Fact Sheets

# Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump is Restoring Gold Standard Science in America

The White House
May 23, 2025

RESTORING GOLD STANDARD SCIENCE IN AMERICA: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to restore Gold Standard Science as the cornerstone of Federal scientific research and rebuild public trust in science.

- Gold Standard Science is:
  - Reproducible, transparent, and falsifiable;
  - Subject to unbiased peer review;
  - Clear about errors and uncertainties;
  - Skeptical of assumptions;
  - Collaborative and interdisciplinary;
  - Accepting of negative results as positive outcomes; and
  - Free from conflicts of interest.
- With this Executive Order, President Trump is directing Federal agencies to align new and existing programs and activities with Gold Standard Science principles.
- This Order reinstates the scientific integrity policies of the first Trump Administration and ensures that science is no longer manipulated or misused to justify political ends, ensures agencies prioritize data transparency, acknowledges scientific uncertainties, remains transparent about the likelihood of future scenarios, evaluates scientific findings objectively, and communicates scientific data accurately.
- The EO charges the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy to work with agency heads to issue guidance for adopting Gold Standard Science principles in 30 days and report their implementation progress within 60 days.
- Agencies will publicly share data, analyses, models, and conclusions associated with scientific and technological information produced or used by the agency.
- Agencies will also transparently acknowledge and document uncertainties, apply a “weight of scientific evidence” approach to decisionmaking, and ensure that scientific communication aligns with rigorous analysis.

A CALL TO EXCELLENCE FOR AMERICA’S RESEACHERS: The Trump Administration encourages American research organizations across academia, industry, and philanthropy to return to core principles of scientific inquiry and align their activities to Gold Standard Science.

- For too long, bureaucratic agendas, political interference, and inconsistent standards have eroded the American people’s trust in science.
- Under the Biden Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) incorporated edits by a teachers’ union into its school reopening guidance, which discouraged in-person learning. This was despite the best available scientific evidence at the time showing that the COVID-19 risk for children was minimal, leading to prolonged closures that harmed students’ education.
- The National Marine Fisheries Service adopted an admittedly flawed “worst-case scenario” projection for the North Atlantic right whale population, which could have devastated the historic Maine lobster fishery had the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals not overturned the opinion for skewing evidence analysis.
- Agencies have relied on the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 to justify climate change policies that hamper the American energy industry, an unrealistic worst-case climate scenario with exaggerated coal use assumptions, which scientists have criticized as misleading.
- The Biden Administration manipulated science to achieve political ends, and conducted subpar science designed to support predetermined outcomes instead of objective science that informed well-designed policies.
- President Trump’s restoration of Gold Standard Science will rebuild the nation’s confidence in science and its use in Federal decisionmaking, and ensure continued American strength and global leadership in technology.
- New scientific integrity policies will:
  - Encourage the open exchange of ideas;
  - Ensure consideration of different or dissenting viewpoints; and
  - Protect employees from efforts to dissuade or prevent consideration of alternative scientific opinions.

USHERING IN AMERICA’S GOLDEN AGE OF INNOVATION: This Executive Order is another step forward in President Trump’s agenda to ensure unquestioned American scientific and technological global dominance.

This Order imposes the highest standards of scientific rigor on both the development and use of science by Federal agencies to restore public trust and ensure that policymaking follows, or adequately addresses, scientific findings, for demonstratable positive outcomes for the American public.

Since inauguration, the President has taken significant action to:

- Define America’s key scientific priorities in artificial intelligence, quantum information science, nuclear technology, and biotechnology.

- Secure trillions of dollars in U.S.-based technology and research & development investments.

- Create new educational and workforce development opportunities in artificial intelligence technology for America’s youth.

Improve the safety and security of biological research.

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