---
title: "Political interference with science agencies by the first Trump administration"
chunk: 8/10
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_interference_with_science_agencies_by_the_first_Trump_administration"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:18:13.322702+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

On January 24, 2017, it was reported that the Trump administration froze grants and contracts to the EPA, along with employees being unable to speak to reporters or post on social media accounts.
In a May 2018 survey, the EPA inspector general's office found that nearly 400 science-related employees said they had experienced, but did not report, potential violations of the EPA's scientific integrity policy. More than 250 employees said their concern was that a manager or senior leader had possibly interfered with science, and nearly 175 said they had experienced "suppression or delay of release of scientific report or information." Commenters said they had observed "suppression, changes, manipulation, or exclusion of scientific information, results, or research." They said people in senior positions, particularly political appointees, often do not understand or adequately consider science in their decisions, and they expressed a belief that their leadership is "greatly influenced by political, industry, state, or regulated groups."

==== Climate change policy ====

Before his election Trump promised to trim the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At a Republican primary debate in Detroit on March 3, 2016, he said: "Department of Environmental Protection: We are going to get rid of it in almost every form.  We’re going to have little tidbits left. But we’re going to take a tremendous amount out." Trump appointed Scott Pruitt, a climate change denier, as the EPA administrator. Under his leadership the EPA focused on promoting fossil fuel energy and repealing regulations regarding clean air, clean water, and federal lands.
Although there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that global surface temperatures have increased in recent decades due to human-induced emissions of greenhouse gases, Trump claimed that scientists are divided on the causes of climate change. Following Trump's election, large amounts of climate information from the EPA website was altered or removed. There was widespread concern among environmentalists and scientists, and a coalition of scientific and academic groups began to make copies of the EPA web pages before they were deleted. According to the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative which tracks changes to government websites under the Trump administration, over 200 web pages providing climate information were removed during Trump's first year in office. Other pages were altered, often under Pruitt's personal direction, to remove mentions of climate and climate change.

==== Wetlands and waterways ====
In June 2017, Pruitt was preparing to undo the Waters of the United States rule, a regulation giving federal protection to wetlands and tributaries that flow into federally protected major waterways. An 87-page analysis had concluded that such protection would cost real estate developers and farmers between $236 million and $465 million, but would provide benefits of between $555 million and $572 million in reducing water pollution. Pruitt's deputies verbally ordered the analysts to produce a new study leaving out the quantifiable benefits. "They did what they were told", according to a 30-year administrator in the agency's water office. The administrator added that such analyses typically take months or years and are supported by research and a paper trail, but "This repeal process is political staff giving verbal directions to get the outcome they want, essentially overnight."

==== Trichloroethylene ====
In February 2020, the EPA released a report on the toxicity of the industrial chemical trichloroethylene (TCE), establishing the benchmark for unsafe exposure levels. Instead of the benchmark established by the agency's scientists, namely an exposure level known to cause fetal heart abnormalities, their draft report produced after three years' work had been completely altered to establish a much less stringent benchmark. All references to "cardiac toxicity" were eliminated. The report that was eventually published established autoimmune disease as the endpoint—a criterion allowing nearly 500 times as much TCE exposure. The report had been rewritten at the urging of chemical industry lobbyists and on direct orders from the Executive Office of the President.

==== Other deregulatory efforts ====
In the final months of Trump's first presidential term, Trump administration EPA appointees aimed to finalize new regulations to block the future adoption of restrictions on air and water pollution. The efforts were opposed by medical and scientific groups, as well as career EPA scientists, including Thomas Sinks, who was director of the agency's science advisory office and its office on data security and the privacy of human subjects. Before retiring in September 2020, Sinks issued a rare, strongly worded "dissenting scientific opinion" against the adoption of a new regulation, pushed by Trump's appointees, that would require the EPA to disregard scientific or medical research that did not make raw data (including personal health information) public. The regulation would stymie the ability of the EPA to regulate pollution on the basis of long-term health or epidemiological studies on toxin exposure, because the subjects of such studies usually participate on the condition that their personal health information remains private. By placing his dissent on the official agency record, Sinks signaled that Trump political appointees had dismissed career scientists' views on the proposal, and provided the Biden administration with evidence to repeal the rule.

== Other agencies ==
A supervisor at the Department of Energy told employees not to use the terms "climate change", "emissions reduction," or "Paris Agreement" in any written communication. These were described as "hot button" terms better avoided, with the suggestion that it would be better to use words like "jobs" and "infrastructure".
In March 2020, The New York Times reported that Indur M. Goklany, a science and technology policy analyst at the Department of the Interior, repeatedly inserted climate change denial language into the agency's scientific reports, such as those that affect water and mineral rights. The wording inserted into the documents includes assertions that there is a lack of consensus for global warming among scientists and that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is beneficial.

== Responses and reactions ==