Ben Carson, Jim Bridenstine, Betsy DeVos and Rick Perry. What do these names have in common? They are all President Donald Trump’s picks, and they are all trying to take down the system from the inside.
Ben Carson, who has no governmental experience (much less urban development experience), was selected to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). According to Jose A. DelReal of the Washington Post, he was reportedly chosen because he grew up in housing projects.
However, Carson has been quite critical of housing projects. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, he has reportedly sought to reduce funding for them (while he spends $31,000 on dining furniture according to Glenn Thrush of the New York Times).
Betsy DeVos, a career politician and businesswoman, has never taught or administrated in a school setting as stated by Patricia Bauer of Encyclopedia Britannica.
Furthermore, in her article for Time Magazine, Randi Weingarten details how DeVos has publicly advocated for school choice and charter schools, and constantly disparages the public-school system.
Rick Perry, who Evan Halper of The Los Angeles Times said called for dismantling the Department of Energy in 2011 while running for president, is now (you guessed it) the Secretary of Energy. This brings us to the focus of my article: the newly appointed head of NASA, Jim Bridenstine.
Bridenstine, a life-long Republican and ardent Trump supporter, is not a scientist and is on record denying climate change, according to Huffington Post’s Chris D’Angelo. He, like pretty much all other Trump appointees, seems to be a product of his loyalty toward Trump.
Contrast Bridenstine’s qualifications with the previous two NASA administrators, Charlie Bolden and Robert Lightfoot (acting administrator until April 30, 2018), and one can easily see the executive downgrade.
NASA’s website explicitly outlines the accomplishments of the former administrators. Bolden, a former Marine and NASA astronaut, is a NASA veteran and a highly qualified scientist. Lightfoot, the associate administrator of the agency until April 30, 2018, is also a career scientist who has been with NASA since the 80s. Bridenstine, in contrast, holds degrees in economics, psychology and business, and has no experience working as a scientist, as his self-titled website states.
Bridenstine’s only qualifications are: 1. Flying for the Navy during the War on Drugs, and 2. being the former executive director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum, which is slightly different than running a multi-billion-dollar space agency.
Bridenstine is also a game-changer because of his political bias. According to Tyler Adkisson and Caitlin Baldwin of ABC 15, generally speaking, the position of NASA administrator has been a non-partisan post.
In fact, the last 12 appointees to the position of NASA administrator have been appointed with little to no dissent, as said by Jeff Foust of Space News. In contrast, Marina Koren of the Atlantic states Bridenstine’s confirmation was approved with a 50-49 vote in the Senate.
His Senate approval was stalled by opposition from Republicans such as Senator Jeff Flake and Senator Marco Rubio, who had concerns about Bridenstine’s qualifications and reservations concerning appointing a partisan administrator, Ledyard King of USA Today explains.
But the left’s main criticism of Bridenstine comes from his previous statements on global warming. Bridenstine has been an ardent opponent of the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. According to Graham Lanktree of Newsweek, in a 2013 speech in front of the House of Representatives, Bridenstine claimed, “Global temperature changes, when they exist, correlate with sun output and ocean cycles.”
The first sentence on the NASA website discussing global climate change states, “Most climate scientists agree the main cause of the current global warming trend is human expansion of the ‘greenhouse effect’ – warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth towards space.”
It is discomforting the administrator of our most public science agency disagrees with peer-reviewed and generally-accepted science. Given the Trump administration’s disparaging of climate science, Emily Holden of Politico explains, it is not surprising Trump’s pick feels the same way. NASA plays an important role in monitoring climate activity, and so it will be intriguing to see if there is any influence from Bridenstine or the Trump administration on NASA’s role in the climate change conversation.
It is not all bad news though; I do still have hope for Bridenstine. He seems to be a big proponent of space exploration and colonization, which is a nice change from the Trump picks who want to dismantle their respective agencies. In fact, according to Jeff Foust and Mike Gruss of Space News, Bridenstine has pushed legislation regarding national security, civil and commercial space policy.
He also secured funding for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, as written on his website. Overall, my hope for Bridenstine: he will continue to advocate for funding space research and travel.
It is possible he may just be in it for the commercial aspect, but if he is going to condemn our world to a slow, feverish death, the least he could do is help us colonize somewhere else.