The Trump Administration wants to reduce the climate change role of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has a great deal of responsibility to oversee and regulate the country’s Oceans and Atmosphere. According to its Website, its mission is threefold, first, “to understand and predict changes in climate, weather, ocean and coasts,” second, “to share that knowledge and information with others” and third, “to conserve and manage coastal and marine ecosystems and resources.” In order to pursue its mission effectively it is necessary for NOAA to engage in scientific activities, its website also says “NOAA science includes discoveries and ever new understanding of the ocean and atmosphere, and the application of this understanding to such issues as the causes and consequences of climate change, the physical dynamics of high-impact weather events, the dynamics of complex ecosystems and biodiversity and the ability to model and predict the future states of these systems. Science provides the foundation and future promise of the service and stewardship elements of NOAA’s mission.”
Early in Trump’s second Administration, which commenced in January 2025, it began an effort to limit scientific research at agencies that fall under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government, agencies like the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NOAA. According to an article by CNN, published August 20, 2025, the Trump Administration is now engaged in a effort to decrease funding for and thus rid NOAA of its scientific capability, to assess climate change impacts on both the Ocean and the Atmosphere. This is being done with the submission of budget cuts proposal concerning scientific agencies, to the US congress, an act considered by some, as using ‘costs’ as a pretext. CNN claims “the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is narrowing the capabilities and reducing the number of next-generation weather and climate satellites it plans to build and launch in the coming decades, two people familiar with the plans told CNN.” Also, according to CNN, “this move…fits a pattern in which the Trump administration is seeking to not only slash climate pollution rules, but also reduce the information collected about the pollution in the first place.” Besides being an effort to better understand air pollution, CNN contends that the Satellites being eliminated are designed to further assist in research activities aimed at a more accurate and sophisticated understanding of developments like intense hurricanes, storms, wildfire smoke and droughts, including additional health issues that may arise from some of these climate change induced events.
The CNN report says the Trump Administration’s behavior with respect to the new NOAA scientific Satellites, indicates that it wants NOAA to focus solely on weather activities and not be concerned with the effects of climate change, it says “the changes…are due in part to the perception that some of the instruments were going to be focused on gathering data to study climate change. According to a Trump administration budget document, weather forecasting should be the ‘exclusive’ focus of the satellites,” and this should be seen in the context that, as CNN claims, “the atmospheric composition instrument [of the satellites] would have been beneficial for both NOAA’s weather and climate missions, according to an assessment of the instrument’s value that NOAA performed.” CNN concludes by saying “the trump administration’s fiscal year 2026 budget request would close NOAA’s extensive research facilities, shutting down its greenhouse gas monitoring network, among others. Congress is currently considering that proposal.”
The Congress declined to support the Trump Administration’s attempt to restrict the scientific capabilities of NOAA and the other Scientific Agencies by rejecting its proposed budget cuts. A report by NBC news on January 15, 2026, states that “In a rebuff of the Trump administration’s proposal to drastically cut funding for federal science agencies, the Senate [a congressional body] voted on Thursday to provide billions of dollars more to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NASA and the National Science Foundation than the president had asked for.” As an affirmation of the need for NOAA and other Scientific Agencies to improve the quality of their work, NBC news states that, “the [Congress’s alternative funding] package even includes notable boosts for a few science programs that the Trump administration had singled out for elimination in its budget request, such as NOAA’s satellite program. It also provides funding to boost National Weather Service staffing, which the administration cut significantly via buyout offers and its firing of probationary workers.”