NOAA's Storm Prediction Center facility among planned DOGE cuts

[Greg Campbell]

How will the Republic survive without NOAA's cartoonists and in-house video department?!

That's it? A snide remark?

Get a clue, Dude. P2025's stated goal is to obliterate NOAA, NWS, and dozens of other essential government organizations. You do a good job of parroting Fox talking points, but seem incapable of addressing the reality of the ongoing insanity.

 

[Boris Konon]

That's it? A snide remark?

Get a clue, Dude. P2025's stated goal is to obliterate NOAA, NWS, and dozens of other essential government organizations. You do a good job of parroting Fox talking points, but seem incapable of addressing the reality of the ongoing insanity.

What a plan states to do/a goal and what actually happens are often two different things. There are no signs or actions currently that NOAA will be "obliterated." The plan now appears to be 20% reduction in work force, and cuts in its budget, but the entire situation is very dynamic and fluid. Given how important and mission-critical many parts of NOAA are (e.g. NWS and NESDIS), I am cautiously optimistic things will work out eventually, esp once the new NOAA director is confirmed.

Using a plan (P2025) that was first drafted up nearly two years ago and treating it as absolute is unwise. Many things change politically, economically, and socially over such a time, so I would caution about simple extrapolation and referencing potentially outdated information/details.

As it has been stated, NOAA, as is with virtually all federal agencies, could be made better. How that is done is of course subject to debate, but I think we can all agree that a thorough examination and audit are a net positive. This may not be apparent short-term or in the here and now, but there is bad social tendency for many focus only on the here and now, react irrationally, and ignore the long-term and the benefits.

 

[Mike Smith]

You do a good job of parroting Fox talking points, but seem incapable of addressing the reality of the ongoing insanity.

Thank you for giving me my laugh of the day!

As to the Fox News comment, I can only conclude they must be reading my blog again as they have in the past. I posted another piece on the NWS/NOAA cuts this morning. Some Thoughts to Start the Week

My blog comments are in addition to all of my comments on StormTrack such as this one earlier today: Firing of 800 NOAA Employees

Perhaps the problem isn't that I am "incapable of addressing" the situation but it is that you aren't bothering to read what I have written before you comment.

BTW: It has come out that in addition to NOAA's cartoon department and in-house video department, they spent $3+ million on outside videographers in the most recent fiscal year. As I said earlier, I think the United States will survive without "NOAAtoons."

 

[John Farley]

As it has been stated, NOAA, as is with virtually all federal agencies, could be made better. How that is done is of course subject to debate, but I think we can all agree that a thorough examination and audit are a net positive. This may not be apparent short-term or in the here and now, but there is bad social tendency for many focus only on the here and now, react irrationally, and ignore the long-term and the benefits.

A thorough examination is fine, but that is not how this process has gone. Starting by firing nearly all probationary employees regardless of their performance or the need for them in their particular office is not the way to start a thorough examination. Hopefully the pressure being generated on this and other irrational mass layoffs (e.g. Forest Service) will force a change to a more rational approach. The NWS had already undergone job losses before the current administration, as some in this thread have been eager to point out, but further cuts, especially when enacted in the way these started out, will affect the ability of the NWS to do its job at some point, if it has not already.

 

[Randy Zipser]

A thorough examination is fine, but that is not how this process has gone. Starting by firing nearly all probationary employees regardless of their performance or the need for them in their particular office is not the way to start a thorough examination. Hopefully the pressure being generated on this and other irrational mass layoffs (e.g. Forest Service) will force a change to a more rational approach. The NWS had already undergone job losses before the current administration, as some in this thread have been eager to point out, but further cuts, especially when enacted in the way these started out, will affect the ability of the NWS to do its job at some point, if it has not already.

Please see the Firing of 800 NOAA Employees thread, Post #18, from March 6th. A blueprint is proposed on how to conduct a patient, thoughtful, rational approach for a top-to-bottom review (i.e., "thorough examination") of any federal agency that has thus far been able to escape the DOGE "chainsaw gang." It may be too late for NOAA/NWS, at least for the recent--and, hopefully, final--round of staffing and service cuts. But, first, those in Congress who can do something to stop this unconstitutional, Executive-order destruction of NOAA and all other federal agencies must hear our pleas that have heretofore been ignored or drowned out by the surrounding daily "noise and chaos" in Washington. Write your Congress persons, please, and keep driving home our common-sense messages about doing cost-cutting the right way...

 

[Mike Smith]

Congress who can do something to stop this unconstitutional, Executive-order destruction of NOAA and all other federal agencies must hear our pleas that have heretofore been ignored or drowned out by the surrounding daily "noise and chaos" in Washington. Write your Congress persons, please, and keep driving home our common-sense messages about doing cost-cutting the right way...

Here's the problem: Congress in general and the R's in particular, suffer from "learned helplessness." They can't even figure out where to go to lunch!

One of the advantages of the NDRB, like the NTSB, is it takes the technical stuff out of Congress lap. Congress knows the NTSB and the CRB are non-partisan and expert. So, it follows their those organizations' recommendations and will do the same with the NDRB. I predict that a decade after the DRB is established, people will wonder how we ever got along without it.

 

[Randy Zipser]

Here's the problem: Congress in general and the R's in particular, suffer from "learned helplessness." They can't even figure out where to go to lunch!

One of the advantages of the NDRB, like the NTSB, is it takes the technical stuff out of Congress lap. Congress knows the NTSB and the CRB are non-partisan and expert. So, it follows their those organizations' recommendations and will do the same with the NDRB. I predict that a decade after the DRB is established, people will wonder how we ever got along without it.

I agree, Mike. But, since the NDRB is not available right now, that, unfortunately, cannot be the immediate solution to stop the oligarchic-led take-over and restructuring of our federal-government agencies at the capreciousness of the current leaders (Trump, Musk) of the Executive branch. Thus, that leaves us only one choice: Congress, inept or not (either party). Only Congress has the Constitutional authority to create, change or abolish federal agencies and only Congress has the sole-responsibility to fund them. Trying to appeal with common-sense to anyone in the Executive branch right now is a total waste of time, IMHO, because their decision-makers will never get such messages, or if they do happen to read them, they will be disregarded. The "bottom-line" is that we, the people, do vote, but what we vote for is not always what actually gets done in reality; the really scary part is that we voters have no real control over our immediate futures (just ask the 1,000+ former NOAA or NWS employees who just a couple of weeks ago got axed with virtually no dismissal notice) and, by extension of that argument, over the future of our country. Unfortunately, in the current circus of Washington, there is no appetite for putting your worthy DRB concept into place; but someday in the future it will exist and be able to implement the kind of solutions that Congress is presently failing. For now, however, I am confident and optimistic that NOAA and the NWS will "weather this storm" (no pun intended), and still be around serving America and the world long after the here-and-now...

 

[Mike Smith]

Absolutely right, Randy.