Neil Jacobs speaks at U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration press conference in Arlington, Va., in 2019. Mr. Jacobs is U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee for NOAA administrator.Win McNamee/Getty Images
The man tapped to lead the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is vowing to make staffing at the National Weather Service a “top priority” amid questions over whether vacancies at weather offices contributed to the death toll in last week’s Texas flooding.
But Neil Jacobs also told a congressional committee that he agrees with President Donald Trump’s proposed 2026 budget, which includes a 27-per-cent funding cut for the NOAA.
Mr. Jacobs, Mr. Trump’s nominee for NOAA administrator, made the comments Wednesday during a Senate commerce committee hearing, part of the confirmation process for the position. The NOAA is the parent agency of the weather service.
The hearing unfolded as the search continued along the Guadalupe River northwest of San Antonio, where authorities said at least 119 people had died and more than 170 were missing after the flash flooding that began in the early hours of last Friday.
“If confirmed, I will ensure that staffing the weather service offices is a top priority,” Mr. Jacobs told the committee. “It’s really important for the people to be there because they have relationships with people in the local community. They’re a trusted source.”
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Mr. Jacobs, who was a top NOAA official during Mr. Trump’s first term, also said he would revamp the agency’s Weather Radio network in a bid to better get warnings out to the public. And he promised to invest in overhauling forecasting models, which currently lag their counterparts in Europe for accuracy.
When Massachusetts Democratic Senator Ed Markey asked Mr. Jacobs if he was in favour of Mr. Trump’s plan to cut the NOAA’s budget, however, Mr. Jacobs said he was. Among other cuts, Mr. Trump’s plan would eliminate the NOAA’s research arm, which develops weather forecasting technology.
“Yes, I support the President’s budget,” Mr. Jacobs said.
Mr. Markey, referencing climate-change-induced incidences of extreme weather, replied: “You can’t cut something by 27 per cent even as the storms are enhanced as each year goes by.”
The President’s cuts have already cost NOAA hundreds of meteorologists and other scientists through firings and buyouts. Some weather offices have begun shutting down during overnight hours.
The union that represents weather service employees has said that the two local offices covering the areas hit by the flooding have 10 vacant positions between them, including the person who would normally issue warnings and co-ordinate with emergency management officials.
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Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has asked the Commerce Department’s inspector-general to investigate whether these shortages led to gaps in weather service forecasts or delays in evacuations.
In May, five former National Weather Service directors wrote an open letter warning of the potentially devastating effect of the cuts. Airplanes, cargo ships, farmers and fishermen all rely on weather data to do their work, the directors wrote, as does the general public living in the path of potential natural disasters.
“Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life,” the letter said.
In the wake of the flood deaths, the White House has denied that weather service cuts played any role. Asked earlier this week whether the government needed to hire back scientists in the wake of the disaster, Mr. Trump told reporters: “I would think not.”
He also appeared to suggest that there was little that could have been done differently. “I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe,” he said.
On Wednesday, his Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reiterated her call for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to be “eliminated as it exists today,” even as the organization responds to the disaster in Texas.
In a video appearance at a review council working on a plan to reform FEMA, Ms. Noem said other levels of government were better placed to manage such situations with the federal government taking a more limited role. “Federal emergency management should be state and locally led,” she said.
During the Wednesday Senate hearing, even some Republican legislators pressed Mr. Jacobs to reverse the effects of Mr. Trump’s cuts to the NOAA if confirmed.
Cynthia Lummis, of Wyoming, said the weather office in her state’s capital, Cheyenne, has started closing between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m., depriving farmers and ranchers of much-needed local weather information. The closest centre now operating overnight is 400 kilometres away. “It’s as different as night and day in terms of the weather experience,” she said.
Jerry Moran, of Kansas, said he had convinced the Commerce Department last month to lift a hiring freeze for meteorologists at the weather service to replace people who lost their jobs earlier in the year. He said he had also introduced legislation to shield such workers from future layoffs. He asked Mr. Jacobs why those jobs had still not been filled.
Mr. Jacobs replied that he did not know but that he supported ending the hiring freeze, as well as Mr. Moran’s legislation.
The nominee also faced questions over his position on climate change, as Mr. Trump’s proposed budget would dismantle NOAA’s research labs on the subject. New Jersey Senator Andy Kim, a Democrat, asked if Mr. Jacobs agreed that greenhouse gas emissions are the main reason for climate change.
“In the absence of any natural signals that might dominate that, yes, there’s human influences, certainly, there,” Mr. Jacobs replied.