NPR reports:

Few public universities get more federal research funding than the University of Washington.

So as President Trump has already cancelled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health, the atmosphere on this leafy Seattle campus is tense.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought appears before the House Budget Committee at the U.S. Capitol on April 15. The budget office recently proposed a rule change that would give political appointees more decision-making power over research grants.

The anxiety is even trickling down to lower profile places once considered safe from White House politics, like UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Here, newly proposed U.S. Forest Service funding cuts and a larger reorganization of the agency would have immediate consequences as the West looks poised for an epic summer of wildfires and smoke.

“We have a wildfire crisis in the West [and] in the United States,” says Ernesto Alvarado, a fire ecologist and associate professor at the school. [Continue reading…]