Since the start of his second term last year, President Donald Trump has sought to weaken the federal infrastructure that supports American science, cutting or suspending research funding, firing or expelling thousands of scientists, revoking grants for ideological reasons, and closing research facilities across the country.
But despite that dark background, the administration’s firing of all 22 current members of the National Science Board last week stands out as “one of the darkest moments” of the past year and a half, said Jacqueline Gill, a paleoecologist and biogeographer at the University of Maine.
“It was unbelievably cold and when I saw the whole board burnt, it just made my stomach turn,” Gill said. “Because overnight, the last bastions of accountability and transparency and scientific expertise were dismantled.”
The National Science Board plays a key role in overseeing the National Science Foundation, a major research funder in fields such as chemistry, engineering, biology, the environment, computing, and technology, supporting academic research and helping to develop the next generation of scientists.
The NSB and NSF were designed to be “driven by the best scientific experts who really represent the consensus about where science in this country should go,” Gill said. “No matter what president we have, it will not be on a whim.”
Established by Congress in 1950 as an independent scientific advisory body, the Board is appointed by the President to staggered six-year terms and is selected for outstanding achievement and excellence in its field. On Friday, members received an email saying their positions were “terminated, effective immediately.” The NSF’s website currently does not list any members by name, instead listing them as “pending new appointments.”
“This board is very important because it can advise not only the president but also Congress on issues of great national importance,” said Geraldine Richmond, president’s science committee chair and professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon and former member of the NSB. Mr. Richmond was first appointed to the board by President Barack Obama and later during President Trump’s first term.
Following the board’s sudden removal, experts fear that its members will be replaced by people chosen for political loyalty rather than scientific qualifications, or who are focused on short-sighted partisan concerns rather than the larger societal interest.
Because of the Board’s importance in the U.S. innovation ecosystem, observers fear the decision could lead to a loss of trust in public science and cause long-term damage to U.S. competitiveness in key research areas and the pipeline for training and retaining new scientists.
“This is alarming, but not surprising given what this administration has been doing now since January 2025,” said Carlos Javier Martínez, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists who previously worked at the National Science Foundation. “It’s a constant onslaught of attacks on science.”
White House officials suggested in a statement to Inside Climate News that the decision to fire the board stemmed from a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court case related to the appointment of administrative patent judges.
The ruling “raised the constitutional question of whether someone other than a Senate-confirmed appointee can exercise the powers Congress has given to the National Science Board,” the official said. “We look forward to working with the Hill to update the statute and ensure that the NSB carries out its mission as Congress intended. The work of the National Science Foundation will continue uninterrupted.”
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“Like many of the legal claims they’ve made in the past, this is more of a smokescreen than a truly plausible legal argument,” said Lauren Kurtz, an attorney and executive director of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund. She said the Supreme Court decision cited by the White House is “very different factually and legally” than the process governing appointments to the NSB. “I think it would be disingenuous to try to apply that to this case.”
The legislation governing the National Scientific Committee was updated in 2022, Kurz noted. Martinez agreed with Kurz’s assessment of the White House’s claims. “It doesn’t hold water,” he said.
“They basically brought a wrecking ball to this (board). I don’t know exactly how they plan on rebuilding it, but if history is any indication, they’re going to want to throw in people who are very loyal to the administration and are probably not qualified,” Kurtz said.
“Without that agency, the reality is that the agency is completely subject to orders from the White House,” Martinez said.
In Gill’s view, the NSF is already being guided by industry priorities, particularly the Silicon Valley tech giants that tried to curry favor with the second Trump administration with donations and public flattery.
“Having a scientific enterprise focused primarily on the needs of industry means we are losing curiosity-driven science,” she says. That emphasis also downplays research, like her own, that focuses on areas that industry is typically uninterested in or hostile to, such as climate change, biodiversity, and pollution monitoring.
Gill said the “beautiful thing” about NSF is “the recognition that science without immediate benefits or applications is worth pursuing.”
“We’ve been studying electricity for hundreds of years without any practical purpose, and with our limited ability to do exploratory research, we don’t know what we’ll lose in the coming decades and centuries,” she said. “You never know what will lead to the next breakthrough.”
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Kylie Bence
pennsylvania reporter
Kylie Bence covers climate change and the environment with a focus on Pennsylvania, politics, energy and public health. She reports on the impact of the hydraulic fracturing boom in Pennsylvania, the expansion of America’s plastics industry, and the intersection of climate change and culture. Her previous work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, Believer, and Sierra Magazine, and she holds a master’s degree in journalism and creative writing from Columbia University. She is based in Pennsylvania.
