Trump – Page 4

FCC head Brendan Carr tells Europe to get on board with Starlink

brendan carr, EU, FCC, Policy, satellite broadband, starlink, syndication, Trump / DJ Henderson / April 15, 2025

He also accused the European Commission of “protectionism” and an “anti-American” attitude.

“If Europe has its own satellite constellation then great, I think the more the better. But more broadly, I think Europe is caught a little bit between the US and China. And it’s sort of time for choosing,” he said.

The European Commission said it had “always enforced and would continue to enforce laws fairly and without discrimination to all companies operating in the EU, in full compliance with global rules.”

Shares in European satellite providers such as Eutelsat and SES soared in recent weeks despite the companies’ heavy debts, in response to the commission saying that Brussels “should fund Ukrainian [military] access to services that can be provided by EU-based commercial providers.”

Industry experts warned that despite the positivity, no single European network could yet compete with Starlink’s offering.

Carr said that European telecoms companies Nokia and Ericsson should move more of their manufacturing to the US as both face being hit with Trump’s import tariffs.

The two companies are the largest vendors of mobile network infrastructure equipment in the US. Carr said there had been a historic “mistake” in US industrial policy, which meant there was no significant American company competing in the telecom vendor market.

“I don’t love that current situation we’re in,” he said.

Carr added that he would “look at” granting the companies faster regulatory clearances on new technology if they moved to the US.

Last month, Ericsson chief executive Börje Ekholm told the FT the company would consider expanding manufacturing in the US depending on how potential tariffs affected it. The Swedish telecoms equipment maker first opened an American factory in Lewisville, Texas, in 2020.

“We’ve been ramping up [production in the US] already. Do we need bigger changes? We will have to see,” Ekholm added.

Nokia said that the US was the company’s “second home.”

“Around 90 percent of all US communications utilizes Nokia equipment at some point. We have five manufacturing sites and five R&D hubs in the US including Nokia Bell Labs,” they added.

Ericsson declined to comment.

FCC head Brendan Carr tells Europe to get on board with Starlink Read More »

FTC now has three Republicans and no Democrats instead of the typical 3-2 split

ftc, Policy, Trump / DJ Henderson / April 12, 2025

After declaring the FTC to be under White House control, Trump fired both Democratic members despite a US law and Supreme Court precedent stating that the president cannot fire commissioners without good cause.

House Commerce Committee leaders said the all-Republican FTC will end the “partisan mismanagement” allegedly seen under the Biden-era FTC and then-Chair Lina Khan. “In the last administration, the FTC abandoned its rich bipartisan tradition and historical mission, in favor of a radical agenda and partisan mismanagement,” said a statement issued by Reps. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky) and Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.). “The Commission needs to return to protecting Americans from bad actors and preserving competition in the marketplace.”

Consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge thanked Senate Democrats for voting against Meador. “In order for the FTC to be effective, it needs to have five independent commissioners doing the work,” said Sara Collins, the group’s director of government affairs. “By voting ‘no’ on this confirmation, these senators have shown that it is still important to prioritize protecting consumers and supporting a healthier marketplace over turning a blind eye to President Trump’s unlawful termination of Democratic Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya.”

Democrats sue Trump

The two Democrats are challenging the firings in a lawsuit that said “it is bedrock, binding precedent that a President cannot remove an FTC Commissioner without cause.” Trump “purported to terminate Plaintiffs as FTC Commissioners, not because they were inefficient, neglectful of their duties, or engaged in malfeasance, but simply because their ‘continued service on the FTC is’ supposedly ‘inconsistent with [his] Administration’s priorities,'” the lawsuit said.

US law says an FTC commissioner “may be removed by the President for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” A 1935 Supreme Court ruling said that “Congress intended to restrict the power of removal to one or more of those causes.”

Slaughter and Bedoya sued Trump in US District Court for the District of Columbia and asked the court to declare “the President’s purported termination of Plaintiffs Slaughter and Bedoya unlawful and that Plaintiffs Slaughter and Bedoya are Commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission.”

FTC now has three Republicans and no Democrats instead of the typical 3-2 split Read More »

Trump administration’s attack on university research accelerates

research, research funding, Science, Trump / Kelly Newman / April 10, 2025

Shortly after its inauguration, the Trump administration has made no secret that it isn’t especially interested in funding research. Before January’s end, major science agencies had instituted pauses on research funding, and grant funding has not been restored to previous levels since. Many individual grants have been targeted on ideological grounds, and agencies like the National Science Foundation are expected to see significant cuts. Since then, individual universities have been targeted, starting with an ongoing fight with Columbia University over $400 million in research funding.

