June 02, 2025
WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Senator Angus King, alongside 14 of his colleagues, is urging the Trump Administration to swiftly reinstate terminated employees at the National Weather Service (NWS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as Maine faces an unpredictable hurricane season ahead. In a letter to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and Acting Administrator of NOAA Laura Grimm, King and his fellow 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 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.”
NWS maintains 122 weather forecast offices across the United States which are responsible for providing 24/7 weather monitoring and forecasts. The NWS Forecast Offices in Gray and Caribou are vital to providing Maine people across the state 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. Maine fishermen have raised concerns about the layoffs which have impacted the fish management division and reliable data for weather forecasts.
In addition to Senator King, the letter was signed by Senators Peter Welch (D-VT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), Tina Smith (D-Minn.), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Reverend Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Brian Schatz (D-HI).
The full text of the letter is available here and below.
+++
Dear Secretary Lutnick, and Acting Administrator Grimm,
We write to express our concern with recent layoffs at the National Weather Service (NWS). Reports indicate that over 550 employees have been terminated or accepted deferred resignation offers. We believe that these staff reductions pose a threat to public safety and emergency preparedness by undercutting essential forecasting and weather monitoring systems. We urge you to reinstate terminated NWS employees and request additional information on how the administration plans to address staffing at NWS.
NWS maintains 122 weather forecast offices across the United States which are responsible for providing 24/7 weather monitoring and forecasts. 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. As the frequency and severity of such disasters increase, maintaining NWS’s real-time forecasting operations is essential to saving lives3and reducing the cost of recovery for disaster-affected communities.
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.
The Department of Commerce is reportedly planning to eliminate an additional 1,000 staff from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including at NWS, in the coming weeks. All told, NWS offices, already suffering from staffing constraints, could see a 15% reduction in force just months into 2025.
We request a response to the following questions by June 10, 2025:
We urge you to reassess the staffing needs at NOAA and NWS and reinstate terminated probationary employees swiftly. We appreciate your attention to this matter and look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
###