Congress scrambles for budget deal to avoid shutdown

With funding for federal agencies set to expire this Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) introduced a bill over the weekend that would fund the government until the end of fiscal year 2025 in September. The bill would cut nondefense spending by $13 billion and increase defense spending by $6 billion, while generally carrying forward spending priorities from the previous year. President Trump endorsed the bill but Democrats have indicated they will not support it, instead pushing for a shorter-term stopgap that buys time to finalize more detailed legislation.

Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) criticized Republicans’ plans in a statement on Saturday. “Instead of turning the keys over to the Trump administration with this bill, Congress should immediately pass a short-term continuing resolution to prevent a shutdown and finish work on bipartisan funding bills that invest in families, keep America safe, and ensure our constituents have a say in how federal funding is spent,” Murray said. House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) also rejected the proposal in a statement, saying it does not do anything to stop the White House and Elon Musk from continuing to fire employees and cut programs at agencies such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Meanwhile, House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-OK) argued that Democrats will be to blame for a government shutdown if they do not support the bill.

Agencies to submit plans for further layoffs amid some reinstatements

Agencies must submit their first plans for large-scale reductions in force and reorganization to the White House Office of Personnel Management by Thursday. These plans must identify all agency components and employees performing functions not mandated by statute and not considered essential during a lapse in appropriations, as well as the agency units to be targeted for initial reductions and the target headcount for reductions, among other information. NASA began implementing RIFs today in advance of its full plan, closing the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy; the Office of the Chief Scientist; and the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility branch in the Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity. These offices collectively employed 23 people. At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, managers have reportedly been told to draw up proposals to reduce the agency’s staff by at least 1,000 people, in addition to the 1,300 who have already resigned or been laid off in the last two weeks.

Meanwhile, agencies are still navigating updated guidance from OPM stating that agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over personnel changes. That update came after a federal judge ruled on Feb. 27 that OPM lacks the authority to fire agency personnel. Just before OPM issued the update last week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology laid off 73 employees and reduced the CHIPS for America office to one-third of its former size, according to NextGov. The first round of layoffs at NIST was smaller than initially feared, and it is unclear whether any of the firings have been reversed in response to the new OPM guidance. Various agencies have reinstated some of their probationary employees, including two leaders in NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce, early-career scientists at the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control, and most probationary employees at the National Science Foundation. However, some reinstated employees have expressed concern that they will be laid off again within weeks, as probationary and temporary employees are most vulnerable to reassignment and layoffs during RIFs.

Organizations are continuing to file lawsuits challenging the layoffs. The American Geophysical Union joined a suit last week arguing that the layoffs were illegal and that “downstream impacts of reduced federal scientific expertise and funding on research has harmed the economy, public health, environment, and national security.” An evidentiary hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

NIH begins terminating grants that clash with Trump priorities

The National Institutes of Health is in the process of terminating hundreds of active research grants that cover themes related to LGBTQ+ health, gender identity, and diversity, equity, and inclusion, according to Nature. The terminations respond to executive orders by President Donald Trump yet they may violate recent federal court rulings blocking the administration from freezing federal funding. Guidance issued to NIH staff also suggests the agency will terminate funding for research conducted in China. Separately last week, NIH announced plans to centralize its peer review process for grant applications at the agency’s Center for Scientific Review.

Other science agencies are in the process of revising their grant procedures in response to the executive orders, including NASA and the National Science Foundation. “The process of implementing the new policy and guidance is taking some time and the turnaround time on actions will be longer than normal,” wrote NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for Research Michael New in a memo last week. “Please also realize that we are in a highly dynamic environment with multiple lawsuits being adjudicated each with the potential to impact policy and guidance affecting grants, cooperative agreements and contracts.”

Also on our radar

• Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson to “get rid of the CHIPS Act” during his address to a joint session of Congress last week. Republican leaders have since avoided committing to do so.
• The Senate Commerce Committee will vote Wednesday on the nomination of Michael Kratsios to lead OSTP. The Senate HELP Committee will vote Thursday on the nomination of Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH.
• Laura McGill will take the helm of Sandia National Labs beginning May 1, succeeding James Peery, who will retire. McGill has served as the lab’s chief technology officer and deputy director for nuclear deterrence since January 2021.
• The American Physical Society released a revised report on ballistic missile defense last week that concludes that reliably defending against even a small number of relatively unsophisticated nuclear missiles would be a formidable challenge. (APS is an AIP Member Society.)
• A conservative advocacy group filed a discrimination lawsuit against the American Chemical Society last week over the ACS Scholars Program, which awards scholarships to students of racial and ethnic groups that are historically underrepresented in the chemical sciences.

