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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congressman Paul D. Tonko led more than 20 members in the House in a letter today calling President Trump to withdraw his Executive Order, Restoring Gold Standard Science. The lawmakers call out the hypocrisy of Trump’s claim to boost scientific standards while slashing federal science programs, attacking scientists and experts, and eroding trust in public science.

 

Tonko has long been a champion and advocate for protecting scientific standards and protecting independent science. He is the author of the Scientific Integrity Act, bipartisan legislation that sets clear, enforceable standards for federal agencies and federally-funded research to prevent meddling in public science by political and special interests.

 

A fact sheet of the Scientific Integrity Act can be found HERE.     

 

 

The Honorable Donald J. Trump 
President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500. 

Dear President Trump:

We write to express profound concern with your recent Executive Order, Restoring Gold Standard Science. While the principles of transparency, integrity, and reliability this order claims to champion are indeed crucial to good science, it is difficult to take a call for scientific integrity seriously from an administration that has consistently undermined the very foundations of the U.S. research enterprise. This Executive Order does not restore high scientific standards; it cloaks political interference in the language of pro-science reform.

Your administration has proposed slashing the National Institutes of Health budget by nearly 40%, removed and altered essential technical resources, targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that strengthen the rigor and reach of American science, and cast entire disciplines including climate science, public health, and gender equity, as invalid. This order continues that pattern, masking efforts to assert political control over science under the guise of accountability.

One of the most concerning elements of the order is the requirement that agencies publicly release all “data, analyses, and conclusions” underpinning major policies. While transparency is a fundamental scientific value, this language closely mirrors the flawed Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule from your first term, a rule that sought to exclude essential studies from Environmental Protection Agency policymaking unless raw data, including sensitive medical information, was made public. Such an approach does not enhance scientific integrity; it undermines it, while also weakening public health protections.

Even more alarming is the provision granting political appointees sweeping power over the interpretation, use, and communication of federal scientific research. By authorizing senior political staff to investigate alleged violations, impose disciplinary action, and unilaterally “correct” scientific outputs, the order invites ideological enforcement and suppresses dissent. That is not scientific integrity — it is its undoing.

True scientific integrity means protecting the independence of science from external manipulation. That’s why the Biden administration required federal agencies to update and strengthen their scientific integrity policies, creating a government-wide framework to safeguard objectivity and shield science from undue influence. Your Executive Order seeks to dismantle that progress. By rolling back policies to 2021 standards, it strips scientists of strong institutional protections and leaves agencies without real accountability.

If your administration were genuinely committed to trustworthy, reproducible science, you would begin by adequately funding it. The so-called replication crisis is not rooted in malicious intent, it is the result of systemic underinvestment and perverse incentives. Researchers, especially those early in their careers, face precarious employment, low pay, and pressure to prioritize novelty over rigor. Yet your Executive Order ignores these structural issues entirely. Instead, it doubles down on austerity, depriving scientists of the time, resources, and institutional support they need to do robust and verifiable research.

You claim scientists are afraid to ask, “inconvenient questions.” But it is your administration’s policies, proposed funding and personnel cuts, and dismissal of widely accepted peer-reviewed science that have created a chilling effect. You are cultivating an environment where researchers fear professional retaliation or public vilification for producing evidence that challenges political narratives. That is the very definition of politicizing science.

Moreover, if you were truly concerned about protecting science from corporate influence, you would be increasing public investment in research to guard against private sector capture. Pulling federal support doesn’t reduce the sway of Big Pharma or Big Ag, it strengthens their influence, allowing profit-driven interests to dictate research priorities at the expense of the public good.

Buzzwords like “transparency” and “interdisciplinary research” cannot substitute for real commitment to the scientific enterprise. Genuine scientific progress demands sustained investment in people, infrastructure, and the freedom to follow the evidence wherever it leads, without censorship, coercion, or fear. Yet your administration has steadily dismantled the conditions necessary for such progress to flourish.

This Executive Order is not a return to “gold standard” science. It is a hollow public relations stunt from an administration that has repeatedly weakened America’s scientific credibility and further eroded trust in evidence-based policymaking.

I urge you to withdraw this order and instead support policies that meaningfully uphold the independence, integrity, and funding of American science — not just in rhetoric, but in practice.