A bipartisan coalition of former National Science Foundation leaders on Saturday urged congressional appropriators to reject the White House’s “draconian budget plan.”
The letter was signed by 13 top NSF officials including France Cordova, who served as agency director during President Donald Trump’s first term, and Diane Souvaine, another veteran of the first Trump administration who chaired the National Science Board that oversees the agency.
Other signatories included former NSB Chair Dan Reed, who was appointed to the board by Trump, and Walter Massey, who was nominated to lead NSF in 1990 by then-President George H.W. Bush.
Trump’s funding request, which seeks to slash NSF’s budget by nearly 57 percent to $3.9 billion, “would thwart scientific progress, decimate the research workforce, and take a decade or more to recover,” the letter said.
