For the photo tax, here's our Penstemon neomexicana blooming in the backyard. It's relatively rare in the Sacramento Mountains, but locally abundant in disturbed sites. The Sacramento Mountain Checkerspot relies on this plant as its obligate food source for developing caterpillars. Alas, the Checkerspot appears to be extinct in the wild. The BioPark has a couple surviving larvae in cold storage, trying to learn how to mature them to reproductive adults.
Meanwhile, TCF has rolled out another Executive Order that countermands one of Biden's that countermands one of TCF's first term that reversed one of Obama's.
(iii) each agency head shall promptly revoke any organizational or operational changes, designations, or documents that were issued or enacted pursuant to the Presidential Memorandum of January 27, 2021 (Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking), which was revoked pursuant to Executive Order 14154 and shall conduct applicable agency operations in the manner and revert applicable agency organization to the same form as would have existed in the absence of such changes, designations, or documents.
Each of these orders reads as a fairly sane approach to dealing with Science and the Federal government. In the end, each undoes the work of the previous administration down to its bedrock. The result is government literature adrift in a sea of policy papers disguised as science. With an emphasis on "transparency," TCF is insisting on an emphasis on communicating uncertainty in any federal research. Of course, that opens the door to the misinterpretation of results by conspiracy theorists who want to cast doubt on meaningful research.
One can imagine that this EO will be used to scrub even more climate research from the public record. Probably vaccination and Covid data, too.
<sigh>
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