The Trump administration is planning to close the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's primary research office for alleged man-made climate change and to use the agency to boost U.S. fossil-fuel production.
The changes are being made in pursuit of a "leaner NOAA," Politico reported Friday, citing a memo from the Office of Management and Budget.
NOAA's fiscal 2026 budget would be about $4.5 billion, down from $6.1 billion in the current fiscal year. The memo calls for eliminating the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which facilitates studies of the planet's oceans, atmosphere, climate, weather patterns, and other systems.
"Reaching balance requires resetting the proper balance between Federal and State responsibilities with a renewed emphasis on federalism; eliminating the Federal Government's support of woke ideology; protecting the American people by deconstructing a wasteful and weaponized bureaucracy; and identifying and eliminating wasteful spending," the memo stated, according to Politico.
The 12-page document is referred to as a "passback" memorandum because it notifies agency officials of what to expect in the next fiscal year, Politico reported. It also stated NOAA's operations, research, and facilities budget would be cut by 38%, from $4.8 billion in the current fiscal year to $3.47 billion in 2026.
The memo calls for changes to NOAA's marine resource protection responsibilities by shifting all enforcement of the Marine Mammal Protection Act and other NOAA-specific endangered species functions to the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service.
"I think it's step one in the deconstruction of the agency," Rick Spinrad, who led NOAA during the Biden administration, told Politico on Friday. "Any one of these [actions] are by themselves destructive enough. But taken together, they foretell a much more calamitous outcome."
Even though the memo is seeking to streamline the agency, it does call for preserving funding levels for the National Weather Service. The memo also outlines a plan to break up NOAA's space weather mission and move it to the Department of Homeland Security.
It ends NOAA's office of education and virtually all of its climate portfolio, and proposes a transfer of the Traffic Coordination System for Space to a nonprofit or a private sector partner. It also eliminates some climate monitoring functions of satellites now under development.
"Passback eliminates functions of the Department that are misaligned with the President's agenda and the expressed will of the American people," the memo stated, according to Politico. It forces "significant reductions to education, grants, research, and climate-related programs within NOAA."
It also shifts some of NOAA's duties toward fossil fuel production, ordering NOAA Fisheries to "prioritize permitting and consultation activities in order to support Administration priorities and unleash American energy." It eliminates habitat conservation and restoration, species recovery efforts, and interjurisdictional grants, according to Politico, and suggests that the process of ending all of NOAA's climate research is well underway.
The agency has until noon Tuesday to appeal the proposal, The New York Times reported Friday, and it has until April 24 to submit plans for many of the overhauls suggested in the memo, even before the proposal has been addressed by Congress.
Newsmax reached out to the White House and NOAA for comment.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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