Hundreds of staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, were fired Thursday, NOAA staff told Newsweek, as Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, made widespread cuts in an effort to dramatically reduce federal employment.
Sources within NOAA, former NOAA officials and some members of Congress warned that the cuts could harm the country’s ability to accurately forecast severe weather and provide basic information for shipping, fisheries and other industries.
“These terminations are consequential, and we will see an immediate impact on NOAA’s ability to deliver critical services to American individuals, corporations and communities,” former NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad told Newsweek.
As Newsweek reported Friday, NOAA staff had been told by workers with DOGE to prepare lists of positions to be cut.
The positions being eliminated spread across NOAA’s many branches, Spinrad said, including the National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, Office of Space Commerce, and Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.
NOAA is best known for operating the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, which tracks tropical storms. But the agency also manages the nation’s fisheries, protects marine species, provides emergency response to oil spills, and conducts basic science about climate change.
Many of those let go were federal employees on probationary status, meaning that they had been in their current position for less than one year. However, some of the people who lost jobs had decades of experience in their fields of research.
Sarah Cooley directed NOAA’s Ocean Acidification Program, which studies the effects of changes to the chemistry of seawater, something with substantial consequences for marine life and the fishermen who depend on them.
Cooley told Newsweek she had 25 years of professional experience. She was fired on Thursday.
“The strategy appears to be as much slash and burn as possible,” Cooley said of the cuts to NOAA. “No one can pretend the goal is efficiency.”
California Representative Jared Huffman, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement that people nationwide depend on NOAA for accurate forecasts and severe weather alerts.
“Purging the government of scientists, experts, and career civil servants and slashing fundamental programs will cost lives,” Huffman said.
The cuts are expected to affect at least 500 of NOAA’s approximately`12,000 employees, but the Commerce Department, which oversees NOAA, did not provide a total number of layoffs Thursday evening.
Personnel in NOAA’s communications office did not respond Thursday evening to a request for comment. Emails to two NOAA communications officers resulted in automated replies indicating that they no longer worked there.
An automated email reply from Public Affairs Specialist Tom Di Liberto read, “After almost 15 years at NOAA, and nearly 2 years as a federal employee, I have been fired.”
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