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<\/p>\n\u2018Congress has your back\u2019: US senators tell scientists they want to protect NIH budget<\/p>\n
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Ultimately, it is the US Congress that decides how the federal budget will be spent \u2014 not the president. Congress rejected the administration\u2019s requests<\/a> for huge cuts in 2026, restoring funding for many of the programmes the White House sought to eliminate<\/a>. Trump\u2019s proposal is a starting point for congressional negotiations, which could last until the start of the 2027 fiscal year on 1 October \u2014 or even beyond it, because of Congressional elections on 3 November, Zimmermann says.<\/p>\n The budget would increase funding for presidential priorities \u2013 such as the military, which would receive US $1.5 trillion, a 44% increase \u2013 while reining in spending on many domestic programmes.<\/p>\n The White House seeks to slash the NSF budget by nearly 55%, to $4 billion. The proposal also cuts all funding for the NSF division that funds research on the social sciences and economics. At an internal all-hands meeting on Friday, NSF leaders announced that they would dissolve the agency\u2019s Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate based on the budget request, according to two NSF staff members who shared information anonymously in order to speak freely. The NSF\u2019s budget request to Congress states that the agency will shut down the SBE but maintain SBE \u201cgrants that align with Administration priorities, such as in behavioral and cognitive science, and all impacted employees will be transferred to other parts of the agency.\u201d<\/p>\n The proposed cuts to the NSF would be \u201cdevastating,\u201d says Leigh Stearns, a glaciologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. \u201cWe cannot cut the pipeline and expect the output to continue. This is how the US loses its scientific leadership \u2014 with a reckless budget line.\u201d<\/p>\n The proposal would eliminate funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration\u2019s <\/a>Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research<\/a>. It would also shutter three of the NIH\u2019s 27 institutes and centres \u2013 those focusing on minority health and disparities, international research and alternative medicine.<\/p>\n NASA faces a 23% cut to its total budget and a 47% drop in funding for its science division. More than 40 projects would be terminated. \u201cIt’s an extinction-level event for science,\u201d says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at the Planetary Society, a non-profit organization in Pasadena, California, that advocates for space exploration. \u201cIt would undermine and prevent NASA from being the world leader in space exploration.\u201d NASA declined to comment on Dreier\u2019s statement. <\/p>\n The proposal would also prohibit the spending of \u201cFederal funds for expensive subscriptions to academic journals and prohibitively high publishing costs unless required by Federal statute or approved in advance by a Federal agency\u201d. The proposal does not define \u201cexpensive\u201d or \u201cprohibitively high\u201d or specify which journals would be affected. Many journals \u201ccharge the Government to both publish and to access the same research study,\u201d the proposal says, adding that there are many \u201clow cost outlets\u201d for publishing federally funded research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSweeping changes<\/h2>\n
Publishing fees<\/h2>\n