President Donald Trump [1] is demonstrably unconcerned with the environment. Following through with his campaign commitment to discrediting climate science to promote the fossil fuel industry, Trump's administration has yet to fill the majority of positions at the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The office currently employs only 44 out of the 114 positions [2] that it did in Barack Obama's administration, according to a list obtained by Motherboard — and none of them are climate scientists.
The OSTP was established in 1971 to encourage the president to make more informed policy decisions about science. While Obama was president, the office was responsible for orchestrating the administration's response [3] to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, the 2011 nuclear spill in Fukushima, and the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, reports The New York Times. However, in President George W. Bush's administration, the office only employed 50 people.
Of the positions Trump has filled at the OTSP, none of those include titles with the word "climate." The positions at the OTSP center around technology and assist Trump's innovation effort, which is currently spearheaded by his son-in-law Jared Kushner [5]. There are a few positions that employ scientists, but the titles are vague and it's unclear what they do. Some of those jobs include "natural disaster resilience assistant director" and "senior policy adviser for oceans and the environment."
Though Trump's team has been atypically slow in staffing the White House, the OSTP's vacancies seem to be intentional considering his stance on climate change. If Trump's climate-science-denying Environmental Protection Agency director is any indication of how his administration plans to address global warming, it's safe to say those positions will not be filled any time soon — if ever.