Condemn the Illegal Firing of NOAA and NWS Employees

On February 27th, the Trump administration terminated hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and National Weather Service (NWS). NOAA and NWS employees provide essential services from local weather forecasting to cutting-edge climate research to monitoring and informing the public about severe weather.

NOAA and NWS’ services protect the livelihoods and safety of all Americans. Millions of Americans rely on these agencies to monitor and prepare for increasingly frequent natural disasters like forest fires and winter storms. Industries like shipping, commercial fishing, and aviation depend on their accurate weather forecasts to carry out their work safely. These services save lives not only via forecasts that enable risk mitigation, but with rapid real-time dissemination of information during severe weather events, for example tornado alerts.

Like the Trump administration’s other attacks on federal workers, this latest round of firings is cruel, illegal, and does not address their stated goal of “efficiency”. The NWS and NOAA are not only low cost to taxpayers, they return far more in terms of the huge economic benefits through averted losses. Rebuilding these essential services via the private sector will not only leave a dangerous gap in coverage, but doubtlessly cost more in the long run.

Congress must speak out to condemn these attacks on federal workers, particularly those providing essential information and services during this time of escalating climate crises.