April McClain Delaney Accuses Trump Of Trying To 'Defund And Break Things' With His NOAA Cuts

5 months ago

During a House Science, Space and Tech Committee hearing in July, Rep. April McClain Delaney (D-MD) spoke about President Trump's cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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00:00Thank you to the Chair and Ranking Member and thanks to our witnesses for being here.

00:06I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague that we need to work in a bipartisan way to have solutions

00:15on weather prediction and meteorologists. I do not believe in finger pointing but I do believe in

00:23using data and I do believe that we do need to solve problems with our latest technology and

00:28best resources but we also need to make sure that we before we start to defund and break

00:34things that we are staffed up and are able to really understand the impact of some of the

00:41freezes and different things that we are dealing with. In particular I represent the sixth district

00:47of Maryland and communities across the country including my native state of Idaho but my own

00:53constituents in Allegheny and Garrett counties experienced devastating floods two months ago.

00:58Effective weather forecasting and emergency response teams saved hundreds of students and staff from

01:04Westernport Elementary in May. Sadly in Texas that did not happen, heartbreakingly so, but they

01:11actually credit the emergency weather service for saving those children. They were about to let

01:18them go at dismissal time and they kept them in the building. The waters rose from the first floor to

01:25the second floor to the third floor but they were rescued by boat and there was not one injury and it

01:31was because of the prediction services that happened. As referred today partnership lies at the heart of our

01:37nation's ability to predict and respond our partnership not partnership relies at the heart of the ability to

01:43respond to severe weather emergencies and collaboration between academia and governments

01:48and private industry is very important for forecasting data. I was privileged to work in the Biden

01:54administration at NTIA but I actually visited NOAA's headquarters and also their Boulder Colorado

02:02facility and I was never more impressed by many of the meteorologists there and what they were able to do.

02:08So I'm going to ask just a couple of things. I know that we have highlighted the importance of NOAA's

02:14cooperative institute CIs and how they're the backbone of the national weather service.

02:20Just ask our panelists, these institutes represent 50% of NOAA's research workforce and as we heard the

02:27FY26 budget would zero that out. How I know you've talked a little bit about it but how would the weather

02:33other services whether service ability to provide open free data be impacted if they are closed and

02:41if is there anything we can do to mitigate this against this landscape.

02:53So the open and free data access is really a bedrock of getting the most out of the investments thus far.

03:02Cooperative institutes, I'm a director of one, the largest one, play a key role in that but ultimately

03:09it comes down to the government policies that either dictate or enable the production of and release of

03:20that data for and making it publicly available. What I will say though is it is employees at the cooperative

03:27institutes in partnership with our federal colleagues that do the work that make it so you know developing

03:33higher level products that people can access and I can't stress enough it is a partnership with federal

03:41employees that ultimately draws the best from both the federal side and the university side to put forward

03:49this data and this information for the benefit of certainly the American people, people in our state,

03:58people all over the world ultimately. The data have value that are most fully realized when it's

04:05most accessible and we play a key role in that. I think that's great. You know what I am going to,

04:10I think that was a perfect answer. I'm going to ask one more before I run out of time. A number of our

04:14institutions like the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies are CI consortium members

04:20training the next generation of client scientists. How will our ability to predict and respond to

04:27emergency be impacted if these CIs close and how do we see our workforce for the next 10 years?

04:32Sure, the CIs are really feed into the federal workforce, develop the talent that the commercial

04:38entities ultimately draw from. We're experiencing that directly right now in Boulder where a very successful

04:47enterprise that was undertaken by the federal side and the university side is being taken over by a

04:55commercial entity. So that development of capability is huge for precipitating commercial activities,

05:03but the biggest contribution is in the talent pipeline. The federal employees usually start out at

05:09cooperative institutes. It's kind of an audition period, but looking far into the future, it's the

05:17talent we train in this domain that ultimately supports the broader enterprise. Thank you.

05:24Congressman, may I respond to the previous question? Sure.

05:28So I just want to say that totally agree from a scientific research standpoint and an operational

05:35standpoint, you know, providing that data on a free and open basis, making sure that the American

05:40public receives the forecast as a public good is critical. I will say that on the commercial side,

05:45things have evolved a little bit in the sense that, you know, while that operational forecast free and

05:50open, we totally agree. The raw data coming out of our satellites, for example, has become an important

05:56commodity of our industry. And we're able to raise, you know, significant private capital, take on

06:02significant risk and really invest in these systems because we have a dual use. We can sell to governments,

06:07we can sell to the commercial sector. And so really empowering NOAA to be able to negotiate and create

06:13those licensing agreements to protect that upstream data is critical to make sure that the commercial industry

06:18can continue to innovate like this. Thank you. Excellent point. I yield back.

April McClain Delaney Accuses Trump Of Trying To 'Defund And Break Things' With His NOAA Cuts

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