President Trump has nominated Neil Jacobs to once again lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the country’s premier centers for climate science and the target of proposals for deep cuts by Republican groups.
Dr. Jacobs was the acting head of NOAA in the first Trump administration when Mr. Trump claimed in the summer of 2019 that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama. After a NOAA meteorologist in Alabama posted on social media that Dorian would not affect Alabama, Mr. Trump’s staff ordered NOAA leaders to say the meteorologist had been wrong, or risk being fired.
Dorian did not reach Alabama. But Dr. Jacobs bowed to that pressure, releasing a statement that called the posting by its Alabama weather office “inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.” An investigation into the incident later rebuked Dr. Jacobs, saying he had violated the agency’s code of ethics.
The episode gained the moniker “Sharpiegate” after Mr. Trump displayed a map of Dorian’s likely impacts. The map had been altered with a Sharpie pen to extend that area of impact to Alabama.
Those events led some to criticize Dr. Jacobs’ nomination.
“While Dr. Jacobs has relevant expertise and credentials, he has already proven he’s unfit to lead NOAA by failing to uphold scientific integrity at the agency,” Rachel Cleetus, the policy director for the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement.
Despite the episode, Dr. Jacobs is generally respected inside the agency, where climate research for the most part proceeded unimpaired during Mr. Trump’s first term, and Congress resisted the president’s calls to cut NOAA’s funding.
The question now facing Dr. Jacobs, and all of NOAA, is whether Mr. Trump will move more aggressively during his second term to change the agency.
Project 2025, the blueprint for a Republican administration produced by the Heritage Foundation, called NOAA “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” and said the agency should be dismantled. It was written by many people who now hold senior roles in the new Trump administration.
“Neil knows that America uses NOAA’s products every day,” said Craig McLean, a career civil servant who was the agency’s chief scientist during Mr. Trump’s first term. “His last tenure showed the limits of good will against political bullying.”
Mr. McLean added, “I wish him well in what I’m sure will be a difficult situation.”
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