The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the world's leading climate research centers, suffered a new departure round just 24 hours after hundreds of employees were fired.
About 500 employees left the agency Friday after receiving the so-called postponed resignation offer, according to three people familiar with the situation where they were asked not to be identified by name due to fear of retaliation. Under that program, staff from NOAA and other agencies are said to be able to stop working now and be paid until September.
Nancy Han, acting administrator for NOAA, wrote a copy of it in an email, viewed by the New York Times. “The NOAA mission is just as essential to the American people as ever.”
Han added that NOAA leadership is “working to identify the impact of these departures on missions and will communicate the changes necessary to make as a result.”
These postponed resident departures will be added to more than 800 probation staff who were fired Thursday. These staff were fired not because they were necessarily less valuable than other employees, but because they lacked protection for staff who were in their current roles.
A former NOAA budget analyst who ended Thursday and spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation said they felt discouraged. They said NOAA budget analysts are already short on them and are working to effectively cut the institution's budget.
“These are the exact features the administration wants for government efficiency,” budget analysts said. They had just re-signed the lease to the apartment two days ago.
The two-round departures account for around 10% of NOAA's approximately 13,000 employees. The agency spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Fish biologists with NOAA fisheries have created habitat maps for endangered species species in the southeast, including corals and whales. They had been offering NOAA for eight years before receiving their firing email on Thursday. They were promoted to their new position in 2023, and were on a two-year probation period that would end in September.
The biologist spoke on condition of anonymity as he fought to get his job back. They submitted a letter to the Special Advisors Office hours after the end, calling the termination “unfair and illegal.”
In the letter, they noted that their termination lacked sufficient evidence to show “the inadequate performance or my actions.” They said they received two positive performance reviews submitted to NOAA in the last nine months they were rated as “exceptional employees” and in the last nine months they were rated as “exceptional employees.”
Instead, they received the closing email at 3:42pm and responded for 78 minutes before the firing became official.
NOAA was chosen by members of the Trump administration for particularly deep cuts. The policy blueprint issued by the Heritage Foundation, reflected in the many actions taken by the administration so far, is called “one of the major drivers of the climate change warning industry.” This document encourages NOAA to be dismantled and part of its program is terminated.
At a press conference attended by lawmakers and former NOAA officials on Friday, Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, said cuts at NOAA indicate the government's start to implement the 2025 project in this sector.
“This is a good thing for Donald Trump with a very specific promise from Project 2025, which forces them to dismantle NOAA, privatize it, and make Americans pay for weather data and life-saving weather warnings,” Huffman said. “This will have a huge negative outcome on Americans' daily lives.”
Of the approximately 500 departures, about 200 were from people working for the National Weather Service, a division within NOAA, according to people familiar with the situation they were asked not to be identified by name.
The service has been the focus of President Trump's rage in the past. In the summer of 2019, Trump claimed that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama. After a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Alabama posted on social media that Dorian would not affect Alabama, Trump's staff ordered NOAA leaders that the meteorologist was wrong or risked being fired.
Dorian didn't reach Alabama. But then acting NOAA head Neil Jacobs issued a statement called a post by the Alabama Meteorological Office, calling it “contradicts the probability from the best predictive products available at the time.” The investigation into the episode later replied Dr. Jacobs, saying he violated the institution's code of ethics.
This month, Trump nominated Dr. Jacobs to lead again.
