574 Attacks on Science and Counting: The Trump Administration's War on Evidence-Based Policy
When Donald Trump was inaugurated for his second presidential term on January 20, 2025, the changes came fast and without hesitation. Within hours, the United States had officially withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement — again. A national energy emergency had been declared to accelerate the expansion of fossil fuels. And a wave of environmental protections, built over years of scientific research and regulatory effort, had been repealed with the stroke of a pen.
That was just day one.
Since that moment, the Trump administration has carried out a sweeping and relentless campaign against science-based policy across virtually every federal domain. According to the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the total number of documented attacks now stands at 574 — and that number continues to grow.
To help the public understand the full scale of what is happening, the UCS has launched a free, interactive online tracker that catalogs each individual instance. It is one of the most comprehensive tools available for anyone trying to make sense of the administration's impact on science, public health, and the environment.
What Is the Union of Concerned Scientists Tracker?
The Union of Concerned Scientists is a nonprofit science advocacy organization with decades of experience monitoring how political decisions affect scientific integrity in the United States. Their new tracker is built on a Power BI dashboard and is publicly accessible online, allowing anyone — journalists, researchers, educators, and ordinary citizens — to explore the full list of documented attacks on science.
Each entry in the tracker is categorized and sourced, making it possible to filter by topic, agency, or type of attack. Whether you are looking at changes to climate science, environmental regulations, public health policy, or research funding, the tool provides a structured, evidence-based overview of how federal science policy has shifted since the beginning of 2025.
The tracker is not simply a political statement. It is a reference tool grounded in documentation, designed to ensure that decisions made in Washington are not lost in the daily churn of news cycles.
Key Examples of Attacks on Science Documented So Far
The 574 documented attacks span a wide range of scientific disciplines and federal agencies. Some of the most consequential include the following areas.
Climate and Environmental Policy
The administration's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement was the opening move in a broader rollback of climate commitments. Since then, the administration has moved aggressively to expand fossil fuel production, gut emissions regulations, and dismantle environmental review processes. Scientists and environmental groups have warned that these changes will accelerate greenhouse gas emissions at a time when global temperatures are already breaking records.
PFAS and "Forever Chemical" Regulations
One of the more alarming developments tracked by the UCS involves the administration's plans to weaken limits on PFAS chemicals — a group of synthetic compounds known as "forever chemicals" because they do not break down in the environment or in the human body. These substances have been linked to a range of serious health conditions, including certain cancers, thyroid disease, and immune system disruption. Regulatory limits on PFAS in drinking water, established through years of public health research, are now under threat of being rolled back or eliminated entirely.
Emissions Reporting Requirements
The Trump administration has also moved to end requirements that force industrial polluters to report their emissions to federal regulators. Emissions transparency is a foundational element of environmental protection — without accurate data, it becomes nearly impossible for regulators, researchers, or communities to assess exposure risks or hold companies accountable. Eliminating these requirements does not reduce pollution; it simply makes it harder to measure and respond to.
Research Funding and Federal Science Agencies
Beyond regulatory rollbacks, the administration has targeted the institutional infrastructure of American science itself. Federal research agencies have faced budget cuts, staffing reductions, and politically motivated interference in how scientific findings are communicated to the public. Experts have raised concerns about a growing pattern of suppressing or distorting scientific conclusions that conflict with the administration's policy priorities.
Why Tracking These Attacks Matters
It is easy to become numb to the volume of policy changes rolling out of Washington. Each individual announcement can seem like an isolated decision, easy to overlook amid a constant stream of news. But when you aggregate 574 actions into a single, searchable database, a much clearer picture emerges — one that reveals a systematic effort to subordinate scientific evidence to political and economic interests.
Science does not exist in a vacuum. Public health policy, environmental regulation, food safety, infrastructure planning, and disaster preparedness all depend on reliable scientific data and the institutions that produce it. When those institutions are undermined, the consequences are felt by real people — in the quality of the air they breathe, the water they drink, and the health care decisions they face.
Tools like the UCS tracker are essential precisely because they make the cumulative picture visible. They allow citizens, journalists, and policymakers to see not just what is happening, but how much is happening, and how quickly.
How to Access the Tracker
The Union of Concerned Scientists' attacks-on-science tracker is available for free at attacksonscience.org. The dashboard is regularly updated as new actions are documented, making it a living record rather than a static snapshot. Users can sort entries by date, agency, topic, and type of action, and each entry includes sourcing so that readers can verify the information independently.
Whether you are a concerned citizen, a science communicator, or a policy professional, the tracker provides an invaluable resource for understanding one of the defining political stories of 2025: a federal administration's sustained conflict with the scientific community and the evidence-based institutions it depends on.
The Broader Stakes for American Science
The United States has long been a global leader in scientific research and innovation. That leadership is not guaranteed — it depends on sustained investment, institutional independence, and a culture that respects empirical evidence. When science is treated as an obstacle to political goals rather than a tool for solving public problems, the long-term costs extend far beyond any single administration.
The 574 attacks documented so far are not just numbers on a dashboard. They represent decisions about the kind of society the United States wants to be — one that builds policy on evidence, or one that discards it when inconvenient. Tracking those decisions is a first step toward holding decision-makers accountable for the consequences.