Hundreds of NASA Employees, Past and Present, Sign Letter of Formal Dissent
'We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety, scientific advancement and efficient use of public resources,' the employees wrote in the letter. It is addressed to Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, whom President Trump appointed this month as acting NASA administrator.
Cuts to NASA programs have been arbitrary and in defiance of priorities set by Congress, the NASA employees said. 'The consequences for the agency and the country alike are dire,' they wrote.
NASA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The NASA letter follows similar letters of criticism by federal employees at the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the N.I.H. director, said he welcomed respectful dissent, but the E.P.A. placed 144 employees who signed that agency's letter on leave.
'We're all scared that we're going to get laid off,' said Monica Gorman, an operations research analyst at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. 'We're scared of retaliation. We huddle in the bathroom. We go to the bathroom to talk to each other, and look under the stalls to make sure that no one else is there before we talk.'
Ms. Gorman is one of 287 current and former NASA employees who signed the letter, although more than half did so anonymously. More than 15,000 people work at the space agency. Prominent scientists outside of NASA, including 20 Nobel Prize winners, also offered their names in support.
Read the NASA 'Voyager Declaration' Letter of Dissent
Hundreds of current and ex-employees of NASA signed a formal dissent letter protesting the Trump administration's proposed cuts to the agency.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
New Hampshire Secretary of State details answers to Trump voter registration inquiry
New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan on Friday released an eight-page letter with detailed responses to the Trump administration's 15 questions about the state's voter registration process, including why the state rejected the request to disclose the statewide voter list. 'New Hampshire law authorizes the Secretary of State to release the statewide voter registration list in limited circumstances not applicable here,' Scanlan wrote. The Trump administration is seeking millions of names from targeted states ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Scanlan explained that state law permits his office to, 'upon request, provide a political party, political committee, or candidate for county, state, or federal office, 'a list of the name, domicile address, mailing address, town or city, voter history, and party affiliation, if any, of every registered voter in the state.'' Scanlan told Trump administration officials they were free to go community by community to get voter lists from each clerk or supervisors of the checklist, and he shared a website link to city and town clerk contacts. Before answering the Trump administration's questions, Scanlan provided three paragraphs of 'prefatory remarks' as a primer on what information he could or couldn't share. 'Regardless of the fact that election systems and assets are critical infrastructure, divulging any cybersecurity information could harm the integrity of the systems. Therefore, our responses to questions regarding database infrastructure may be limited depending on the nature of the question,' Scanlan wrote. Scanlan's letter also included a sample voter registration form and Memorandum of Understanding for Help America Vote Act implementation and enhanced data exchange for database accuracy. Trump's inquiry Questions from the Trump administration ranged from basic information for how voter registration works in New Hampshire to specific ways in which the information is confirmed, shared and managed. Here are some examples of the questions: * Describe how the statewide voter registration list is coordinated with the databases of other state agencies. And provide the name of each state database used for coordination and describe the procedures used for the coordination as well as how often the databases are coordinated with the statewide voter registration list. * Describe the process by which registrants who are ineligible to vote due to non-citizenship are identified and removed from the statewide voter registration list. * Describe the state's requirement for an individual to vote if the individual registered to vote by mail and has not previously voted in an election for federal office in the state. * Describe the verification process that election officials perform to verify the required information supplied by the registrant. And describe what happens to the registration application if the information cannot be verified. * Describe the process by which deceased registrants are identified and removed from the statewide voter registration list. Other questions asked for how the state handles voters convicted of a felony, duplicate voter registrations, security measures and how the state removes registered voters who have moved to another state. Scanlan's answers The Secretary of State's Office outlined the step-by-step processes that are used in each aspect of voter registration, providing detail at the state level all the way down to how communities manage their checklists. In terms of New Hampshire's citizen requirement, he described the new law that went into effect this year. 'The statute lays out several types of acceptable documents to prove citizenship: 'the applicant's birth certificate, passport, naturalization papers if the applicant is a naturalized citizen, or any other reasonable documentation which indicates the applicant is a United States citizen,'' Scanlan wrote. For voters who have died, Scanlan described how the communities across the state remove voters from the rolls if they died here or elsewhere. The process involves comparing official death records and how municipal clerks receive official notice of a voter's death and then remove the names locally. Most of Scanlan's answers read like a textbook or quoted New Hampshire law directly. He provided each specific statute number, leaving it up to federal officials to read further on their own. He also provided contact information for the Division of Motor Vehicles and website links for further information. To read Scanlan's letter, visit dpierce@
