The story of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) in the first six months under the second Trump administration is a cautionary tale of how not to reform government. Just in time for hurricane Erin, Neil Jacobs—the administration’s nominee to lead NOAA—announced plans to begin rehiring employees who had left during the period when Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was rapidly downsizing the agency.

What explains this shift from a Trump nominee who is not yet confirmed but whose nomination has been reported favorably out of a committee of Republican senators? Has the administration’s approach to NOAA changed?

The turning point came earlier in the summer, when flooding in Texas killed at least 135 people, including little girls at a camp. Immediately, two agencies faced heightened scrutiny: NOAA, which monitors weather and issues warnings of severe events, and FEMA, which provides financial assistance and support when disasters overwhelm first responders. Both had been DOGE’d—understaffed, underfunded, and experiencing leadership challenges—when tragedy struck.

The current debate over NOAA’s future and NOAA's turbulent year draws in part from ideas outlined in the Heritage Foundation-sponsored “Project 2025.” To its authors, NOAA was less a provider of vital weather data and warnings than an institution aligned with climate advocacy, and thus a candidate for significant cuts. Their perspective is summed up in the following:

Together, these [subsections of NOAA] 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. This industry’s mission emphasis on prediction and management seems designed around the fatal conceit of planning for the unplannable. That is not to say NOAA is useless, but its current organization corrupts its useful functions. It should be broken up and downsized.

Perhaps recognizing the risks of allowing ideology to override a critical federal function, Howard Lutnick was nominated as Commerce Secretary and publicly disavowed the Project 2025 plan. Still, his position did not prevent the DOGE team assigned to NOAA from moving forward. Arriving in early February, two weeks before Lutnick’s confirmation, the team demanded access to mission-critical databases and announced plans to cut 50% of the personnel and 30% of the budget. In addition to dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, they removed references to climate change from NOAA’s website. By the end of February, roughly 880 employees—including many leading scientists and forecasters—had received termination notices. By early March, the New York Times reported that between layoffs and resignations, NOAA stood to lose about 20% of its workforce.

As March wore on, the Commerce Department (which oversees NOAA's turbulent year) announced it was reinstating 791 employees across the agency. At the same time, however, rumors spread that NOAA would be required to “identify an additional 1,029 positions for potential termination.” On April 1, news outlets reported that more than 1,000 NOAA staff were expected to be laid off.

Read the full article about funding cuts to NOAA by Elaine Kamarck at Brookings.