A Trump administration budget proposal for one of the nation’s preeminent science agencies would slash funding for climate and earth sciences — including shuttering four Colorado-based labs and ending federal funding for two other research institutes.
The proposed budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would eliminate the agency’s research arm, the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, according to a document made public on Monday.
In Colorado, that would shutter four NOAA labs at Boulder’s Earth System Research Laboratories: the Chemical Sciences Laboratory, the Global Monitoring Laboratory, the Physical Sciences Laboratory and the Global Systems Laboratory.
Established in 1957, the labs’ areas of focus include improving weather and wildfire forecasting, studying air quality, conducting long-term monitoring of greenhouse gases and ozone, as well as improving knowledge about water availability.
The budget still must gain congressional approval. If approved, the cuts would go into effect when the 2026 fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.
“The FY 2026 budget request refocuses the NOAA budget on core activities, including collecting essential scientific observations like ocean and weather data to support navigation and forecasting,” the budget document states. “A leaner NOAA that focuses on core operational needs, eliminates unnecessary layers of bureaucracy, terminates nonessential grant programs, and ends activities that do not warrant a federal role, will provide better value to the American public while maintaining activities that are essential to protecting lives and property.”
The proposal also would eliminate federal funding for cooperative institutes, including the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, known as CIRES, at the University of Colorado Boulder and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, or CIRA, at Colorado State University.
The institutes are collaborations between their host universities and NOAA, which provides the majority of funding for both organizations. The institutes’ areas of study are wide-ranging: mapping the ocean floor, studying the 2021 Marshall fire in Boulder to improve wildfire forecasting, studying how tornados form and researching how to best leverage satellites for real-time weather information.
Leaders from both cooperative institutes told The Denver Post this spring that loss of federal funding would require them to lay off scientists and workers. The organizations could continue to operate without the federal dollars but would be severely diminished, they said.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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