April 11, 2025

Wyden, Salinas, Pingree, Tokuda Lead Colleagues in Slamming Trump Administration for Censoring Agricultural Research Crucial to Rural Communities

Leaked Agricultural Research Service memo contains a sweeping list of banned words, including “climate,” “affordable housing,” and “safe drinking water.”

Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and U.S. Representatives Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, and Jill Tokuda, D-Hawai’i, warned the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that Donald Trump’s politically motivated list of banned words – including “climate,” “affordable housing,” and “safe drinking water” — in research agreements being considered for federal funding would harm rural communities facing wildfires, drought, food insecurity, among other environmental agricultural challenges.

In the letter to USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, the lawmakers emphasized, “The exclusion of these terms from consideration for funding opportunities demonstrates an intentional effort to hinder, distort, and improperly steer federal scientific work in the name of political expediency, and the American people deserve far better than that.”

The USDA has operated more than 600 research projects with a $1.7 billion budget. Banning terms like “runoff” or “soil pollution” from playing a role in funding these agricultural and environmental projects would stall opportunities to advance the agency’s core mission to carry out scientific work that bolsters lives, careers, and the overall wellbeing of communities across rural America. As Oregon’s climate changes, farmers are being exposed to emerging pest and disease threats, which could wipe out entire crops or even threaten human health. Climate change is a scientifically established threat to agricultural productivity, food security, and rural economies.

The lawmakers continued, “The American people deserve transparency and integrity from federal research agencies, not political interference and outright censorship. The farmers and ranchers who rely on sound science to navigate environmental and economic challenges should not have their livelihoods undercut by unscientific, bureaucratic gatekeeping. Critical research proposals to reduce pollution, increase irrigation efficiency, or address emerging pest and disease threats should not be denied solely because they used a word that Donald Trump does not like.”

Joining Wyden, the letter is cosigned in the Senate by Senators Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawai’i, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Peter Welch, D-Vt., Tina Smith, D-Minn., Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Joining Salinas, Pingree, and Tokuda, the letter is cosigned in the House by Representatives Janelle Bynum, D-Ore., Ed Case, D-Hawai’i, Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., Angie Craig, D-Minn., Jim Costa, D-Calif., Shomari Figures, D-Ala., Valerie Foushee, D-N.C., Jared Huffman, D-Calif., Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., Betty McCollum, D-Minn., Eleanor Norton, D-D.C., Jimmy Panetta, D-Calif., Terri Sewell, D-Ala., Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Maxine Waters, D-Calif.

Wyden demands immediate answers clarifying the implications of this politically motivated censorship to the following questions no later than April 18, 2025:

  1. Has the USDA conducted any review to determine whether this policy violates federal transparency laws, scientific integrity policies, or anti-discrimination statutes? If so, please share the documentation. If not, please explain why a review has not been done.
  2. The USDA has confirmed the existence of the ARS memo that has been publicly reported. Please provide any other lists of key words that the USDA is using to evaluate federal agreements, contracts, grants, loans, and other programs.
  3. For each list provided under question 2, please explain the purpose of each list, including any relevant laws, regulations, Executive Orders, or memoranda that the USDA is seeking to comply with.
  4. What safeguards have you put in place to ensure that these restrictions do not lead to biased or politically motivated decision-making at the expense of merit, scientific integrity, and public welfare?
  5. Have these restrictions resulted in the rejection of agreements that would have directly benefited farmers, food supply security, or rural economies? If so, what processes does the USDA have in place to allow for the appeal of decisions and evaluations made based off key word lists for federal agreements, contracts, grants, loans, or other programs? Provide an itemized list of all agreements under all impacted programs that were rejected because they included one or more of these banned terms, as outlined in the directive, as well as a full justification for each rejection.
  1. In the case of the ARS banned word list, if an ongoing research agreement is focused on biofuels, for example, the ARS website lists 29 research projects containing the word biofuel.[3] Will funding for these projects be revoked? Will ongoing research be halted? Will USDA require projects to rephrase their contracts? If a project cannot be rephrased without using a banned word, will the contract be terminated?
  2. What are the consequences for researchers or other agency employees who identify serious risks related to any of these banned terms, such as, for example, the expanded range of certain pests and diseases due to changing climate conditions, or nitrate contamination in the drinking water supply from fertilizer runoff?
    1. Will research proposals and agreements to address these critical issues – and others that include banned terms – be considered under this policy?
    2. If so, through what process are they getting around the banned terms list, and how is that decided? If not, how do you justify such negligence?
    3. Are career scientists, policy experts, and agency staff being pressured to remove or avoid these terms in their work? If not, explain how USDA plans to enforce these restrictions. If so, how does that not constitute political coercion?
  3. Does the USDA deny that climate change, pollution, and the accessibility of federal funding impact the safety and security of the American food supply? If so, provide your justification. If not, then why are these issues being censored?
  4. Will you release all internal communications regarding the creation, justification, and enforcement of this policy to ensure full transparency? If so, when? If not, why?

This year, Wyden led colleagues in demanding a halt to the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to roll back decades of scientific findings on greenhouse gases. In February, Wyden called on the U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to reverse harmful firings at the USDA that have harmed Oregon farmers and families.

The text of the letter is here.

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