Committee Leaders Demand Answers After NOAA Complaints Reveal Firings Decisions Came from Outside of NOAA Leadership
(Washington, DC) – Yesterday, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology Ranking Members Lofgren (CA-18), Sykes (OH-13), and Amo (RI-1) sent a letter to NOAA Acting Administrator Grimm demanding answers on who exactly is in charge at NOAA after a document reviewed by the Committee has raised questions on where authority lies at the agency.
According to a document obtained by the Committee, Vice Admiral Nancy Hann submitted responses to a series of questions posed to her by the NOAA Office of Civil Rights (NOAA OCR) as a part of the process related to the firing of a probationary employee. At the time of the probationary firings, Vice Admiral Hann was the NOAA Acting Administrator. In the NOAA OCR questionnaires, Hann admitted that she was “directed” to fire probationary employees from “a list provided to me” by unnamed individuals.
“This is an extremely troubling situation with disturbing implications for NOAA,” the Members wrote in the letter. “If the agency’s own leaders are not in charge – if they lack discretion, lack authority, and merely serve as figureheads to implement decisions based on lists provided to them by others – the agency itself is made vulnerable to poorly conceived, ill-informed decisions by outsiders who lack technical expertise related to NOAA’s work and who may know nothing about NOAA’s mission, organization, and workforce. The disastrous consequences of the probationary firings demonstrate precisely why this is so harmful to the agency. And if the agency’s leaders are simply following orders from undisclosed outsiders, the agency lacks accountability to Congress and to the American people. How do we know where true authority lies? It may very well be the case that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) prepared the list of NOAA probationary employees to be fired as a part of its destructive rampage through the federal government and then forced NOAA leadership to submit to its commands. DOGE’s ignorance knows no bounds, and we can think of few things more alarming for NOAA’s future than to give DOGE the power to dictate its fate.”
The Members continued, “The stakes could not be higher. As the Trump Administration weighs drastic budget cuts at NOAA and a sweeping Reduction in Force (RIF) plan for the agency, the country has a right to know who will be making these decisions and whether the leaders who know the agency best – and who have been charged with leading it – will possess the authority to advocate for its best interests.”
The letter can be found here.
Next Article Previous Article