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All events are Eastern Time unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement. Events beyond this week are listed on our website.

Monday, March 10

ITIF: Tech policy 202: Spring 2025 educational seminar series for congressional and federal staff (every Monday through March 31)

LPI: Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (continues through Friday)

Aspen Institute: Building trust in science for a more informed future (continues Tuesday)

BIS: Emerging Technology Technical Advisory Committee meeting
9:00 am - 4:00 pm

NSF: NSB-NSF Commission on Merit Review teleconference (closed)
2:30 - 4:30 pm

Tuesday, March 11

National Academies: Connections to sustain science in Latin America symposium (continues through Thursday)

National Academies: Condensed Matter and Materials Research Committee spring meeting (continues Wednesday)

House: Maximizing opportunities for redeveloping brownfields sites: Assessing the potential for new American innovation
10:15 am, Energy and Commerce Committee

National Academies: Process-based modeling approaches for attribution science: Challenges and opportunities
11:00 am - 2:15 pm

National Academies: A vision for the Manufacturing USA program in 2030 and 2035
12:00 - 1:30 pm

CSIS: Nuclear weapons in Europe
2:00 - 3:00 pm

Wednesday, March 12

Senate: Committee vote on OSTP director nomination and 15 bills
10:00 am, Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee

Senate: Hearing to review critical minerals bills
10:00 am, Energy and Natural Resources Committee

CSIS: A tech power playbook for the US, featuring Sen. Todd Young (R-IN)
10:00 - 11:00 am

CSIS: Routledge Handbook of Space Policy: A virtual book talk
10:00 - 11:00 am

Senate: Meeting to advance the Risky Research Review Act and 14 other bills
10:30 am, Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

CSIS: Why quantum is a must-win tech, featuring Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL)
11:00 am - 12:00 pm

FLC: The future on trial: Life sciences innovations litigation to watch in 2025
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Thursday, March 13

National Academies: Symposium on AI and ML applications in radiation therapy, medical diagnostics, and radiation occupational health and safety (continues Friday)

Senate: Committee vote on NIH director nomination
9:30 am, HELP Committee

Senate: CDC director nomination hearing
10:00 am, HELP Committee

Friday, March 14

National Academies: Assessment of the SBIR/STTR programs at DOE, meeting six
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Sunday, March 16

APS: Global Physics Summit (continues through March 21)

Monday, March 17

ARPA-E: Energy Innovation Summit (continues through Wednesday)

Stimson: Navigating the Arctic: A geostrategic frontier for the US, Japan, and partners
10:00 - 11:30 am

NTI: Rewriting the narrative on nuclear weapons
12:30 - 2:00 pm

National Academies: Resilient America roundtable meeting
2:00 - 5:00 pm

Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.

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Deadlines indicated in parentheses. Newly added opportunities are marked with a diamond.

Job Openings

American Association for Cancer Research: Senior science policy analyst (ongoing)
Union of Concerned Scientists: Research director, Center for Science and Democracy (ongoing)
SSAI: Earth sciences writer, NASA Goddard (ongoing)
AIP: Associate director of public policy research and analysis (ongoing)
American Enterprise Institute: Research assistant, science policy (ongoing)
◆Federation of American Scientists: Director of government affairs (ongoing)
APLU: Senior associate, governmental affairs (March 14)
Congressional Research Service: Deputy assistant director, Resources, science, and industry division (March 17)
The Royal Society: Director of science policy (March 17)
◆Blue Marble Institute: Young Scientists Program (April 10)
IDA: Data science fellowship (March 31)

Solicitations

NSF: RFC on revisions to NSF infrastructure guide (March 10)
National Academies: Call for nominations for the action collaborative on preventing sexual harassment (March 12)
OSTP: RFI on the development of an AI action plan (March 15)
BIS: RFC on controls on lab equipment and technology to address dual use concerns about biotechnology (March 17)
◆National Academies: Call for experts: Marine Carbon Dioxide Removal Standing Committee (March 18)
DOE: RFI on autonomous experimentation platforms from Material Genome Initiative (March 21)

Know of an opportunity for scientists to engage in science policy? Email us at fyi@aip.org.