CNN
8 minutes ago
- CNN
In a deal with Trump, Europe gets an elusive agreement. But everyone's a little annoyed
Tariffs European Union Prescription drugsFacebookTweetLink Follow The United States and the European Union avoided the worst-case scenario: a damaging, all-out trade war between allies that threatened to raise prices on a large number of goods and slow two of the world's largest economies. The framework delivered a sense of relief for both sides – but few are cheering the arrangement itself. The agreement, which sets a 15% tariff on most European goods entering the United States, is higher than the 10% tariff Trump put in place on April 2 and significantly higher than the average of around 2% from before Trump's presidency. But it's significantly less than the enormous numbers Trump had been threatening if an agreement wasn't reached. A deal with the United States felt like an impossibility in late May. Frustrated by a lack of progress in negotiations with the 27-member European Union, Trump on May 24 told the world he was done talking to some of America's strongest allies. 'Our discussions with them are going nowhere!' Trump posted on Truth Social. 'I'm not looking for a deal,' he said later that day in the Oval Office. 'We've set the deal — it's at 50%.' The statement — and the shockingly high tariff threat — stunned European trade negotiators and rallied Europe's leaders into action. They quickly agreed to kick talks into high gear. Trump, who has taken a particular liking to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, was swayed after she called him to say the EU would commit to moving 'swiftly and decisively.' Trump soon backed off his threat and said negotiations would continue. But a deal between the United States and the European Union, one of America's top trading partners, had remained elusive for months. The two sides squabbled over America's insistence on high tariffs for steel and aluminum, looming tariffs on pharmaceuticals and the tariff floor for virtually all goods that the Trump administration appears set to raise to 15%. Negotiators were unable to come up with a resolution before the initial July 9 deadline — one of the reasons the Trump administration postponed the effective day for its 'reciprocal' tariffs to August 1. With just days to go before the extended deadline, while Trump was visiting Scotland, he met with van der Leyen and finalized a framework for an agreement — one that was thin on details, heavy on caveats, but was nevertheless a hard-sought relief for both sides. With the agreement in place, two of the world's largest economies avoided a potential economically crippling trade war. The United States held a 50% tariff threat over Europe's head, and Europe threatened America with strategic retaliatory tariffs that threatened to damage key US industries. Both sides appeared to embrace the fact that a deal was in place more than they celebrated it. 'We made it,' Trump said while announcing the deal with von der Leyen. 'It's going to work out really well.' 'I think we hit exactly the point we wanted to find,' von der Leyen said. 'Rebalance but enable trade on both sides. Which means good jobs on both sides of the Atlantic, means prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic and that was important for us.' Markets cheered, somewhat: Dow futures rose 150 points, or 0.3%, poised to open near record territory. S&P 500 futures gained 0.3% and Nasdaq futures were 0.4% higher. The United States and Europe 'seem to have avoided a self-destructive trade war for now in the biggest and deepest commercial and investment relationship the global economy knows,' said Jörn Fleck, senior director of the Atlantic Council's Europe Center. Nevertheless, the details remain murky. Europe will increase its investment in the United States by $600 billion and commit to buying $750 billion worth of US energy products. It eliminates tariffs on a variety of items, including aircraft and plane parts, semiconductors, generic drugs and some chemicals and agricultural products. Industries in the zero-tariff arrangement cheered. 'The zero-for-zero tariff regime will grow jobs, strengthen our economic security and provide a framework for U.S. leadership in manufacturing and safety,' Airlines for America said in a statement. But the 15% baseline tariff applies to most goods, so the EU member states – and American importers — will have to come to terms with the fact that higher tariffs will raise prices for European goods in America. 'Higher tariffs mean higher prices for US consumers—and that will seriously dent EU companies' bottom lines,' said Alex Altmann, vice president of the British Chamber of Commerce in Germany. 'EU companies aiming to stay competitive in the US market will think twice when deciding where to produce or assemble.' The agreement also deals another blow to Detroit automakers, which objected to a similar deal the Trump administration reached with Japan. The 15% auto tariff on EU cars imported to the United States undercuts the 25% tariff American automakers pay if their cars are built in Mexico. Although von der Leyen said pharmaceuticals were included in the early framework, she acknowledged that Trump may ultimately place higher tariffs on drugs imported to the United States, undercutting the agreement. Still, in the eyes of the hard-working negotiators — and for the sake of the global economy — a deal is better than no deal. Now comes the hard part: figuring out the details.
Wall Street Journal
9 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Trump and the EU Dodge a Trade War
The U.S. and Europe stepped back from the brink of a trade war Sunday, as the two sides announced a deal that avoids tit-for-tat escalation that could do larger damage to both economies. President Trump and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced the deal as a major event, but that's true only as a relief. Mr. Trump had threatened a 30% tariff on European Union goods, while Europe had armed for a retaliatory strike on U.S. aircraft, cars, poultry, steel and much more. Europe also could have fired a bigger bazooka that included limits on U.S. investment and a big tax on U.S. companies operating on the continent.
