The “Ocean Wave” of NOAA Budget Cuts

April 14th, 2025

Azzy Xiang

Last week, an internal document revealed that Trump was considering deep cuts to NOAA, one of the top research institutions for climate change worldwide, and end most of its climate change work. The plan involves cutting most of its budget inclusive of funding for weather and ocean laboratories, putting universities studying these ecosystems in partnership with the NOAA in danger. Particularly, it proposes to halve the budget of the National Ocean Service and cut $300 million from the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The NOAA document is labeled pre-decisional, which means it is subject to change and only indicates the White House's intentions as of now. Republicans in charge of Congress have been very reluctant to push back the proposed cuts in the political landscape, even though some enforcers may stave them off. In the meantime, lawmakers in both chambers of Congress are pushing a bipartisan bill to allow the NOAA to use AI to plan for wildfires and extreme weather, despite Trump's cuts.

These developments come in light of weather patterns becoming more extreme and costly, harming US industries and agriculture which depend on expert analysis and deadly weather prevention. The Space Weather Prediction Center that monitors solar activity for harmful radiation would move to the Department of Homeland Security. The plan also urges the National Marine Fisheries Service to "prioritize permitting" offshore oil drilling to "unleash American energy."

Former director of the NOAA’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research explains that if enacted, the budget cuts would reverse scientific footing back to the state in the 1950s. Fisheries scientists have been on probation as climate change begins to cause more damage to fish communities. A recent study, in fact, revealed ways to make fish populations more resilient to climate change, but deep cuts to the NOAA would jeopardize them. Hundreds of climate workers at NOAA have been fired after the Supreme Court reversed a decision on an initial dismissal of these layoffs. These include jobs for forecasting hurricanes and tornadoes, guarding against overfishing, and marine pollution research.

Alongside the slash at the NOAA, Trump's proposed cutbacks of NASA's budget by 47%, which was reported to have the potential to waste billions of taxpayer funds already spent on space science projects.

Extemp Analysis by Lindsey Zhao

NOAA has been absolutely critical for many Americans, from farmers attempting to predict the best time to grow their crops to communities preparing for hurricanes. Make sure to contextualize this importance throughout your speech by mentioning specific, relatable examples (like above) instead of just repeating “NOAA is important.” The big thing in a lot of speeches is to get to the why, including answering the question why something is important.

Q: Will efforts to combat climate change be hindered by the shutdown of NOAA?

A: Given the role of NOAA in conducting scientific studies and researching the globe and local ecosystems, you’d probably want to say yes.

in the background, contextualize what ‘efforts to combat climate change’ means, whether that’s researching solutions to climate change or helping people adapt to it.
Lots of points you could use here! These could include the impacts of limiting research that save ecosystems and a lack of enforcement that increases marine pollution.