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A climate scientist who was degraded by the administration of former US President Donald Trump because he commented, demands an investigation of his case and requires changes to personnel policy to prevent similar retaliation against others in the future. Her supporters say that the proposed reforms of their authority, the US Geological Survey (USGS) and others could help to protect science in the event of a second Trump government, which many fear that it will be even more efficient than the first in the exclusion of science and scientists.

"It's not about what happened to me, but about what others could happen," the scientist Virginia Burkett to Nature and emphasized that stronger protective measures are necessary regardless of who wins the US presidential election in November

Burkett, whose position and salary as chief scientist for climate and land use were upgraded at the USGS under President Joe Biden, presented her allegations in a complaint, which was submitted to a federal federal authority for whistleblowers. It is represented by the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, a non -profit organization based in New York.

After Trump took office in 2017, Burkett repeatedly opposed his government's harmful measures, including the destruction of climate research programs, cuts in science budgets and the attempt to weaken an influential government report on global warming. Burkett says that it was degraded by her management position at the USGS and was then removed from a prominent white house committee, which managed the government's main and multi-agency climate program. Now she calls for an investigation of what she describes as "abuse of power and grossly negligent administration" under Trump.

Current officials of relevant authorities rejected it to comment or did not respond to inquiries from nature , and Trump's science consultant At the time he does not remember being involved in her case.