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446558 |
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Date: March 03, 2025 at 17:01:52
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: DOGE moves to cancel NOAA leases on key weather buildings |
URL: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/03/doge-noaa-weather-building-leases-trump |
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DOGE moves to cancel NOAA leases on key weather buildings
Andrew Freedman
A sign in front of a weather forecasting building with the building and trees
behind it.
NOAA's Center for Weather and Climate Prediction headquarters in College
Park, Md. Photo: Michael A. McCoy/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The Trump administration has informed NOAA that two pivotal centers for
weather forecasting will soon have their leases canceled, sources told Axios.
Why it matters: One of the buildings is the nerve center for generating national
weather forecasts.
It was designed to integrate multiple forecasting centers in one building to
improve operating efficiency. It houses telecommunications equipment to send
weather data and forecasts across the U.S. and abroad.
Driving the news: The NOAA Center for Weather and Climate Prediction is on
the lease cancellation list, according to a NOAA employee who spoke on
condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
Two ex-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials also
confirmed the list.
The building houses the National Weather Service's National Centers for
Environmental Prediction, or NCEP, which includes the Environmental Modeling
Center. It opened in 2012 and has about 268,000 square feet of space.
The modeling center runs the computer models used in day-to-day weather
forecasting, and ensures that weather data correctly goes into these models
and that they are operating correctly.
The lease cancellation was first reported by The Verge. The National Weather
Service didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The NOAA employee told Axios the cancellations — along with recent layoffs,
early retirements, and travel and hiring limitations — point to an effort to
dismantle the agency.
Between the lines: Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)
has been working through the General Services Administration to cancel
government leases of office space.
The NOAA employee told Axios a nightmare scenario could unfold if the
College Park building was shuttered, but the agency still was tasked with the
same missions as at present.
In that case, NOAA would have to somehow replicate its functionality
somewhere else in a process that could take a year or more and leave critical
forecasting gaps.
It would also require new congressional appropriations to get that done.
The intrigue: The cancellation notice for the College Park facility isn't final, as a
spreadsheet detailing all the properties on the cancellation list has an end date
of "TBD" for that building, according to the NOAA staff member.
Another building on the list, which came to NOAA by way of GSA, now has an
end date of Sept. 30, 2025.
That facility in Norman, Okla. is the Radar Operations Center, a centralized hub
for technicians and researchers to work on improving and repairing the nation's
aging fleet of Doppler weather radars.
The DOGE website has a section on canceled or modified government real
estate properties. It shows several NOAA facilities, though not the exact
building in College Park as of Monday.
In addition to the National Weather Service-related properties, numerous
buildings on the so-called "wet side" of NOAA are on the list the agency
received, including the National Marine Fisheries Service.
What they're saying: Andrew Rosenberg, a former NOAA official on the
agency's fisheries side, has seen the cancellation list. He likened the College
Park situation to cutting the government via a "chainsaw" approach rather than
more fully considered cuts.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) told Axios he hadn't heard anything final about
NOAA buildings in Maryland.
"I am worried," he told Axios after speaking at a rally Monday outside NOAA
headquarters in Silver Spring, Md.
"We know they're looking through GSA," he said of DOGE. "We should be
concerned and worry about all these things, which is why the sooner we shut
down the efforts to illegally get rid of federal employees the better."
Van Hollen said his staff will look into the College Park facility in particular. He
already has sent a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick seeking
answers following the NOAA cuts of probationary employees last week.
His office put the total of those layoffs to 650 out of NOAA's approximately
12,000-person workforce.
What's next: NOAA, like other government agencies, has been told to plan for
even deeper cuts.
Go deeper:
Top weather, climate agency NOAA the latest layoff target
NOAA layoffs threaten weather, climate forecasts
DOGE plans for NOAA, FEMA could have big climate impacts
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Responses:
[446579] [446592] [446564] [446593] |
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446579 |
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Date: March 04, 2025 at 05:53:11
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: A guy who makes $8 million a day off the government thinks ... |
URL: https://x.com/RepCasar |
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Congressman Greg Casar
@RepCasar
·
Mar 1
A guy who makes $8 million a day off the government thinks seniors getting
$65 a day they worked their whole lives to earn is a “ponzi scheme.”
Protect Social Security. Fire Elon Musk.
Feb 28
BREAKING: Elon Musk called Social Security "the biggest Ponzi scheme of all
time" in an interview with Joe Rogan.
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Responses:
[446592] |
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446592 |
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Date: March 04, 2025 at 07:58:05
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: A guy who makes $8 million a day off the government thinks ... |
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All you seniors on this board, that is where they're
going to head.
Hope you have other sources of income. If not, I hope
your kids have an extra room for grandma or grandpa.
That's OUR money, and they're about to take it away from
anyone who worked their whole lives and contributed to
that fund.
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Responses:
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446564 |
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Date: March 03, 2025 at 18:46:04
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: DOGE moves to cancel NOAA leases on key weather buildings |
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Name anything that saves more money than weather
forecasting.
This isn't about money. It's about intimidation of
those who can look up and know what they are looking
at.
Already meteorologists have complied with covering up
global warming, chemtrails, warming oceans... but now?
What are they not supposed to see?
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Responses:
[446593] |
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446593 |
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Date: March 04, 2025 at 07:59:52
From: Redhart, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: DOGE moves to cancel NOAA leases on key weather buildings |
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yup, people will get killed because of these decisions,
and because this new president is bound and determined
to cut up and sell off pieces of our goverment to fill
his own pockets.
No worries, he has a sharpee and will draw you the
weather report of his choice from here on in.
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Responses:
None |
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