The 2025 Plan to Dismantle NOAA
About one year ago, I was contacted by staff on the Hill concerned by a piece of legislation focusing on NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. NOAA’s mission is threefold:
1. To understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean and coasts;
2. To share that knowledge and information with others; and
3. To conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.
NOAA is instrumental in researching climate change and its impacts. Earlier this week, we discussed NOAA’s billion dollar project. I’ve also worked with NOAA staff on prior research related to future extreme flooding of Superfund sites. The agency also studies endangered and threatened marine life and informs conservation plans. It also is responsible for forecasting weather. The agency does a lot is the point I’m making here - it is an incredibly important science-based agency.
Ok, back to the piece of legislation I was discussing earlier.
The legislation, the NOAA Organic Act, sought to make NOAA an independent agency (like the EPA). For those who don’t know, NOAA has a parent agency, the Department of Commerce, and NOAA is bound to Commerce in certain aspects, although which aspects can be confusing. For example, when former President Trump used a sharpie to draw an incorrect path for Hurricane Dorian, NOAA issued a statement backing the president that ran contrary to predictions of its own National Weather Service. Subsequent investigations found scientific integrity violations by officials at NOAA and the Department of Commerce. Yet, no one was held accountable. One of the reasons given as to why some of the accused couldn’t be held accountable was that NOAA’s scientific integrity policy didn’t apply to Commerce.
Given the above example, one might understand why giving NOAA its independence and autonomy would be so lucrative. But after speaking with some NOAA employees last year during my review of this piece of legislation, there were lots of concerns expressed. One of the major concerns was funding - that NOAA’s funding is more secure having a parent agency. The other major concern was that the piece of legislation wanted to restructure NOAA and that might set a precedent for fragmentation of the agency.
The NOAA Organic Act, if passed, would have initiated a study to determine if NOAA’s ESA (Endangered Species Act) functions should be transferred to the Department of Interior, who handles ESA implementation. Essentially, this study could have ended up with the National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) in NOAA moving under the Interior Department. NOAA employees that I spoke with at the time thought this could set a precedent for Congress to begin moving other NOAA programs out of the agency’s jurisdiction. One program that NOAA employees were particularly concerned about being moved out was The National Weather Service (NWS).
Concerns about the NWS are not unfounded - many individuals and organizations have attempted to dismantle the NWS for decades. Why? To privatize weather forecasting - for money, of course. In 1983, for example, former NOAA administrator under President Reagan, John V. Byrne, proposed selling all of the agency’s weather satellites with the intent to purchase data from contractors who planned to purchase NOAA’s satellites. *insert facepalm* In 2005, Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum, tried to prevent the NWS from distributing free weather data to the public through the introduction of the National Weather Service Duties Act of 2005. The bill received enormous pushback, particularly from emergency management officials who depend on NWS data to do their job to keep people safe. In 2017, former President Donald J. Trump nominated Barry Myers to serve as NOAA’s administrator. As the CEO of accuweather, Mr. Myers has long been an advocate of privatizing weather forecasting. His nomination never made it to a floor vote (thank goodness).
So, of course, here we are again in the year 2024 with more plans to dismantle NOAA and privatize the NWS. This time coming from Project 2025 (see below readings to get more information on this roadmap for a next Trump administration). The roadmap’s plans for NOAA are not subtle, “The National Oceanographic [sic] and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”
Further Reading on Project 2025
How Project 2025 will reverse climate change progress by Andy Rosenberg
Project 2025’s plans to sideline science at the EPA by Jacob Carter
Project 2025’s strategy to eliminate experts for federal agencies by James Goodwin
In a story by The Guardian, which SciLight’s own Andy Rosenberg was quoted in, reporter Dharna Noor notes that Project 2025 specifically targets NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Written by Thomas Gilman, a former Chrysler executive who during Trump’s presidency was chief financial officer for Commerce, he says the office produces “theoretical” research that is a source of NOAA’s “climate alarmism.”
Aye, there’s the rub. No surprise that the Project 2025 folks take issue with climate change research.
I think myself, and probably most of you reading this, can agree that this all is silly. Climate change is of course real, hurting people and the environment now, and will become worse if we don’t take action now - it is something to be alarmed about. Providing accurate weather forecasting to the public is incredibly important for people’s safety - we just had a swath of tornadoes sweep the Midwest - and privatizing these services would harm that primary function of safety. Some people can’t afford another bill for another basic necessity.
But while these things may seem silly to me or you, they could become very real in the near future. The Trump campaign recently made plans to sit down and talk with groups who authored Project 2025. As I have said before, and I’ll say it again, people need to know what’s in Project 2025. I hate writing about it but I’m hoping it reaches some folks who didn’t know about it before and now do. I can’t imagine our government, our safety, without NOAA’s vital work - we simply cannot let these plans come to be.