WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Peter Welch (D-Vt.) led 14 of his colleagues in urging the Trump Administration to swiftly reinstate terminated employees at the National Weather Service (NWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ahead of the upcoming hurricane season. In their letter, the Senators emphasized that staff reductions at both agencies pose a threat to public safety and emergency preparedness by undercutting essential forecasting and weather monitoring systems. The Senators requested information on how the administration plans to address staffing at both agencies.
NWS maintains 122 weather forecast offices across the United States which are responsible for providing 24/7 weather monitoring and forecasts. The NWS Forecast Office in Burlington, Vermont, is vital to providing Vermonters with information on how to prepare for and protect their families from flooding and extreme weather events. The Department of Commerce is reportedly planning to eliminate an additional 1,000 staff from NOAA, including at NWS, in the coming weeks. These cuts, combined with current staffing constraints, could reduce the NWS workforce by 15% just months into 2025.
“NWS would be unable to provide accurate and timely forecasts without sufficient staffing levels at weather forecast offices nationwide. In addition to daily forecasting operations, weather forecast offices are responsible for issuing emergency weather warnings ahead of events such as major floods, wildfire hazards, hurricanes, and blizzard conditions,” wrote the Senators. “As the frequency and severity of such disasters increase, maintaining NWS’s real-time forecasting operations is essential to saving lives and reducing the cost of recovery for disaster-affected communities.”
The Senators continued: “NWS employees and the programs they support are essential to the safety of the millions of Americans impacted by storms and disasters each year. On February 27, 2025, 108 probationary NWS employees were terminated, adding to the 170 staff who accepted the Administration’s ‘deferred resignation’ plan earlier that month. These staffing cuts are already impacting NWS services, forcing NWS to halt weather balloon launches in New York, Maine, and Alaska that provide daily weather data to meteorologists at weather forecast offices across the country.”
“As we head into hurricane season, 30 weather forecast offices are without a meteorologist-in-charge, one is completely without any managers at all, and nearly a dozen are preparing to shut down 24/7 services without immediate action to address shortages,” wrote the Senators. “We urge you to reassess the staffing needs at NOAA and NWS and reinstate terminated probationary employees swiftly.”
The Senators requested answers to the following questions:
- How many of the NWS regional weather forecast offices were impacted by terminations or deferred resignations since January 20, 2025? Please provide a list of affected offices, including how many staff departed and how many remain.
- With reports of at least one weather forecast office in Goodland, Kansas stopping 24/7 operations due to staffing shortages, how do the Department of Commerce and NOAA plan to maintain continued 24/7 operation of forecasting offices without requiring excessive overtime hours from staff?
- With a requested budget cut of $1.311 billion for NOAA’s overall budget, and a $209 million cut for NWS procurement of weather satellites and infrastructure9, how does the Department of Commerce and NOAA plan to ensure adequate staffing and preparedness in the midst of worsening storm seasons, increasing heat waves, and changing weather patterns?
- As NWS employees are critical to public safety, especially heading into hurricane season, will the Department of Commerce grant an exemption to the hiring freeze to fill these crucial positions?
In addition to Senator Welch, the letter was cosigned by Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Angus King (I-Maine), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).
Read the full text of the letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Acting Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Laura Grimm.
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