Trump budget cuts to science would be a disaster for Lancaster County farmers and all of us [column] | Local Voices

For generations, Americans of all political persuasions understood the fundamental importance of science in shaping U.S. prominence in nearly every aspect of our lives.

Just as roads, bridges, electrical grids and water systems support the nation’s economy, scientific institutions support the knowledge infrastructure that drives innovation, strengthens national security, protects public health, improves weather forecasting, advances agriculture and powers economic growth.

The Office of Management and Budget is part of the executive branch of the U.S. government. Its proposed 2027 budget plan on behalf of President Donald Trump would take a wrecking ball to that infrastructure by proposing cuts to NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other federal research agencies. They are but a few examples of the destruction of productive national assets that taxpayers have spent decades financing, building and benefiting from.

No farmer would sell a tractor in the middle of planting season to save on fuel. Yet this administration appears willing to dismantle scientific capabilities that have taken generations to create in exchange for budget savings that amount to little more than rounding errors in the federal budget.

What makes these actions especially troubling is that they often target programs that are already built, operational and producing results and advancing our understanding of a complex world.

Shortsighted and ill-advised

Imagine building a house, paying off the mortgage and then demolishing it to save on maintenance costs.

No rational homeowner would behave that way. Yet that is precisely the logic being applied by the Office of Management and Budget to the proposed dismantling of major research programs at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. This threatens decades of accumulated expertise in atmospheric chemistry, climate modeling and environmental prediction. These programs represent generations of scientific knowledge, highly specialized personnel and international collaborations.

Scientific institutions are ecosystems. Once dismantled, they cannot simply be reassembled when political winds change, and we often lose precious longitudinal continuity as monitoring is disrupted.

Several proposed terminations and funding freezes have already encountered legal challenges, public opposition and court intervention. The result is a uniquely inefficient form of government. Agencies spend months planning closures, employees are terminated, research programs are disrupted, lawsuits are filed, court orders are issued and then programs are partially restored.

Consider the case of the National Weather Service, for instance. Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency eviscerated that agency. It’s now hiring hundreds of meteorologists to fill critical gaps.

When intense and damaging storms struck Lancaster County last weekend, many county residents relied on National Weather Service forecasts. Accurate forecasting is not a luxury; it’s a necessity and often a lifesaving one.

When government officials make cuts and then reverse them, taxpayers end up paying for the disruption, for the legal battles and for the administrative confusion — and then they end up paying again to rebuild what never should have been dismantled in the first place.

Could anything be more inefficient, more wasteful, more shortsighted and ill-advised than this? And it comes at a time when the scientific challenges facing our nation are growing, not shrinking.

Impact on farming, healthcare

Climate change is no longer an abstract concept discussed only in scientific journals.

Here in Lancaster County, the evidence is measurable in our own backyard. Long-term temperature records maintained at Millersville University show a clear warming trend in local observations. From 1987 to 2025, there was a significant rise in the average annual temperatures (the data may be viewed here).

County residents may debate causes, policies and solutions, but the measurements themselves are increasingly difficult to dismiss.

Understanding these changes requires observations, models, satellites, supercomputers, laboratories and scientists. Yet these are precisely the capabilities being targeted for reduction.

Agriculture provides another example.

Lancaster County farmers depend on weather forecasts, seasonal outlooks, drought assessments, flood warnings, soil moisture monitoring and satellite observations. These essential services are made possible through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s extensive network of observing systems, research laboratories and forecasting centers.

Farmers may never think about the scientists who calibrate satellites or improve numerical weather prediction models. But they rely on the data and innovations those scientists deliver every day.

When scientific infrastructure is weakened, agriculture becomes more vulnerable to uncertainty.

The same principle applies to healthcare.

Every family who has benefited from improved cancer treatments, advances in cardiovascular medicine, Alzheimer’s research, vaccine development or medical imaging has benefited from federally supported scientific research. The National Institutes of Health has arguably generated one of the highest returns on taxpayer investment in modern history.

The proposed reductions to National Institutes of Health funding will not simply affect laboratories in distant cities. They will affect the pace of medical progress itself. Institutions such as Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, Penn State Health, UPMC and WellSpan Health operate within a biomedical ecosystem that depends heavily on federally funded research.

Fewer grants mean fewer discoveries, fewer clinical trials, fewer opportunities for young researchers and ultimately fewer medical breakthroughs reaching patients.

Long-term impact 

But perhaps the greatest damage will not be felt today.

It will be felt 20 years from now.

For decades, the United States built the world’s most successful scientific workforce by creating a pathway from curiosity to career. A child fascinated by hurricanes could become a meteorologist. A student captivated by the night sky could become an astrophysicist. A young person determined to cure disease could become a biomedical researcher.

Federal investments in research agencies, universities, laboratories, fellowships, scholarships and observing systems created opportunities that transformed curiosity into innovation.

Now imagine the message being sent to those students. Research grants are disappearing. Laboratories are closing. Observing systems are being dismantled. Career pathways are narrowing. The signal is unmistakable: Choose another profession.

Meanwhile, nations such as China, India, South Korea and members of the European Union are expanding investments in science, technology, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and environmental research. They understand that scientific leadership is a strategic investment in future prosperity.

Here in Lancaster County, the consequences are not abstract. Our farmers depend upon National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasts.

Our hospitals and healthcare systems depend upon discoveries emerging from National Institutes of Health-supported research.

Our students at Millersville University, Franklin & Marshall College, Elizabethtown College, Penn State Harrisburg and other institutions look toward careers in science, medicine, engineering and technology. They are being told, in effect, that the nation that once led the world in scientific discovery is retreating from that commitment.

The pipeline from curiosity to career that helped make America the global leader in science is being deliberately constricted at the very moment when other nations are accelerating their investments.

Reasonable people can debate spending priorities. Reasonable people can debate the size of government.

Reasonable people can debate the effectiveness of individual programs.

What should not be debatable is the wisdom of destroying national scientific assets that took generations to build, weakening the nation’s innovation engine, diminishing opportunities for future scientists and wasting taxpayer investments already made.

History will ultimately judge whether these actions represented fiscal discipline or an extraordinary act of national self-sabotage.

From where many scientists, educators, physicians, farmers, students and taxpayers stand today, the answer appears increasingly clear.

And where are our federal elected officials to be that reasonable voice in Washington, D.C.? I hear only crickets. I write to my elected representatives and get boilerplate responses. We need pushback on the Office of Management and Budget and the administration’s skewed sense of the importance of science.

The Office of Management and Budget may still be its official name. But if this systematic dismantling of American science continues, history may remember it by another: the Office of Misguided Blunder.

Richard D. Clark is professor of atmospheric science emeritus at Millersville University. He is a member of the board of Lancaster County’s Partnership for Public Health and president of the board of the North Museum of Nature and Science in Lancaster.