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Expert: NOAA research cuts could affect farms, banks, others

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Zamone Perez
(Maryland News Connection)

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Advocates warned President Donald Trump’s plan to break up a key office in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will hurt scientific research and multiple industries.

Trump administration officials want to disperse research dollars from the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research at NOAA across multiple offices, which advocates say would dilute its effectiveness. The office was responsible for innovating flood warning systems, tornado detection, hurricane tracking and more.

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Craig McLean, former assistant administrator for research, said the breakup of the office will reverberate across many industries relying on NOAA research.

"Seasonal weather that the agricultural community is wholly dependent upon for what they plant, when they plant it. The risks the insurance companies need to fund and be financing. Banks. Mortgage rates," McLean outlined. "Multiple industries are reliant upon the information that NOAA generates."

At the moment, House and Senate budgets suggest the office was saved from being completely defunded, despite Trump requesting so in his budget. The administration has defended the move, arguing funds could be moved to other research arms of the government and at the same time cut down federal bureaucracy.

NOAA itself has been a target of larger cuts, as the agency requested a workforce cut of 17 percent in next year’s budget.

Jake Schwartz, federal campaigns manager for the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, said the restructuring of the office will cripple NOAA’s ability to prepare for future natural disasters.

"It actually funded research to explore for the sake of scientific exploration and for the sake of inventing technologies that then help the next generation of Americans," Schwartz pointed out. "The work that we do now to figure out the best ways to warn if flash floods are coming will help us five, 10 years down the line."

In February, 800 probationary employees at NOAA were fired, briefly rehired, then fired again as a lawsuit made its way through the federal courts.