administration will rely on to carry out dangerous, illegal orders. If federal workers refuse to comply, we take an extraordinary amount of power away from a government that’s trying to do us harm.”

It’s a powerful strategy. And to add to it, the resistance isn’t only coming from inside. Scientists are also building power from the outside.

In June 2025, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (the body that has guided U.S. vaccine policy since 1964) and replaced them with a group that included vaccine skeptics and anti-vaccine advocates, some lacking relevant expertise.

The dismissed scientists did not simply step aside. They formed the Immunization Scientific Advisory Collaborative (ISAC) and published independent, evidence-based evaluations of the reconstituted committee’s proceedings. When the committee voted to end the decades-old recommendation that every newborn receive a hepatitis B vaccine at birth (despite no new safety data and no new evidence that the shots don’t work), ISAC documented what that process looked like. Together, they created a public record of what evidence-based vaccine policy requires and clearly told the public what had been abandoned.

Young scientists are adding their voices to the chorus

While many of these examples involve established scientists and career workers, early-career researchers have stepped up too. Without tenure, established reputations, or institutional protection, they have the most to lose by speaking out, but this isn’t stopping them. Graduate students turned hallway conversations into the Scientist Network for Advancing Policy (SNAP), now a nationwide coalition of more than 150 active members across 30 organizations.

SNAP’s McClintock Letters initiative coordinated more than 600 scientists to write op-eds for their hometown newspapers (not elite national outlets, but local papers) in the communities they grew up in. They have already published more than 200 pieces across 45 states. As JP Flores, speaking on behalf of SNAP, explains:

“We wanted to get back in touch with the people we grew up with, the communities that shaped us, and the people who, in many cases, we became scientists for in the first place. We hoped our peers would join us and were amazed by how many did. If scientists want to continue to earn the support and the funding we’ve received from the American public, we have to not only communicate with them but also recognize their vital role as partners and stakeholders in our work.”

The scientific community has been criticized, often fairly, for operating at a remove from the public. These early-career scientists are working to close that gap at precisely the moment it matters most.

Healthcare workers were crucial to resistance in Minnesota

Nowhere has that urgency been clearer than in health care. When the Trump administration designated hospitals as fair game for immigration enforcement, the Minnesota Nurses Association doubled down on their efforts to educate members about patient rights, what to say to federal agents, and how to protect immigrant patients, including Minnesota’s large Somali and Hmong communities. They developed badge buddies for nurses (printed cards with instructions and a QR code for resources) and built partnerships with immigrant rights groups, faith organizations, and legal aid groups.

Then, on January 24, 2026, federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA. He was off duty, observing protests against Operation Metro Surge. That day, he stepped between a federal agent and a woman who had been pushed to the ground. Alex had spent years helping care for patients in the ICU and was doing the same for a neighbor. Federal officials said he had brandished a weapon. The video tells a different story.

Pretti’s death galvanized nurses nationwide. National Nurses United declared that “ICE messed with the wrong profession” and organized a nationwide week of action: candlelight vigils at hospitals and VA facilities from Minnesota to California to New York, with explicit demands that Congress defund ICE or face electoral consequences.

Year after year, Gallup finds Americans rank nurses the most trusted profession in the country. When a profession like that organizes, it brings the power of everyone it has spent decades caring for.

Where to plug in

These examples are far from comprehensive. Organizations like HealthBegins have been training frontline clinicians to treat pro-democracy work as an extension of their professional identity, not a betrayal of it. Stand Up for Science returned to the streets in March 2026 with rallies in 46 locations nationwide. New cross-sector coalitions are forming in states across the country. Momentum is building as scientists get in formation ahead of November 2026.

One example of this growing momentum: On June 3, the Union of Concerned Scientists is launching Science Rising, an initiative aimed at mobilizing the science community for sustained engagement, building the political infrastructure to defend science and democratic accountability through the 2026 elections and beyond. As Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, says:

If ever there was a time for scientists to step into our power, it is now. Science Rising recognizes the gravity of the threats to science and democracy at this moment and harnesses the power of scientists and science supporters to fight back.

The launch webinar on June 3 (3-4 p.m. ET) will feature three concrete actions: signing up for SMS alerts for rapid mobilization, raising awareness in your own networks, and joining the Science Rising Action Corps for tools and opportunities focused on congressional accountability throughout the summer and fall.

If you are a scientist (or just someone who believes science should serve the public good) RSVP for the launch here. If you work in science or technical fields specifically, there is a scientist-specific form here.

Over a year ago, the fear was felt at the individual level. A scientist’s grant withdrawn, or their name added to a list; a career built carefully over years at risk of being lost overnight. The administration bet that the fear of thousands of scientists, isolated, weighing the costs of speaking up, would add up to compliance. But the math has changed as the scientific community is proving them wrong by remembering it is one.

They were always trying to figure out how to save money. Not as a preference or a lifestyle, but as a necessity. Because at that time, saving even a small amount could mean the difference between stability and struggle.

That same kind of decision-making shapes daily life for many households. But today it’s unfolding under a different set of conditions—where rising costs, financial pressures, and extreme weather increasingly intersect.

As summers grow hotter and energy costs continue to rise, the question of what people can afford (often referred to as energy affordability) is becoming increasingly connected to how they experience heat—and, in some cases, whether they can stay safe through it.

These aren’t just questions about comfort. They’re questions about navigating extreme weather, which can have serious implications not just for comfort but for cost, health, and well-being.

