Needless NOAA Budget, Staff Cuts Put Lives at Risk Weather Experts, Lawmakers Warn

Sunrise, FL – Today, U. S. Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (FL-25), James E. Clyburn (SC-06), Lois Frankel (FL-22) and Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (FL-20) joined some of the nation’s top weather scientists to issue vocal warnings that gutting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) through staff and funding cuts will cause needless deaths by delaying critical, timely research and severe storm forecasting that our communities count on to be safe. The 2025 hurricane season’s tragic effects are already being felt as the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry contributed to the deadly flash floods in Texas. Yet Republicans in Congress and President Trump are already degrading NOAA and proposed closing more than a dozen weather and climate facilities, including Miami’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory and its Hurricane Research Division. Cuts to NOAA’s budget will have ripple effects beyond public safety, impacting economic sectors like agriculture and fishing, climate resiliency efforts, and wider disaster preparedness. These hurricane state lawmakers were joined by Dr. Robert Atlas , Director Emeritus of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorology Laboratory, Dr. Frank Marks , former Director of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorology Laboratory, and James Franklin , the former Branch Chief of the Hurricane Specialist Unit at the National Hurricane Center. Click here and here for graphs shared by experts at the press conference. ###