During a House Science, Space and Tech Committee hearing in July, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) called out Thomas Cavett, Vice President of Government Affairs and Strategy of Tomorrow.io, who was a witness at the committee's hearing. Cavett said in his written testimony that, according to the Weather Act of 2025 NOAA would "primarily shift to a commercially owned, commercially operated model where the agency manages data flows and forecast outputs for the public good."
00:00Thank you, Chairman Bevin. I now recognize the ranking member of the full committee, Ms. Lofgren, for her questions.
00:05Well, thank you, Chairman Franklin. And as I noted in my opening statement, I am an original co-sponsor of the Bipartisan Weather Act reauthorization of 2025, and it has certainly been my hope that we can act quickly on it.
00:21The private sector is playing an increasingly significant role in weather forecasting. While NOAA is the bedrock of weather data collection, analysis, and provision, the private sector is developing new offerings that combine NOAA's infrastructure, products and services, weather data, incorporate advanced visualization techniques, and take advantage of machine learning.
00:45But challenges remain, including questions around data quality, continuity, open access, and cost-effectiveness in the private sector.
00:55There's a growing need to ensure these partnerships support NOAA's mission without compromising NOAA's role as a trusted provider of free, reliable, and authoritative information.
01:07NOAA, as the federal partner, is the key component of the partnership, and it has the responsibility to gather the observations into forecasts, outlooks, and projections of future conditions to make it readily accessible and to use all this information for the national benefit.
01:25I will say that the testimony did cause me concern the question about the future of NOAA's weather infrastructure that Mr. Cavett described in his written testimony, and his assertion that the Weather Act of 2025 would help create that future was confusing.
01:49In the testimony, it says NOAA can maintain assets in space, but could primarily shift to a commercially-owned, commercially-operated model where the agency manages data flow and forecasts outputs for the public good.
02:04This radical new approach would free up additional resources.
02:09And that's actually, I helped write the bill, and that's not what the bill does.
02:13I think we need to clarify this so that we're all on the same page.
02:21Mr. Cavett did not cite a specific provision in the Weather Act to support that testimony, but let me just read the section that runs contrary to the assertion.
02:52In general, the Undersecretary shall maintain a fleet of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration space-based observation platforms that provide critical operations-focused data and information to support the mission of the administration to monitor the global environment in order to protect lives and property from extreme weather and other natural phenomena.
03:18Section 302 talks about the program establishment, the Undersecretary in coordination with the appropriate offices shall maintain a commercial data program, and that's the pilot project that supports the private sector efforts today.
03:38It goes further to say, however, that the Undersecretary may, not shall, may acquire satellite, ground-based, airborne, or marine-based in-situ remote sensing and the like.
03:51So this is not a radical departure from the current policy.
03:57We do value the fact that the private sector is playing an important role.
04:03We do not deny that, but it is not going to supplant NOAA any time in the near future.
04:10The bottom line of this bill is to ensure that NOAA has the capability to access, buy, and use commercially available data to augment its core observational capability, which is fundamentally a core mission-critical government function.
04:28We were reminded just last week of how critical the National Weather Service's forecasts are of relying on the private sector for that primary role is not an option.
04:39Now, I look forward to sitting down with my friend, Congressman Lucas, to make sure he and I are on the same page.
04:45I think we are.
04:46But I just thought it was important to use my time here instead of asking questions to make sure that the intent of the bill is not misunderstood.
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