The Unitary Executive Takes Over New Territory

One principle has governed science funding in the United States for decades: that scientific judgement should not be supplanted by political pressures. That is the basis upon which the country’s enormous scientific achievements—progress in lifesaving treatments, a university system that is the envy of the world, and a vibrant technology-and-biotech sector—have been built.But that principle is under attack. Late last month, the Office of Management and Budget in the Donald Trump White House proposed a new regulation that would shift control over the allocation of public science funding away from scientists and toward political appointees, who will have the power not only to decide which projects receive that money but also to, at any time, cancel grants that have already been awarded.This isn’t merely an attack on science; it is part of a deeper ideological vision that many within the Trump administration have been championing for years: moving power from Congress and executive-branch agencies to the president and his appointees. This vision of increased presidential power permeates Project 2025—a plan co-authored by Russell Vought, now the OMB head. And it is backed by a legal idea known as the unitary-executive theory, which asserts, as Justice Antonin Scalia put it in 1988, that the president possesses all federal executive power. The unitary-executive theory, in its fullest form, means that the president can review and direct all executive-branch actions and that Congress cannot restrain that power unless otherwise laid out in the Constitution.[Alexander Furnas and Dashun Wang: The Republicans made peace with science]The Supreme Court has in recent years issued a series of decisions in line with the unitary-executive theory, many of which are about the president’s power to fire agency officials. The same theory is also behind numerous Trump-administration actions taken in apparent conflict with congressional action or intent, such as the president’s orders to dis