Trump’s Pick to Head NOAA Faces Senators in the Wake of Multiple Weather-Stoked Disasters
After fatal weather-related disasters battered three states over the past week, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the country’s top weather research agency told lawmakers Wednesday that he supports the administration’s calls to slash its budget—and he failed to directly acknowledge the impact of climate change on extreme weather.
The Trump administration tapped Neil Jacobs, a meteorologist from North Carolina, five months ago to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Jacobs held the job in an acting capacity during the first Trump administration.
On Wednesday, during a nomination hearing held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Jacobs faced questions about whether and how he would improve forecasting and climate research as the administration calls for cutting NOAA’s budget by nearly 30 percent.
“Neil is a hugely competent meteorologist with a lot of experience in numeric weather forecasting,” Rick Spinrad, the former head of NOAA during the Biden administration, told Inside Climate News. “I worry about his understanding of the full spectrum of NOAA responsibilities.”
In his opening remarks, Jacobs did not mention climate change once, nor did he mention its impact on weather patterns. When asked about climate change by Democratic committee members, he acknowledged human influence but also mentioned natural variability as a factor—a standard offramp for climate deniers.
“He should understand the relationship between climate and weather, but I didn’t hear anything in the hearing suggesting he would invest in that area,” Spinrad said. “We know that there’s a lot more energy in the system, more moisture. So how are we going to position ourselves to take advantage of that knowledge and protect people from severe storms in the future?”
Since Trump took office in January, the agency has lost roughly 2,000 employees to resignations, early retirements and layoffs. The National Weather Service, which operates under NOAA, has lost 600 employees.
The proposed budget cuts and workforce reductions have come under scrutiny in recent days after catastrophic flooding in Texas, North Carolina and New Mexico. The flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas’ Hill Country claimed the lives of more than 115 people, including at least 27 at a 100-year-old girls summer camp, Camp Mystic. At least 173 more people were still missing on Wednesday. Flooding in North Carolina on Sunday killed at least six people. On Tuesday, flash floods killed at least three people in Ruidoso, New Mexico.
Carlos Martinez, a senior climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said that the National Weather Service did a “fine job” of issuing warnings before the Texas flood, but noted that several key jobs are currently vacant.
“There are lots of questions there,” Martinez said. “Had there been those key positions—even though they did a fine job—would that have helped? I believe the National Weather Service is under stress.”
The committee chairperson, Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has actively stoked climate change denial while serving in Congress, told the committee in his opening remarks that he visited Camp Mystic on Monday.
“The devastation was the most horrific thing I’ve ever seen,” Cruz said. “The Guadalupe River is normally a quiet and peaceful river. I’ve been swimming and floating in that river dozens of times.”
He then asked Jacobs what he would “do to better ensure that Americans are aware of and able to respond to emergency weather warnings, especially those that arrive in the middle of the night,” as the Guadalupe River flooding did.
Jacobs replied that the Weather Service “did a great job, but there’s a lot of things I would love to improve. Obviously, weather forecasting being one of them.” Over the course of the hearing, he said he intended to modernize NOAA’s radio system and use satellite systems to send out warning messages.
Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) said NOAA is a “hugely important institution,” especially given the increasing number of costly weather disasters that hit the country every year. “Natural disasters cost us over $182 billion in damages last year alone,” Hickenlooper said. “So just a thumbs up or thumbs down. … Do you think we’re spending too much money on the science, the research, around NOAA, or are we spending too little?”
Jacobs replied: “I don’t know that you can spend too much on the research.”
Yet when asked by committee members if he supported the Trump budget proposal, Jacbos said he did. The proposal undercuts essential climate and weather research across a range of programs by about $2.2 billion in the 2026 fiscal year.
The proposed cuts would eliminate NOAA’s regional climate data centers, a network of state labs and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which oversees research at the National Severe Storms Laboratory and the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, among other labs, and informs much of the agency’s weather-related functions.
The National Weather Service would see an increase under the Trump proposal, but only because it would absorb research programs being cut and transferred from OAR.
“Dr. Jacobs’ testimony revealed a fundamental disconnect between his stated support for NOAA’s mission in weather, water, and climate, and his endorsement of a budget that would dismantle the very scientific infrastructure necessary to carry it out,” Martinez wrote in an email.
Despite Jacobs’ role in a 2019 controversy colloquially known as “Sharpiegate,” he was only quizzed about it once on Wednesday, by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.).
In 2019, Trump claimed that Hurricane Dorian was on a path to hit Alabama. When meteorologists at a state weather bureau refuted the information, NOAA released a statement supporting the president’s claim. The president then displayed a NOAA map at a briefing that appeared to have been altered with a black marker to show the hurricane hitting Alabama.
An investigation later found that Jacobs, who was then the acting NOAA administrator, violated the agency’s scientific integrity policy by supporting the statement.
“I just had people—constituents—die in New Mexico. We had constituents die in Texas,” Luján said Wednesday. “Would you sign off on an inaccurate statement due to political pressure in the same event, yes or no?”
“No,” Jacobs replied.
Others are not entirely convinced.
“I do have concerns as a result of the Sharpiegate scandal,” Martinez said. “This hurricane season, future hurricane seasons—will he communicate the science and what his scientists and forecasters are presenting, or will he cave to political pressure as he did, unfortunately, during the first Trump administration?”
The Senate Appropriations Committee is scheduled to vote tomorrow on whether it will include the administration’s cuts in its funding bill.
The committee will vote on Jacob’s confirmation as early as Monday.
Reporter, Washington, D.C.
Georgina Gustin covers agriculture for Inside Climate News, and has reported on the intersections of farming, food systems and the environment for much of her journalism career. Her work has won numerous awards, including the John B. Oakes Award for Distinguished Environmental Journalism, and she was twice named the Glenn Cunningham Agricultural Journalist of the Year, once with ICN colleagues. She has worked as a reporter for The Day in New London, Conn., the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and CQ Roll Call, and her stories have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post and National Geographic’s The Plate, among others. She is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of Colorado at Boulder.