Latest news with #WeatherWorkforceImprovementAct
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Nebraska congressman's bill would prioritize filling Weather Service vacancies after DOGE cuts
Flood's legislation was cosponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from Florida, California, Oklahoma, and Illinois. (Aaron Sanderford/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN — Nebraska Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Flood introduced legislation this month that would make it harder for National Weather Service employees to be fired. The bipartisan-backed bill, named the Weather Workforce Improvement Act, would reclassify Weather Service employees as public safety personnel — essentially protecting them from most future administrative hiring freezes and buyouts. Flood's legislation was cosponsored by a bipartisan group of lawmakers from Florida, California, Oklahoma, and Illinois. No other members of the Nebraska delegation have yet signed on as cosponsors. The bill also would allow the agency director a two-year authority to hire meteorologists and other positions deemed critical for the Weather Service, to fill positions that can't be filled now due to a broader freeze on government hiring. 'It doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat or an Independent,' Flood said. 'Everybody wants accurate weather forecasting.' The proposal comes after a Weather Service office in the Omaha area and other Great Plains offices announced pausing the deployment of weather balloons in April. Omaha-based NWS office will deploy weather balloons again after DOGE cuts Flood and others in the federal delegation reversed that decision after pushing back against the then-Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency cuts — though Flood said last week that the vacancies had started during former President Joe Biden. The station is launching two weather balloons a day, Flood has said, but the Omaha-area Weather Service office has said it still faces staffing issues. Flood told the Examiner in April that if his legislation had been in place, 'it would never have gotten to the point it is.' The Weather Service has faced staffing issues long before Trump's second term, but recent cuts required 'urgent action,' according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Trump Administration fired a total of roughly 600 workers from both agencies in March as it tried to reshape the federal bureaucracy. DOGE cuts to the Weather Service affecting Nebraska contributed to two forecasting offices that cover some rural parts of western and southwestern Nebraska to no longer monitor local weather around-the-clock. Weather Service offices covering parts of rural Nebraska no longer monitor weather 24/7 One office in Wyoming that covers eight counties in the Nebraska Panhandle, and the other in Kansas that forecasts for three counties in the southwestern corner of Nebraska had to find backup during uncovered shifts. Other nearby forecasting offices — dealing with their own staffing problems — have to handle the load. The Weather Service said last week it had been granted an exemption to Trump's government-wide hiring freeze to hire 126 people to 'stabilize' the department. That is less than a quarter of the cuts made to the agency this year. Nebraska and local rural weather experts say NWS staffing shortages threaten public safety. Flood said he hopes to get his proposal amended into a 'more comprehensive weather-related bill' for a vote on the House floor. He says it is more challenging to pass a law at the federal level than his time as a state lawmaker, where he served as speaker. 'Passing the law in Congress is like a Rubik's Cube with 536 squares on it and a lot of different colors,' Flood said during a press call last week. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
New York Times
06-06-2025
- Climate
- New York Times
Law Would Make Most National Weather Service Workers Hard to Fire
A bill introduced in the House of Representatives on Friday would make it harder to fire most employees of the National Weather Service and give the agency's director the authority to hire new staff directly, months after it lost nearly 600 employees to layoffs and retirements as part of the Trump administration's sweeping cuts to the federal work force. The Weather Workforce Improvement Act would designate certain positions within the agency as critical to public safety. The bill's sponsors say it would have protected meteorologists, as well as other roles within the agency, from the cuts this year. Those jobs include the people who specialize in hurricane forecasts and issue warnings about tornadoes and flash floods, as well as the employees who physically maintain things like weather models or launch weather balloons. 'Weather forecasting is not partisan,' said Representative Mike Flood of Nebraska, one of the bill's sponsors. 'Everyone supports the National Weather Service. Everyone relies on them, whether they realize it or not.' The Weather Service has suffered from short staffing for years, long before the Trump administration's cuts, but that became more severe this spring, as hundreds more employees began retiring or were forced out. At the same time, the country has faced a nonstop pace of deadly and expensive weather disasters, including the California wildfires, several tornado outbreaks and severe hailstorms. For the first time in the agency's history, some forecasting offices no longer had enough staff members to operate overnight, and others had to curtail the twice-daily launches of weather balloons, which collect data on atmospheric conditions that feed into forecast models. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
