In early September, when President Donald Trump was photographed alongside an official government hurricane projection map that appeared to have been doctored with a black marker, it spurred a flurry of headlines, late-night television jokes and a hashtag: #SharpieGate.

Yet as reporting emerged that the administration had applied pressure on a federal scientific agency to rebuke forecasters who questioned the doctored map, it underscored a much more sinister pattern: The Trump administration has for years been launching attacks on science.

We’ve been covering these attacks since the beginning of the administration. On this week’s episode ([link removed]) , we’re digging further into the president’s attempts to overturn years of scientific research for political ends.

First up in the hour, we investigate how President Trump is shaking up federal advisory committees, which for years have provided key guidance on policy decisions. Deborah Swackhamer, a leading scientist from the University of Minnesota, served on one of these committees for the Environmental Protection Agency. But after Trump took office, she was removed as chair, while dozens of other scientists were dismissed from her committee and others. This sort of interference, she says, “is consistent with a broader pattern of science misuse by the agency.”

Next, reporter Elizabeth Shogren digs into the Trump administration’s rollback of a landmark vehicle emissions deal President Barack Obama secured in 2011. In an effort to reduce greenhouse gases, Obama mandated that cars would have to increase their fuel efficiency to more than 54 miles per gallon by 2025. And for the first time ever, there would be a cap on greenhouse gas emissions. Yet shortly after President Trump took office, he set about dismantling what he called an “assault on the American auto industry.” Trump’s EPA countered with a plan that included looser restrictions – and some logical leaps.

“It wasn’t just that they put their thumb on the scale. … They jumped up and down on the scale until they broke the scale,” said Jeff Alson, a scientist who worked at the EPA for 40 years and helped draft Obama’s plan.

Finally, host Al Letson sits down with Mandy Gunasekara, a former official with Trump’s EPA, who argues that President Trump’s rollbacks are actually setting an example for responsible environmental policy across the globe.

We’ve been closely tracking the Trump administration’s rollback of sound science for years. Catch up on our latest work here ([link removed]) .

Photo illustration by Michael I Schiller/Reveal. Photo of industrial smokestack by Herby_fr under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
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