The chemical enterprise braces for a second Trump presidency

With the dust settling after the US elections, chemists are trying to work out how a second Donald J. Trump presidency will affect their work and lives.

Scientists in many corners are concerned—about their funding, about the politicization of their research areas, and about their intellectual freedom. Jennifer Jones, director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, says scientists in federal and state governments who work in politicized fields like climate change are worried that “their name is going on a list.”

“President Trump has promised to fire government scientists and to dismantle scientific agencies,” Jones says. “Without strong federal science, historically marginalized communities bear the brunt of policies that benefit corporate profit over people and communities.”

A scientist in the federal government, who spoke to C&EN on the condition of anonymity because they fear retribution, worries that some government scientists “might just choose to throw in the towel.” That would leave the federal government without the staff needed to assess data and enact evidence-based policies, the person says.

In the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, executives are eyeing the specter of leadership change at federal agencies. Trump will almost certainly remove Lina M. Khan as head of the Federal Trade Commission, a welcome shift for those who’ve criticized her approach to biotech mergers and acquisitions, particularly her agency’smove to block Sanofi’s planned purchase of the small drugmaker Maze Therapeutics last year. New appointees to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services could also change how drugmakers approach regulation and pricing.

Some executives and analysts are concerned about former Republican presidential candidate and vaccine conspiracy theory peddler Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Trump has said would “go wild” on health care in his administration. It’s not clear what that means.

Trump transition cochair Howard Lutnick told Stat News that Kennedy will not head the HHS–contradicting what Kennedy told supporters last month—but he’d likely advise the Trump administration’s public health strategy regardless. Ali Pashazadeh, CEO of the biotech consultancy Treehill Partners, says Kennedy’s influence will come down to whether he “surrounds himself by the right people.”

“The only constant will be change,” Pashazadeh says.

And industries loathe change. On the eve of Election Day, Jeffrey Quillen, partner and cochair of the life sciences practice at the law firm Foley Hoag, told C&EN that many of his clients were hoping for a divided government, if only to stop a single party from enacting sweeping changes too suddenly.

“Either party that gets a clean sweep could actually do a lot of harm to the industry and the economy,” Quillen said.

Republicans have the White House and won control of the Senate. Whether the party retains control of the House of Representatives remained to be seen as of press time.

At an event convened by the law firm McDermott Will & Emery in Boston the day after the election, executives discussed whether the shift in power might enable the repeal or rewriting of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Biosecure Act, both of which have proved unpopular with biopharma executives. The IRA gives Medicare the power to negotiate the prices of certain drugs, while the Biosecure Act prevents biopharma companies from using certain manufacturers outside the US. One executive pointed out that Trump has historically been keen on undoing his predecessors’ legacies—but for legislation, that’s easier said than done.

“I would be very cautious about being too optimistic about those drug-pricing controls going away,” Brian Johnson, president of the medical device trade group Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council, told C&EN at the event. Johnson would know: it took around 10 years for the medical device industry to successfully lobby for a repeal of an excise tax enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Beyond its role in controlling prices in the biopharmaceutical sector, the IRA pumped money into clean energy and climate mitigation. Although Republican states have greatly benefited from the policies, Trump has said he will block any more IRA funds from being spent. He also said he will increase domestic oil and gas production, promising to “drill, baby, drill” during his campaign. Expanding liquefied natural gas production was also on Trump’s agenda during his presidency.

Trump is also likely to roll back existing environmental protections and weaken or eliminate Joe Biden–era environmental rules. “America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said in his victory speech.

The president-elect was notoriously deregulatory during his first administration. Early on, he issued an executive order saying that for every new regulation a federal department or agency put in place, two had to be eliminated. This September, Trump upped the ante, increasing this promise to 10 regulations gone for every new one put into place.

Trump says he plans to form a Department of Government Efficiency to find unneeded regulations and will put Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the head. Musk said in October that a “bonfire of nonsense regulations would be epic.”

While Trump won’t have the power to undo federal regulations, he can appoint agency administrators who align with his policies, says a US environmental policy adviser speaking under condition of anonymity because they fear for their safety. These administrators can stop certain regulations from going through—such as the prioritization of chemicals for review under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

“They can potentially roll back a rule that [they] issue for a particular chemical,” the policy adviser says. In cases of a legal mandate to pass a regulation, a Trump administrator could potentially change a current environmental regulation to be weaker, the adviser says.

“It is clear that we are entering a new era of uncertainty and instability for the nation,” Tim Whitehouse, executive director for Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, says in a statement. “Unless Congress, the courts, and public opinion can put a check on Trump and his appointees, many of the laws, policies, and political norms that survived attacks during the first Trump administration may fall in the coming years.”

One concern is that now that Republicans have recaptured the Senate, Trump could stack the Supreme Court with justices that align with his antiregulatory agenda. “With the striking down of the Chevron doctrine, we’ll certainly see the law interpreted by Trump loyalist federal judges in favor of industry,” the environmental policy adviser says. “That will set some serious precedent that we’ll struggle to overturn.”

Trump has also promised to again pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, a pledge by United Nations member states to limit greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to avoid the worst effects of climate change. The US left this agreement in 2020, although Biden later reversed this action.

Maria Ivanova, a professor of public policy at Northeastern University, says that while Trump’s presidency may chill global negotiations on environmental issues, she expects leadership will rise “from the middle out–from cities, states, businesses, and campuses whose commitments cannot simply be canceled.”

“While Trump’s policies may disrupt federal environmental commitments, many multilateral agreements are already embedded in US laws, policies, and local governance,” she says. “In this moment, true environmental leadership isn’t in Washington—it’s in the unshakable commitment of local actors who know the stakes and continue to push forward.”

Friederike Otto from the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London says in a statement that things have changed quite a bit since Trump was last in power. “The global move to renewable energy is now happening at an unprecedented pace. Nothing the US government can do will change the simple fact that renewable energy is cheaper and more reliable than oil, gas and coal.” She added, “Trump can deny climate change all he wants, but the laws of physics don’t care about politics.”

“Politicians like Trump are elected for a relatively short term, but the markets invest for periods beyond this,” Chris Hilson, director of the Reading Centre for Climate and Justice at the University of Reading, says in a statement. “So, US industry will be positioning itself for a decarbonised economy. It won’t be investing in coal.” And as demand for electric power increases, demand for oil and gas will fall.

“The real question is whether that decarbonisation and electrification will take place despite Trump or because of him,” Hilson says. Because of Elon Musk’s role in Trump’s election and his potential role in the president’s cabinet, the US might move into the electric realm urged by Musk, he says. Trump likes to win, Hilson says. “Sticking to a fossil fuel economy is not likely to position the US economy for the win. So that may yet be the surprise on climate in a Trump presidency,” he says. “This is not climate, this is business.”

With additional reporting by Laura Howes and Laurel Oldach.