Ranking Members Lofgren and Amo Implore Trump Administration to End Reckless Hiring Freeze at NWS
The letter comes as communities work to recover after deadly storms ripped through the South and Midwest this weekend.
(Washington, DC) – Today, Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Environment Subcommittee Ranking Member Gabe Amo (D-RI) sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought imploring the White House to grant a public safety exemption for the National Weather Service (NWS) and immediately lift the hiring freeze keeping the agency from hiring individuals to fill vacancies at woefully understaffed NWS forecasting offices. Currently, the Trump administration has a hiring freeze in place across the federal government. However, many agencies deemed critical to public safety have been exempted from the hiring freeze. Lofgren and Amo stress that given NWS’s role in keeping Americans safe and informed the agency should be granted an exemption.
“We write to you in defense of a critical public safety agency currently being strangled by the policies of the Trump Administration,” the Ranking Members wrote in the letter. “The National Weather Service (NWS) saves lives. It provides essential weather forecasts that alert Americans to extreme weather events. It coordinates with local officials and emergency responders to prepare for extreme weather and minimize the resulting dangers to life and property. And it delivers weather forecast information that Americans rely on each and every day to make basic decisions and plan their lives. It is simply indispensable; if the NWS does not perform these tasks, nobody else will. But the NWS is only as strong as its people. The NWS workforce is withering away because of this administration’s policies: indiscriminate firings; repeated offers of 'deferred resignation' and early retirement accompanied by threatened mass layoffs and hostile attacks on federal workers; and on top of it all, a hiring freeze that prevents the hiring of new employees to fill vacancies in critical public safety jobs across the country. Inexplicably, President Trump has refused to exempt NWS from the government-wide hiring freeze by designating it as a public safety department, despite the obvious and essential role it plays in protecting public safety during extreme weather events. As a result, NWS faces a profound crisis. The administration is playing with fire, and the American people are the ones who will get burned – literally, in the case of wildfires like the ones that tore through southern California earlier this year. As the start of hurricane season looms, we implore you to lift the hiring freeze for NWS before it is too late and allow the agency to hire the meteorologists, scientists, and technicians that it needs to carry out its mission and keep the American people safe.”
Read the letter here.
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