Trump Cuts Threaten Key NOAA Work to Improve Weather Forecasts and Monitor Toxic Algal Blooms
The Trump administration has proposed gutting NOAA’s cooperative institutes, which study everything from improving lifesaving weather forecasts to monitoring fish stocks
CLIMATEWIRE | Researchers in Oklahoma are hard at work on a new lifesaving weather forecasting system. In Michigan, they’re keeping tabs on toxic algae blooms. In Florida, they’re studying tropical cyclones by flying into the hearts of hurricanes.These are just a handful of the hundreds of research projects ongoing at NOAA’s cooperative institutes, a network of 16 science consortiums involving 80 universities and research institutions across 33 states.But many CI scientists are worried their work — and their jobs — may soon be on the chopping block.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.A new proposal from the White House Office of Management and Budget would dramatically reorganize NOAA and gut most of its climate research programs in fiscal 2026. Part of that plan includes terminating funding for NOAA’s cooperative institutes and its 10 laboratories, which are heavily staffed by CI researchers.The plan, presented last week in an OMB document known as a “passback” memorandum, is technically still hypothetical. While passbacks typically outline the priorities eventually included in the White House’s budget proposal each fiscal year, Congress must ultimately approve the president’s request.But even if Congress rejects the cuts that the Trump administration proposes for fiscal 2026, experts worry that funding for the remainder of fiscal 2025 is still in question.“Once a certain amount of damage is done, it's not recoverable.” —Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)Congress last month passed a continuing resolution to avert a shutdown and fund the government through the end of the current fiscal year. But the bill provides little guidance for agencies on how exactly they must use their funds.“The administration can largely move money however it wants within the agency,” said Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) housed at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “That's the authority Congress afforded them by not articulating more detail in its agency budgets.”In theory, some experts say, that means the Trump administration could direct agencies to shuffle their funds in ways that would diminish or eliminate programs previously funded in fiscal 2024.And the OMB passback suggests exactly that: directing NOAA to align its 2025 spending with the plan laid out in the memo — even though that proposal has not yet been approved by Congress.“OMB expects that the Department will exercise all allowable authorities and flexibilities to align the 2025 operating plans with the 2026 Passback,” the document states.There’s no indication that NOAA has yet complied. And it’s unclear whether this direction would legally sidestep Congress’ authority to direct the appropriation of funds.But if the agency began implementing the passback’s plan this year, a broad swath of programs could see their funding suddenly curtailed — including the cooperative institutes.Meanwhile, some CIs across the country have not yet received any of their 2025 funds. Some are still waiting on some of their 2024 money, due to a variety of payment delays. Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — head of the agency that houses NOAA — is personally reviewing all funding commitments above $100,000.“The money is very slow in coming, and a number of institutes are at great risk of not having the funding after a couple months from now,” Abdalati said. “If that's the case, we’re required to either lay off or furlough people until the money comes.”Even if Congress restores funding for 2026, cuts and layoffs in the near term would be devastating, he added. Long-term datasets would be disrupted. Many staffers likely would seek new jobs, taking their knowledge and experience with them.“Once a certain amount of damage is done, it's not recoverable,” Abdalati said.Meanwhile, CI directors say even short-term interruptions in their research could threaten the safety of the communities they serve.CIGLR — the Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, housed at the University of Michigan — keeps tabs on toxic algae in lakes Erie and Huron, where nearby communities are well acquainted with the dangers. A harmful algal bloom sparked the Toledo water crisis of 2014, in which 400,000 residents in and around the Ohio city had no safe drinking water for two days.Eden Rogers, 13, uses a stick to try and scoop algae off the shoreline as the shadows of her sisters Brittany Rogers, 27, and Danielle Rogers, 24, with Danielle's toy Australian Shepherd, Barniby, walk the beach at Maumee Bay State Park in Oregon, Ohio on Sunday, August 3, 2014. The sisters, who grew up in the Toledo area, said they came to the beach to look at the Algae bloom, along the shore of Lake Erie, which has rendered the city of Toledo under a State of Emergency after a toxin from the algae polluted the city water supply rendering about 400,000 people in the Toledo area without useable water.Ty Wright for The Washington Post via Getty ImagesBut because of the ongoing funding delays, “we're looking at having to lay off a substantial number of our workers in the next few months,” said CIGLR director Gregory Dick.And it’s possible the institute will have to halt its algal monitoring program. If that’s the case, the region may be less equipped to predict and prepare for events such as the Toledo water crisis.“One of my big fears is that we'll be more vulnerable to such incidents,” Dick said, adding that the program “seems like it's in limbo — it's complete uncertainty.”From the sea to the skyThe cooperative institutes are one part of NOAA’s broader research ecosystem and just one of many proposed cuts across the department.The passback memo calls for the elimination of NOAA’s entire Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which facilitates a variety of Earth system studies. Alongside the CIs, OAR houses 10 laboratories and a number of other programs including its global ocean observing and monitoring program; its ocean acidification program; and its Sea Grant program, which partners with 34 universities on marine research and education initiatives.But the CIs play a special role in NOAA science — and in its impact on U.S. communities — experts say.