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war on science
Trump Energy Dept. Under Fire for Banning 'Climate Change' and Related Terms
"It's like they're trying to cover up a homicide," said the Environmental Voter Project.
Sep 29, 2025
President Donald Trump's administration has faced a flood of criticism since Politico reported Sunday that the US Department of Energy has added "climate change" and other related terms to its "list of words to avoid" at a key office.
According to a Friday email obtained by the news outlet, other banned words at the DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy include carbon/CO2 "footprint," clean, decarbonization, "dirty" energy, emissions, energy transition, green, sustainability/sustainable, and tax breaks/tax credits/subsidies.
“Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid—and continue to be conscientious about avoiding any terminology that you know to be misaligned with the administration's perspectives and priorities," Rachel Overbey, acting director of external affairs, reportedly wrote.
While the DOE did not respond to Politico's request for comment, critics were quick to blast the administration for yet another anti-science move.
" Censorship can't erase facts: The climate crisis is real, it's human-made, and deadly."
"Welcome to the Donald Trump post-truth world," Dr. Ali Khan, a retired US assistant surgeon general, responded on social media.
Since returning to power in January—after raking in campaign cash from Big Oil by promising to "drill, baby, drill"—Trump has also ditched the Paris Agreement (again), declared an "energy emergency" to benefit the fossil fuel industry, and claimed during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last week that scientists' predictions about the climate crisis were "wrong" and "made by stupid people."
Trump also nominated climate liar and former fracking CEO Chris Wright as energy secretary. Under his leadership, the department has celebrated planet-wrecking coal on social media while spreading disinformation about solar and wind energy. It also published a July climate report that independent experts said is "biased, full of errors, and not fit to inform policymaking."
The department crafted that report as part of the Environmental Protection Agency's effort to scrap the "endangerment finding," the 2009 legal opinion that greenhouse gases endanger public health and the welfare of the American people, which underpins federal climate policy.
Responding to the DOE's newly revealed directive on banned words, the Environmental Voter Project charged, "It's like they're trying to cover up a homicide."
Paul Dorfman, chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group and a Bennett scholar at the University of Sussex, said, "Death cult does its thing."
Climate Rights International's advocacy director, Lotte Leicht, declared: "Ridiculous! Banning words won't change reality... Censorship can't erase facts: The climate crisis is real, it's human-made, and deadly. Silencing science = endangering lives."
Rakesh Bhandari, associate director of interdisciplinary studies at the University of California, Berkeley, warned of the likely impacts of the DOE's banned words.
"This will not only affect research and policy directly, it will also affect what we see and don't see and what we say and don't say. The state has this power in virtue of its legitimate and cognitive authority," Bhandari said. "Note that the Democrats are pretty silent about what matters most to the GOP: The protection of fossil fuels."
Nodding to the Trump administration's broad assault on First Amendment rights, Ross Seidman, senior counsel for a Democratic state senator in Maryland, said, "More 'banned words' from the party of free speech."
The New York Times in March compiled a list of nearly 200 terms that agencies' leaders have told staff to limit or avoid as part of Trump's purge of "woke" initiatives. They range from clean energy, climate crisis, and climate science to activism, disability, diversity, gender, hate speech, mental health, pregnant people, sexuality, racism, stereotypes, and victim.
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RFK Jr. Is 'Compromising the Health of This Nation,' Say 1,000+ Staffers Demanding Resignation
"Under Secretary Kennedy's leadership," said the employees, "HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics."
Sep 03, 2025
After a deadline passed for the nation's top health official to pledge to protect the federal public health workforce, more than 1,000 current and former employees of the US Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that "it's time for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign" from his position leading the agency.
The employees addressed their letter to Kennedy, President Donald Trump's health and human services secretary, as well as members of Congress, warning that since HHS staffers spoke out in a previous letter last month about a shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Kennedy has continued "to endanger the nation's health."
The number of signatories on the initial correspondence has grown to more than 6,800 since 750 employees signed it in August, with federal workers endorsing the concerns it raised about how Kennedy is "sowing public mistrust" and spreading misinformation about immunizations, including the measles vaccine and mRNA vaccines like the Covid-19 shot that's credited with saving millions of lives.
"Secretary Kennedy did not respond to the letter, and HHS released a statement accusing us of politicizing a tragedy," wrote the HHS workers on Wednesday. "To be clear, the HHS workforce is nonpartisan, implementing science-based policies developed under both Republican and Democratic administrations. We believe health policy should be based on strong, evidence-based principles rather than partisan politics. But under Secretary Kennedy's leadership, HHS policies are placing the health of all Americans at risk, regardless of their politics."