This week, however, it appears that the targeting of university research has entered overdrive, with multiple announcements of funding freezes targeting several universities. Should these last for any considerable amount of time, they will likely cripple research at the targeted universities.

On Wednesday, Science learned that the National Institutes of Health has frozen all of its research funding to Columbia, despite the university agreeing to steps previously demanded by the administration and the resignation of its acting president. In 2024, Columbia had received nearly $700 million in grants from the NIH, with the money largely going to the university’s prestigious medical and public health schools.

But the attack goes well beyond a single university. On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced a hold on all research funding to Northwestern University (nearly $800 million) and Cornell University ($1 billion). These involved money granted by multiple government agencies, including a significant amount from the Department of Defense in Cornell’s case. Ostensibly, all of these actions were taken because of the university administrators’ approach to protests about the conflict in Gaza, which the administration has characterized as allowing antisemitism.

Trump administration’s attack on university research accelerates Read More »

Trump throws coal a lifeline, but the energy industry has moved on

climate change, coal, Energy, Science, syndication, Trump / DJ Henderson / April 9, 2025

As President Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders Tuesday aimed at keeping coal power alive in the United States, he repeatedly blamed his predecessor, Democrats, and environmental regulations for the industry’s dramatic contraction over the past two decades.

But across the country, state and local officials and electric grid operators have been confronting a factor in coal’s demise that is not easily addressed with the stroke of a pen: its cost.

For example, Maryland’s only remaining coal generating station, Talen Energy’s 1.3-gigawatt Brandon Shores plant, will be staying open beyond its previously planned June 1 shutdown, under a deal that regional grid operator PJM brokered earlier this year with the company, state officials, and the Sierra Club.

Talen had decided to close the plant two years ago because it determined that running the plant was uneconomical. But PJM said the plant was necessary to maintain the reliability of the grid. To keep Brandon Shores open while extra transmission is built to bolster the grid, Maryland ratepayers will be forced to pay close to $1 billion.

“There’s some people who say that Brandon Shores was retiring because of Maryland’s climate policy,” says David Lapp, who leads the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, which fought the deal on behalf of ratepayers. “But it was purely a decision made by a generation company that’s operating in a free market.”

Cheaper power from natural gas and renewable energy has been driving down use of coal across the United States for roughly 20 years. Coal plants now provide about 15 percent of the nation’s electricity, down from more than 50 percent in 2000.

In some cases, state and local officials have raised concerns over whether the loss of coal plants will make the grid more vulnerable to blackouts. In Utah, for example, the Intermountain Power Agency’s 1,800-megawatt coal power facility in Utah’s West Desert is the largest US coal plant that was scheduled to shut down this year, according to the US Energy Information Administration. IPA is going forward with its plan to switch to natural gas plants that can be made cleaner-operating by using hydrogen fuel. But under a new law, IPA will shut down the coal plants in a state where it can be easily restarted, said IPA spokesman John Ward. The Utah legislature voted last month in favor of a new process in which the state of Utah will look for new customers and possibly a new operator to keep the coal plant running.

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Federal funding freeze endangers climate-friendly agriculture progress

agriculture, climate change, Science, syndication, Trump, USDA / Kelly Newman / April 4, 2025

For decades, environmental and farm groups pushed Congress, the USDA and farmers to adopt new conservation programs, but progress came in incremental steps. With each Farm Bill, some lawmakers threaten to whittle down conservation programs, but they have essentially managed to survive and even expand.

The country’s largest farm lobby, the American Farm Bureau Federation, had long denied the realities of climate change, fighting against climate action and adopting official policy positions that question the scientific consensus that climate change is human-caused. Its members—the bulk of American farmers—largely adhered to the same mindset.

But as the realities of climate change have started to hit American farmers on the ground in the form of more extreme weather, and as funding opportunities have expanded through conservation and climate-focused programs, that mindset has started to shift.

“They were concerned about what climate policy meant for their operations,” Bonnie said. “They felt judged. But we said: Let’s partner up.”

The Trump administration’s rollbacks and freezes threaten to stall or undo that progress, advocacy groups and former USDA employees say.

“We created this enormous infrastructure. We’ve solved huge problems,” Bonnie added, “and they’re undermining all of it.”