“The CIs are 50 percent of everything we do in research,” said Craig McLean, NOAA’s former top scientist. “They are of equal vitality and importance to the NOAA mission as every NOAA scientist — many of whom have come from the CIs.”The CIs exist via a particular type of federal funding award known as a cooperative agreement, which operates much like a grant but involves close collaboration with federal employees. Each agreement is awarded on a five-year basis, with the potential to renew for another five years. After that, universities must compete again for a new award.Still, many cooperative institutes have been around for decades — CIRES, the oldest and largest, was established in 1967. Many involve multiple university partners and employ dozens or hundreds of staff. And many maintain long-standing data collection programs with major impacts on human societies.CIMAR, for instance — the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research, housed at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa — monitors “basically the entire ecosystem of the tropical Pacific,” said its director, Douglas Luther. That includes everything from the life histories of marine animals to the ocean’s rising sea levels.And CIMERS at Oregon State University — the Cooperative Institute for Marine Ecosystem and Resources Studies — keeps tabs on everything from salmon stock in the Pacific Northwest to the movement of ships in the remote Arctic Ocean. It’s also active in ocean exploration, mapping parts of the seabed where methane reserves or critical minerals may be abundant.[The cuts represent a] "complete sabotaging of American weather forecasting. It would totally change the game in terms of our prediction.” —Marc Alessi, a science fellow with the Union of Concerned ScientistsThese studies help keep the U.S. competitive with other global science leaders, said CIMERS director Francis Chan.“There's a new science race going on,” he said. “People are thinking about what are the different ways of using the ocean.”Other CIs help improve the forecasting tools used by NOAA’s own National Weather Service.Scientists from the Cooperative Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Studies are key members of NOAA’s famed Hurricane Hunter missions, which fly specialized data-collecting aircraft through tropical cyclones.Meanwhile, scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Severe and High-Impact Weather Research and Operations (CIWRO), are developing products to help meteorologists spot dangerous weather events with more advance warning. One of these is Warn-on-Forecast, an experimental system designed to rapidly incorporate radar and satellite observations into a high-resolution model, producing updated forecasts about every 15 minutes.And it’s showing promise.As twisters whirled across the central U.S. last month, amid an outbreak that killed dozens in the Southeast and Midwest, Warn-on-Forecast predictions helped accurately predict a storm track in the Missouri Ozarks with about two hours of lead time, according to CIWRO’s director, Greg McFarquhar.The forecast, combined with other data, prompted National Weather Service staff to contact emergency managers on the evening of March 14 and warn them that long-track tornadoes may be forming. NWS followed up shortly afterward with a Special Weather Statement, narrowing down the tornado tracks to nearby Carter and Ripley counties.When a strong tornado touched down shortly afterward, more than 125 people already had checked in at a nearby Carter County shelter. There were no fatalities reported in the aftermath of the event.Traditional forecasting tools typically predict tornadoes with an average of only 13 minutes of advance warning, according to NOAA. The extra time afforded by new tools like Warn-on-Forecast “makes a huge difference in terms of people being able to get out of the way of these tornadoes,” McFarquhar said.‘A big loss to the American people’With funding delays dragging on and existential cuts looming, scientists say these research projects are all in jeopardy.Some CI directors told POLITICO's E&E News that their institutes likely would shut down without NOAA funding. Larger institutes like CIRES said they might continue to exist in a diminished form — but the loss of NOAA resources would take a huge toll.“We wouldn't be as robust,” said Abdalati, the CIRES director. “And honestly it would be, I think, a big loss to the American people — because we do things that matter, that are important.”Much of the Trump administration’s attacks on NOAA research center on climate science. The conservative policy blueprint Project 2025 referred to the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research as the "source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and called for much of its work to be dissolved — a plan reflected in the OMB passback memo.But CI scientists note their projects delve far beyond climate change research. And many have implications for the economy, national security and competition with countries such as China — priorities the Trump administration has claimed to support.“I think that's the part that worries me,” said Chan, the CIMERS director. “Are people making decisions because they don't have the full picture of what science is doing? If that's the case, we're open to providing information.”The cuts proposed in the OMB passback memo have sparked widespread backlash among science advocates.The American Meteorological Society warned in a statement that eliminating NOAA’s research arm would have “unknown — yet almost certainly disastrous — consequences for public safety and economic health.”The cuts represent a "complete sabotaging of American weather forecasting,” said Marc Alessi, a science fellow with the nonprofit advocacy organization Union of Concerned Scientists. “It would totally change the game in terms of our prediction.”Some lawmakers in Congress have raised similar concerns.Nine Democratic representatives from New Jersey submitted a letter last week to Lutnick decrying the proposed cuts, which they argued would endanger their state and its nearly 1,800 miles of coastline. They expressed particular concern about the proposed elimination of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey. The lab is a leading developer of the atmosphere and ocean models that inform weather forecasts.“Without their work, Americans will not receive accurate weather or tidal predictions, impacting our safety, economy and national security,” the letter stated.Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said in a statement to E&E News that worsening droughts and wildfires across the western United States mean that the "work our scientists and civil servants do at NOAA is essential to U.S. national security and the personal safety and daily lives of Americans.”Colorado is the only state to house two cooperative institutes, and it's home to the largest of the CIs.Despite these kinds of concerns, McLean, the former NOAA top scientist, said the response from Congress hasn’t gone far enough. Some CIs — like the extreme weather-focused institute in Oklahoma — are housed in red states, where Republicans in Congress have so far raised few objections to cuts at NOAA.“On the Republican side, they're cowering behind Trump's voice and they're not raising any alarm,” McLean said. “And they're going to watch many assets and attributes in their states go away.”Reprinted from E&E News with permission from POLITICO, LLC. Copyright 2025. E&E News provides essential news for energy and environment professionals.
