A regional climate research center based in Amherst could close next month because the Trump administration froze its funding and is limiting what work researchers are allowed to do.
The freeze comes at a critical time for the Northeast Regional Climate Adaptation Center. Just next week, it was set to seek additional federal funding to operate for the next six years.
“This is just another way to stop science,” said Bethany Bradley, the center’s co-director and a professor the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where the research center is hosted.
The center is one of nine regional hubs across the country supported by the U.S. Geological Survey and charged with helping state and local partners develop plans to adapt wildlife, water and land to the effects of climate change.
In mid-August, the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directed the agency’s ecosystems research arm, which oversees these centers, to spend money only on federal employees’ salaries, according to budget documents.
Other spending, on activities like publishing articles, hiring post-doctoral researchers or applying for operating funds, has stalled, Bradley said. Planned projects for the upcoming academic year were cancelled. In a typical year, the center’s budget ranges from $3 to $4 million.
The center will run out of money by the end of September and shut down if the freeze continues, Bradley said. The staff of 20 includes university faculty, U.S. Geological Survey employees and positions tied to operating funds. Bradley said she’s already had to lay off one staff member and stop planned hires for two others.
“We’re back to telling everybody to hang in there. We’ll keep fighting, but it’s a tough time,” she said. Center staff are participating in virtual rallies to show support and contacting their Congressional representatives.
This is the first time the center’s operational funding has been put at risk. Since opening in 2012, the center has twice successfully gone through the renewal process for a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Geological Survey and its hosting university.
The model is efficient because the federal government can leverage the resources and expertise at a university without hiring more people, Bradley said. Two other centers based in Hawaii and Oklahoma are also under threat of closure.
Representatives for the U.S. Geological Survey and the OMB did not respond to WBUR’s requests for comment.
This spring, the administration proposed eliminating the $326 million ecosystems research arm that supports the nine regional climate adaptation science centers — including in New England — and a national hub. It also sought to cut related research on toxic substances and invasive species.
A White House statement announcing the spending proposal said it “guts a weaponized deep state” and eliminates funding for programs including what the statement called the “Green New Scam.” Officials said federal spending would be redirected toward President Trump’s priorities such as increased production of fossil fuels.
But in June the centers received a possible reprieve. Both the U.S. House and Senate budget proposals maintained funding for the ecosystems research arm, including the climate adaptation science centers.
Even if Congress continues its funding for the upcoming fiscal year, the center may not survive. The OMB could impose similar limits on any approved funding.
“It’s felt like a roller coaster this summer, the last several months,” Bradley said. “ So then this week to have the [OMB] essentially slam that door in our face is pretty disheartening for everybody,” Bradley said.
The potential closure of the Northeast center worries researchers like Nathan Senner, assistant professor of environmental conservation at UMass Amherst and the Mass Audubon Bertrand Chair for Ornithology.
He studies long-distance migratory shorebirds and uses findings from the center to suggest ways to help threatened bird populations in Massachusetts.
“ The projects and products coming out of [the center] are helping us identify the ways in which our world is changing and how we can sort of mitigate or maybe even adapt to those changes in the future,” Senner said.
Eve Beaury, a research scientist at the New York Botanical Garden’s Center for Conservation and Restoration Ecology and a former research fellow at the center said its loss would have long-term effects on “research for the public good.”
Beaury worries about losing the pipeline of graduate fellows who go on to pursue careers in managing plants, animals or water resources in a warming climate.
“I think a year or two ago I was starting to feel optimistic that we were going to meaningfully address climate change as a country and as a society,” she said. “And it’s really scary to think that a lot of that momentum is going to stall or at least slow down.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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