The Schedule Policy/Career rule raises alarms about the independence of federal science

Terry Gerton Peter, it’s great to have you on the show.

Peter Bonner Terry, it’s great to be here. I’ve been an admirer of your show here ever since you started. So good to be here.

Terry Gerton Well, thank you. We’ve got an important topic here, schedule policy/career. The Federation of American Scientists has been warning about this for the last year, from the moment it began to be talked about. Now it’s official. So when you think about the final version of it, what do its provisions mean in practical terms for the federal scientific community?

Peter Bonner Well, I think a couple of things. Well, first of all, let me start by saying every administration deserves a federal civil service that will support the oath that they’ve taken as they come in, to support and defend the Constitution, to faithfully discharge the duties of the office they enter, and to do that with the true faith and allegiance. So every administration deserves a civil service, that can implement the policies that they bring forward. So from that perspective … I would bring out three key points in the implementation of this that are concerning and particularly concerning for the science, technical, engineering, and math community, which is what the Federation of American Scientists is focused on. So number one, the way the rule has come out, it prompts the question, and this is going to sound obvious, but what do we mean by performance in this context? That the intent here was to deal with poor performers, however, the rule or any of the background information that’s come out does not document that the poor performance issues in the federal government, and there are poor performance issues… The preponderance of those are within the policy influencing or policy making community. And so is this a solution in search of a problem? Because we don’t really have data that says poor performance is an issue here around policy making. Obviously, there are anecdotes coming out of the first Trump administration around people not adhering or implementing the policies appropriately. But a lot of those anecdotes are coming out of political appointees, not out of career staff. And I know there’s accusations around the deep state, but it’s like, okay, where’s the evidence that this is around poor performance? When it comes to policymaking, what does performance really mean? Is that documented in performance plans and in job standards so that people know, Okay, I am adhering to my policy influencing role here so that I can do what the administration wants me to do when it comes to deal with performance and executing my job. What is performance as a key piece? While they say it’s in plain language, the definition of policy influencing seems way broad and open it to a tremendous amount of interpretation by the agencies that then OPM validates or certifies and then the president authorizes. However, if I’m in an agency and I’m on the front lines implementing policy and I am giving feedback around how that policy is going, that’s policy influencing to me. And so therefore, while the estimate is that it’s going to affect about 50,000 people, depending on how the agencies implement this and the criteria they use to define policy implementing. This could cover a broad swath of the federal workforce, and that’s not the intent of this rule. So what is policy making? How is that policy influencing? How is going to get interpreted by the agencies? Is one agency going to interpret it really strictly and another agency going to interpret it really broadly? How is OPM going to reconcile those things? This gets into, what are my career options if I want to transfer between agencies and go between a policy-influencing role and one that’s not designated, even if the role is the same, agency to agency. So what is performance and what is policy-influencing are two fundamental questions here that I think the guidance and the rule has not fully explored or fully defined. I guess the third piece and the biggest piece to me, Terry, is how this creates a potential chilling effect between the policy influencing professional and their manager and their political appointees. So there’s a big enough gulf there already between political appointee and career staff. This potentially creates a bigger one, particularly for those who are tasked was providing objective, independent information to the people who make the decisions. And it’s already been proven with the BLS commissioner that you bring information forward and you could get fired. And so there’s a track record here already. But I’m thinking more about the people on the front lines. And I think this goes in two directions. One is whether what’s being proposed in a policy that I need to influence or implement, I consider legal. And therefore, is it going to be an abrogation of my oath to implement that? And second is I’m tasked with bringing facts forward and offering those facts to make better decisions. And am I at risk by bringing facts that could hurt my career or get me fired? So I’ll bring this to ground with, okay, I’m a branch manager in NOAA Marine Fisheries. And my job is to, it has a couple of aspects to it. One is to help industry, the fisheries industry, be productive in the areas that I am responsible for. Another part of my job is to make sure that those fisheries are sustainable over time. Another part my job, it may be to look at, okay, what’s the ecosystem in the part of the ocean that I’m responsible for that could be impacting those fisheries? Now when it comes to policies, there could be a policy that came forward that says, hey, forget about the sustainability and forget about the ecosystem effects. Only support industry and industrial production and fisheries. Well then the branch manager says, my authorizing legislation says I need to do all three. Is this legal and how do I have that conversation with my boss or my political appointee that’s asking me to do this? Now, I don’t want to cast that every political appointee civil servant relationship is adversarial. Not at all. Frequently, they are very collaborative. But this adds a factor that can detract from that level of collaboration. So instead of having the conversation with my political appointees that says, you’re asking me to do this and favor industry. Can we talk about the legality of it? I suddenly am put in a position of putting my job at risk.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Peter Bonner. He’s senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. Peter, FAS has warned about that chilling effect and what impact it might have on the current workforce. You’re also concerned about the pipeline of future federal scientists. Are you seeing any impact yet in terms of people who might want to come to work for the federal government in a scientific capacity?

