Witnesses warn NOAA staffing and research cuts risk forecasting capacity

Ranking Member Amo told the House Science, Space, and Technology Subcommittee on Environment that recent disasters and personnel losses at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) demonstrate an urgent need to shore up research and staffing.

The hearing, Protecting Lives and Property, Harnessing Innovative Technologies to Enhance Weather Forecasting, focused in part on administration budget proposals and recent workforce reductions at NOAA. "This administration has already haphazardly gutted 15% of the National Weather Service's workforce," Ranking Member Amo said during her opening statement.

Why it matters: Witnesses and members said long-term research and the workforce that produces and interprets federal weather data are essential to accurate forecasts, warnings and the development of new technologies. Dr. Waleed Abdalati, director of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, told the committee: "The research component, turns those observations into information." He added that research trains people who turn raw data into operational forecasts.

Several members tied recent extreme events to the need for both improved observations and continued research funding. Dr. John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State climatologist and professor of atmospheric sciences, described programs such as mesonets and the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) as operational tools that grew out of research and said the Weather Reauthorization Act provisions would help sustain them.

Witnesses and members also detailed concrete personnel and program impacts. Ranking Member Amo said that, as of her statement, the administration's 2026 budget proposal would "eliminate funding for NOAA's office of oceanic and atmospheric research, including climate, weather, and ocean labs and cooperative institutes" and "slash NOAA's workforce by an additional 17%" and "extract over $1,800,000,000 from its current budget." Dr. Abdulati and Dr. Nielsen-Gammon warned that pauses in contract funding and hiring freezes had already disrupted cooperative institute work and delayed delivery of tools used by emergency managers and the public.

Committee members and witnesses emphasized that the federal role in research and open data cannot simply be replaced overnight by private-sector activity. Several witnesses said cooperative institutes and federal research laboratories provide training and continuity the private sector typically does not. "It's the talent we train in this domain that ultimately supports the broader enterprise," a witness said.

What happened next: Committee members from both parties called for reauthorization of weather programs and for congressional appropriators to preserve research funding and staffing. No formal actions or votes occurred during the hearing.

Ending: Witnesses asked Congress to protect long-term research funding and cooperative institutes, maintain open access to public weather data, and consider staffing and contracting disruptions when evaluating NOAA's budget and mission.