After all, what do those uppity meteorologists know that the DOGE guys didn’t.

From Ranking Member Meng Opening Statement at the National Weather Service Hearing (March 26, 2026):

That is why it was extremely concerning to see the Weather Service lose roughly 600 employees, including many meteorologists, in the early months of the Trump Administration last year, specifically as a result of the firings and early retirements engineered by Elon Musk and his DOGE team. This was confirmed after Secretary Lutnick falsely told this subcommittee last year that no meteorologists were among the hundreds of employees fired.

Local weather forecast offices were greatly stressed and understaffed across the country.  Numerous offices were forced to limit weather balloon launches due to limited staffing. These are devices that measure temperature, pressure, and relative humidity at high altitudes.  At one point last year, 45 percent of local weather forecast offices had vacancy rates of 20 percent or higher—the threshold for critical understaffing—while eight offices were missing more than 35 percent of their staff. Sixteen offices were missing their Warning Coordination Meteorologist—the person responsible for making sure emergency managers and the public know what to do when disaster strikes.

Extreme weather impacts us all.  It was only a few years ago that Hurricane Ida killed several of my constituents in Queens and dozens more in the region.  My heart breaks when I see how deadly the floods in Texas were, or the recent tornadoes in the Midwest.  An adequately staffed National Weather Service is essential.   It is a matter of life and death for countless communities impacted by extreme weather events. The bottom line is that a hollowed-out National Weather Service is a risk we simply cannot afford.

Despite the difficulties caused by the staffing shortages, the Trump Administration refused to allow for the backfilling of critical frontline National Weather Service meteorologists and other staff until last August, when the Administration finally recognized the problem it had created, and allowed the Weather Service to begin backfilling some vacant positions at local weather forecast offices.

Further compounding these problems, the Trump Administration has required that every contract decision greater than one hundred thousand dollars must first go to the office of Secretary Lutnick for his approval.  This has caused bottlenecks and delayed critical missions, impacting the National Weather Service.

For example, a backbone information technology system used by the Weather Service came within hours of shutting down.  A local weather forecast office in Kentucky utilized portable toilets in its parking lot during a major storm, due to an inability to get permission to hire a plumber.  These are just two examples.