Critics warn Biden’s ‘Trump-proof’ plan undermines democratic process

Many amateur cooks were concerned after hearing that President Joe Biden’s Department of Energy was proposing regulations that could spell the end of their beloved gas stoves.

In both cases, the government agencies enforcing the rules say experts know best. Opponents counter that, as COVID has reminded America, experts aren’t always right. And while scientific and technical expertise is important, policy should be made by elected representatives of the people, not self-appointed elites.

The battle has become public thanks to a Biden administration initiative known as “Trump proofing” — changing bureaucratic rules to prevent a newly elected Republican president from reversing policies enacted by his Democratic predecessor.

Biden administration officials are invoking the premise of “scientific integrity” as they impose bureaucratic roadblocks on oversight by elected and appointed officials. The White House has chosen longtime NIH administrator Dr. Lyric Jorgenson as its designated scientific integrity officer.

In addition to appointing Jorgenson to oversee the NIH, the White House has ordered the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration to “strengthen plans for scientific integrity, both to ensure that research is rigorous, bias-free, transparent, and credible, and that decisions about research are made by impartial government officials,” according to Politico.

But advocates of democratic oversight argue that “impartiality” is simply not a realistic goal. As President Barack Obama famously said, “Elections have consequences.”

“I don’t think you can avoid the influence of politics and political agendas on where government money goes to fund research,” Dr. Jeffrey Singer of the Cato Institute told InsideSources.

The Council for Modernizing Management (CMG) says Biden’s “scientific honesty” policy is a strategy to keep Democratic policies in place long after the administration leaves office.

This includes new rules from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that say “politically appointed persons” cannot interfere with or “improperly influence” the way scientific activities or information are compiled, proposed, conducted, reviewed, or evaluated. The Department of Health and Human Services has adopted similar rules.

Biden’s EPA later announced that its new contract with unionized workers included “scientific integrity” protections. That allowed EPA employees to file complaints if bosses or coworkers tried to engage in what it called “inappropriate interference” with scientific work. It also gave the union the right to negotiate any changes to the definitions of EPA’s Scientific Integrity Policy.

CMG executive director Curtis Schube suggested that these changes insulated scientists from politics and therefore from the consequences for their policies. American voters elect people specifically to oversee how unelected bureaucrats spend their money.

Schube said the new rules “appear to be designed to resist both sound science and legitimate agency oversight.”

Schube wants the federal government to make sure all studies and reports are impartial, fair and transparent. He stressed the importance of consistently adhering to the constitutional framework that places federal employees “under the supervision and direction of the president or his officers.”

While presidents can revoke executive orders through other executive orders, Schube worries that any future president will have to issue specific orders that focus more on the agency’s decision-making.

This could pose a risk of lawsuits from groups opposed to such activities.

For example, President Donald Trump created the Schedule F employee classification. Bureaucrats moved to this classification could be fired by the president at will and appointed by their predecessor without going through the civil service process.

The goal is to make the government more responsive, but the National Treasury Employees Union sued over Schedule F shortly after Trump created the designation. And Biden rescinded the Schedule F executive order shortly after taking office.

Russ Vought, who headed Trump’s Office of Management and Budget and has had direct contact with the federal bureaucracy, believes reform is necessary.

“People need to understand that this is not Bill Clinton’s big government,” Vought said in an interview. “This is not Jimmy Carter’s big government. This is Barack Obama, Joe Biden’s hybrid, militant, woke, and weaponized government that makes every decision based on climate change extremism and woke militancy.”

Schube said the Biden administration is not hiding its goals. “They have openly admitted to plans to ‘counter’ a second Trump administration,” he said.