The MAGA Plan to End Free Weather Reports
Project 2025 would all but dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Charging for popular services that were previously free isn’t generally a winning political strategy.
But hard-right policy makers appear poised to try to do just that should Republicans gain power in the next term
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/07/noaa-project-2025-weather/678987/
Privatizing the weather is not a new conservative aim.
Nearly two decades ago, when the National Weather Service updated its website to be more user-friendly,
#Barry #Myers, then executive vice president of #AccuWeather, complained to the press that
“we work very hard every day competing with other companies, and we also have to compete with the government.”
In 2005, after meeting with a representative from AccuWeather, then-Senator #Rick #Santorum introduced a bill calling for the NWS to cease competition with the private sector, and reserve its forecasts for commercial providers.
The bill never made it out of committee. But in 2017, #Trump picked #Myers to lead NOAA.
(Myers withdrew his nomination after waiting two years for Senate confirmation.)
Funding for many of NOAA’s programs could plummet in 2025,
and the agency already suffers from occasional telecommunications breakdowns, including a recent alert-system outage amid flooding in the Midwest.
It is also subject to political pressures: In 2019, the agency backed then-President Trump’s false claim
(accompanied by a seemingly Sharpie-altered map)
that Hurricane Dorian was headed for Alabama
Chuck Darwin