By Mike Magner
CQ-Roll Call
WASHINGTON — Now that the Atlantic hurricane season has officially begun, lawmakers and emergency preparedness officials around the country are becoming anxious about the Trump administration’s staffing cuts at the National Weather Service and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The NWS, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration at the Commerce Department, has lost about 600 employees, or roughly 15% of its workforce, through layoffs or buyouts in the past four months. FEMA, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, has seen about 2,000 of its 6,100 employees leave since January, according to published reports.
The cuts have come as NOAA warned in May of an active hurricane season, with a likelihood of 13 to 19 named storms, of which six to 10 could become hurricanes and three to five of those expected to be in Category 3, 4 or 5. The season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
Last year there were 18 named storms in the Atlantic, 11 became hurricanes, and five — Beryl, Debby, Francine, Helene and Milton — made landfall in the U.S., causing extensive damage, NOAA reported.
The weather service now has about a dozen offices with staffing vacancies above 35%, which means they are at risk of a “possible reduction in forecast accuracy,” according to an April memo obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Some of the highest vacancy rates are at offices in Houston, Nashville and Little Rock, Ark., the newspaper reported. Some stations, including in the tornado-prone states of Kentucky and Kansas, are closed overnight.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D- Wash., ranking member on the Commerce Committee, last week wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick urging him to exempt the NWS from the administration’s hiring freeze so staffing levels can be restored.
“Granting a public safety exemption to the hiring freeze is essential to prevent further degradation of our nation’s weather readiness,” Cantwell wrote.
At FEMA, the Trump administration heightened concerns with suggestions that the agency could be dismantled and its responsibilities turned over to the states. Acting FEMA Administrator Cameron Hamilton said at a House hearing last month that he disagreed with the idea — which cost him his job. President Donald Trump fired him immediately.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have responded with proposals to revamp FEMA and are urging Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem not to gut the agency.
“In Mississippi, we have hurricanes. We have tornadoes, and FEMA has been part of my life ever since I’ve been in public office,” Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R- Miss., said at a May 8 hearing of the Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. She asked Noem for assurances that states like hers “will continue to receive the support they need to prepare for and recover from what we have now and future emergencies.”
House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leaders — Chairman Sam Graves, R- Mo., and ranking member Rick Larsen, D- Wash. — released a “discussion draft” last month of legislation they said would streamline federal disaster relief programs and make FEMA a Cabinet-level agency.
But Rep. Clay Higgins, R- La., introduced a bill that would abolish FEMA and establish a block grant program for disaster relief. That proposal had no co-sponsors as of Friday.
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