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News and views currently in circulation. Links do not imply endorsement.

White House

Reuters: Trump and TSMC announce $100 billion plan to build five new US factories
Wired: Trump still considering tariffs on Taiwanese chips, despite $100 billion TSMC deal
SpacePolicyOnline: Trump renews support for humans on Mars, Golden Dome
SpaceNews: Trump says Mars missions are of interest but not a top priority
New York Times: Inside the explosive meeting where Trump officials clashed with Elon Musk
Washington Post: Trump preparing to sign executive order closing Education Department

Congress

GAO: Science and technology: GAO’s support for Congress (report)
CRS: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Organization overview and issues for Congress (report)
House Science Committee: Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA)'s statement on the president’s joint address to Congress

Science, Society, and the Economy

Science: Sticker shock: New US tariffs could raise cost of research equipment and supplies
New York Times: Hit by ‘gut punches,’ scientists band together to protest Trump
Nature: US science is under threat ― now scientists are fighting back
Washington Post: Science needs more shrimp on treadmills (perspective by Benjamin Ryan)
Optics and Photonics News: Effective science communication, third edition (book review)
The American Enterprise: The politicization of expertise (perspective by Roger Pielke Jr.)
Wall Street Journal: Lasers, magnets and the $40 billion fight to store the world’s data
Physics World: How physics raised the roof: the people and places that drove the science of acoustics

Education and Workforce

Politico: Beijing beckons fired federal scientists
Talking Points Memo: NIH warns fired researchers to be wary of foreign recruitment
The Hill: OPM walks back memo on firing probationary employees, leaving decision to agencies
FedScoop: Federal board orders temporary reinstatement of thousands of USDA probationers
Stat: HHS makes $25,000 buyout offer to most of its employees
E&E News: DOE prods workers back to office
AP: Scholars stranded in America and abroad amid funding freeze of State Department programs
AP: Trump administration cancels $400M in grants and contracts with Columbia University
Inside Higher Ed: Wary colleges scramble to meet DEI deadline
Nature: ‘Silence is complicity’ — universities must fight the anti-DEI crackdown (perspective by Rebecca Calisi Rodríguez)
Wall Street Journal: Why are girls less likely to become scientists? (perspective by William von Hippel)
New York Times: Professor, scrutinized for ties to China, sues to get his job back
CRS: Measuring the impacts of the H-1B visa program on US labor markets: Two recent quasi-experimental studies (report)
NSF OIG: Review of NSF recipient compliance with NSF harassment terms and conditions (report)
Nature: Sexual harassment allegations linked to drop in citations

Research Management

Washington Post: DOGE’s $1 spending card limit touches everything from military research to trash pickup
Science: US judge blocks NIH’s plan to slash overhead cost payments
CRS: NIH indirect costs policy for research grants: Recent developments (report)
Science: NIH will eliminate many peer review panels and lay off some scientists overseeing them
Nature: ‘Omg, did PubMed go dark?’ Blackout stokes fears about database’s future
Science: Panels giving scientific advice to Census Bureau disbanded by Trump administration
Nature: We moved a conference halfway around the globe to avoid visa discrimination (perspective by Kara Hanson)
Nature: China’s supreme court calls for crack down on paper mills
Physics World: Seen a paper changed without notification? Study reveals the growing trend of ‘stealth corrections’
Issues in Science and Technology: Nurturing deeper ways of knowing in science (perspective by Sergio Carbajo)

Labs and Facilities

Wired: Here’s a map of the for-sale government properties the GSA pulled from its website
E&E News: NOAA office targeted for possible lease termination is ‘nerve center’ of weather forecasting
Oak Ridge National Lab: Energy secretary focuses on American leadership during ORNL visit
DOE: 2025 National Lab Research SLAM (video)
Research Professional: French scientists call on CERN to renounce new collider
Research Professional: Irish research minister discusses steps toward CERN membership
Physics World: Thirty years of the Square Kilometre Array: Here’s what the world’s largest radio telescope project has achieved so far