“It took so long,” Stillerman said. “The idea that climate change was happening and that farmers could be part of the solution, and could build more resilient farming and food systems against that threat—the IRA really put dollars behind that. All of that is at risk now.”

Burk says he plans to continue with conservation and carbon-storing practices on his Michigan farm, even without conservation dollars from the USDA.

But, he says, many of his neighboring farmers likely will stop conservation measures without the certainty of government support.

“So many people are struggling, just trying to figure out how to pay their bills, to get the fuel to run their tractors, to plant,” he said. “The last thing they want to be doing is sitting down with someone from NRCS who says, ‘If I do these things, maybe I’ll get paid in a year.’ That’s not going to happen.”

This story originally appeared on Inside Climate News.

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Trump annoyed the Smithsonian isn’t promoting discredited racial ideas

eugenics, race, Racism, Science, scientific racism, Smithsonian, Trump / Kelly Newman / March 30, 2025

On Thursday, the Trump administration issued an executive order that took aim at one of the US’s foremost cultural and scientific institutions: the Smithsonian. Upset by exhibits that reference the role of racism, sexism, and more in the nation’s complicated past, the order tasks the vice president and a former insurance lawyer (?) with ensuring that the Smithsonian Institution is a “symbol of inspiration and American greatness”—a command that specifically includes the National Zoo.

But in the process of airing the administration’s grievances, the document specifically calls out a Smithsonian display for accurately describing our current scientific understanding of race. That raises the prospect that the vice president will ultimately demand that the Smithsonian display scientifically inaccurate information.

Grievance vs. science

The executive order, entitled “Restoring Truth And Sanity To American History,” is filled with what has become a standard grievance: the accusation that, by recognizing the many cases where the US has not lived up to its founding ideals, institutions are attempting to “rewrite our nation’s history.” It specifically calls out discussions of historic racism, sexism, and oppression as undercutting the US’s “unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness.”

Even if you move past the obvious tension between a legacy of advancing liberty and the perpetuation of slavery in the US’s founding documents, there are other ironies here. For example, the order slams the Department of the Interior’s role in implementing changes that “inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures” at the same time that the administration’s policies have led to the removal of references to transgender individuals and minorities and women.

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Trump administration’s blockchain plan for USAID is a real head-scratcher

Blockchain, Policy, syndication, Trump, USAID / Mike M. / March 23, 2025

Giulio Coppi, a senior humanitarian officer at the nonprofit Access Now who has researched the use of blockchain in humanitarian work, says that blockchain technologies, while sometimes effective, offer no obvious advantages over other tools organizations could use, such as an existing payments system or another database tool. “There’s no proven advantage that it’s cheaper or better,” he says. “The way it’s been presented is this tech solutionist approach that has been proven over and over again to not have any substantial impact in reality.”

There have been, however, some successful instances of using blockchain technology in the humanitarian sector. In 2022, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) ran a small pilot to give cash assistance to Ukrainians displaced by the Russia-Ukraine war in a stablecoin. Other pilots have been tested in Kenya by the Kenya Red Cross Society. The International Committee of the Red Cross, which works with the Kenya team, also helped to develop the Humanitarian Token Solution (HTS).

One representative from an NGO that uses blockchain technology, but wasn’t authorized to speak to the media with regards to issues relating to USAID, says that particularly with regards to money transfers, stablecoins can be faster and easier than other methods of reaching communities impacted by a disaster. However, “introducing new systems means you’re setting up a new burden” for the many organizations that USAID partners with, they say. “The relative cost of new systems is harder for small NGOs,” which would often include the kind of local organizations that would be at the front line of response to disasters.

The proposed adoption of blockchain technology seems related to an emphasis on exerting tight controls over aid. The memo seems, for example, to propose that funding should be contingent on outcomes, reading, “Tying payment to outcomes and results rather than inputs would ensure taxpayer dollars deliver maximum impact.” A USAID employee, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak to the media, says that many of USAID’s contracts already function this way, with organizations being paid after performing their work. However, that’s not possible in all situations. “Those kinds of agreements are often not flexible enough for the environments we work in,” they say, noting that in conflict or disaster zones, situations can change quickly, meaning that what an organization may be able to do or need to do can fluctuate.

