“The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories.” (Project 2025, Section 4.1: Department of Commerce, Thomas F. Gilman, page 696, paragraph 7.)

This would have severe public safety consequences. NOAA operates key systems such as the National Weather Service (NWS) and various satellites that provide real-time data for weather forecasting, severe storm warnings, and climate monitoring. Eliminating or privatizing these functions could reduce access to high-quality, reliable data.

NOAA plays a critical role in issuing early warnings for hurricanes, tornadoes, and other severe weather events. If these functions were privatized or handed over to states or territories, there could be inconsistencies in the quality and timeliness of warnings, leading to greater risks for communities during natural disasters.

If weather services were privatized, the general public and industries (e.g., agriculture, aviation, shipping) might have to pay for what are currently publicly funded services. This could increase costs, especially for smaller entities or states with limited budgets.

If states don’t have the budget and private entities aren’t able to do it as well, what happens? Blindsided by natural disasters!

Further, NOAA is a leader in climate science, conducting research on global warming, ocean acidification, and sea-level rise. Eliminating or reducing NOAA’s research functions could hinder efforts to understand and mitigate climate change, leaving gaps in the scientific knowledge used for global environmental policy.

Spoiler: That’s the part they care about. That’s why they want to dismantle the NOAA. THEY WANT TO PRETEND CLIMATE CHANGE DOESN’T EXIST, and they think that if we stop researching it or talking about it, it will simply go away. (See: The Bruno Strategy.)¹

Privatizing scientific research functions might reduce transparency and objectivity, as private companies could have financial incentives to focus on short-term profitability rather than long-term scientific inquiry. Important research on environmental issues might be deprioritized. Or a private company could simply discontinue this research, if they’re of the climate change denier variety.

How about the impact to the economy?

NOAA plays a key role in managing U.S. fisheries and protecting marine ecosystems through the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Handing over these responsibilities to states, territories, or private entities could lead to inconsistent management practices, which may result in overfishing or the depletion of marine resources. This could harm coastal economies that rely on fishing and tourism.

NOAA provides essential data for maritime navigation, including ocean mapping, tide predictions, and storm tracking. Privatizing these functions could increase costs for the shipping industry or reduce access to crucial data, potentially leading to safety issues or inefficiencies in marine transportation.

If you privatize or leave it up to the states to handle, it’s going to lead to fragmented and inconsistent standards. NOAA is currently a centralized agency, which allows it to coordinate functions such as weather forecasting, climate monitoring, and oceanographic research efficiently. If its responsibilities are divided among other federal agencies, states, and private companies, it will reduce the overall ability to respond to large-scale challenges like climate change or natural disasters. Different states or private entities may not follow uniform standards, leading to a lack of consistency in data collection, forecasting, and environmental regulation.

If we SUDDENLY hand these functions over to the states, (and Gilman recommends we undertake these actions immediately) they don’t have the resources, expertise, or infrastructure to even begin to handle the responsibilities currently managed by NOAA. Additionally, it would stretch states’ budgets, with costs being passed to taxpayers of that state. Wealthier states will fare much better than others, when disaster strikes. It should be noted that most of the states in the most danger of hurricanes are among the nation’s poorest². When the inevitable happens, who will these states turn to for help?

Dismantling the NOAA will lead indirectly to mass deaths due to disaster unpreparedness and inability to recover from them, unmonitored sea conditions, and more; to say nothing of the disastrous effects of continuing to ignore climate change.