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.
00:00Thank you to the chair and ranking member and thanks to our witnesses for
00:05being here. I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague that we need to work in a
00:12bipartisan way to have solutions on weather prediction and meteorologists. I
00:18do not believe in finger-pointing but I do believe in using data and I do
00:24believe 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
00:33and break things that we are staffed up and are able to really understand the
00:40impact of some of the freezes and different things that we are dealing
00:43with. In particular I represent the sixth district of Maryland and communities
00:49across the country including my native state of Idaho but my own constituents
00:54in Allegheny and Garrett counties experienced devastating floods two
00:57months ago. Effective weather forecasting and emergency response teams saved
01:02hundreds of students and staff from Westernport Elementary in May. Sadly in
01:08Texas that did not happen, heartbreakingly so, but they actually credit the
01:14emergency weather service for saving those children. They were about to let
01:18them go at dismissal time and they kept them in the building. They wothers rose
01:23from the first floor to the second floor to the third floor but they were
01:27rescued by boat and there was not one injury and it was because of the
01:32prediction services that happened. As we've heard today partnership lies at the
01:36heart of our nation's ability to predict and respond our partnership not
01:40partnership relies at the heart of the ability to respond to severe weather
01:44emergencies and collaboration between academia and governments and private
01:48industry is very important for forecasting data. I was privileged to work in the
01:54Biden administration at NTIA but I actually visited NOAA's headquarters and
01:59also their Boulder Colorado facility and I was never more impressed by many of
02:05the meteorologists there and what they were able to do. So I'm going to ask just a
02:11couple 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
02:18Weather Service. Just ask our panelists, these institutes represent 50% of NOAA's
02:24research workforce and as we heard the FY 26 budget would zero that out. How I know
02:31you've talked a little bit about it but how would the weather services, whether
02:34service 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?
02:48So the open free data access is really a bedrock of getting the most out of the
03:00investments thus far. Cooperative institutes, I'm a director of one, the largest one, play a key
03:08role in that but ultimately it comes down to the government policies that either
03:14dictate or enable the production of and release of that data for and making it
03:22publicly 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
03:31so, you know, developing higher level products that people can access and I can't
03:38stress enough, it is a partnership with federal employees that ultimately draws the
03:43best from both the federal side and the university side to put forward this data and
03:50this information. For the benefit of certainly the American people, people in our state, people
03:58all 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.
04:07I think that's great. You know what, I am going to, I think that was a perfect answer.
04:11I'm going to ask one more before I run out of time. A number of our institutions like the
04:16University of Maryland Center for Environmental Studies are CI consortium members, training the next generation of
04:21client scientists. How will our ability to predict and respond to emergency 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 entities ultimately draw from.
04:40We're experiencing that directly right now in Boulder where a very successful enterprise that was undertaken by the federal side and the university
04:51side is being taken over by a commercial entity. So that development of capability is huge for precipitating commercial activities. But the biggest contribution is in the talent pipeline.
05:06The federal employees usually start out at cooperative institutes. It's kind of an audition period. But looking far into the future, it's the talent we train in this domain that ultimately supports
05:21the broader enterprise. Thank you.
05:25Congressman, may I respond to the previous question briefly?
05:28Sure. So I just want to say that I totally agree from a scientific research standpoint and an operational standpoint.
05:36You know, providing that data on a free and open basis, making sure that the American public receives the forecast as a public good is critical.
05:43I will say that on the commercial side, things have evolved a little bit in the sense that, you know, while that operational forecast, free and open,
05:50we totally agree. The raw data coming out of our satellites, for example, has become an important commodity of our industry.
05:57Yeah. And we're able to raise, you know, significant private capital, take on significant risk and really invest in these systems because we have a dual use.
06:05We can sell to governments. We can sell to the commercial sector. And so really empowering NOAA to be able to negotiate and create those licensing agreements to protect that upstream data is critical to make sure that the commercial industry can continue to innovate like this.
Be the first to comment