Fool's gold

Already rocked by decades of political interference, corporate influence, mismanagement, and partisan efforts to undermine its authority, the expert bureaucracy, the "lifeblood" of the US administrative state, is now gasping for air. On 23 May, President Trump issued an executive order (EO)-Restoring Gold Standard Science-promising to fix these issues. Instead, the EO is poised to make them far worse: It officially empowers political appointees to override conclusions and interpretations of government scientists, threaten their professional autonomy, and undermine the scientific capacity of research and regulatory agencies.