There’s a fairly good chance that amid your perfunctory morning routine of tooth brushing and clothes-putting-on, you make a point of checking the forecast for the day to see if you should wear a sweater, or lather up in sunscreen, or pack an umbrella “just in case.” Perhaps you glance at an app on your phone, or maybe you flip on the TV to listen to a professional meteorologist offer advice on what to expect. No matter how you get your forecast, the simple act of wanting to know what’s ahead weather-wise is one of the longest-standing human experiences in history, dating back thousands of years and encompassing everything from farmers’ almanacs to ancient agrarian superstitions and rituals.
Now, with the 2024 presidential election looming, our modern meteorological facilities are bracing for a potentially seismic disruption thanks to the Heritage Foundation’s ultra-conservative Project 2025 initiative, and the candidacy of Donald Trump, upon which Project 2025 largely relies. “Project 2025 wants to get rid of NOAA, wants to get rid of the National Weather Service,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) said during a recent House Oversight Committee hearing. Those are the “people that tell you the weather and help you prepare for hurricanes.”
From where is Moskowitz getting his allegation, and — if accurate — what could it mean for the future of forecasting?
What did the commentators say?
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and its various subsidiary offices — including the National Weather Service (NWS) — form a “colossal operation that has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity,” the authors of Project 2025’s more than 900-page “Mandate for Leadership” document said. Accordingly, the NOAA and its departments “should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.”
The document cites a consultant report that determined that NWS forecast accuracy ranked behind private-sector meteorologists. However, those private-sector options “use government-funded observations to inform predictions shared via TV and radio stations, weather websites and smartphone apps,” The Washington Post said. “It has never been our goal to take over the provision of all weather information,” said AccuWeather CEO Steven Smith to the Post. AccuWeather uses “foundational data” from NOAA to augment its in-house “forecasting software, artificial intelligence and meteorologists.” Project 2025’s plan to privatize the NOAA and its subsidiaries would essentially force consumers to “pay for weather subscriptions that would include national weather alert systems for emergencies like flash flooding, extreme heat, earthquakes, and others,” The New Republic said.
“While Project 2025 doesn’t call for the elimination of the NWS, it places restrictions on research, climate products, and potentially limiting access to the NWS forecasters and centers such as the National Hurricane Center,” former Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate said to Poynter. Although the privatization of the National Weather Service might produce private entities that are “better funded and, theoretically, less subject to political whims,” The Atlantic said, this is “not the vision that Project 2025 lays out.” Instead, the group envisions a “dramatically defunded NOAA whose husk is nonetheless hyper-responsive to the administration’s politics.”
Trump has “tried to distance himself from the plan,” The Hill said. However, the “lead author of the section dealing with the Commerce Department, which houses NOAA and the National Weather Service,” is former Trump administration official Thomas Gilman.
What next?
There is a “0% chance” that any of Project 2025’s recommendations for the NOAA or NWS “will ever be considered or implemented,” former NOAA chief scientist Ryan Maue said on X. More likely, Maue said, would be “bipartisan legislation to split off NOAA” from the Commerce Department where it resides, and transform it into an independent agency like NASA.
Crucially, Project 2025’s push for “collaboration with the private sector” already happens, said Rachel Cleetus, policy director in the climate and energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, to Poynter. The notion that the NOAA could be “broken up and somehow still be able to do this essential work, it won’t be possible.”