| "The Trump administration is seeking to slash the budget of one of the government's premier climate science agencies by 17 percent, delivering steep cuts to research funding and satellite programs, according to a four-page budget memo obtained by The Washington Post." "NOAA is part of the Commerce Department, which would be hit by an overall 18 percent budget reduction from its current funding level." "The OMB outline for the Commerce Department for fiscal 2018 proposed sharp reductions in specific areas within NOAA such as spending on education, grants and research. NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research would lose $126 million, or 26 percent, of the funds it has under the current budget. Its satellite data division would lose $513 million, or 22 percent, of its current funding under the proposal." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/03/white-house-proposes-steep-budget-cut-to-leading-climate-science-agency/ If these cuts are made, there's no way they could be limited to simply climate research. We would be made less safe than we otherwise would be. It would stall, or even reverse, progress on hurricane modeling. If the cuts go through I guess we'll have to wait until an event like Sandy happens again. Then suddenly there's more money. This is going to set back satellite projects for a long time. Why have ambitious projects in the future? Even if Trump is gone in 2021 there's no point planning ahead if a future administration could gut a project. I guess we'll have to look to the European Union, if it can stay together, and other countries in the future. Maybe we'll still get most, if not all, of the planned GOES satellites up since a lot has already been developed and built. |