President Trump's Address to Congress

STEM
Society
Environmental and Science Education
State of the Union
by Edward Hessler


For the past seven years the National Academies of Sciences has provided an annotated guide to State of the Union addresses. The annotations are to reports published by the NAS.

This year the President's address was to a joint session of congress. A president's address during his (so far in the United States) first year in office is never called a State of the Union address.

One of the reasons I like these in contrast to other annotations which focus on facts and other matters of the address, is that these show the relationship to policy and science as reflected by reports prepared by the NAS. Many of these reports are developed at the request of members of congress. Absent, of course, from the president's remarks was any mention of global climate change.

By the way, I'm always surprised by how quickly all of the various reports are produced. National Public Radio journalists provided a thorough review.