美国科学家在Nature上抗议：特朗普的计划会让政府变得愚蠢

特朗普的计划会让政府变得愚蠢

大多数运作正常的民主国家的政治领导人都建立了检查制度和法律，以确保他们的国家受到知识的指导。6月14日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)采取了他迄今为止最大的举措之一，废除了这个体系在美国的一个重要部分：一项行政命令，要求联邦机构将咨询小组的数量削减至少三分之一。

这不仅仅是他的又一个不明智的政策，也不仅仅是一个只有书呆子才关心的政策。这是政府让自己变得愚蠢。忽视、压制或操纵科学建议一直是本届政府的一种模式；现在，提供这种科学建议的委员会正在被取消。

科学家必须敲响警钟。

作为华盛顿特区科学家关心社会事务联盟科学与民主中心（ Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC）的研究主任，我长期研究政府决策中科学的使用和滥用。联邦咨询系统——包括科学和利益相关者委员会——是一种保障。它确保政策决策以证据为指导，即使在存在忽视信息的政治压力时也是如此。

大约有1000个这样的委员会，总共约6万名成员。为了解决从毒品法到食源性疾病的问题，政府机构依赖于领军专家的建议。交通部的委员会使公共交通更加安全；农业部的专家小组负责监督食品安全，等等。

特朗普政府对科学的攻击，其影响将远远超出本届总统任期。政府制度知识、技术培训和整体能力的丧失不会仅仅通过选举一个对科学友好的政府来恢复。重建工作需要数年时间。与此同时，联邦科学机构将努力履行其保护公众健康、安全和环境的使命。

现在受到威胁的委员会还帮助公众在决策者忽视重要证据时追究他们的责任。2008年，乔治·W·布什(George W. Bush)政府和2011年巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)政府未能按照清洁空气科学咨询委员会(Clean air Scientific Advisory Committee)（该委员会由七名成员组成）的建议，制定环境臭氧（一种导致呼吸和心血管疾病的空气污染物）水平的标准。这项建议使公众能够对政府的决定提出质疑。没有咨询委员会，科学评估和政策决策之间的界限就变得模糊了。

行政命令表面上是一项削减成本的措施。但对纳税人来说，联邦咨询委员会是一笔好买卖。除了其他职责外，该机构的工作人员每年还要召开几次会议，委员会成员所承担的经济舱差旅费和其他费用也会得到部分补偿。根据美国联邦咨询委员会法案数据库，清洁空气科学咨询委员会在2018年花费了951860美元，其中只有110540美元用于直接委员会费用。(剩下的给了现有的工作人员，无论如何他们都会得到报酬。)成千上万的世界级专家贡献他们的时间来帮助政府做出明智的决定。

此外，咨询委员会的每次会议都征求公众意见。这给了社区倡导者和不容易接触到政府官员的人提供了一种表达他们观点的方式。即将进行的行政命令将减少公众参与的机会。

外部建议一直是特朗普政府试图将科学边缘化的主要目标之一。2017年，美国环境保护署(EPA)局长发布了一项指令，要求撤销当前得到EPA资助的顾问（这些人的专业技能显然已经被EPA发现是有用的）。该机构聘请了与EPA法规中有财务利益关系的行业相关的顾问。

我们的分析发现，在特朗普政府执政的第一年，联邦科学顾问委员会开会的频率低于政府开始跟踪他们以来的21年中的任何一年。这些委员会中有近三分之二的会议次数少于它们的章程所规定的次数。到目前为止，我们还记录了100多起针对特朗普政府使用和传播科学行为的攻击，比任何其他总统都多。这些措施包括避免或删除“气候变化”等术语，停止美国国家科学院(US National Academy of Sciences)的一项研究，推翻禁止一种与儿童神经系统疾病有关的杀虫剂的决定。

这些行为削弱了美国获得科学建议的途径。这一行政命令需要一个千斤顶。总统要求各机构任意取消三分之一的咨询委员会，实际上是在问你希望把哪个轮子从你的车里拿掉。是水质、空气污染还是化学废物?

