WASHINGTON – Senate Democrats grilled Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about staffing reductions – and recent plans to hire some “mission-critical” workers – at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as he testified to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee Wednesday.
Lutnick’s Capitol Hill appearance came two days after NOAA said that it planned to advertise for “a targeted number of permanent, mission-critical field” roles “to further stabilize frontline operations,” after hundreds of forecasters and other employees at the agency took buyouts or were fired earlier this year.
CNN reported that the agency was hiring for about 125 positions. The jobs would be an exception to a hiring freeze at the Commerce Department, which oversees NOAA, a spokesperson for NOAA's National Weather Service said in a statement.
“NOAA leadership is taking steps to address those who took a voluntary early retirement option,” the spokesperson said, noting that the National Weather Service “continues to conduct short-term Temporary Duty assignments (TDYs), and is in the process of conducting a series of Reassignment Opportunity Notices (RONs) to fill roles at NWS field locations with the greatest operational need.”
The prior reductions had left some of the nation's 122 local weather service forecast offices – like the ones in Marquette, Michigan and Goodland, Kansas – without round-the-clock staffing as they have traditionally had, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., noted respectively.
“For decades, they've always been open 24/7 because weather happens at night too, not just during the day,” Peters said. “However, we have a self-inflicted staffing shortage on the part of your department that has left us with too few employees to ensure around the clock operation in a number of locations around the country already.”
Lutnick replied that offices would be staffed but also offered a picture of how he sees the future of forecasting – with incoming data “on the cloud” and accessible by scientists remotely.
“I will commit to you that the next time you see me, the concept of having three people at some regional office will be laughable because our 2000 meteorologists and our hundreds of hydrologists will be able to stay and forecast and protect us in a modern way,” Lutnick said.
Monday's hiring announcement by NOAA came less than two weeks after the agency predicted an “above-normal” 2025 Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and lasts until November 30. NOAA forecasted with 70% confidence that there would be between six and 10 hurricanes – with winds of 74 mph or higher – and of those, there would be between three and five major hurricanes – category 3, 4 or 5 storms, with winds of 111 mph or higher.
Several other Senators also pressed Lutnick about proposed cuts to his department in the budget bill.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., cited a comment made by Craig McLean, a former director of NOAA's office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, to NPR in April that the cuts would "take us back to the 1950s in terms of our scientific footing and the American people.”
“You are going to destroy NOAA,” the senator told the commerce secretary.
Lutnick pushed back, saying that there were 2,100 meteorologists in NOAA’s National Weather Service.
“We are fully staffed with forecasters and scientists. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched,” he said.
