Trump administration has set Noaa on ‘non-science trajectory’, workers warn

The Trump administration has shunted one of the US federal government’s top scientific agencies onto a “non-science trajectory”, workers warn, that threatens to derail decades of research and leave the US with “air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable”.

Workers and scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) are warning of the drastic impacts of cuts at the agency on science, research, and efforts to protect natural resources.

“The problems are still there. We still have harmful algal blooms, we still have fisheries that are collapsing, waters you can’t swim in. These problems don’t go away because we fired all the people who were trying to solve a problem,” said one Noaa veteran, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “How do you save the arms and legs or the feet and hands when the core is dying?”

The longtime research scientist with more than 20 years at Noaa has taken early retirement. “I left because it was just so demoralizing and fearful and scary,” they said.

Trump administration officials are seeking to abolish the scientific research division at Noaa, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (Oar) office. It is the latest of a series of cuts at the agency that began the second Trump administration with 12,000 employees around the world, including more than 6,700 engineers and scientists.

The cuts are disrupting the collection of data sets, including recordings of global temperatures in the air and ocean, and that data cannot be replaced, said the Noaa veteran.

The dismantling of Noaa, they said, would harm work in many areas, from finding solutions to combat harmful algae and improving sustainable fisheries to work on new medicines and industrial products and collecting information for disaster preparation.

“We can look at other countries that are actively making these mistakes, where they have air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable,” they said. “I think it’s done. I think this is done. The enemies are in the gate. I don’t see any indication so far of anyone stopping it. They’re just letting it burn. I honestly don’t understand how US science will recover.”

More than 800 probationary employees at the agency were fired, reinstated, then refired this month. Employees have reported having their firings backdated and having their health insurance canceled even though premiums were being taken out of their paychecks.

Rachel Brittin, worked as the federal deputy director of external affairs at Noaa before she was fired, then reinstated, then fired again as a probationary employee, with just a few months left on her two-year probation.

“The whole situation is a mess,” she said. “How is Noaa going to be able to keep up with the services it provides? I don’t know. I don’t know how that’s going to happen, but it’s very scary to me. The loss of anybody at Noaa is directly connected to services lost by every individual in the United States.”

Contractors for the agency have been furloughed as all Noaa contracts over $100,000 have to now be approved by Trump’s Department of Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick.

Doge has slated 31 offices and building leases at Noaa for termination around the US. Nearly $4m in funding to Princeton University as part of a cooperative agreement with Noaa was cancelled on 8 April.

Fourteen Noaa data services on earthquakes, marine, coastal and estuary science at have been slated for decommissioning, more than twice as many as in 2024.

Four regional climate centers providing weather analysis tools and data for 21 states in the US have gone dark after lapses in funding, with the remaining two covering the US set to face a funding lapse in June.

A reduction in force plan to cut an additional 10% of the agency’s workforce is anticipated and at least several hundred workers have taken voluntary buyouts or early retirement according to Noaa workers interviewed by the Guardian, though Noaa and the Department of Commerce did not disclose the numbers.

“It seems clear that the actions that have been taken have intentionally reduced our ability to do our jobs,” said a Noaa scientist who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “You’re not expected to get anything done.”

They said due to firings, early retirements and resignations, scientific research teams around the agency have been left with gaps of expertise that can’t be replaced.

“We are scrambling,” they added. “We are finding workarounds, but its becoming increasingly difficult.”

Marty Kardos, a research molecular geneticist at the northwest fisheries science center at Noaa, decided to resign after the agency’s violations of their collective bargaining agreement with workers meant he would be forced to move from Montana to Seattle in a week or resign.

“The agency is on a non-science trajectory,” Kardos said, speaking in a personal capacity. “All the plans for research we were making for the upcoming years are out of the window. Morale is extremely bad.”

The attrition of scientists and management at Noaa is effectively undermining the agency’s ability to sustainably manage fisheries and identify and recover endangered species, he said.

“The agency is essentially, openly hostile to their mission and their people,” Kardos added. “A lot of this seems to be related to deregulation. The agency is responsible for the Endangered Species Act for marine species and one way to hamstring the act without repealing it is to get rid of the scientists who help to implement it.”

The cuts come as the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and the Trump administration have installed allies in key positions at the agency.

Neil Jacobs, the Trump nominee for Noaa administrator and acting head of Noaa in the first Trump administration, has yet to be confirmed. Jacobs was caught up in “Sharpiegate” – a bizarre 2019 incident when the White House was accused of altering a Noaa map of the predicted path of Hurricane Dorian with a black marker to support an incorrect claim by Trump that the Florida-bound storm would also hit Alabama.

A staffer from Doge, Bryton Shang, announced this month he was appointed as a senior adviser to the Noaa administrator. Shang was one of the two Doge staffers who flew to Los Angeles during the wildfires in January, and attempted to open a large water pump system in California.

Erik Noble, dubbed Trump’s “eyes and ears” at Noaa during his first administration, is back at the agency as deputy assistant secretary for oceans and atmosphere and is reviewing contracts at the agency with Keegan McLaughlin, a special assistant at the commerce department and former intern for the 2024 Trump campaign.

Noaa was a target of Project 2025, the conservative roadmap for a second Trump administration. That document pushed to “break up NOAA” and labeled the agency “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry”.

“Understanding things lets us make decisions that can put us on a track to things getting better. Knowing bad news doesn’t create the bad news. It lets you be prepared to take actions that may let you avoid the worst consequences,” the Noaa scientist at Oar added on the Trump appointees and the authority they are being given over scientific decisions.

“Pretending that our resources are inexhaustible doesn’t make them inexhaustible,” they added. “I don’t think people understand the arrogance of thinking: ‘Hey, I think I understand this, even though I know nothing about it.’ This whole antithesis to experts, I don’t understand it. Would you want to do that with your own personal health? Why would you do it with any kind of complex system?”

Noaa and the Department of Commerce did not respond to multiple requests for comment.