美国第四任总统、开国元勋詹姆斯麦迪逊写道：“知识将永远支配无知；一个人想成为自己的主人，必须用知识赋予的力量武装自己。”我们对自身、自身的专业能力、美国、受到美国决定影响的许多其他国家都负有责任（在排放、传染源、药物以及多得多方面），要坚持由知识而不是无知来统治。为科学委员会发声就是为民主发声。

那么该怎么办呢？反抗，要求行动。利用选民的权力，敦促国会进行监督，甚至在必要时诉诸法庭。这不是关于党派政治，而是关于基于现有的最佳信息做出决策。

英文原文：

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Trump’s plan would make government stupid

Political leaders in most functioning democracies have established checks and laws to ensure that their countries are guided by knowledge. On 14 June, President Donald Trump took one of his biggest steps yet to dismantle an important part of this system in the United States: an executive order that federal agencies should cut the number of advisory panels by at least one-third.

This is not just another of his ill-informed policies, or one that only wonks care about. It is the government making itself stupid. Ignoring, suppressing or manipulating science advice has been a pattern of this administration; now the very committees that provide that advice are being eliminated.

Scientists must sound the alarm.

As the research director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington DC, I’ve long studied the use and misuse of science in government decision-making. The federal advisory system — which includes both science and stakeholder committees — is a safeguard. It ensures that policy decisions are guided by evidence, even when there is political pressure to ignore information.

There are roughly 1,000 such committees, totalling some 60,000 members. To address issues from drug laws to foodborne illness, government agencies rely on the advice of leading specialists. Committees at the Department of Transportation make public transit safer; panels at the Department of Agriculture oversee food safety, and so on.

The Trump administration’s assault on science will have an impact far beyond this presidency. The loss of institutional knowledge, technical training and overall capacity in the government won’t simply be restored through the election of a science-friendly administration. It will take years to rebuild. Meanwhile, federal science agencies will struggle to fulfil their missions of protecting public health and safety, and the environment.

The committees now under threat also help the public to hold decision-makers accountable when they ignore important evidence. In 2008, the administration of George W. Bush — and in 2011, that of Barack Obama — failed to set a standard for ambient levels of ozone (an air pollutant that causes respiratory and cardiovascular distress) that the seven-member Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee recommended. The recommendation enabled the public to challenge the administrations’ decisions. Without an advisory committee, the lines between science assessments and policy decisions are blurred.

The executive order is ostensibly a cost-cutting measure. But federal advisory committees are a bargain for taxpayers. Agency staff run a few meetings a year, alongside other duties, and some compensation is granted for economy-class travel and other expenses that committee members incur. According to the US Federal Advisory Committee Act Database, the Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee spent US$951,860 in 2018, of which only $110,540 went to direct committee costs. (The rest went to existing staff members, who would have been paid anyway.) Thousands of world-class specialists donate their time to help the government to make informed decisions.

Also, every meeting of an advisory committee solicits public comments. This gives community advocates and people without easy access to government officials a way to make their views known. The upcoming cull will give the public less opportunity for input.

External advice has been one of the main targets of the Trump administration’s many attempts to sideline science. In 2017, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a directive to remove advisers with current EPA grants (individuals whose expertise the EPA clearly found useful). The agency retained advisers tied to industries that have financial interests in EPA regulations.

Our analysis found that, in the first year of the Trump administration, federal science advisory committees met less frequently than in any of the 21 years since the government started tracking them. Nearly two-thirds of these committees met less often than their charters direct. We have also logged more than 100 attacks on the use and communication of science in the Trump administration so far, more than for any other president. These include avoiding or removing terms such as ‘climate change’, halting a study by the US National Academy of Sciences and reversing a decision to ban a pesticide linked to neurological conditions in children.

Those actions have chipped away at the nation’s access to science advice. The executive order takes a jackhammer to it. By asking agencies to arbitrarily eliminate one-third of their advisory committees, the president is essentially asking which wheel you’d like removed from your car. Which is it to be: water quality, air pollution or chemical waste?

James Madison, the fourth president and a founding father of the United States, wrote, “Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.” We owe it to ourselves and our expertise, to the United States and the many other nations affected by its decisions — on emissions, infectious agents, drugs and so much more — to insist on being governed by knowledge, not ignorance. Speaking up for science panels is speaking up for democracy.

So what to do? Push back, demand action. Use the power of constituency, urge Congress for oversight, and even go to court if necessary. This is not about partisan politics; it is about making decisions based on the best available information.

Nature 570, 417 (2019)

doi: 10.1038/d41586-019-01961-6