Enjoy accurate weather forecasts while they last. President Donald Trump’s march to drastically downsize the government has reached the nation’s climate and weather agency — threatening to disrupt a wide range of economic sectors that rely on federal weather data, from agriculture and transportation to real estate and even insurance, writes Scott Waldman. The administration is looking to cut NOAA’s 12,000-employee workforce in half, two former officials of the agency, a member of Congress and a congressional staffer told Scott. Democrats expressed concern today that billionaire Elon Musk, who heads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, may also try to take control of the National Weather Service. Musk owns the largest satellite fleet in orbit — through his company SpaceX — and would stand to gain from privatizing the weather service, writes Garrett Downs. The agency operates an array of satellites, buoys, balloons and radar installations. The tech mogul’s bureaucracy-slashing band of volunteers has moved deeper into the nation’s federal agencies, accessing sensitive data, cutting programs and putting personnel on leave. Its officials visited NOAA headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, last week. Reducing NOAA’s staff and commercializing national weather forecasting is in line with recommendations detailed in Project 2025, a conservative wish list written as a playbook for a second Trump administration. It calls for NOAA to be “broken up and downsized” largely because of its climate change research, and says the weather service “should fully commercialize its forecasting operations” — whatever that means. The Project 2025 authors contended that private companies such as AccuWeather offer more reliable forecasts than the NWS does — though their source for that claim was an AccuWeather press release that didn’t even mention NOAA or the NWS. AccuWeather has come out against the Project 2025 plan, with its CEO emphasizing last year that “it has never been our goal to take over the provision of all weather information.” NOAA is one of the world’s top climate science agencies, making it a popular target for fossil fuel proponents. That research helps inform its other functions, which includes managing the NWS, the National Hurricane Center and the nation’s fisheries. Undermining the agency’s ability to operate by decimating its staff could have serious consequences for the economy, said former NOAA official Craig McLean. “The products that NOAA generates are not just so that I know whether my tractor is going to get wet tomorrow and I got to cover it before I plow the field, but what should I be planting next year, and what is this coming season going to do for me,” said McLean, who spent 40 years at the agency, including as assistant administrator of NOAA research. “All that stuff is all based on NOAA outlooks, forecasts, oceanography and atmospheric sciences.” Former NOAA officials told Scott the proposal to cut the agency’s staff in half could be a pressure tactic to encourage employees to accept the administration’s resignation offer, the legality of which is under question. White House, NOAA and DOGE officials did not respond to Scott’s requests for comment.
| 