And now Danger Season is upon us. Danger Season—the period between May and October when North America is hit hardest by extreme weather, like heat, drought, wildfire, and hurricanes—brings severe implications for households across the country. There are a few things worth keeping in mind about the connections between extreme heat, energy affordability, and the ability to stay cool safely.

1. As temperatures rise, so does energy use—and so do energy bills.

During the summer months, air conditioning can account for a significant share of household electricity use, especially during periods of extreme heat. For many households, staying cool means using more electricity at the exact moment energy demand and costs are rising.

And while most households in the United States have some form of air conditioning, access doesn’t always mean affordability. The ability to cool a home safely and consistently is shaped by cost. For many, the decisions start to look familiar: Do I turn on the air conditioning, or try to get by with a fan? Do I keep it running through the night, or turn it off to save money?

2. Energy affordability shapes how people experience heat

For many households, the challenge doesn’t begin with extreme temperatures. It begins with the bill.

Electricity costs are already rising across much of the country—and for many households, they’ve been rising quickly. These rising costs aren’t random, they’re shaped by growing electricity demand, aging infrastructure, fossil fuel price spikes, and the increasing strain of extreme weather on the grid. For households already managing tight budgets, that changes how people experience the summer months. In some parts of the country, high summer cooling costs also arrive directly after months of expensive winter heating bills, leaving many households entering the summer without much financial recovery

For a growing share of households, cooling isn’t something they turn on without thinking, it’s something they must seriously weigh against other essentials. People start making decisions early: running the AC less, delaying turning it on, closing off some spaces to avoid having to cool them, bracing for what the bill might bring. By the time the first heatwave arrives, many households are already carrying the stress of what it will cost to stay safe.

3. Cooling access shapes heat risk

We often talk about air conditioning like it’s optional. But during periods of extreme heat, it becomes a safeguard. Extreme heat is one of the deadliest weather-related risks in the United States. Access to reliable, affordable cooling is one of the most effective ways to reduce that risk.

But that protection only works if people feel able to use it. When cost becomes a barrier, safety does too.

Housing conditions can also intensify these risks. Older or poorly insulated homes often trap heat more easily and require more energy to cool, increasing both indoor temperatures and electricity use during heatwaves. In practice, that means some households are entering extreme heat events with far fewer protections than others.

4. High energy burden can magnify risk

For households where energy bills already take up a significant share of income, staying cool isn’t just expensive—it can become destabilizing. The financial strain of cooling during extreme heat often compounds existing vulnerabilities, especially for households already navigating housing insecurity, chronic illness, disability, aging infrastructure, or other economic pressures.

These aren’t one-time decisions. They happen day after day during a heatwave: running the AC less, delaying its use, or trying to cool only part of a home. Over time, those tradeoffs can lead to hotter indoor temperatures, disrupted sleep, worsened health conditions, and increased exposure to dangerous heat.

And because energy burden is not experienced equally across households, the same heatwave can carry very different consequences depending on income, housing conditions, health status, and access to resource.

5. Disconnection carries cascading impacts

For some households, those tradeoffs eventually lead to something more severe: utility disconnection. When electricity is shut off, cooling doesn’t just become unaffordable—it becomes inaccessible. And the impacts extend quickly beyond heat:

• Homes become unsafe during extreme temperatures
• Food and medications spoil
• Medical devices stop working
• Families may be forced to leave their homes

Disconnection is not just a financial event: it’s a sign that the system meant to provide essential service is failing to protect the people who rely on it. During extreme heat, it can turn dangerous conditions into life-threatening ones.

Policies meant to protect households from shutoffs during extreme weather vary significantly by state, utility, and season. In many parts of the country, protections during extreme heat are weaker than those against winter shutoffs, even as summers become increasingly dangerous. And while programs like Low Income Energy Assistance Program can provide critical support, cooling assistance and summer coverage remain limited or inconsistent for many households. Recent federal data from the US Energy Information Administration found that residential electricity service was disconnected 13.4 million times in 2024 because of unpaid bills, highlighting the scale of energy insecurity many households continue to face.

6. These risks aren’t shared equally

The weight of these conditions isn’t evenly distributed. Some households are entering summer with higher energy burdens. Some are living in homes that trap heat more easily. Some are navigating health conditions that make heat more dangerous. And some are doing all of this at once.

The result is that the same heatwave can carry very different consequences depending on where you live, how your home is built, and what resources you have access to.

7. These outcomes are not inevitable

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The systems shaping these experiences—electricity costs, housing quality, grid investments, shutoff policies, and energy assistance programs—were built over time. And they can be reshaped.

We can design programs that reduce energy burden. We can invest in cooling access and resilience. We can prevent disconnections during extreme weather and strengthen protections for households most at risk. We can plan for extreme heat as something we know is coming—not something we react to after the fact. And we can work to reduce the climate pollution driving more dangerous heat extremes overtime.

Because the reality is people shouldn’t have to navigate life-or-struggle decisions just to stay cool in their own homes.

My parents’ stories are part of a longer thread—one that continues today in different forms, in different places, across the country (and around the world). The details may look different. But the underlying question remains the same: What does it take to get through the day—and what does it cost?

As summer approaches, that question becomes harder for too many households to answer. And that’s something we still have the power and responsibility to change. Behind every rising bill is a set of decisions about how our energy system is built and run—and who it’s built to serve.