Scientists have expressed concern about proposed budget cuts for the 2006 fiscal year, cautioning that scientific research is being “stifled” by the Bush administration.

Panelists at a Feb. 20 national meeting for the American Association for Advancement of Science said fewer qualified scientists were being heard in policy discussions, and some scientists in key federal agencies felt ignored or even pressured to change study conclusions that do not match up with policy positions.

They said the Bush administration places many unqualified scientists in high posts and only allows scientists who share similar viewpoints to be on panels they regularly sponsor.

Laurent Hodges, professor of physics and astronomy, said he has not directly felt pressure to limit or redirect his research, but has heard those comments expressed by several other scientists.

“The Bush administration seems to squelch scientific opinions it doesn’t want to hear,” Hodges said.

John Hauptman, professor of physics and astronomy, said the Bush administration ignores policies it disagrees with significantly more often than any other past administration.

“That’s OK to have your opinion,” Hauptman said. “[However] you’re not a very good global citizen.”

Hodges agreed and said an important issue the administration continues to ignore is global warming.

He said the administration is only listening to the advice of a few people who say global warming is not a serious problem and wishes the administration had made a different decision regarding the Kyoto Protocol.

But according to a March 1 article in The Daily Princetonian, John Marburger III, Bush’s top science adviser, said the Bush administration is concerned with global warming and had taken measures to regulate diesel emissions and invest $4 billion in alternative energy research.

ÿBoth Hodges and Hauptman said the most significant area of research receiving no funding from the federal government is embryonic stem cell research, a controversial issue the Bush administration has openly disagreed with.

The Department of Energy is expected to see a budget cut of 3 percent for its 2006 fiscal year, meaning that physicists at universities and particularly at places like Fermilab — a national science laboratory of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science — would feel a crippling effect, Hauptman said. Taking into account increased costs in materials and labor, it would feel more like 6 percent to 8 percent, he said.

In the article in The Daily Princetonian, Marburger said he wanted Congress to invest in nanotechnology, biotechnology, security spending and the National Institute of Standards and Technology this year.

Marburger said he suggested that government funding could not keep up with the expanding of private research institutions.

“The opportunities [in research] have been expanding faster than the willingness of society to pay,” Marburger said.

Hauptman, who is an experimenter at Fermilab, said several projects at Fermilab have been scratched.

Hauptman said although he is displeased with the budget cuts, they do not come as a surprise because funding always gets cut during a war.