As DOGE Targets Federal Research, Scientists in Montana Fear Cuts to Critical Programs
Several federal actions have raised alarms, including the temporary freezing of all federally funded programs in January and the Office of Personnel Management’s directive to fire probationary employees last month
By Zoë Buhrmaster
An air of uncertainty hangs over scientific research in western Montana as the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) makes steep cuts to federally funded programs, prompting the region’s leading scientists to place projects on pause.
For the past 125 years, University of Montana’s Flathead Lake Biological Station (FLBS) has stood as the sentinel of Flathead Lake, monitoring the watershed that runs from Glacier National Park and its culmination in the Flathead Basin and safeguarding the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. In doing so, scientists have assembled one of the oldest, contiguous sets of lake data in the world.
While the station’s monitoring program is funded through the state, federal grants provide money to cover indirect costs, the expenses that maintain the infrastructure and administrative support for research including money for the station’s building maintenance, electricity, vehicles, and staffing.
Jim Elser, the director of the FLBS, said it’s these funds that keep the station alive, the loss of which “will start to impair our ability to provide the best possible data on the lake and how its doing because those indirect costs keep the station going.”
Several federal actions have raised alarms, Elser said, including the temporary freezing of all federally funded programs in January and the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) directive to fire probationary employees last month, which included employees at the National Science Foundation (NSF), the bio station’s main source of federal funding. (As of March 3, NSF reinstated 86 probationary employees after a judicial order to rescind the order.)
Federally funded research at FLBS includes a grant administered by NSF to study snow algae in western states, a program that has been ongoing for the past three years. Commonly called “watermelon snow,” the algae can turn snow a reddish color, impacting mountain water runoff and, consequently, the understanding of what affects water flowing into the Flathead Basin. A separate grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) funds aquatic invasive species (AIS) research, using NASA infrastructure and satellite data to identify and map potential AIS hot spots, enabling FLBS scientists to concentrate their protection efforts on lake habitat where AIS such as zebra and quagga mussels are most likely to colonize.
“Science is this sort of magical thing that takes straw and spins it into gold with enormous returns on investment,” Elser said. “Now it seems people in Washington are spending time worrying about the cost of straw instead of considering the gold its producing.”
The FLBS staff isn’t the only research team concerned about what will happen next as sweeping layoffs, funding freezes and executive orders spur apprehension across the scientific community. Scientists at FLBS frequently collaborate on AIS and water quality research with other entities in the area, including researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center (NOROCK) field office in West Glacier. As further evidence that the realm of natural science is emerging as a prominent target for the Trump administration, DOGE recently announced it was canceling the lease for the NOROCK headquarters in Bozeman. DOGE listed the Bozeman building as costing an estimated $369,838, with $0 in savings for cutting the lease.
It remains unclear what impact the lease cancellation will have on the research being conducted at local field offices. In Glacier National Park, researchers have been silent on the looming specter of layoffs and cuts, with one physical scientist at the West Glacier field office explaining that “everything is uncertain right now.”
Jack Potter, who served in the park for more than 40 years before retiring as chief of Glacier’s Science and Resource Management Program — a committed tenure that earned him the nickname as the “conscience of Glacier Park,” worked closely with the NOROCK station, helping institute scientific research as the essential baseline for decision making in the park, including drafting the park’s first general management plan. He labored alongside Dan Fagre, the climate change research coordinator for NOROCK whose documentation of melting glaciers provided critical evidence for climate change in North America.
“It’s like we’ve taken this giant step backwards in understanding and using science,” Potter said. “That’s the one for me that hits home. These are the consequences of that … What I was involved with was about how we manage these resources and prepare for future generations. That’s what’s really at jeopardy.”
Another federally funded project connected to the bio station is the Montana Pesticide Stewardship Partnership Program. FLBS Assistant Research Professor Rachel Malison has been leading the wide-ranging partnership between state organizations, cities, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT), and the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho. The program is intended to research pesticide’s impacts to human health and agricultural management practices, support green infrastructure and fund community educational programs.
The program is early in its second year, with hopes to begin monitoring contamination levels in the water later this year. To reach this stage in the research work, Malison and her team already underwent the competitive grant-writing process, congressional approval for the funds, and a quality assurance plan with the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, which they spent much of the first year compiling.
If the program loses its funding, Malison said she will lose staff members who are critical to keeping the program operational.
“We can’t protect our water without data,” Malison said. “We’re the headwaters of the Columbia River Basin. What happens upstream matters for waters downstream.”
In waiting for confirmation of whether previously promised funding will be cut or continued, some departments have paused federally funded programs. The CSKT’s renowned natural resources department has halted any forward action for three programs that all received funding through the Inflation Reduction Act in recent years.
The programs include a grant to partner with Lake County on expanding recycling across the Flathead Indian Reservation, a program to investigate and assess the risk of residential septic systems on the reservation, and a project to reduce cases of swimmer’s itch through educational programs and infrastructure around Flathead Lake and other waterbodies on the reservation.
Richard Janssen, the department’s director, said tribal leaders have invested minimally in the projects since January, avoiding hiring for program positions “until we have more certainty on what the future holds.”
“We’re all being very, very cautious,” Janssen said.
Chad Bishop, the director of University of Montana’s wildlife biology program, oversees UM’s share of Montana’s Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit, a federal initiative to combine academic and applied research through a partnership between the state, federal government, universities, and nonprofit organizations. Since 1950, scientists at UM and MSU have partnered with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks (FWP) on fish and wildlife research.
The university units have aided research on chronic wasting diseases in animals, including avian influenza (bird flu) and respiratory disease in bighorn sheep; research on grizzly bear habitat that has helped inform decision-making about conserving grizzly bear populations; and research on reduced stream flows and warmer temperatures that have led to challenges with native and recreational fisheries foundational to Montana’s economy and ecology.
“We in wildlife science understand there are so many considerations that go into making executive decisions,” Bishop said. “That’s why we have a legislature. Our role in this is just to make sure decision-makers have the best information to make decisions on. That’s what we do really well.”
Most of the budget for the cooperative unit goes to salaries, Bishop said, meaning that cuts to the federal program could result in losing senior scientists.
“The purpose of the unity is to make sure the science coming out of universities was applied to meet needs of managers in the state who are making decisions that concern wildlife and natural resources,” Bishop said. “We haven’t had any impacts yet but there’s a chance with the reduction in force. Hopefully we can avoid it, but we don’t know.”