For the federal government, at least, there are highly paid scientific positions. It’s called the “ST” (scientific and technical) pay scale, it can go over $200k and has nice bonus opportunities too ($25k at the discretion of OPM and 35% at the discretion of the president).
However, there are only 470 of these positions in the whole government. Congress allocated the positions through the budget process, so call your representative and suggest they approve more (you could also mention SL, the non-STEM version of ST). Agencies are always asking for more senior-level headcount, the limiting factor is what Congress will approve.