NASA’s FY18 Budget Cut by Trump Administration

NASA’s FY18 Budget Cut by Trump Administration

On May 23, 2017, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued President Trump’s proposal for the Budget of the U.S. Government for Fiscal Year (FY) 2018. The budget proposes significant cuts in funding for climate and other environmental research at various federal agencies. For example, climate and environmental research programs at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) would be cut by eight percent or $151 million, compared to FY2017 levels. This would have major implications for climate change research, with a 2018 report noting:

“NASA is the largest federal sponsor of environmental sciences research. Primarily through the Earth Science Program (ESP) within the Science Enterprise, NASA funds approximately 29 percent of all federal [climate and environmental research]. NSASA’s ESP has the predominant responsibility for the development, deployment, and operation of satellite and airborne missions for environmental research . . .

[The 2018 budget] proposes the elimination of three future climate missions already in development: PACE, OCO-3, and CLARREO Pathfinder. The budget proposes to stop future work on the RBI, being built as part of the Joint Polar Satellite System 2, and the Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) being designed to enable assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from forests and other natural carbon stocks. The budget request includes no funding for NASA-provided instruments, the Earth Poly-Chromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission, which has been in operation since 2015 . . .

Finally, the budget would reduce the Earth Science Research and Analysis Program account that supports a competitive merit-reviewed grants program for climate and environmental research, including research utilizing data from the projects above.”