NOAA Facing Stormy Weather From Hurricane DOGE
According to the Guardian, Elon Musk’s DOGE team visited NOAA headquarters asking for access to the agency’s IT systems. Mariners are worried.
Project 2025 has proposed breaking up NOAA and outsourcing its data to private companies. It could be hard to trust the weather at sea when the source of your weather is facing storms at home. Farmers, fishermen and sailors are among many who rely on the weather information sourced from government-/citizen-owned satellites. Would privatizing NOAA provide better services? And who gains or loses from such a move? Read the Guardian story here or a related story in Daily Kos.
“Elon Musk and his DOGE hackers are ransacking their way through the federal government, unlawfully gaining unfettered access to Americans’ private information and gutting programs people depend on, regulatory systems that protect American families’ safety and jobs,” said Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman, ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee (and our California 2nd Congressional District representative), in a joint statement with Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, ranking member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee.
It is uncertain how the storm system sweeping through Washington will affect NOAA. It won’t affect the weather but it may affect our understanding of it.
Fear mongering Democrats. I welcome efficiency and the prospect of better. Unfortunately the theme for Democrats desperate to cling to power is to fan the flames of fear
Today it is raining. Weather calls for light wind and sun. I need to do fiberglass repair and paint outdoors. Noaa has failed me again.
Project 2025, you folks just can’t get over Trump winning. Yes, just quote Dems, who are all anxious over having all of this money finally being
accounted for…
Guardian and Daily Kos, both prime examples of journalistic integrity…hahahaha
It’s a great idea to privatize weather data. After all, having your credit card declined while sailing in the Pacific and trying to track the latest typhoon just adds to the adventure!
Isn’t this special? I am all for rooting out waste and streamlining government agencies, but I fear they are just looting and everything will cost us 3 times as much.
Please keep your personal opinion to yourself, making safety at sea political, is just wrong. If there are Guv’mt functions better served by private sector, with the same confidence that we are currently comfortable with, then let’s check it out.
We are already paying to not have commercials, in software & entertainment. Could the private sector do the same job safely and inexpensively accessible, with commercials, or not? That’s the big question.
Sad to see the need for the article in latitude and subsequent comments defending the fascist take over of our democracy and impact it is having on the norms of the sailing community. Maybe they aren’t sailors who we have enjoyed knowing and reading of their adventures?
Thanks John Arndt for speaking out on this, please continue to speak out on this.
If I could give you a ‘like’ or ‘thumbs up’ I would give you a million of them. Kudos.
I remember in 2015 the container ship El Faro sank when the captain sailed her into a category 3 hurricane off Florida. He was using a private weather system company whose reports were 6-21 hours out of date.
This isn’t political. It’s factual; things are “trying” to change. We need to be aware and scrutinize the potential change, the stated intentions, the intended impacts, and the potential unintended impacts. We also need to scrutinized how things are done. Not raising this particular topic of NOAA here would be irresponsible. Thank you Latitude 38 for bringing it.
So many private ‘companies’ get their data from NOAA, this would get very messy. The feds should be responsible for these kind of essentials.
Thank you for reporting on this. Mariners should know there is no source of private weather data remotely comparable to NOAA.
It’s disappointing that congress has essentially given up on the constitutional right for congress to control the purse and allowed Trump to redirect congressional funds. When NOAA gets privatized, weather reports will get expensive, including that weather app on your phone, or all of the specialized apps like OpenSnow or whatever you use. It’ll probably save you a dollar a year in federal taxes and cost you $30 a month in app fees.
…Because we all know that private equity, Musk and the like are all for providing accurate, efficient and affordable products and services, right? Can anyone name me a privately operated toll road that isn’t a disaster?
I am all for progress and it seems to me if we can root out fraud, corruption and money laundering we are progressing. Consider what is happening, putting America on a diet. as most know the first few months of the diet are really uncomfortable and you may start questioning your decision, then all of a sudden you start feeling better physically and mentally. Give it a chance to work before telling me why it won’t. Oh yeah, NOAA no longer provides paper charts as they used to, and we are surviving.
Millions are whining about what Musk and company are uncovering, but nobody has accused them of lying and nobody has anything to be concerned about unless they have engaged in fraud, corruption or laundering of TAXPAYER assets….
We’ll close this comment section with a bit of the history of NOAA. The agency was signed into law by Republican Richard Nixon in 1970 by combining The U.S. Weather Bureau (established in 1870), The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey (founded in 1807), and The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries (established in 1871). It celebrated its 200th anniversary of serving farmers, fisherman, mariners and the nation in 2007 under president George W. Bush.
When NOAA was formed Nixon’s message to congress stated in part that NOAA was being formed for “better protection of life and property from natural hazards… for a better understanding of the total environment… [and] for exploration and development leading to the intelligent use of our marine resources”.
Today its responsibilities include the Weather Forecasting & Climate Monitoring (National Weather Service), the Ocean Exploration & Marine Conservation (National Ocean Service), the Fisheries Management & Sustainable Seafood (NOAA Fisheries), and Satellite Operations & Environmental Data Collection (NOAA Satellites).