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White House Budget Chief Moves to Restructure Key Climate Research Hub
Listeners, in the past few days Russell Vought, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, has moved to the center of a major science and budget fight in Washington.
According to ABC News, Vought announced on the social media platform X that the National Science Foundation will break up the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, a flagship hub for United States weather and climate research that has operated for more than six decades. He described the facility as one of the largest sources of what he called climate alarmism and said its Green New Deal style research activities should be eliminated, while essential weather modeling and supercomputing would be moved elsewhere.
USA Today and other outlets report that this decision, backed by the Trump administration, would restructure or relocate key parts of the center, potentially disrupting the flow of high quality weather and climate data that many agencies, universities, and forecasters depend on. Engineering News Record notes that National Center for Atmospheric Research supercomputers underpin widely used weather and climate models, including the Weather Research and Forecasting model that helps predict severe thunderstorms and extreme rainfall.
The move has drawn intense criticism. Colorado senators John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet, along with congressman Joe Neguse, issued a joint statement condemning the plan, calling the National Center for Atmospheric Research a core component of the states economy and warning that dismantling it would threaten lifesaving breakthroughs that provide early warnings for floods, fires, and other disasters. Colorado governor Jared Polis warned that the United States could lose its competitive edge against foreign powers in critical atmospheric science.
Climate scientists have also pushed back. The Nature Conservancy chief scientist Katharine Hayhoe said that dismantling the center is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone of our scientific understanding of the planet. The Union of Concerned Scientists argued that closing or breaking up the center would especially harm smaller colleges and universities that rely on its models and computing power.
In parallel with this controversy, Russell Vought has been issuing joint guidance with the Office of Personnel Management on broader federal workforce changes, including a December memo on creating what they call Federal Human Resources two point zero by consolidating core human capital management, and earlier guidance on implementing the Presidents Department of Government Efficiency workforce optimization plans.
For now, the National Science Foundation says it is reviewing the structure of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and will seek feedback from partner agencies and the research community, while Vought and the administration frame the effort as eliminating what they see as politicized climate work and refocusing on operational weather needs.
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Published on 2 weeks ago