Ranking Members Huffman, Hoyle Request Administration Leaders Meet with House Democrats to Answer Questions about DOGE Chaos at NOAA
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. House Natural Resources Committee Ranking Member Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee Ranking Member Val Hoyle, and led 13 Members of Congress sent a letter to Vice Admiral Nancy Hann, acting NOAA Administrator, demanding answers on reports of President Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to unlawfully dismantle NOAA. The signers include Members of Congress who represent congressional districts with facilities and employees of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
“There have been credible reports of DOGE personnel disregarding security checkpoints, rifling through personal belongings, demanding access to computers, emails, and other sensitive information, and adding employees’ names to lists on their clipboards if they are perceived to have resisted,” the members said in their letter. “While this is happening at core NOAA facilities in the Washington, D.C. region, our constituents who work at NOAA labs and regional facilities across the nation fear for their jobs and their families’ futures.”
“Our constituents and the American people deserve answers from the Trump administration as to what their plan is and what authorities the administration is using to bully and intimidate NOAA employees with the ultimate goal of dismantling the agency.”
The members went on to outline a series of questions for the administration and request an in-person meeting with the administration by February 12, 2025.
READ THE FULL LETTER
Ranking Member Huffman sent a similar letter to Chair Westerman urging him to use the Committee’s oversight authority to investigate Musk and DOGE’s infiltration of NOAA.
BACKGROUND
Last Tuesday, Natural Resources Ranking Member Huffman and Science, Space, and Technology Committee Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) sounded the alarm when they got word of non-federal, unauthorized DOGE employees entering NOAA.
On Sunday, it was reported that NOAA was instructed to search grant programs for climate-related terms, sparking concern that the Trump administration could be targeting and cutting programs related to combatting the climate crisis and hindering NOAA’s ability to track and understand extreme weather events.
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