NOAA and FEMA’s future hangs in the balance of elections

With the close 2024 election just days away, the future of federal agencies responsible for weather forecasting, climate change research and disaster recovery is at stake.

These agencies, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), have become increasingly politicized in recent years, despite a history of conflict. But natural disasters caused by climate change are now hitting the United States on a regular basis, with 24 weather events already occurring this year. Each caused at least $1 billion in damage — Government agencies are taking on a bigger role. As a result, it has become a target for some conservatives who are skeptical about climate change and want to cut government spending.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised deep cuts to the federal budget, and one of his most vocal allies, Elon Musk, said last week: He will cut at least $2 trillion Those who served in the second Trump administration will be exempt from the budget. project 2025A 922-page conservative policy roadmap compiled by the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, recommends “dismantling and downsizing” NOAA and zeroing in on FEMA, which would shoulder much of the financial burden of disaster recovery. This suggests that the transfer will be made. to state and local governments;

If that happens, it could dramatically change the way disaster relief is provided in the United States.

Craig Fugate, who served as FEMA administrator under the Obama administration, said it has become “almost inconceivable that states will be able to recover without a lengthy and costly recovery period drawn from state and local budgets.” .

It's not entirely clear what a second Trump administration means for FEMA and NOAA. President Trump has publicly distanced himself from Project 2025, even though many of its authors were his advisers. “Project 2025 has nothing to do with President Trump or the Trump campaign,” Trump campaign officials said in an email to NBC News. “It's not the organization or its former staff.” The campaign did not respond to additional questions about the plan from NOAA and FEMA.

FEMA has already come under scrutiny and criticism from some Republican leaders in the wake of Hurricanes Helen and Milton. Mr. Trump and several other prominent Republicans even pushed false claims that FEMA funds were illegally flowing to U.S. immigrants. At the same time, rampant misinformation about the two storms made meteorologists the target of threats, even though their predictions were surprisingly accurate.

Because NOAA oversees the National Weather Service, these forecasts may no longer be freely available to the public or state governments if the Project 2025 recommendations are implemented.

Academics and current and former officials said in interviews that even an agenda based in part on a conservative roadmap would make the U.S. an outlier in a world where large-scale disasters are already intensifying and becoming more serious. He said it could make them more vulnerable to weather. frequently.

Currently, FEMA aid covers at least 75% of the cost of major disasters, but Project 2025's proposal would reduce that percentage to just 25%.

Restrictions on relief supplies could turn some communities into ghost towns, said Rep. Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), who served as Florida Emergency Management Director from 2019 to 2021 under Gov. Ron DeSantis. He said that there is a sex. He cited Hurricane Michael, which hit Florida as a Category 5 storm in 2018.

“These areas would not have recovered without the federal government stepping in and paying for the response and recovery efforts,” Moskowitz said.

He added that the hardest-hit areas that benefited the most from federal aid “voted for Donald Trump, voted for Rick Scott, voted for Ron DeSantis.”

Since Hurricanes Helen and Milton, the federal government has approved more than $1.2 billion in aid for recovery efforts. According to FEMA. This includes more than $185 million in assistance to 116,000 households in North Carolina and more than $413 million in assistance to more than 125,000 households in Florida, where both storms made landfall.

If Project 2025's proposals had been implemented during Helen's time frame, “more lives would have been lost, the response would have been much slower, and there would have been little financial assistance to help communities rebuild.” '' Fugate said.

Project 2025 recommends that NOAA be “disbanded, many of its functions eliminated, transferred to other agencies, privatized, or placed under state and territory control.”

Matthew Saunders, acting deputy director of Stanford University's Environmental Law Clinic, said privatizing weather forecasting could lead to a decline in the quality of forecasts by putting corporate profits ahead of providing robust public services. He said there is.

“A neutral, centralized government agency has an important role to play here that private industry cannot or will not play,” Sanders said.

Matthew Burgess, an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming's School of Business, said privatizing weather forecasting gives states and local governments with more resources access to higher quality forecasts, while leaving municipalities with fewer resources left behind. He said that a situation could arise. dark. Or areas with a higher risk of hurricanes or tornadoes may have to pay more for their predictions, he said.

“Right now, the state of Florida gets hurricane forecasts free of charge from the federal government,” Burgess said. “If you privatize it, the private sector will probably operate more efficiently on average, but will that be offset by price gouging incentives? Because basically, when a hurricane hits, , because we really need that forecast and will pay whatever they charge.”

The Heritage Foundation said in a statement: “Project 2025 is not calling for the abolition of NOAA or NWS. That claim is false and ridiculous.”

“There is a difference between privatization and commercialization,” the statement added. “Using commercially available products to provide better outcomes for taxpayers at a lower cost is nothing new.”

In addition to proposals for specific agencies, Project 2025 also calls for disbanding federal climate change research. But understanding the effects of climate change is an essential part of predicting storms in particular. That's because as the ocean warms, hurricanes strengthen more quickly, and as the atmosphere warms, they can produce more rain.

“That's why everyone wakes up every day to come out here and do research and prepare people to make decisions that matter to them and their families,” said Dena Karlis, NOAA's National Severe Storm Preparedness Director. he said. Laboratory.

Fugate said ending climate research would make the United States even more vulnerable to its effects.

“Just because you don't like the answer doesn't mean the information isn't important,” he says. “If we ignore what's coming, how can we prepare for it?”

Sanders said deep cuts to research, weather and disaster agencies could further erode trust at a time when trust in government agencies is growing.

“Climate change, like most environmental issues, is a very unique problem in that it does not respect our political boundaries or our state boundaries,” he said. “We need a centralized federal agency to respond to climate change, an agency that can respond at scale to large and significant multi-state disasters.”