This is Science Friday. I'm Flora Lichten. One of the signature moves of the current presidential administration is widespread cuts to departments and programs that, in the government's view, do not align with current administration priorities. This has been especially noticeable in areas like public health, global aid, and science.

Grants funded by the National Science Foundation this year are less than half of what they have

been in previous years, its lowest funding level in decades. Here to tell us more is Katrina

Miller, a science reporter for the New York Times. Welcome to

Science Friday. Hi, happy to be here. You've written a lot about these cuts to science funding,

especially at the NSF. Let's start with a big picture view. Yeah, so the National Science Foundation

is one of the largest funders of scientific research in the United States.

And since the Trump administration took office, the NSF has undergone a flurry of changes in

attempt to comply with its new policies and priorities. And much of that change has amounted

to very sharp cuts in funding at the agency. More than 1,600 active research grants

have been cut short. So that's about $1.4 billion of funding. And the NSF is now awarding new

grants at its slowest pace this year in more than three decades. This week, 16 states brought

a lawsuit challenging these cuts. Tell us about it. So on Wednesday, a group of

attorney generals across the U.S. sued the NSF for one, terminating grants related to broadening

participation of marginalized groups in STEM, but also for attempting to implement a 15%

cost cap on indirect research expenses. That covers things like keeping lab spaces clean,

keeping them maintained, administrative work, pretty much any other cost that's not directly related

to the goal of the scientific project itself. We reached out to the NSF about this most recent

lawsuit for our coverage of it this week, but they declined to comment.

What's the legal basis for the challenge?

So since at least the 1980s, Congress has directed the National Science Foundation to support

activities that brought in the participation of women and minorities in STEM.

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