The letter listed ways in which Kennedy has doubled down on harming the nation's public health infrastructure since a gunman fired more than 500 rounds of ammunition into six buildings on the CDC's main campus in Atlanta, killing a police officer before he turned the gun on himself. The shooter was reportedly motivated by his "discontent" with Covid-19 vaccines and believed he and others had been injured by the immunization.
Since then, Kennedy's employees said, the secretary has:
- Facilitated the firing of Dr. Susan Monarez, the Senate-confirmed CDC director, after reportedly clashing with her on vaccine science;
- Caused the resignations of public health officials at the CDC;
- Appointed idealogues "who pose as scientific experts and manipulate data to fit predetermined conclusions," including mRNA vaccine opponent Retsef Levi, the leader of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' Covid-19 work group, and ACIP member Robert Malone, who "has made multiple inaccurate claims regarding Covid-19 and measles";
- Refused to be briefed on vaccine-preventable diseases by CDC experts;
- Disparaged the American Academy of Pediatrics for recommending the Covid-19 vaccine for children; and
- Made "ongoing verbal attacks" on the HHS workforce, including by stating, "Trusting experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy."
The workers noted that they "swore an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution and to serve the American people" and are bound to "speak out when the Constitution is violated and the American people are put at risk."
"Thus, we warn the president, Congress, and the public that Secretary Kennedy's actions are compromising the health of this nation, and we demand Secretary Kennedy's resignation," said the HHS employees.
Should Kennedy refuse to resign, the workers wrote, the president and Congress must appoint a new secretary of health and human services—"one whose qualifications and experience ensure that health policy is informed by independent and unbiased peer-reviewed science."
"We expect those in leadership to act when the health of Americans is at stake," said the employees.
Last week, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote an op-ed in the The New York Times demanding Kennedy's resignation, citing Monarez' ouster and warning of the danger of Kennedy's "advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts."
"Covid is just the beginning," said Sanders. "Mr. Kennedy's next target may be the childhood immunization schedule, the list of recommended vaccines that children receive to protect them from diseases like measles, chickenpox, and polio."
The signatories of Wednesday's letter, who work at HHS agencies including the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, the office of the secretary, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, noted that in addition to the named signers, anonymous employees endorsed the letter.
The signers "speak for countless others across HHS who share our concerns but who chose not to sign out of well-founded fear of retaliation and threats to personal safety," reads the letter.
The signers also urged members of the public to join the push for Kennedy to resign or be removed, calling on them to use the 5 Calls platform to contact their elected representatives and demand Congress take action to "hold him accountable for his careless statements and actions that are endangering the health and safety of every American."
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'These People Should Not Be Managing a Lemonade Stand': Trump Admin Throws NIH Funding Into Chaos
The administration paused National Institutes of Health research funding before reversing course hours later amid fierce backlash.
Jul 30, 2025
The White House budget office, led by far-right ideologue and Project 2025 architect Russell Vought, temporarily halted National Institutes of Health funding for scientific research on Tuesday before announcing that the pause was lifted hours later, sparking further chaos and confusion at a key agency that's under growing attack from the administration.
The pause, which would have impacted roughly $15 billion in funding for research institutions across the United States, was implemented due to a footnote from Vought's office "in a document that doles out federal funds" to the NIH, according to The Wall Street Journal.
News of the pause, which applied to research grants and contracts, sparked immediate outrage, with Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) warning it underscored the administration's plan to "decimate lifesaving research in this country."
But the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) appears to have reversed course. The Washington Post reported that the agency "releas[ed] the funds later in the day." The Health and Human Services Department, which oversees NIH, pointed to an OMB spokesperson's statement that "the funds were released" after a "programmatic review."
"The chaos and dysfunction of the Trump administration is staggering," Murray said Tuesday. "These people should not be managing a lemonade stand, much less all federal cancer research."
The White House has proposed slashing the NIH's budget by 40% next fiscal year. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said earlier this month that the Trump administration's proposed cuts would "ultimately decrease the number of new drugs coming to market."
Tuesday's pause added to the turmoil at an agency that has already faced mass firings and attempts to slash critical funding.
Over the weekend, Vought described the NIH as "an agency that needs dramatic overhaul." Mother Jones reported earlier this year that the NIH "funded research that helped scientists better understand cystic fibrosis, which led to Vertex Pharmaceuticals developing a cutting-edge treatment" that Vought's daughter benefited from.
The Trump administration's effort to slash NIH funding "means that research into rare diseases, already inadequate, may slow down," the outlet noted.
"Ninety-five percent of rare diseases, unlike cystic fibrosis, have no treatment, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, and most organizations lack the budget to fund drug research in partnership with pharmaceutical companies," Mother Jones added.
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