Computing and Communications

New York Times: Taiwan president defends TSMC’s $100 billion US chip investment
Financial Times: The US has spurred the Chinese chip industry
Nature: China research on next-generation computer chips is double the US output
Brookings: Building a long-term North American semiconductor ecosystem
Scientific American: The AI future is here (perspective by Andrea Gawrylewski)
Brookings: Efficient government and safe innovation: A collaborative approach to AI policy

Space

Ars Technica: White House may seek to slash NASA’s science budget by 50 percent
American Astronomical Society: AAS alarmed by rumored deep cuts to NASA and NSF
SpaceNews: Tracking DOGE’s impact on space and the federal workforce
Wired: A private space mission just successfully landed on the Moon for the first time
NASA: NASA marks 110 years since founding of predecessor organization
SpaceNews: ISS astronauts reject call for early retirement of the station
SpaceNews: Space launch executives warn US infrastructure unprepared for coming launch surge
Space Review: US space resources law needs clarification by Congress (perspective by Camisha Simmons)

Weather, Climate, and Environment

New York Times: More NOAA employees may be let go, making 20% of staff cut
New York Times: Some green groups are running out of cash after Trump freezes $20 billion
Scientific American: Trump official who tried to downplay major climate report now will oversee it
Wired: State Department kills global air monitoring program researchers say paid for itself
Inside Climate News: USDA’s purge of climate data is illegal and reckless, doing immediate harm to farmers, lawsuit alleges
AGU: AGU joins letter of support to the science community
AGU: AGU joins nearly 500 organizations to oppose dismantling of NOAA
Carbon Brief: IPCC report timeline still undecided after ‘most difficult’ meeting in China

Energy

E&E News: Supreme Court split over spent nuclear fuel fight
Wall Street Journal: Nuclear power’s revival is here. What do you do with all the radioactive waste?
Commission on the Scaling of Fusion Energy: Fusion power: Enabling 21st century American dominance (report)
Ignition: The Fusion Energy Caucus takes the stage
Scientific American: Killing a nuclear watchdog’s independence threatens disaster (perspective by Katy Huff, et al.)
Research Professional: EU nuclear research is falling short, Commission warns
E&E News: Car wash exec to oversee strategic DOE supply chain office
E&E News: EPA air nominee focuses on climate adaptation, not regulation
E&E News: More US policy support needed to boost CCS, report says

Defense

SpaceNews: Space Force general: ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield requires Manhattan Project-scale effort
Breaking Defense: Space-based capabilities are critical to enabling a missile shield for America (perspective by Ken Bedingfield and Ed Zoiss)
APS: Physicists have rallied against nuclear weapons for 80 years — and must do so again (perspective by Zia Mian, et al.)
DOD: We’ll find you, hold you accountable: Exercise proves US can find nuclear event perpetrators
Emerging Technologies Institute: The role of high-skilled immigration in defense (video)
Breaking Defense: New thinking needed to safeguard our spectrum (perspective by Rob Lyman)

Biomedical

Stat: ‘Wrong,’ ‘misleading,’ and ‘reasonable’: How Jay Bhattacharya became, for some, the least bad option to run NIH
Science: NIH announces some key grant-review meetings will restart in late March
Stat: Cancellation of NIH summer internships disrupts ‘vital’ training program for US scientists
Ars Technica: RFK Jr. ends transparency policy, cancels public meeting after openness vow
Stat: The mixed conservative response to Trump’s health moves
Stat: CDC invites back about 180 fired employees, including some who help fight outbreaks
New York Times: CDC will investigate debunked link between vaccines and autism
Wired: A lethal mystery illness spread in Congo. USAID cuts have slowed the response
New York Times: How COVID remade our America, five years later (perspective by David Wallace-Wells)

International Affairs

Reuters: Trump says he sent letter to Iran leader to negotiate nuclear deal
New York Times: Atomic detectives who inspect Iran sites are affected by Trump’s aid freeze
Science: ‘We have to become self-reliant’: African scientists respond to dramatic US aid cuts
University World News: Norwegian government pressed to attract US researchers hit by cuts
Nature: Foreign researchers in China face tightening restrictions
Reuters: China says it will increase support for AI, science and tech innovation
Science|Business: Fight intensifies over an ‘independent’ FP10
The Guardian: Elon Musk survives as fellow of Royal Society despite anger among scientists
Nature: Science diplomacy can help to heal global rifts — if research is respected (editorial)