The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) filed Freedom of Information Act requests to the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to publicly release all of its communications about its plans to restructure the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), a world-leading research institution that the Trump administration wants to dismantle.
The information requests were necessary, according to UCS, because a spokesperson for NSF said recent proposals and comments about the future management of NCAR received by the agency would not be made public. Those submissions were made in response to a "Dear Colleague Letter" sent out in January by NSF, which oversees the research center, soliciting proposals on how to restructure NCAR’s critical weather infrastructure.
UCS submitted its own comments last week asserting that the Trump administration’s plan to dismantle NCAR would undermine one of the nation’s most important scientific institutions.
“NCAR represents one of the most successful models of federally supported scientific infrastructure in the United States,” wrote UCS scientists Dr. Carlos Martinez and Dr. Marc Alessi. “UCS strongly urges NSF to preserve NCAR as an intact national research center.”
The UCS public information requests also include any NSF communications regarding NCAR with the White House’s Office of Management and Budget as well as with Lynker, a Virginia firm whose chief executive told the New York Times that it submitted a proposal to take over management of the NCAR’s High Altitude Observatory. U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo, formally asked the NSF inspector general last week to review allegations from a whistleblower that Trump administration officials began negotiating the transfer of the center’s space weather program to a private company in January, well before the reorganization review was completed.
Meanwhile, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), which manages NCAR, filed a lawsuit yesterday against the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies for “adverse actions” taken against the research center over the last several months.
“These actions pose a direct threat to national security, public safety, and economic prosperity and risk setting back the country’s global leadership in weather and space weather modeling and forecasting,” UCAR wrote in a statement. “We are hopeful that this lawsuit will reverse the agencies’ recent actions and prevent future agency decisions.”
The NSF renewed its cooperative agreement with UCAR three years ago to manage the center through 2028 with full support and no expressed objections.
UCS President and CEO Dr. Gretchen Goldman previously wrote a letter to the NSF asking that the cooperative agreement be made public so the scientific community and people across the country can assess the proposed reorganization of the research center. UCS also filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for access to the agreement.