Head Of USGS, A Key Science Agency, Epitomizes The Trumpian Rot Within Government

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Reilly, who is in his early sixties, holds a PhD in geosciences, but he’s had no previous management experience in federal government nor was he a very active member of the research community. Indeed, before he was appointed by President Trump, few at the agency had even heard of him, according to interviews with USGS employees. Following his stint at NASA, he served as dean of the school of science and technology at a for-profit, online university and started a consulting firm; all while leaving little public record of his political leanings or personal beliefs. At the time of his US Senate confirmation hearings, one headline stated, “Nominee to lead USGS is hard to read.” Reilly even cracked a joke about his atypical career path at the Geological Society meeting, speaking as the first astronaut ever to lead the agency. “How did I get either of those jobs?” he asked. “I have no clue and I’m not asking.”

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Reilly’s own efforts to constrain the use of models have been insistent, and his steadfast aversion to the long view seems also to apply to USGS itself. Several government employees I interviewed for this story said they’d gotten the sense that Reilly views climate models as the mishandled tools of a broken, antiquated institution—and one that’s filled with broken, antiquated researchers. More than a dozen current and former employees told me that his tenure at the agency has been both morale-crushing and hostile, especially for the agency’s longest-serving scientists. These claims may be addressed in a report focused on Reilly from the Inspector General’s office at the Department of the Interior that is set to be released later this month. According to multiple sources who served as witnesses for the IG, Reilly has effectively purged the agency of senior-level employees who had been close to his predecessor; while elevating a former NASA employee to serve as his deputy director, and intervening to install a former astronaut and friend, C.J. Loria, as director of the Earth Resources and Observation Science Center. “There are people in the survey whose careers he has destroyed,” says one senior USGS employee interviewed by the IG’s office.

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In fact, the language from the summit closely mirrored Reilly’s thoughts on what to do at USGS. Hints of his proposal would come to light a few weeks later, when the New York Times published a front-page story saying that Reilly had ordered his agency to narrow its horizon for climate projections to 2040. In an all-employee email sent the next morning, and obtained by WIRED, Reilly disputed that account: “As you should know there has been no such directive given,” he wrote. The agency had embarked upon an effort to “develop and refine” how the Department of the Interior uses climate models for decision-making, the email said, and related guidelines would be issued soon. “In the meantime, keep doing the great work we do in the Survey and remember: science has no politics.”

But new reporting from WIRED and Type Investigations—including conversations with more than 20 current and former government employees, and a review of several hundred pages of internal documents—reveals a more extensive effort to reframe the way that USGS scientists use modeling in their research. It’s true there was (and is) no hard cutoff for projections: Reilly’s draft directive on the subject, circulated among senior staff this past July and obtained by WIRED, suggests that projections run to 2045, “as an initial assessment range.” Still, Reilly has made it very clear that he wants to keep the focus on that narrow frame whenever possible; and in pursuit of this agenda, he has overlooked the guidance of his staff scientists in favor of a highly-unusual relationship with an outside contractor.

The push appears to have begun soon after he was confirmed. According to emails obtained through a FOIA request, that’s when Reilly began laying the framework for a partnership with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of colleges and universities that manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The center is one of several institutions that develop models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other climate researchers. Reilly paid a visit to its Colorado campus during his second week on the job. By the end of 2018, USGS was in discussions with the consortium about a possible contract to review climate models.

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https://www.wired.com/story/the-trump-team-has-a-plan-to-not-fight-climate-change/