U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told a Senate hearing that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is “fully staffed” with weather forecasters and scientists after concerns were raised about some offices losing 24-hour staffing ahead of hurricane season.
“We are fully staffed with forecasters and scientists. Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched,” Lutnick told a Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing NOAA, saying he got the National Weather Service (NWS) exempted from a federal hiring freeze.
NOAA, which includes the NWS, lost around 1,000 people or 10% of its workforce amid federal job layoffs in the first months of the second Trump administration, including 600 at the weather service. At least six NWS offices had stopped the routine twice-a-day weather balloon launches that collect data for weather models.
Related: No NOAA Large-Disaster Data to Hurt Insurers’ Grasp of Secondary Perils, Says AM Best
The U.S. hurricane season officially began on Sunday and lasts through November. NOAA forecast last week that this year’s season is expected to bring as many as 10 hurricanes.
Related: Here Comes Another Busy Atlantic Hurricane Season
The agency had been scrambling to reassign staffers internally to fill gaps in understaffed offices over the last few months, sources have told Reuters.
Lutnick told the committee that they are going to fill these positions and focus on cutting programs that he said were not part of NOAA’s mission, including “children’s books about climate anxiety.”
An internal memo seen by Reuters said that NOAA plans to hire 126 mission-critical positions at the National Weather Service including forecasters, radar technicians, hydrologists and physical scientists that will be advertised externally.
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