Trump's Reckless Plan to Starve NOAA

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is just one of many federal agencies marked for drastic funding reductions to enable a big boost in military spending. But the cuts proposed for America's center of weather and climate research reveal alarming pitfalls in President Donald Trump's approach to budgeting: a reluctance to invest in the future, a disregard for science and a willingness to damage a well-functioning government operation for a minimal pay-off.

According to an outline recently obtained by the Washington Post, NOAA's budget is set to lose almost $1 billion, a crippling 17 percent hit. The cuts would be especially deep to divisions that work on climate modeling, so they might seem unsurprising targets for a climate-change-doubting president. NOAA's satellite office, in particular, recently angered climate deniers in Congress when it demonstrated that there's been no slowdown in the relentless pace of global warming.