A climate scientist who was demoted by former US President Donald Trump's administration for speaking out is calling for an investigation into his case and calling for changes to human resources policies to prevent similar retaliation against others in the future. Its supporters say proposed reforms to its agency, the US Geological Survey (USGS), and others could help protect science in the event of a second Trump administration, which many fear will be even more effective than the first in excluding science and scientists.

“It's not about what happened to me, it's about what could happen to others,” scientist Virginia Burkett saidNatureand stressed that stronger protections are needed regardless of who wins the US presidential election in November.

Burkett, whose position and salary as chief climate and land use scientist at the USGS was upgraded under President Joe Biden, laid out her allegations in a more than 200-page complaint filed today with a federal whistleblower agency. She is represented by the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization based in New York.

After Trump took office in 2017, Burkett repeatedly opposed what she saw as his administration's damaging policies, including dismantling climate research programs, cutting science budgets and attempting to water down an influential government report on global warming. Burkett says she was demoted from her leadership post at the USGS and then removed from a prominent White House panel that manages the administration's main and multiagency climate program. Now she is calling for an investigation into what she calls “abuse of power and grossly negligent administration” under Trump.

Current officials at relevant agencies declined to comment or did not respond to requests for commentNature, and Trump's science advisor at the time said he did not remember being involved in her case.