Raftree says this language appears to be misleading, and bolsters claims made by Musk and the administration that USAID was corrupt. “It’s not like USAID was delivering tons of cash to people who hadn’t done things,” she says.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Trump administration’s blockchain plan for USAID is a real head-scratcher Read More »

Judge orders Musk and DOGE to delete personal data taken from Social Security

doge, elon musk, Policy, Trump / 9u50fv / March 22, 2025

The lawsuit was filed by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; the Alliance for Retired Americans; and American Federation of Teachers. “Never before has a group of unelected, unappointed, and unvetted individuals—contradictorily described as White House employees, employees of either existing or putative agencies (multiple and many), and undefined ‘advisors’—sought or gained access to such sensitive information from across the federal government,” the lawsuit said.

A temporary restraining order preserves the status quo until a preliminary injunction hearing can be held, although the legal standards for granting a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction are essentially the same, Hollander wrote. A temporary restraining order lasts 14 days by default but can be extended.

“In my view, plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits as to their claim that the access to records provided by SSA to the DOGE Team does not fall within the need-to-know exception to the Privacy Act. Therefore, the access violates both the Privacy Act and the APA,” Hollander wrote.

The SSA has meanwhile been hit with DOGE-fueled budget cuts affecting its operations.

The order

The order says the SSA must cut off DOGE’s access. Musk, Gleason, and all other DOGE team members and affiliates “shall disgorge and delete all non-anonymized PII [personally identifiable information] data in their possession or under their control, provided from or obtained, directly or indirectly, from any SSA system of record to which they have or have had access, directly or indirectly, since January 20, 2025,” it says.

The DOGE defendants are also prohibited “from installing any software on SSA devices, information systems, or systems of record, and shall remove any software that they previously installed since January 20, 2025, or which has been installed on their behalf,” and are prohibited “from accessing, altering, or disclosing any SSA computer or software code.”

The SSA is allowed to provide DOGE with redacted or anonymized records, and may provide “access to discrete, particularized, and non-anonymized data, in accordance with the Privacy Act” under certain conditions. “SSA must first obtain from the DOGE Team member, in writing, and subject to possible review by the Court, a detailed explanation as to the need for the record and why, for said particular and discrete record, an anonymized or redacted record is not suitable for the specified use,” the order said. “The general and conclusory explanation that the information is needed to search for fraud or waste is not sufficient to establish need.”

Judge orders Musk and DOGE to delete personal data taken from Social Security Read More »

UMass disbands its entering biomed graduate class over Trump funding chaos

biomedical, funding, graduate programs, grants, health, NIH, research, Trump / Beth Washington / March 14, 2025

Many schools are now bracing for steep declines in support. At Duke University, administrators have implemented hiring freezes, scaled back research plans, and will cut the number of admitted biomedical PhD students by 23 percent or more, according to reporting by The Associated Press. The school took in $580 million in grants and contracts from the National Institutes of Health last year.

At Vanderbilt University, faculty were sent an email on February 6 instructing them to reduce graduate admissions by half across the board, according to Stat. The outlet also reported that faculty at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health have reduced admissions.

Faculty at the University of Pennsylvania also reported having to rescind admission offers to applicants and were directed to significantly reduce admission rates, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian. The University of Wisconsin-Madison, too, is shrinking its graduate programs, according to the WKOW.com.

Beth Sullivan, who oversees graduate programs at Duke, told the AP that the shrinking classes mean a shrinking pipeline into America’s medical research community, which dominates the world’s health research fields and is a significant force in the country’s economy. “Our next generation of researchers are now poised on the edge of this cliff, not knowing if there’s going to be a bridge that’s going to get them to the other side, or if this is it,” Sullivan said.

“This is a severe blow to science and the training of the next generation of scientists,” Siyuan Wang, a geneticist and cell biologist at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, told Nature. “With fewer scientists, there will be less science and innovation that drive societal progress and the improvement of public health.”

This post was updated to correct Rachael Sirianni’s job title.

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Trump order declares independent US agencies aren’t independent anymore

independent agencies, Policy, Trump / Mike M. / February 20, 2025

The White House fact sheet said the goal of this provision is to ensure that the president and attorney general “interpret the law for the executive branch, instead of having separate agencies adopt conflicting interpretations.”

John Bergmayer, legal director of consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, said Trump’s order is based on a “unitary executive” theory that “has made its way from the fringes of academia to the halls of power.”

“In this latest Executive Order, the Trump regime purports to seize for itself the power Congress delegated to independent regulatory agencies, and as written, declares the White House’s interpretation of the law as ‘authoritative,’ with no mention of the courts,” Bergmayer said. “Of course, the president is not, and never has been, the final arbiter of what is lawful. Lawyers working for the government owe their allegiance to the American people, not to President Donald J. Trump.”

