At major US archaeological centres, the buzz at this time of year is typically about some exciting discovery of America's past uncovered on a summer dig. But visitors this year to the Midwest Archaeological Centre in Lincoln, Nebraska, and to the Southeast Archaeological Centre in Tallahassee, Florida, will encounter gloom. These institutions, which for decades have provided archaeological analysis for the US National Park Service and other agencies, may be entering their final days.

The two centres have found themselves among the targets of a plan by the President George W. Bush's administration to privatize as many federal jobs as possible before the November 2004 election (see page 478). The centres serve as premier resources for federal land management, but their advocates fear that they are being privatized precisely because of their wealth of expertise: their studies may delay or halt mining, logging or road-building.

Republicans deny that there is an ideological game afoot, only moves towards more efficiency. But recent experiences invite scepticism. During the process of analysing which jobs might be privatized, a consultant told government administrators that the archaeologists shouldn't be considered for privatization, as the centres' annual budgets are largely based on competitively secured projects. In other words, this is already lean science. But the consultant was told to keep his head down and avoid talking to congressional offices. A Republican Congressman from Nebraska described this appropriately as “a bean-counter doing something senseless”.

An official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) told Nature that they have to consider archaeologists to be the same as laundry workers — not a sentiment likely to inspire confidence among Nature's readership. The OMB, after all, is the driving force behind the administration's privatization plans. Alarm bells should be sounding: the administration's zeal does not bode well for other agencies, with many scientists facing various degrees of privatization, including the National Institutes of Health and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Last week, administration officials backed away from some of their harsher privatization methods in the face of congressional opposition. Congress must continue to expose the Bush administration's privatization plans to tough scrutiny.