Science

05/02/2025

President Donald Trump today asked Congress to make massive and unprecedented cuts to the 2026 budgets of major federal science agencies.

The request calls for cutting spending by 37% at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and more than 50% at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the country’s two major science funders. The White House also seeks to eliminate most federal spending on climate and ecological research and would cut NASA’s science budget by more than half, killing major planetary missions. Other agencies would face similarly harsh cuts.

Overall, the partial, thinly detailed budget proposal calls for a 23%, $163 billion cut to what is known as nondefense discretionary spending—the roughly 15% sliver of the $7 trillion federal spending pie that includes civilian science funding. In contrast, the request calls for hefty increases in spending on defense and homeland security in the 2026 fiscal year that begins on 1 October.

The White House says the request reflects the administration’s desire to reset research spending priorities. “President Trump recognizes that artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and nuclear energy are amongst the most important technologies of our lifetime. They are crucial to maintaining our economic and national security,” Victoria LaCivita, spokesperson for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a statement.

Science advocacy groups, however, are calling on the Republican-controlled Congress to reject the proposal, arguing the cuts would severely damage the ability of the United States to remain globally competitive in science and technology.

“The president’s budget represents a surrender of our leadership role,” Mary Woolley, president and CEO of Research!America, which advocates for research funding, said in a statement. “These cuts, if enacted, would do little more than smooth the path for China and other competitors as they aggressively ramp up investment to eclipse the U.S.”

In the past, Congress has displayed bipartisan resistance to requests for major cuts to science agencies. And some lawmakers have already expressed concerns about spending reductions at NIH and other agencies. The first indication of how these requests will fare won’t come until later this year, when Congress begins to work in earnest on the 13 appropriations bills that fund the government. That process is supposed to be completed by 1 October, but Congress has routinely missed that deadline in recent years, forcing lawmakers to approve stopgap measures that essentially freeze spending at current levels until a new budget is approved.