This EPA research program just got a rave scientific review. Trump wants to eliminate it.

A report released Thursday by the National Academy of Sciences — and prepared at the request of the EPA — argues that the agency’s Science to Achieve Results, or STAR, program, which provides millions of dollars in funding for scientific research each year, has contributed to important benefits for the environment and the public health. And it recommends that the agency continue to use it.“This report shows that through STAR, EPA has created a vehicle that fosters collaboration and knowledge-sharing, which have produced research that has supported interventions that may reduce the cost of regulations, protect public health, and save lives,” the document states.STAR is just one of dozens of EPA programs that would be defunded under the Trump administration’s proposed 2018 budget, which has sparked outrage among scientists and environmentalists alike. Total cuts would amount to about $2.4 billion annually, or nearly a third of the agency’s budget. On Thursday, testifying before a House appropriations subcommittee, Pruitt spoke in favor of the proposed cuts, highlighting his support for the elimination of “redundancies and inefficiencies.” In justifying the proposed STAR program cut, the EPA’s proposed 2018 budget document explains that the program “funds research grants and graduate fellowships in environmental science and engineering disciplines through a competitive solicitation process and independent peer review. EPA will prioritize activities that support decision-making related to core environmental statutory requirements, as opposed to extramural activities.”But according to the National Academy of Sciences review, the STAR program is no redundancy. Defunding it could harm the future of environmental and health-related research in the United States, said Harold Mooney, an environmental biologist at Stanford University and one of the National Academy of Sciences committee members who helped prepare the report. The program fills “a very important niche, and that is doing solution-based research in environmental biology and public health,” he told The Washington Post