NOAA’s Services Threatened Under Project 2025
In 2019 we wrote about the threat to America’s free weather forecasts provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — NOAA, a government agency — due to a proposal for privatization. While that year’s immediate concerns eventually abated, the issue is again raising its head with the information available in Project 2025.
The Atlantic writes, “Project 2025 — a nearly 900-page book of policy proposals published by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation — states that an incoming administration should all but dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, under which the National Weather Service operates.” Following is an excerpt from the document that reads, “NOAA should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.” In other words, “fully commercialize its forecasting operations.”
Currently, NOAA provides weather information that is accessible to everyone, for free. The organization is responsible for forecasts that enable people to prepare for severe weather events such as hurricanes, severe storm and rain events, and these days, heat waves. Privatizing this service suggests these forecasts would be available only to those with the means to pay for them.
Yes, there are already a number of paid weather services available, some of which are used by mariners, but can you imagine not being able to quickly look up the weekend’s forecast to see how the Bay will look for sailing?
NOAA is also the source for much of the world’s data on climate and the changing atmospheric conditions, used by “scientists around the globe.”
This story runs far deeper than our few paragraphs, and we encourage you to read more and inform yourself about what Project 2025 has in store for the nation’s weather service and many other US institutions.
I am no fan of Trump, but he has publicly disavowed Project 25. See Time (https://time.com/6995370/trump-disavows-project-2025-transition-plan/), Axios (https://www.axios.com/2024/07/05/trump-project-2025-heritage-foundation), Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/caileygleeson/2024/07/05/trump-disavows-project-2025-calls-some-of-conservative-groups-ideas-absolutely-ridiculous-and-abysmal/), and the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/article/project-2025.html), among others. So why the scare tactic, Monica?
HI D. Thanks for reading! We’re just sharing the news, and we do encourage everyone to inform themselves of the available information. Opinions on whether Project 2025 is good, bad or irrelevant will vary.
“So why the scare tactic”
Answer: Because it’s a highly valid concern. Your response is such that Project 2025 couldn’t possibly happen because Trump ‘disavowed’ it, when in reality he actually posted only, “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying”, which is far from disavowing every premise of the document.
Also, for those of us paying attention, his “word” is less-than worthless and he weathercocks with the political winds and of course his own self-interests–the examples are endless. The Heritage Foundation — a conservative think tank operated by many of Trump’s current and former political allies — is leading the initiative.
Simple. Trump lies every time his mouth opens. So nothing he says can be trusted. he has “distanced himself” from the Project 2025 agenda. But his former staff are writing it, and they are aiming to be his future staff.
So, yeah, definitely a concern.
Trump has claimed that he knows nothing about Project 2025, and then contradicted himself (as usual) by saying it has some terrible ideas, which is admitting that he does know about it.
It was written by some 150 former Trump administration officials. Presumably that’s most of those who are not currently in prison.
He’s right about one thing, it does indeed contain many terrible ideas, but it’s written with Trump in mind, to keep him in the presidency for as many terms as he would want.
If you believe anything Trump says then you are a sucker. He is a pathological liar and will say anything and everything to get elected.
Capitalism run rampant !
Does NOAA need to be a separate branch or can it be merged into another department? Eight billion dollar budget and almost 12,000 employees? There are several free or low cost alternatives that provide most basic services that can be found on the internet.
At some point we will need to recognize that even with the latest plan to tax billionaires, Biden proposes to only generates $500 billion over 10 years. While we spend 2 trillion dollars more than we have each year.
Who wants to have their favorite program cut, and if no one wants cuts then we will all have to pay a lot more taxes.
Are you all good with that?
Capitalism provided Predict Wind and Windy, Starlink gives us worldwide access.
Still waiting for the free wifi broadband promised us in 2020.
Privatization is always bad, and this is no exception. I certainly don’t want our weather forecasting to be privatized. Instead, we should be going in the other direction by nationalizing some industries, like all natural monopolies (utilities for example). Privatization is just a scam so that a few rich people can make money off the rest of us.