Democrats in the Republican-controlled Congress may lack the political clout to reverse the billions of dollars in federal research grants canceled by President Donald Trump’s administration since he took office in January. But they can at least shine a light on what that loss could mean to the country—and make the case for why Trump’s proposed budget cuts for next year should be blocked.
That was the rationale for an event today on Capitol Hill, staged by Democrats on the science committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Titled The Things We’ll Never Know: A Science Fair of Canceled Grants, the event featured two dozen academic scientists narrating posters depicting what might have been. The researchers came from around the country to showcase projects, ranging from modeling coastal hazards to teaching quantum information science, that were killed prematurely this spring by one of a half-dozen federal agencies.
“If we don’t stanch the bleeding, it will take decades for us to rebuild and recover the scientific enterprise that … has brought us further than any nation has gone before,” Representative Don Beyer (D–VA) told a small crowd of pro-science advocates gathered in the foyer of the Rayburn House Office Building.
