WEEK OF JAN 20, 2025

What’s Ahead

Trump Jan 2025 Executive Order Signing — President Donald Trump signs executive orders after his inauguration on Jan. 20.

The White House

Second Trump presidency begins with burst of executive orders

Shortly after his inauguration address, President Donald Trump moved quickly to begin enacting his agenda through executive orders. Among his first actions, Trump revoked dozens of executive orders issued by President Joe Biden, including a 2023 order on artificial intelligence and various orders focused on climate change, pandemic response, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. He also ordered federal agencies to terminate all DEI programs, policies, positions, and equity-related grants and contracts, “to the maximum extent allowed by law,” and he began the process of withdrawing from the World Health Organization.

Another group of orders fleshed out his stance on energy and environmental policy. Trump declared a “national energy emergency” to expedite approvals of projects related to developing domestic energy resources, and he withdrew from the Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation and any other agreements made under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. He also revoked Biden’s 2021 memorandum on scientific integrity as well as all products of the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases as part of an executive order focused on “unleashing American energy.” The order also directs agencies to devote “particular attention to oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, biofuels, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources.”

Among various actions on immigration and trade policy, Trump directed agencies involved in visa processing to enhance screening procedures and to “evaluate all visa programs to ensure that they are not used by foreign nation-states or other hostile actors to harm the security, economic, political, cultural, or other national interests of the United States.” He also ordered recommendations on ways to “enhance our nation’s technological edge and how to identify and eliminate loopholes in existing export controls — especially those that enable the transfer of strategic goods, software, services, and technology to countries to strategic rivals and their proxies.”

Turning to the federal workforce, Trump set in motion a process to designate certain federal staff into a classification within the civil service that is under more direct political control. He also froze most federal hiring and regulatory actions pending a government-wide review and ordered the creation of a Federal Hiring Plan. In addition, he directed agencies to require that employees work in-person on a full-time basis “as soon as practicable,” while permitting agency leaders to make exceptions. Setting up a confrontation with Congress over federal spending, he paused all disbursement of funds provided by the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Trump also formally established his cost-cutting effort, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, by restructuring the U.S. Digital Service into the U.S. DOGE Service.

Trump makes first nominations, designates acting agency leaders

President Donald Trump formally submitted dozens of personnel nominations to the Senate on his first day in office, including cabinet-level and sub-cabinet appointments. Among them are his nominations of Darío Gil as under secretary of energy for science and innovation, former Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) as head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Jared Isaacman as NASA administrator, Jay Bhattacharya as National Institutes of Health director, and Emil Michael as under secretary of defense for research and engineering. Trump also appointed acting leaders for federal agencies and commissions, including long-time Department of Energy official Ingrid Kolb as acting secretary of energy and Kennedy Space Center Director Janet Petro as acting NASA administrator. NASA initially updated its website to identify associate administrator Jim Free as the acting administrator, creating brief confusion over who was leading the agency.

Not among the first wave of formal nominations is Trump’s selection of Michael Kratsios to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. This suggests that Trump does not intend to include the OSTP director in his Cabinet, unlike President Joe Biden. However, Trump did give Kratsios the additional title of assistant to the president for science and technology, which he did not give to the OSTP director in his first administration.

Biden administration issues last-minute tech export controls

The Commerce Department issued several export control rules last week, including tightened controls on certain biotechnology equipment and related technology. The department cited concerns that high parameter flow cytometers and liquid chromatography mass spectrometers could be used to generate training data for AI, which could then be used to develop biological military tools. These items and the technology to develop or make them now require a license for exports to countries other than Wassenaar participating states, with a presumption of denial for countries including China and Iran.

Also last week, the Commerce Department issued an “AI diffusion rule” that tightens export restrictions on advanced computer chips and certain powerful, privately owned AI models, despite criticism from industry organizations. The department also added 25 Chinese companies to the entity list, which severely restricts transactions with those companies. Among the additions were AI developer Zhipu AI and Sophgo, which was accused of illegally supplying chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company to Huawei. Conversely, one of the rules removed three Indian entities from the list — the Bhabha Atomic Research Center, the Indira Gandhi Atomic Research Center, and the company Indian Rare Earths — to enable closer cooperation in energy security, including joint R&D.

AI infrastructure order expands land for data centers

As one of the last acts of his administration, President Joe Biden signed an executive order on AI last week that instructs the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy to lease federal land to private entities for the construction of large-scale data centers and clean energy facilities to support AI development. Each agency is expected to select at least three sites for development by the end of February and support their development by expediting permitting processes. In an accompanying statement, Biden said the order would “accelerate the speed at which we can build the next generation of AI infrastructure here in America, in a way that enhances economic competitiveness, national security, AI safety, and clean energy.” Though President Donald Trump did yesterday revoke a 2023 Biden executive order aimed at reducing AI risks to consumers and national security, he did not revoke Biden’s latest AI order.

Fermilab director resigns

Fermilab Director Lia Merminga abruptly stepped down last week, with no reason given for the resignation. Merminga had been expected to remain as director under the new management contract that began this year. One potential precipitating factor is that Fermilab’s 2024 report card from the Department of Energy gave the lab its lowest marks since the current lab appraisal process began in 2006. The lab failed to meet expectations in five out of eight categories, including two C+ grades in program management and contractor leadership and a C in business systems. (The DOE Office of Science defines a B+ grade and above as meeting expectations.) Merminga was appointed director in April 2022 and was the first woman to hold the position. The lab announced that Young-Kee Kim, a physics professor at the University of Chicago and former Fermilab deputy director, will serve as interim director, and the lab is immediately launching the search for a new permanent director.

Also on our radar

Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) has been appointed ranking member of the House Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations Subcommittee, which drafts spending legislation for NASA, NSF, NOAA, NIST, and OSTP. She replaced Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-PA), who lost reelection.
The White House Office of Management and Budget issued long-awaited final guidance on the OPEN Government Data Act last week. The law requires agencies to publish data openly by default, with the new guidance clarifying the next implementation steps for data assets to be made available to the public, other agencies, and researchers.
OMB also published a memorandum with guidance for federal agencies to broaden their public participation and community engagement opportunities, including citizen science activities.
Biden awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers last week to nearly 400 scientists with “exceptional leadership potential.”