Trump’s OMB director, Russell Vought, told Tucker Carlson in a recent interview that “there are no independent agencies. Congress may have viewed them as such—SEC or the FCC, CFPB, the whole alphabet soup—but that is not something that the Constitution understands. So there may be different strategies with each one of them about how you dismantle them, but as an administration, the whole notion of an independent agency should be thrown out.”

Extending Trump’s grip

Although the president nominates commissioners and appoints chairs at agencies like the FCC, independent agencies are supposed to make their own decisions. A 2023 report by the Congressional Research Service said an independent agency is “a freestanding executive branch organization that is not part of any department or other agency,” and which has “greater autonomy from the President’s leadership and insulation from partisan politics than is typical of executive branch agencies.”

Other independent agencies include the National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the report said. Laws approved by Congress specify the authority of independent agencies along with the agencies’ “goals, principles, missions, and mandates,” the report said.

Trump order declares independent US agencies aren’t independent anymore Read More »

“The country is less safe”: CDC disease detective program gutted

CDC, EIS, health, outbreaks, public health, Trump / Shannon Garcia / February 15, 2025

The cadre of elite disease detectives at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to be left in ruin today as the Trump administration continues to slash the federal workforce.

Many members of the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service, EIS—a globally revered public health training program—were informed earlier Friday that they were about to be fired, according to reporting from Stat News. Multiple sources told CBS News that half of EIS officers are among the ongoing cuts.

The Trump administration is ousting thousands of probationary federal workers in a wide-scale effort to dramatically slim agencies.

The EIS is a two-year program filled with competitively selected, highly educated and trained experts. EIS officers are the ones deployed in critical public health situations, such as deadly outbreaks or bioterror attacks. The program has a long, rich history since its establishment in 1951, which includes contributing to the eradication of smallpox, among other achievements.

The deep cuts to the program have horrified those in the public health sphere.

“The country is less safe,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, a former top-ranking CDC official and alumna of the program, told CBS News. “These are the deployable assets critical for investigating new threats, from anthrax to Zika.”

“It’s almost beyond belief,” former CDC director Bill Foege told Stat. He noted that the EIS trainees were critical to stopping the spread of the disastrous West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014–2016.

The cuts to EIS are just some of those that CDC is facing. CBS News reports that around 1,270 are being cut from the agency, which is around 10 percent of its staff.

“The country is less safe”: CDC disease detective program gutted Read More »

“A sicker America”: Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary

anti-vaccine, Confirmation, conspiracy theories, Department of Health and Human Services, health, Health Secretary, infectious diseases, robert f kennedy jr, Senate, Trump, vaccination / DJ Henderson / February 14, 2025

The US Senate on Thursday confirmed the long-time anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The vote was largely along party lines, with a tally of 52 to 48. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.), a polio survivor and steadfast supporter of vaccines, voted against the confirmation, the only Republican to do so.

Before the vote, Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) claimed that if there had been a secret ballot today, most Republicans would have voted against Kennedy. “But sadly, and unfortunately for America, Republicans are being strong-armed by Donald Trump and will end up holding their nose and voting to confirm Mr. Kennedy… What a travesty,” Schumer said.

Senator Mike Crapo (R–Idaho) shot back, supporting Kennedy’s nomination and chastising his colleagues for their continued “attacks” on Kennedy. “He has made it very clear that he will support safe vaccinations and just wants to see that the research on them is done and done well,” Crapo said, seemingly not acknowledging the vast wealth of high-quality research that has already been done on vaccine safety and efficacy.

As the top health official for the Trump administration, Kennedy says he will focus on improving nutrition and reducing chronic diseases, in part by cracking down on food additives, processed foods, and the influence of food and drug makers on federal agencies. Prior to his confirmation, he campaigned on the slogan “Make America Healthy Again,” aka MAHA, which he has moved to trademark.

Anti-vaccine advocacy

While his stated goals have drawn support and praise from some lawmakers and health advocates, his confirmation has been highly controversial because he is one of the most prominent and influential anti-vaccine advocates in the country. He has worked for decades to erode trust in safe, life-saving vaccinations as the head of the anti-vaccine organization he founded, Children’s Health Defense, and spread misinformation and conspiracy theories. Upon seeking the confirmation, he transferred his trademark application to an LLC managed by Del Bigtree, another prominent anti-vaccine advocate who has spread conspiracy theories.

“A sicker America”: Senate confirms Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary Read More »