For most of a century, the United States has been the haven for investors in troubled times, and US bonds have been considered a repository of value globally precisely because the country’s commitment to rule of law, to great science and data, to non-politicized scientific, regulatory and economic institutions, like NASA, NOAA, the Center for Disease Control, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Reserve.
But trust in agencies like that implies that there are such things as “facts” – that are real and non-negotiable, that something called “reality” has precedence over politics, or the needs and whims of billionaires, big corporations, oligarchs, or would be dictators.
The agenda of the fossil fuel industry over the last 50 years has been to gradually break down that trust, and the idea that some lefty, radical, “reality based community” can pass “laws” and “regulations” that have more force than the sheer power of money, intimidation and influence of the powerful.
If the wrecking crew wins, and they are very close, the era of American influence will come to an end, and if faith in American institutions disappears internationally, our ability to attract the investors that currently keep our entire economy and our deficits afloat, will disappear, with unpredictable, but dire results.
The Billionaires will be fine, of course, but everyday Americans will find the world changed in ways they never dreamed possible.
Trump administration officials are recommending the elimination of the scientific research division at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to internal documents obtained by The New York Times and several people with knowledge of the situation.
The proposal from the Office of Management and Budget would abolish the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research office at NOAA, one of the world’s premiere Earth sciences research centers.
A budget allocation of just over $170 million, down from about $485 million in 2024, would hobble science as varied as early warning systems for natural disasters, science education for students in kindergarten through high school, and the study of the Arctic, where temperatures have increased nearly four times as fast as the rest of the planet over the past four decades.
“At this funding level, O.A.R. is eliminated as a line office,” the proposal states.
The outline for the 2026 budget passback, which would need to be approved by Congress, suggests “significant reductions to education, grants, research, and climate-related programs within NOAA” and comes after the dismantling of other agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the United States Agency for International Development, and the removal of mentions of climate change from federal websites.
Under the proposal, the total budget for the Commerce Department would be nearly $7.7 billion, a reduction of more than $2.5 billion from 2025 levels. According to the document, the budget would refocus on activities more in line with the Trump administration’s agenda, including enforcing trade laws and collecting scientific observations like ocean and weather data to support forecasting.
“This Administration’s hostility toward research and rejection of climate science will have the consequence of eviscerating the weather forecasting capabilities that this plan claims to preserve,” Representative Zoe Lofgren, the senior Democrat on the House Sciences Committee, said in an emailed statement.
Project 2025, which was published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy research organization, called NOAA Research “the source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and said “the preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded.”
“It would take the U.S. back to the 1950s in technical and scientific skill,” said Craig McLean, chief scientist at NOAA under both the first Trump presidency and President Biden, of the proposed budget.
Alexandra McCandless, an OMB spokesperson, said “No final funding decisions have been made.”
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Same thing happening to Health agencies.
While we wait to see if any Republicans will protect budgeted science programs (which they typically do) there’s also the risks to staff who haven’t been fired yet, as clumsy contract terminations and slapdash policies create hazardous working conditions – like that the NOAA fisheries office discussed here in a ProPublica report ArsTechnica reposted:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/04/noaa-scientists-scrub-toilets-rethink-experiments-after-service-contracts-end/
From Paul Krugman last week, “The Third-Worlding of America”:
“In fact, savvy traders have realized that there’s no coherent economic strategy. There’s an old line about military analysis: ‘Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals talk about logistics.’ Well, when it comes to taking the pulse of financial markets, amateurs talk about stocks, but professionals talk about bond and currency markets. That’s because bond and currency markets are generally less driven by emotion. There’s no ‘meme
gamblinginvesting’ in bond and currency markets. And these markets are both signaling major loss of faith in America.”