‘Generational damage’: The fallout of cutting climate science research

Visitors look at a research tank filled with Atlantic sturgeon inside the physiology wet lab at an open house of the USGS Leetown Science Center Conte Anadromous Fish Research Laboratory in Turners Falls. STAFF FILE PHOTO
Published: 06-25-2025 12:00 PM
Modified: 06-27-2025 12:09 PM |
AMHERST — Local scientists warn that the proposed federal cuts to the United States Geological Survey’s Ecosystem Mission Area — a federal research program that studies the country’s natural resources — outlined in the White House’s fiscal year 2026 budget could not only degrade national ecosystems, but the industries and people that rely on them.
“What science does is reduce uncertainty,” said John Organ, former director of the Fish and Wildlife Cooperative Units funded by EMA. “A management action is a product of a decision. If there’s greater uncertainty in the decision-making process, then the less durable and less effective those decisions may be, and the consequences could be greater.”
The Ecosystem Missions Area, formerly the Biological Resources Division, was created in 2010 by combining several other research programs within the U.S. Department of the Interior. It includes seven different scientific research initiatives, including the Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Units and the Climate Adaptation Science Center system among others. The conservation needs that arose in the early 20th century spurred the formation of these programs, which were reorganized under USGS in the 21st century.
Organ, a Northampton resident who spent his entire scientific career with the Department of the Interior, describes the federal and state governments as the trustees of the public’s fish and wildlife resources, with public management agencies, like the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, serving as the trust managers. Like any business, the trustees need knowledge to make intelligent, progressive decisions about public resources, but terminating almost all of the EMA’s funding will cut off that pipeline of information.
“The entire federal conservation enterprise is being thwarted and it will be generational damage,” he said.
The data produced by public scientists informs industry quotas for fishing and hunting, policy decisions on conservation and national parks and even natural disaster preparation.
“In the 1980s hurricane recovery costs were about $40 billion per decade, and by the 2010s it surged to over $460 billion per decade,” biologist and UMass graduate James Garner said. “With climate change, recent storms have caused over $100-plus billion dollars in damages, and science-based adaptation and early warning programs help save billions in avoided disaster costs.”
Warmer air and sea temperatures increase evaporation and raise sea levels, causing larger and more frequent tropical storms and hurricanes. Climate change also decreases the regularity of rainfall, creating common periods of drought that spark more wildfires.
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Without the public institutions tracking this severe weather and the conditions that cause them, Garner warns the United States will be less prepared to mitigate the damages.
“Cutting climate science might save pennies on paper, but in the end, it costs hundreds of billions of dollars, and lives, when we’re rebuilding after disasters like this,” he said.
Research and development is a major revenue source for the United States. A report published by the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics found that research and development accounted for 3.43% of the United State’s GDP in 2022, up from 2.67% in 2012.
This increased percentage is largely due to higher business investment, but private businesses and nonprofits often sign federal contracts to fund or supplement research and development. A study from American University found that slashing public investment in research and development by 25% would reduce GDP “by an amount comparable to the decline in GDP during Great Recession” in 2008.
“The current budget for the cooperative research units nationwide is $28 million and we bring in three times that in external funding,” Organ said. “We support well over 1,000 jobs that are non-federal, in addition to 600 graduate students, masters, PhDs, and post-doctorate students.”
Without reallocation from Congress, many of the science research grants canceled by the federal government sit idle. According to a Federal Research and Development Funding Report for fiscal year 2025, the Biden administration allocated over $10.7 billion to clean energy research and development, and another $4.5 billion in climate research.
Stephen McCormick, a scientist emeritus who worked at the S.O. Conte Anadromous Fish Research Laboratory in Turners Falls for 33 years, said the lab’s work with anadromous fish populations, or fish that spawn in fresh water but live in saltwater, supports multi-million dollar fisheries. Dams built along rivers, such as the Connecticut River, block anadromous fish from traveling from their freshwater birthplaces to their saltwater homes. One of the few ways fish travel around dams is through a fish ladder, but these ladders, which cost upward of $30 million, are between 5% and 40% effective, and many species critical for fisheries cannot even travel through them.
The Conte Lab is the only facility on the East Coast that researches fish ladder improvements. Chopping down the Ecosystems Mission Area could result in the lab’s closure and prevent further infrastructure research.
“All of the anadromous species that we have on the East Coast are either threatened or endangered, almost all of them in parts of the range,” McCormick said. “Without the information that we provide, things like innovative fish passage, and habitats that we need to protect, will be lost, and eventually these species will wink out.”
McCormick adds that animals and plants do not pay mind to state or country boundaries. Many birds migrate to different countries between seasons. Fish swim in U.S. water bodies shared with Canada and Mexico. Only federal entities can negotiate with other countries or control interstate affairs to properly manage these species and the industries that rely on them.
“This public research money touches everybody’s lives every day,” UMass PhD candidate Thomas Nuhfer said. “Most people just aren’t thinking about it because it’s running and working smoothly in the background. But it’s pretty hard to imagine where our country’s population and landscapes would be without all the benefits that this federal funding and support and infrastructure has provided in the past.”
Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.