Employees at the embattled US National Science Foundation (NSF), which supports fundamental research, were all set to follow the lead of workers at two other science agencies and publish a statement warning about concerning developments under the Trump administration. But that effort has been indefinitely delayed.

The Alexandria Declaration, named after the agency’s headquarters in Virginia, was expected to be issued on 14 July but is on ‘indefinite hold’, according to Stand Up for Science, which is organising the effort. A leaked version of the NSF document echoes similar concerns to those aired by workers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In early June, several hundred current and former NIH employees signed the Bethesda Declaration, which criticised the leadership of director Jay Bhattacharya, who took the agency’s helm in April. Alan Leshner, the former long-time director of the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse and past chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was among its signatories. Chemistry Nobel laureates also signed the letter, including University of California, Berkeley biochemist Jennifer Doudna, Stanford University’s biorthogonal chemistry pioneer Carolyn Bertozzi, and University of Washington biochemist and protein designer David Baker.

A draft of the NIH document, which reportedly was endorsed by the NIH Fellows United union, apparently expressed several concerns including that the Trump administration halted high-quality, peer reviewed grants and contracts at the agency, dismissed crucial NIH staff, terminated key international research collaborations, and took action to enact a blanket 15% cap on indirect costs that the NIH provides to grantees to cover essential facilities and administrative expenses, which courts have temporarily paused amid an agency appeal.

Bhattacharya responded that the Bethesda Declaration contains ‘some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions NIH has taken in recent months’.

Then, just a few weeks later, current and former EPA employees published their own Declaration of Dissent, which highlighted problems with the leadership of Trump-appointed administrator, Lee Zeldin.

Their concerns included, among other things, the EPA repealing or reconsidering health-based regulatory standards like drinking water limits for four per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances, dismantling its Office of Research and Development, which supports studies that provide the scientific basis for the agency’s rulemaking and other key decision-making, and targeting EPA probationary employees.

In response, Zeldin declared ‘zero tolerance’ for this criticism and reportedly placed 139 of the agency’s workers who signed the document on administrative leave, pending an investigation. Earlier this month, a union representing more than 8000 EPA workers across the US called on Zeldin to reinstate those employees.