DISASTERSAs Hurricane Season Approaches, Trump’s NOAA Budget Cuts Threaten Safety
President Trump’s NOAA cuts will significantly hamper the public’s understanding of the environment and weather forecasting, negatively affecting people in the United States and abroad.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued its initial outlook for the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season on Thursday, predicting a 60 percent chance of an “above-normal season” of weather activity. The agency says this could include up to ten named storms developing into hurricanes over the next six months.
The World Meteorological Organization says that an average Atlantic hurricane season produces seven hurricanes. If NOAA’s prediction is accurate, this would be the tenth consecutive season with above-average activity.
How communities in the United States and abroad prepare for these storms and other environmental disasters could face new challenges after the Donald Trump administration cut funding for NOAA research, analysis, and forecasting. The move could deal a major blow to environmental science and emergency preparedness, including responding to hurricanes, tornadoes, and other extreme weather events. These response efforts support the U.S. economy, inform national security decisions, and help keep Americans safe.
What cuts to NOAA have been made or are currently being proposed?
Since Trump’s inauguration and the launch of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) headed by Elon Musk, NOAA has experienced significant staff reductions. Proposed budget cuts will impact NOAA’s core functions, including ocean monitoring, regional and coastal planning, climate research, and weather forecasting. Staffing cuts have already curtailed the daily launch of weather balloons that collect weather data and left some NOAA offices without forecasters on-site overnight. Meanwhile, a backlog of unsigned NOAA contracts has hampered the agency’s operations, including initiatives designed to help communities prepare for extreme weather.
Trump’s fiscal year 2026 so-called skinny budget [PDF], which focuses on federal discretionary spending, proposes even deeper cuts. It calls for “terminating a variety of climate-dominated research, data, and grant programs,” shrinking NOAA’s overall funding by more than $1.5 billion, or about 25 percent below current levels.
This is among the largest single-year reduction in the agency’s fifty-five-year history. The proposed cuts would eliminate investments in climate research, including educational programs, conservation and adaptation partnerships with nongovernmental organizations, marine species protection programs, and climate monitoring not related to weather.
