Rep. Joe Neguse is leading a coalition of lawmakers urging Congress to reject the Trump administration’s proposed FY2026 budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In letters sent to the Department of Commerce and House Appropriations Committee leaders, Neguse — joined by 23 lawmakers — warned that the sweeping cuts would cause irreversible damage to science and public safety.
The White House’s budget would slash NOAA by $1.8 billion, more than a quarter of the agency’s total funding. It would eliminate its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which oversees 10 research labs and 16 university-based cooperative institutes. In Boulder, that includes four NOAA labs — the Chemical Sciences Lab, Global Monitoring Lab, Global Systems Lab and Physical Sciences Lab — which provide critical forecasting models, air quality monitoring and satellite support used across the country.
The plan would also eliminate NOAA funding for cooperative institutes like CIRES at CU Boulder and CIRA at CSU, which have supported NOAA’s mission on drought, wildfires and climate research for decades.
Read: NOAA budget request would eliminate Boulder climate labs, slash hundreds of job
“If these sweeping cuts are made, the damage will be irreversible,” the lawmakers wrote. “Even short-term interruptions in their research could threaten the safety and economies of the communities that CIs serve.”
Neguse and others said the proposed cuts would undermine national security and emergency preparedness, given NOAA’s role in tracking wildfires, floods, hurricanes and other extreme events. “Any attempt to gut these essential programs would have devastating effects on Americans,” they wrote.