The US midterm elections on 3 November have flipped both chambers of Congress from Republican to Democratic control, leading to widespread relief among the nation’s researchers and science policy advocates. They say the Trump administration has slashed funding and inserted itself into decision-making in the sciences, and there are hopes that a Democratic Congress would act as a bulwark against this interference.
The enormous damage Trump and his enablers have done to science will be repaired and politics will not replace merit peer review in grant decisions
Neal Lane, fomer science adviser to President Clinton
‘The midterm results are a great outcome for US chemistry and science,’ states Christopher Fisher, a chemical biologist, scientific communicator and science advocate who is the founder and principal of Multivalent Communications based in Boston. ‘I expect the midterm results will start the process of reversing many of the most controversial and damaging policy changes of the last two years that have affected US chemistry and the broader scientific community.’
Although these policies, which included proposals to dramatically cut the budgets of science funding agencies, the abrupt cancellation of research grants and investigations into dozens of research universities, were led by the Trump administration, the Republican controlled Congress enabled them, Fisher asserts. ‘Expect more [Democratic] oversight hearings questioning [Republican] leadership on science policy changes that appear motivated by partisan politics and personal opinion lacking rigorous evidence,’ he adds.
Fisher notes that the directors of science agencies will likely be forced to defend delays in grant funding authorised by Congress, as well as other questionable changes at institutions across the US.
Neal Lane, a physicist who served as science adviser to former president Bill Clinton and previously as director of the US National Science Foundation (NSF), is also enthusiastic. ‘The enormous damage Trump and his enablers have done to science will be repaired and politics will not replace merit peer review in grant decisions,’ states Lane, who is a senior science and technology fellow at Rice University’s public policy institute in Texas. For example, he says the controversial rule proposed in May that was seen as giving political appointees power to determine federal research funding decisions and subverting the peer review process at agencies like the NSF is dead.
A stopgap measure that Congress approved in September to continue funding the federal government explicitly delayed implementation of this proposal until 11 December. The policy, which had been slated to go into effect on 1 October, would likely face significant opposition and scrutiny in the new Democratic-controlled Congress when it officially convenes in January. Democrats will now head the committees in the House and Senate that fund and investigate federal agencies.
‘Veto-proof’ legislation and investigations urged
Lane says that the upcoming Democrat-led Congress should pass ‘veto-proof legislation’, apparently responding to Trump’s statement just before the election that he would use his veto to block Democratic action under such a scenario. Lane also urges the new Congress to convene investigative hearings. ‘The White House is still in Republican hands, so rebuilding American science will not happen overnight – but it will happen,’ he states.
In the new Congress, key committees in both chambers of Congress will switch their chairmanships from Republican to Democrat, which could have significant implications for research funding and science policy. For instance, Democrat Zoe Lofgren is now in line to chair the influential House Science, Space and Technology Committee that has jurisdiction over federal non-defence and non-human-health federal research.
No one should expect an immediate or dramatic shift in congressional support for science
Tobin Smith, Association of American Universities
The morning after the election, Lofgren announced that she will work to ‘put a stop to Trump’s politicisation of science’ and said the committee will ‘hold this administration accountable for the damage they have done to the American scientific enterprise’.
The power shift is also significant for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. Earlier this year, that panel voted along party lines to hold the US’s chief infectious disease adviser during the Covid pandemic, Anthony Fauci, in contempt of Congress.
That Senate committee’s move could have resulted in prison for Fauci, but its chairmanship now moves from Republican Rand Paul – who repeatedly targeted Fauci and said he wanted to see him in prison – to Democrat Gary Peters in all likelihood. Peters has consistently defended Fauci against Republican accusations that he manipulated intelligence on the origins of the Covid-19 virus and lied to Congress to hide alleged wrongdoing by the National Institutes of Health, where he directed the infectious disease institute.
Tobin Smith, the Association of American Universities’ senior vice president for government relations and public policy, is cautiously optimistic. ‘While Democratic control of both chambers will undoubtedly change the political dynamics surrounding science and research policy, no one should expect an immediate or dramatic shift in congressional support for science,’ he says.
New scientific expertise on Capitol Hill
But Smith suggests that the Trump administration will continue to shape science policy through executive actions, regulatory decisions and the presidential veto, which will ensure that ‘the policy landscape remains complex regardless of which party controls Congress’.
Meanwhile, several individuals with backgrounds in scientific, technical, engineering and mathematics (Stem) fields were elected to office in the midterms. These include microbiologist Jasmine Clark, public health expert Abdul El-Sayed and environmental engineer Christina Bohannan.
This makes many observers within the research arena hopeful. ‘These folks should help steer new policy, while also bringing more scientific literacy to policy debate,’ Fisher says.
Colette Delawalla, founder and chief executive of the nonprofit Stand Up for Science, says this infusion of scientific expertise means the incoming Congress can ‘right the ship and retake its powers of the purse, bring scientific expertise back into the grantmaking process, and hopefully restore some of the scientific capacity we’ve lost over the last two years’.
