Friday PM update: NE Congressman says balloon launches returning to Omaha

And Colorado congressional delegation fights NOAA Research cuts

In a couple of media stories released in the last 24 hours, Nebraska Congressman Mike Flood (R-NE) outlined concerns he has about National Weather Service (NWS) funding cuts, and specifically the recent termination of upper air balloon flights at the NWS Omaha office. Flights were terminated at this office - the office serving his district - as part of reductions announced by NWS on March 20th. Additional nationwide reductions in upper air flights due to staffing were announced by NWS last week.

Rep. Flood told Brownfield Agricultural News that he feels federal funding cuts to the National Weather Service puts farmers and ranchers at risk. In an interview with KETV News in Omaha he stated that the NWS is a public safety agency, and that his concerns go beyond just his district:

“This isn't just bad for the Heartland, but if we have a hurricane marching and advancing towards the eastern seaboard, they use the data across states like Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio to help determine is that hurricane going to go more towards Charlotte? Is it going to work up through Raleigh? Is it going to hit the D.C. area, New York? Like, who's going to be impacted by this? Everything's connected. If we don't get this right, not only does it impact the weather forecasting, but it hurts aviation pilots, air traffic controllers. They rely on the same data to make decisions about where they go, how they get there, what they can expect, what they need to do in flight."

Congressman Flood said he took his concerns directly to the White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) - “I went to the White House and I pulled the fire alarm. I went to OMB. I pulled the fire alarm.” The KETV article states that in response to his concerns upper air balloon flights have resumed at the Omaha office, starting with once per day flights. Flood indicated that the NWS would be assigning additional meteorologists to the Omaha office next week that would enable returning to the normal twice daily flights.

However, looking at the upper air data catalog on the Storm Prediction Center website, it does not appear that even once per day routine flights have resumed yet. As of mid-afternoon Friday, I have not been able to find any new press releases or service change notices from the NWS outlining any changes to the previously announced reductions to upper air flights, so it is unclear when exactly flights might resume or what implications these developments might have more broadly beyond the NWS Omaha office. Regardless, it does seem to show that there is congressional pressure being brought to bear with regard to cuts to NWS. Congressman Flood summarized his thoughts about NWS and the staffing and budget cuts to KETV:

"I think the people of Nebraska and America, we owe a deep gratitude to the folks that work there," Flood said. "They've been working for several years on a shoestring staff, and, they've made it work. Now, they're going to get the resources they need to make it better." Flood said the long-term process will take time, but he is calling this a win. He credited the meteorologists and citizens who called him and voiced their concerns, and he encourages everyone to continue reaching out to their elected officials with their thoughts and concerns.

A part of the Congressional delegation in Colorado has also been pressuring the Trump Administration with regard to NOAA budget cuts, in their case addressing proposed cuts to NOAA Research. Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO) released a letter he and Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) sent to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick regarding the OMB FY2026 NOAA passback budget document that proposes elimination of funding to the NOAA Cooperative Institutes (CIs).

In some ways, Colorado may be the state that has the most at risk with the proposed elimination of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR, NOAA Research) and its associated university NOAA Cooperative Institutes. Boulder is home to the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratories (ESRL), a complex of four individual OAR labs: Chemical Sciences Laboratory, Global Monitoring Laboratory, Global Systems Laboratory and the Physical Sciences Laboratory. Two large NOAA CIs are based in Colorado: Cooperative Institute for Earth System Research and Data Science (CIESRDS) at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. CIESRDS is the largest NOAA CI, its website indicates that more than 900 students, faculty, researchers and staff are employed there.

In the letter, the lawmakers stated their strong support for the CIs and the work they do:

Many of NOAA’s CIs have been around for decades and the work they do has been helping our communities for just as long. Cuts to funding, furloughs or layoffs will have devastating impacts on the important work the CIs do. CIs are home to experienced researchers and long-standing data collection programs with major impacts on human societies, moreover they are instrumental in training future generations of workers who continue to contribute to societal needs. It is our fear that if sweeping cuts are made, the damage will be irreversible. Even short-term interruptions in their research could threaten the safety and economies of the communities that CIs serve across the nation.

Neither the press release regarding the lawmakers’ letter nor the social media posts indicated if any response had yet been received to the letter from the Department of Commerce.

While the OMB passback document does propose level funding for the NWS, the proposed cuts to NOAA Research are massive, with elimination of OAR as a line office, closure of all OAR labs and CIs, and elimination of most currently funded research programs. As I wrote about here, yesterday was the deadline for NOAA to make an initial response to OMB about various proposals in the OMB budget passback document. Given the passage of that deadline and OMB’s statement in the document that “there are a number of areas described below where the Department should act now to align existing resources and activities to the direction in Passback,” one would anticipate that the administration’s planned next steps with regard to NOAA should start being seen soon.