Proposals include transferring a supercomputer to the University of Wyoming and shifting a space weather lab to a private company.The New York TimesBy Eric NiilerMarch 13, 2026The Trump administration is reviewing proposals to break up one of the world’s leading climate and weather laboratories, transfer its work to universities and private companies, take away its aircraft, and sell its property in Boulder, Colo.The laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has been targeted for months by the Trump administration. In a social media post in December, Russell Vought, the White House budget director, called the Colorado center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country.”The center, founded in 1960, is responsible for many of the biggest scientific advances in understanding of weather and climate. Its research aircraft and sophisticated computer models of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are widely used in forecasting weather events and disasters.Scientists say the move to dismantle the center would weaken research that is crucial to understanding the atmosphere, space and oceans, air pollution and climate change. It would leave emergency officials and planners less prepared for extreme weather events, critics said.
Exactly! That is his goal: to break it into small pieces that can never equal the sum of the original center. This raises the obvious question: Why?
He has asked the N.S.F. inspector general to review allegations from a whistle-blower that Trump administration officials began negotiating the transfer of the center’s space weather program to a private company in January, before the review had been completed.
Is it possible his billionaire coal donors dislike the global warming forecasts produced there? While The Hill attributes the move to political retaliation:
by Rachel Frazin03/17/26A new lawsuit opposing the breakup of a federal climate and weather lab alleges that the move is part of a Trump administration retribution effort against the state of Colorado.{...}UCAR alleged that the breakup of the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) was part of an effort to punish Colorado for refusing to give up its authority over elections as well as over its legal actions against former county clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted of election interference.Peters is serving a nine year sentence and has been a major part of President Trump feud’s with Colorado. Prosecutors accused her of stealing a county employee’s security badge to help a man connected with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell gain access to the county’s voter systems.“When Colorado refused to accede to attempts to infringe upon its sovereignty, the Agencies launched a widespread and coordinated campaign of punishment and coercion,” the lawsuit stated. “UCAR and NCAR are collateral damage.”
Is that the true reason?
In December, OMB Director Russell Vought announced that the science foundation “will be breaking up” NCAR, which predicts severe weather, models flooding, forecasts air quality and conducts climate research.
Why is the administration so determined to dismantle this agency? Why is Trump so "hellbent" on closing it? It has been in his sights for some time; as Science Advisor reported in the spring of last year:
White House aims to end NOAA’s research office; NASA also targeted11 Apr 2025By Paul VoosenPresident Donald Trump’s administration is seeking to end nearly all of the climate research conducted by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), one of the country’s premier climate science agencies, according to an internal budget document seen by Science. The document indicates the White House is ready to ask Congress to eliminate NOAA’s climate research centers and cut hundreds of federal and academic climate scientists who track and study human-driven global warming.The administration is also preparing to ask for deep cuts to NASA’s science programs, according to media reports today.The proposed NOAA cuts—which could be altered before the administration sends its 2026 budget request to Congress in the coming weeks—would cut funding for the agency’s research arm, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), to just over $171 million, a drop of $485 million. Any remaining research funding from previously authorized budgets would be moved to other programs. “At this funding level, OAR is eliminated as a line office,” the document states.{...}The administration’s plan would “eliminate all funding for climate, weather, and ocean laboratories and cooperative institutes,” says the document, which reflects discussions between NOAA and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) about the agency’s 2026 budget request. Currently, NOAA operates 10 research labs around the country. They include influential ocean research centers in Florida and Washington state; five atmospheric science labs in Boulder, Colorado, and Maryland; and a severe storm lab in Oklahoma. It also operates the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in New Jersey, the birthplace of weather and climate modeling, as well as a lab in Michigan devoted to the Great Lakes. The agency further funds cooperative institutes, which support a large collection of academic scientists who work closely with the NOAA labs.
It clearly isn't about the money... Trump is blowing that each day with the Iran War. In 2024 Forbes wrote that,
Office of Oceanic And Atmospheric Research: The office, which provides the research that underpins the government’s climate work, is “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and should be downsized, Project 2025 argues, proposing that its climate change research should be disbanded and the division’s other operations “should be reviewed with an aim of consolidation and reduction of bloat.”
This appears to be a coordinated effort to promote one of the Republicans Big Lies..: that global warming is a "hoax." By dismantling the tools used to measure the crisis, they effectively killed the messenger. The next thing you know, we’ll be paying a monthly subscription just to see a weather forecast.
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