The White House fiscal 2027 budget request, released April 3, proposes cutting the National Science Foundation to $4 billion — a 54.5% reduction from the agency's $8.8 billion fiscal 2026 budget — as part of a $73 billion sweep across domestic agencies to fund a roughly 40% increase, to $1.5 trillion, in defense spending.

For chemistry-reliant labs, the sharpest line item is the NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences: the request allocates $515 million for fiscal 2027, down from $1.562 billion spent in 2025 and an estimated $1.324 billion in 2026. Biological sciences would fall to $225 million from $801 million spent in 2025, engineering to $185 million from $749 million, and geosciences to $426 million from $1.028 billion. The NSF received no dedicated section in this year's request; the figures appear only in appendix tables, a departure from past practice.

Budget director Russ Vought oversaw preparation of the proposal. Fact sheets accompanying it, titled "Cuts to Woke Programs" and "Ending the Green New Scam," target programs related to gender and racial equity, climate change and environmental justice.

The request is an opening position, not an outcome. Congress rejected most of Trump's proposed science cuts for fiscal 2026, and appropriators will again write the final numbers. "Once again, we urge lawmakers to deny the steep cuts proposed to federal R&D funding in the Administration's Budget Request for fiscal 2027," Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said in an April 3 statement. "Funding should be driven by scientific opportunity and possibility, not politics." The Association of American Universities wrote that a 54% NSF cut "would severely weaken our nation's ability to generate new fundamental knowledge" that underpins biotech, information technology and AI industries.

One new NSF line: $100 million for a joint effort with the Department of Energy ($75 million on the DOE side) to improve energy and water security in US regions facing high energy use and drought.

EPA. The Environmental Protection Agency would lose $4.6 billion, a 52% cut to its lowest level since the Reagan administration. Research and development would be held to $277 million for legally required research only — language the White House uses to end what it calls "unrestrained research grants, woke environmental justice work, radical climate research, and skewed, overly-precautionary modeling that influences regulations." The environmental justice programs and the atmospheric-protection (climate) program would be eliminated entirely. The proposal also cuts over $1 billion in categorical grants that help states enforce the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, slashes $2.5 billion from state revolving loan funds, and trims Superfund cleanup by an unspecified amount. "This EPA budget proposal leaves families sicker, not safer," Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, said in an April 3 statement. Congress ultimately cut EPA by only 3.5% for fiscal 2026.

NIH. The National Institutes of Health would take an approximately 10.5% cut, to $41.3 billion. The request eliminates 3 of NIH's 27 institutes and centers — those focused on minorities, international health, and complementary and integrative health — zeroes out the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, merges the alcoholism and drug abuse institutes, and shrinks ARPA-H by 37%. Jeremy Berg, former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, posted that he expects the proposal to be "dead-on-arrival in Congress." But appropriations alone may not translate into grants: an Association of American Medical Colleges analysis from March 24 found NIH has committed far less of its fiscal 2026 budget than normal, and National Cancer Institute branch chief Sarah Kobrin, speaking personally, told reporters that "we can't even trust that what they signed will actually happen." The parent department, HHS, requests $110.5 billion, a 12.5% cut, and proposes a new $17.2 billion Administration for a Healthy America.

FDA. The Food and Drug Administration would receive $7.2 billion, up $232 million, with much of the increase tied to the Make America Healthy Again agenda, including $57 million for food safety. A proposed $71 million would establish a new user fee on foreign food-processing facilities, projected to raise $1 billion a year.

DOE. The Department of Energy gains about 10% overall, but the composition shifts sharply: $3.6 billion more for nuclear weapons work, $3.5 billion for rapid deployment of non-wind, non-solar generation, $1.1 billion for seven AI supercomputers at national labs, and $469 million for critical minerals and energy-water infrastructure. Offsetting this: cancellation of $15.2 billion in renewables and carbon capture funding and an $1.1 billion cut at the Office of Science, which would also redirect resources from climate research toward biotechnology and AI. The proposal cuts US participation in the Iter fusion project in France and shifts those funds to domestic fusion. Net effect: a 12.4% increase for nuclear weaponry and an 11.2% cut for everything else at DOE. The DOE section also proposes a government-wide ban on federal funds for academic journal subscriptions or publication fees.

NOAA and NASA. NOAA faces $1.6 billion in cuts, including elimination of education grants the administration says promoted DEI and "baseless environmental alarm." NASA would receive $18.8 billion, down 23%, with the science mission directorate absorbing a $3.4 billion (47%) reduction. The request lists over 40 mission terminations, naming two: Mars Sample Return, called too costly and redundant with crewed missions, and the SERVIR satellite-data program, accused of imposing "climate extremism on developing countries." The International Space Station would lose $1.1 billion, technology development $297 million, and the Office of STEM Engagement would close entirely. Artemis funding rises to $8.5 billion, including $731 million toward a 2028 crewed lunar landing and $175 million for a lunar base camp.

For R&D managers, the practical question is planning under uncertainty: last year's near-identical request produced modest final cuts — 3.5% at EPA, a small NIH increase — but slower-than-normal grant commitments at NIH suggest the risk now sits in execution, not just appropriation.