Trump Administration Slashes Weather Tracking Budget, Imposes Layoffs Just Before Storm Season

by John Silas and Jade Bishop

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) began firing staff, mostly probationary workers, on February 27^th, with the first round being 880 employees. An additional 1,029 were terminated on Thursday (3/13). As part of the effort of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to cut down the federal workforce, gut social services, and impose austerity, the Department of Commerce has cut NOAA funding. DOGE further plans to terminate the leases of 19 NOAA offices which maintain radars for weather forecasting. This follows the general trend of layoffs as the imperialists’ economic crisis deepens.

After the cuts, a “mega storm system” has swept across 7 states, with dust storms, wildfires, and tornadoes leaving devastation and at least 42 people dead in mid-March according to monopoly media.

Many of the layoffs affected the National Weather Service (NWS) and the National Hurricane Center, which the NOAA oversees. According to Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and journalist, about 33% of NWS stations cannot maintain sufficient staffing to safely operate. Many of these affected stations are located in the states hit by the recent storms, including Boston, Miami, Houston, Omaha, Wichita, and Kansas City.

According to weather scientists cited by PBS, the layoffs will drastically reduce weather forecasting accuracy and response times for severe storm warnings, putting millions in danger, particularly the workers and the poor who live in storm-prone areas with difficulty evacuating.

As usual, in light of the recent storms, the poor in these regions will be left to fend for themselves, evidenced last year with the government’s lackluster responses in the wake of Hurricanes Debby, Helene, and Milton, as well as the L.A. Wildfires.

Taylor Jordan, a tech company lobbyist, was nominated by Trump to serve as an assistant Secretary of Commerce who oversees the NOAA. He has lobbied on behalf of AccuWeather and PlanetiQ to privatize the weather data collected and maintained by the NOAA. Neil Jacobs, who lead the NOAA under the first Trump term, has been nominated to lead it again. Jacobs has close ties to Barry Myers, the CEO of AccuWeather, and has also pushed for the privatization of the NWS.

The cuts to the NOAA and NWS will open up the weather data market to a handful of tech monopolies, marking another attack on the people by the ultra-reactionary Trump administration in the name of tackling “corruption” and the national debt. These companies will be able to purchase the leases on radar and weather stations to sell accurate forecasts, forcing workers to spend more for weather data that they already paid for in tax dollars.

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