Trump Is Gutting Weather Science and Reducing Disaster Response
As a warming planet delivers more extreme weather, experts warn that the Trump administration is dismantling the government’s disaster capabilities.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/13/...e_code=1.WE8._i2f.-svRRtDG7DpR&smid=url-share
“… Mr. Trump’s budget proposal for the next fiscal year would close 10 laboratories run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that research the ways a warming planet is changing weather, among other things. That work is essential to more accurately predicting life-threatening hazards. Among the shuttered labs would be one in Miami that sends teams of “hurricane hunters” to fly into storms to collect critical data. The proposed budget would also make major cuts to a federal program that uses river gauges to predict floods.
The president is also envisioning a dramatically scaled-down Federal Emergency Management Agency that would shift the costs of disaster response and recovery from the federal government to the states. The administration has already revoked $3.6 billion in grants from FEMA to hundreds of communities around the country, which were to be used to help these areas protect against hurricanes, wildfires and other catastrophes. About 10 percent of the agency’s staff members have left since January, including senior leaders with decades of experience, and another 20 percent are expected to be gone by the end of this year.
… National security and disaster management experts agreed that FEMA — or any federal agency — could be improved but they said the chaotic changes the Trump administration is making to FEMA, as well as other parts of the government, are harmful….”
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The president is preparing to deal another blow to weather forecasting in his spending plan for next year, which would cut funding for NOAA by another $2 billion, or 27 percent. On the chopping block would be the agency’s entire
scientific research division, one of the world’s premier weather and climate research centers, preventing the creation of new weather forecasting technologies.
Ten laboratories across the country are also slated to be closed, including the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla. Founded in 1964, the lab created a tool to improve the accuracy of flash flood forecasts across the country — the same tool that correctly predicted the Guadalupe River’s rise after the floods hit Central Texas.
Mr. Trump also wants to shutter the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, which deploys “hurricane hunters,” or specialized aircraft and crew members who fly directly into storms to collect critical data like wind speed, temperature and humidity. Forecasters use this data to predict a storm’s intensity and where it is likely to make landfall.
… Mr. Trump’s sweeping domestic policy and tax law, which Congress passed this month, also rescinds about $60 million in unspent funds at NOAA for atmospheric, climate and weather research. That money had been part of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, the Biden administration’s signature climate law.
That cut was inserted into the legislation by the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas.
Macarena Martinez, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cruz, said that the rescinded money had “nothing to do with weather forecasting.” Instead, she said the funds were supposed to be used “for ‘heat awareness’ campaigns, ‘green collar’ jobs” and other programs.
… At the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Mr. Trump wants to halve funding for earth science and terminate satellites that have been collecting data on the atmosphere, ocean, land and ice for more than two decades.…”
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