weather service up in the air
There are many things that are “up in the air” right now when it comes to how government will function in the near term. One of them is the National Weather Service (NWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are both in the news with “glimmers” of what might yet happen.
To begin with at NOAA there is this from Axios, NOAA told to search grant programs for climate-related terms The terms include "climate," "methane," "nitrous oxide," "greenhouse gas," "climate science," "carbon," the "Paris Agreement," and other terminology.” After the search is done, then what? I expect a number of actions to be taken:
Scrub all departmental webpages of anything to do with the above terms along with of course DEI (which should have already been done).
Layoff all employees with “climate” or anything to do with that specific area of study.
End all departmental climate related research.
Eliminate all climate related algorithms from forecasting programs.
Cancel all grants that have been made to universities or other organizations having to do with climate change or the words above.
Prohibit the use of the words itemized above in any future publications or mentions
Maybe I missed something, but this appears to be the track we are on.
Then, there is this from the New York Times, How Could the Weather Service Change Under Trump? There is a move to privatize government function as much as possible to reduce the federal workforce as a basic premise and also do things cheaper—or at least that is the concept. I did find the article interesting since it gives a brief history of why the NWS was established in the first place, i.e. shipwrecks on the Greatlakes.
As emergency managers will tell you, one of strongest connections to a federal agency beyond FEMA is the NWS. I’ve always maintained a close working relationship with my local office. As noted in the article, “Weather Service is a dispersed operation. Many of its more than 4,000 employees work from 122 forecast offices across the country, where they continuously monitor local conditions, issue multiple daily forecasts and release warnings ahead of dangerous weather.” And, there is this, “The chapter of the Project 2025 document that includes proposals for NOAA describes the agency as a “colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry,” and calls for it to be “broken up and downsized.”It proposes that the Weather Service focus on its data-gathering services and “fully commercialize” its forecasting operations.”
The article goes on to say that President Trump’s nominee to head the Commerce Department, which is where NOAA and the NWS are organized disavows any plan to commercialize NOAA. Then he was quoted as saying, “But in the same exchange with Ms. [Senator] Klobuchar, Mr. Lutnick also appeared to allow for the possibility that the private sector could take up the forecasts that have traditionally been Weather Service work. “I think we can deliver the product more efficiently and less expensively, dramatically less expensively,” he said, “but the outcome of delivering those services should not be changed.”
Enter Elon Musk who appears more intent on decreasing the federal personnel headcount and cutting the cost of government services. The current edition of Time Magazine has a picture of the “Assistant President” Elon Musk pictured as sitting behind the Oval Office “Resolute Desk.” I think, as we have seen so far—he and his operatives are a wildcard in the mix. Who has more power, influence and ability to change things today in Washington, D.C.? The Secretary of Commerce or Elon Musk?
