The Trump administration aims to cut funding for the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) by more than $1.6 billion relative to last year, according to an internal budget document obtained by 91av. The cuts would include the elimination of the agency’s office focused on climate and weather research.
“Trump’s budget plan for NOAA is both outrageous and dangerous. They’re wholly destroying critical offices, like NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) line office, which is foundational to the agency’s mission to protect life and property,” said US Representative Zoe Lofgren.
Known as a “passback”, the document represents the White House’s initial response to the agency’s requested budget. It does not represent a final funding decision, which would require approval from the US Congress. A spokesperson for Congress’s House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Democratic Staff confirmed the passback documents are authentic.
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A spokesperson for the White House Office of Management and Budget says, “No final funding decisions have been made.” The Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, did not respond to a request for comment.
If these cuts go through, NOAA’s overall budget would see a nearly 30 per cent reduction, losing $1.67 billion for a total operating budget of $4.45 billion. The agency would also lose more than $500 million originally set out by a 2022 bill, all in an effort to “support a leaner NOAA”, according to the documents.
The proposed changes also aim to “refocus” efforts on “conducting leading edge R&D, and collecting essential scientific observations like ocean and weather data to support navigation and forecasting”, according to the documents.
However, fully $1.3 billion of the cuts are focused on NOAA’s National Ocean Service, National Marine Fisheries Service and the office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which is slated on its own to lose $484 million in funding.
Also known as NOAA Research, OAR includes seven laboratories working on improving weather, ocean and climate modelling, and it provides grants to researchers around the country. The cuts would mean NOAA Research would be eliminated as a standalone office, with research programmes remaining after the cuts shifted to other parts of the agency, according to the documents.
“Simply, it’s devastating,” says , a climate scientist who was fired earlier this year from NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, one of the OAR labs. “[OAR] is really the backbone of what goes on at NOAA, both in terms of climate and weather modelling.”
The proposed cuts at NOAA would come on top of widespread firings and resignations, which experts have warned is likely to degrade the quality of weather forecasts. However, funding levels for the National Weather Service, which manages the country’s weather forecasting systems, would remain the same as last year, according to the documents.
But most other NOAA activities would see deep cuts and changes, including no funding for a programme focused on recovering Pacific salmon populations, and an overhaul of work on the next generation of geostationary satellites. NOAA’s office focused on monitoring space weather would be shifted to the Department of Homeland Security.
“In climate change we talk about tipping points,” says Labe. “Here we are approaching a tipping point with support for NOAA.”
