There are ways to bring down agencies you don’t like without actually catapulting dramatically illegal executive orders at their walls. Various reports over the past few days, as well as sources inside and with knowledge of what’s going on, suggest that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s work is being slowed to a crawl, whether in advance of a true dismantling or not.
“A lot more of our work has to go through political appointees, especially international work,” one source at NOAA said, adding that they have been told to interpret the definition of international engagement “broadly.” The list of requests, apparently, will only be reviewed once a week. That will include work on climate modeling and more that goes into collaborations like the World Climate Research Programme, which underpins much of the international climate policy discussion that takes place.
A source at NOAA said there is a way to flag time-sensitive or unanticipated requests, but with only a small staff occasionally glancing at the pile of requests, “they are going to be overwhelmed.” Even if all the requests get approved, it will take time, putting off the science in general. “If they wanted to bureaucratically kill politically disfavored science this would be the ideal way to do it without a big attention-getting announcement.”
NOAA has also apparently just received word that they too need to alter charts, maps, and weather products to reflect Trump’s absurd Gulf of America obsession. “So that’ll be happening,” a source told Splinter. They are also attempting to comply with the various DEI-related indignities — as of this writing on Wednesday afternoon NOAA’s Scientific Integrity Policy page is down, because the policy dared to mention diversity. A source at NOAA says it will be put back up once various edits have been completed.
Meanwhile, another source inside NOAA said that the orders regarding climate science grants and projects were not necessarily widely circulated, and may have come from individual offices doing their best to comply with orders from on high. Multiple people said that the instructions coming down are almost entirely verbal at this point to avoid having anything damning in writing, making details unclear and hard to follow. And another source in a division that doesn’t necessarily deal directly with climate science said that “any new bullshit” hasn’t found its way there yet at all. The overall effect of a climate science purge, and a NOAA-wide slowdown on the ways science can get done, is that the whole agency will suffer — the National Weather Service, oceans and fisheries science, and plenty more even aside from the atmospheric and climate work. And who knows if or when the USAID-style purge will arrive and finish the job.
“Kind of weird that we’re expected to maintain business as usual,” one source said, “knowing that the illegal actions at other agencies could come hit us at any moment.”
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