Would Trump privatize weather forecasting? What to know.

Project 2025 proposes breaking up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency for the National Weather Service, describing it as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”

By Scott Dance
July 22, 2024 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

Among the stakes in the upcoming U.S. elections: Weather forecasts, who delivers them and what they say about links between extreme conditions and climate change.

A conservative proposal drafted by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has ignited an intense debate this month by proposing that a Republican administration privatize weather forecasting now done by government agencies. The plan would break up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent agency for the National Weather Service, describing it as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” Meanwhile, a separate Republican proposal introduced in the House last year calls for transforming NOAA into an independent agency akin to NASA, a plan critics say could expose it to political influence.

Even as Donald Trump’s campaign has said it had no part in Project 2025, it’s widely seen as a blueprint for a possible second Trump administration. Private weather companies have not endorsed the calls for “commercializing” Weather Service data. Still, as the prospects of a second Trump presidency rise, meteorologists and climate scientists are voicing concern over what these proposals would mean for the millions of people they are working to inform and protect.

During Trump’s term, scientists said they were sidelined, muted or forced out by the hundreds and raised concerns that the administration misrepresented their research on the coronavirus and reproduction — as well as on hurricane forecasting, environmental advocates said.

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By Scott Dance
Scott Dance is a reporter for The Washington Post covering extreme weather news and the intersections between weather, climate, society and the environment. He joined The Post in 2022 after more than a decade at the Baltimore Sun. Twitter