The Trump administration is looking to halve the NOAA workforce, say two former officials of the agency, a member of Congress and a congressional staff member.
The draconian cut, they say — which would reduce the number of NOAA employees from about 12,000 to 6,000 — threatens to cripple an agency that provides climate and weather information across the U.S. economy.
“The goal is to just crush [it] with a hammer, hard blows, and shrink that federal workforce,” said Craig McLean, who served as the assistant administrator of NOAA Research until he retired in 2022 after a 40-year career at the agency. “There really isn’t any consideration about what the mission impact is.”
NOAA’s products include the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center. It manages the nation’s fisheries. Its free streams of data are widely used by scientists, governments and businesses around the globe. NOAA also is one of the world’s leading climate science agencies, which has long made it a target for conservatives and the fossil fuel industry.