Peter Bonner It’ll be interesting over time to get some empirical data on this, Terry, to really understand the statistics. Cause what we have now are anecdotes and you can read it on social media. You can it read on X, you could read it on blue sky, you can read it on Reddit, you can read it on WhatsApp where — and I just saw one the day before yesterday was, okay, the policy career rule has come out. I’m out. I’m getting out of the federal workforce or, and I saw another one. I’m applying for a federal position. What is this policy career thing and how is it going to impact my ability to work in the federal government? Maybe I should be looking elsewhere. So the anecdotal evidence is out there that this is confirming the potential chilling effect in upcoming people. So, I mean, continuing with the example of the NOAA Fisheries branch manager, I’m coming into that job and my job is to produce the facts of, okay, here’s what’s going on how many halibut we’re taking out of the ocean. And here’s what’s going on in terms of the sustainability of the halibut fisheries. I have facts that say that the viability and sustainability of fisheries is going to decline or I’m coming into that job, I have to share that information and push it forward to my political appointee. How are they going to respond if … the sustainability is declining and that’s going to impact the ability to support industry? Am I putting my job at risk or, as I’m coming into that role, how am I going to actually execute that role fairly and impartially and with objective data? That’s what scientists do. And this example, you can envision it being replicated hundreds of times across the federal government in that relationship between the individual professional that needs to bring information forward or wonders about the legality of a policy. And is then, instead of having a conversation about it and having a dialog, is putting their job and their career at risk as a result. So that’s the chilling effect, and then it’ll lead to, and hey, I’m a realist here. Public sector, private sector, you need to speak in a way to be heard. With the information you have, you have to present it in the best way possible, so that it can be dealt with and correct decisions made. But this creates some red lines that didn’t exist before and make it very difficult for the individual doctor, marine biologist, engineer, to be able to bring that information forward to make the best decisions possible. So that’s my concern is the outcomes are gonna be worse because the decisions will not be as good.

Terry Gerton Well, let’s talk about those red lines. You mentioned earlier that agencies actually have quite a bit of discretion in how they’re going to apply this rule and interpret the definitions. If agencies or lawmakers really are committed to preserving scientific integrity, are there other policies or procedures that can go along with this rule to make sure that the guardrails actually work and people don’t cross those redlines? What do you suggest?

Peter Bonner So I think, from an oversight perspective, whether that’s Congress or GAO or IG offices, they have to create a safe space for the scientists to bring forward objective and partial information. And so that means whether through legislation, whether through oversight hearings, whether through investigations or assessments, look at what is the level of safety, what is the level at risk that scientists are taking if they bring forward information that may run contrary to the potential outcomes of a policy that the administration is looking for? So that’s one piece. And I mean, this is going to sound really obvious, but just looking is another piece. Having the hearings, having those investigations, looking at, okay, how is this going? I mean, are agencies applying the policy career designation consistently across those agencies so that if I’m a marine biologist at NOAA Fisheries, I’m going to be in the same category if I am over in Fish and Wildlife Service or elsewhere in that same job, same grade level, etc. So with the same role too. I mean, it’s going to be interesting because policy career is about role. Is that going to done by occupation and grade level? Or, what’s the latitude agencies have there, and what does that look like? Yeah, so those are some of the pieces, I think, that the oversight and … Congress needs to really look at to create safety around what is at best a collaborative relationship between the career civil service, policy influencing or not, and the political appointees and others who are tasked with the job of of taking that policy forward and making good decisions.