Trump's order to slash number of science advisory boards blasted by critics as 'nonsensical'

[Eugene]

Source: NBC News

Trump's order to slash number of science advisory boards blasted by critics as 'nonsensical'

"It's no longer death by a thousand cuts. It's taking a knife to the jugular,” one science advocate said of the order to eliminate a third of the advisory boards.

June 15, 2019, 4:11 PM EDT
By Phil McCausland

President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Friday to cut the number of government advisory committees by a third across all federal agencies, a move that the White House said is long overdue and necessary to ensure good stewardship of taxpayers' money.

But critics said it is the Trump administration’s latest effort to undermine science-based and fact-supported decision-making.

“This is another example of how disconnected the Trump administration is from the needs of the American people and how to protect them from harm," said Mustafa Ali, who resigned in 2017 as the senior adviser for environmental justice at the Environmental Protection Agency.

Experts on the advisory committees, which were formalized under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in 1972, give the executive branch input on issues ranging from high-level nuclear waste disposal, the depletion of atmospheric ozone, AIDS, drug addiction, school improvement and housing.

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Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-s-order-slash-number-science-advisory-boards-blasted-critics-n1017921

[Thomas Hurt]

1. Characterisitic of Ur-Fascism #3

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake. Action being
beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is
a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical
attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism,
from Goering's alleged statement ("When I hear talk of culture I reach for my gun) to the
frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs,"
"universities are a nest of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in
attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional
values.

Essay on Ur-Fascism by Umberto Eco (1995)