Ashley Siefert Nunes
WASHINGTON—The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) today delivered an open letter—now updated with more than 3,300 signatory scientists and experts—to congressional leaders and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urging them to halt the ongoing assault on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and restore staffing and funding for the agency so it can continue to deliver on its vital public mission. NOAA is the nation’s foremost science agency, with a mandate that spans oceans, fisheries, climate, space and weather. Signatories to the letter include scientists from all 50 states and 34 countries.
In the weeks since the letter was first dispatched to government decision makers, NOAA has been under an unrelenting barrage of attacks. These have included reckless budget cuts and mass firings (with some probationary employees fired, rehired and then fired again); threats to key data, modeling and monitoring resources; disruptions in critical leases and contracts; degradation in weather forecasting capabilities; and a chilling work environment for remaining agency scientists. NOAA, which was already a lean yet efficient agency, has lost over 2,000 staff (equivalent to 20% of its workforce) to layoffs, buyouts and early retirement packages since January.
More threats loom as the Trump administration seeks catastrophic cuts as part of forthcoming budget negotiations. According to a leaked internal budget memo reported by numerous media outlets, the administration plans to cut significantly more of NOAA’s staff and budget, eliminate NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research division, and scale back on satellite and other monitoring and modeling resources. This premeditated plan of attack was foretold in Project 2025, one of whose chief architects is the current Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought. Congress holds the power of the purse in U.S. democracy, and it has a crucial role to play in what happens next.
“Too many members of Congress are staying compliantly on the sidelines even as the Trump administration takes a wrecking ball to our nation’s foremost science agency,” said Dr. Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS and a letter signatory. “NOAA’s invaluable scientific enterprise has been built up over decades through investments by U.S. taxpayers for the public’s benefit. Local decision makers, communities, meteorologists, first responders, farmers, mariners, and businesses depend on NOAA’s crucial weather and climate data provided free of charge. Congress must do its job: reclaim its constitutional power and limit the worst excesses of this increasingly authoritarian, anti-science and destructive administration.”
The proposed budget memo further details slashing or eliminating the following across the country: all 16 cooperative research institutes, every one of the 10 research labs, all six regional climate centers, $70 million in grants to research universities, and cuts to other critical programs such as the National Coastal Zone Program. If these cuts go forward, they will end, among other things, drought and seasonal forecasting tools that are critical for both U.S. farmers and global markets. The resulting loss of the expertise of dedicated career scientists and other experts is also extremely concerning.
“NOAA’s historic investment in early career scientists has helped the student-to-scientist pipeline flourish, ensuring the United States is able to attract the brightest minds and remain a global leader in climate and weather prediction,” said Dr. Marc Alessi, a climate attribution science fellow at UCS, letter signatory and past recipient of NOAA research grants. “Scientists should feel safe and secure in their curiosity about our climate and weather system, not be painted as enemy number one by an anti-science administration.”
The letter concludes by stating: “A world without NOAA and other leading U.S. science institutions would not only upend decades of invaluable scientific research, but it would also signify an abdication of U.S. leadership in climate science, and an erosion of U.S. status as a scientific powerhouse.”
Letter signers available for media interviews include:
- Dr. Marc Alessi, UCS fellow focusing on climate attribution science
- Dr. Pep Canadell, executive director of Global Carbon Project in Australia
- Dr. Rachel Cleetus, policy director for the Climate and Energy Program at UCS
- Dr. Kerry Emanuel, professor emeritus specializing in tropical meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States
- Dr. Veronika Eyring, professor and chair of climate modeling at the University of Bremen in Germany
- Dr. Joyce Kimutai, climate attribution scientist at the Grantham Institute of Imperial College London in the United Kingdom; climate scientist for the Kenya Meteorological Department
- Dr. Natalie Mahowald, professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University in the United States
- Dr. Michael Mann, presidential distinguished professor and director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States
- Dr. Ben Santer, climate attribution scientist
Additional NOAA related blogposts by UCS scientists and analysts are available here.