The Trump administration plans to dismantle an entire research lab because it houses the nation’s largest federal climate change program that’s generated “climate alarmism,” top officials claim.
White House budget director Russell Vought, a co-author of Project 2025 who once declared his intention to traumatize federal workers and quash environmental regulations, announced the plan late Tuesday.
“The National Science Foundation will be breaking up the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado,” he posted on X Tuesday night with a link to USA Today, which first reported the news. “This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country. A comprehensive review is underway, and any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”
Scientists said it would be hard to separate climate research from NCAR’s overall function, which is to study Earth’s atmosphere and everything that affects it, and that the loss would extend far beyond climate change research.
“Unbelievable. This would be a terrible blow to American science, writ large. It would decimate not only climate research, but also the kind of weather, wildfire, and disaster research underpinning half a century of progress in prediction, early warning, and increased resilience,” University of California, Los Angeles, climate scientist Daniel Swain wrote on X. “NCAR has played a greater cumulative role in advancing weather prediction and atmospheric modeling than perhaps any other single entity in the world.”
Climate change is just one of the research lab’s programs, which overall support research to predict, prepare for and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters, and is one of the world’s premier institutions housing that work, UCAR President Antonio Busalacchi said in a statement. A nonprofit consortium of more than 130 colleges and universities manages the lab under the auspices of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
In a brief statement, the foundation framed the plan as a reorganization, or “realignment,” designed “to keep America at the forefront of science, engineering and technology” via structural changes that would “increase our efficiency and effectiveness.”
Scientists, Boulder officials, business leaders and educators said the move would do anything but.
It would be complete folly to eliminate an institution that is “quite literally our global mothership,” Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist and Distinguished Professor at Texas Tech University, wrote on X, adding: “dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.”
Climate change’s footprint is evident in all the systems studied, which affects daily life in myriad ways, from national security to the economy, experts said.
“Climate change is real, but the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement. “NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families.”
With News Wire Services
