https://www.ecowatch.com/white-house-budget-noaa-climate-research-funding.html

The Trump administration plans to eliminate the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s research arm, close climate and weather labs and slash the budgets of several NOAA offices, internal documents said.

If Congress approves the plan, funding for NOAA’s Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) office would be drastically reduced from $485 million to $171 million, reported The Guardian.

Retired OAR Director Craig McLean told The Guardian the cuts would “compromise the safety, economic competitiveness, and security of the American people.”

One document stated all budgets for weather, ocean and climate labs would be emptied, with that level of funding resulting in OAR being “eliminated as a line office.”

“The elimination of NOAA’s research line office and all of its research capabilities is a crushing blow to the ability of our country to protect our citizens and also to lead the world,” said former NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, who called the recommendations “extraordinarily devastating.”

Under the proposed reductions, more than $324 million would be cut from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), with instructions for the agency to follow administration priorities in its work to “unleash American energy.”

Grants for habitat restoration, conservation and species recovery, as well as the fisheries grant program, would all lose their funding.

The uncertainty at NOAA has been felt all over the world, as researchers from other countries become more concerned about potential interruptions to crucial climate data from the many NOAA Earth-observing missions, Inside Climate News reported.

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