Three Ways You Could Feel DOGE’s Cuts to NOAA, According to Ex-Official

The Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) string of recent cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have left hundreds of federal workers without jobs, with tens of thousands more on alert as they wait to hear the fate of their facilities.

But the efforts to cut the federal government’s costs could also have major impacts on everyday Americans who depend on the work produced by NOAA.

Lori Arguelles, NOAA’s former director of strategic communication and partnerships, told Newsweek the federal agency is ingrained into the daily lives of Americans, touching everything from the clothes we wear to the products we buy and even the food we eat.

“We haven’t fully understood the impact of what is to come,” Arguelles, who was part of the Biden administration, said. “This initial, very ill-informed, very poorly executed effort is just the first route.”

Last month, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) laid off about 880 NOAA employees, accounting for more than 7 percent of the agency’s workforce. The union representing NOAA and the National Weather Service (NWS), which is a part of NOAA, has said that 586 probationary employees were among those terminations (NOAA employed about 12,000 people before the reductions).

Arguelles, who had left the agency before President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, told Newsweek those firings included a quarter of NOAA’s 40-person communications team.

“You might think, ‘Well, who cares about communications? That doesn’t really matter.’ But where does the public go for information? They go online, they go to their phones. Who gets that information up there? Who makes it readily and easily understandable? Who is helping to interpret that?” she asked.

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment on Friday.

NOAA came up against further uncertainty this week after multiple outlets reported that the Trump administration was planning to make more cuts to the agency, including cancelling the leases of several facilities.

The Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park, Maryland, which meteorologists have described as “the nerve center for the entire weather enterprise in the United States,” is among the buildings that are said to be on the lease-cancellation list.

Weather Reports

Describing the biggest impacts these actions would have on Americans, Arguelles said the most “obvious” impact would be federal weather data.

“What is the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Check the weather,” she said in a Friday interview. “It doesn’t matter what vehicle you use to check that weather. The brain that powers those apps is the National Weather Service. They are the ones that are taking all of the models and running them through computer systems. Every meteorologist — every Ginger Zee, every Al Roker—they all rely on the central nervous system.”

Most of the weather satellite imagery that you see on the local news or online comes from NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service. The NESDIS is already funded by taxpayers, costing each person in the U.S. six cents a day to get that information, Arguelles said.

Various weather and climate apps that beam this information directly to our smartphones are simply the “bells and whistles” tacked onto the agency’s work.

Some have suggested that the recent slashes to the NWS are a sign that DOGE is trying to dismantle NOAA entirely. While discussing speculation that the Trump administration might be looking to privatize the collection of weather data, Arguelles warned Americans: “You’re going to wake up and have to pay to figure out ‘What do I put on my kid this morning for the bus stop?'”

Imported Goods

She said another way that people could be impacted by the NOAA cuts is access to imported goods, from bananas to exercise equipment.

“Did you buy something recently that came from another country? Whether it be a piece of clothing, a hardware item for your house, whatever it is, 98 percent of all goods that are imported and exported come by a ship,” Arguelles said.

In January alone, the U.S. imported over $401 billion worth of goods and exported more than $269 billion. Both the imports and exports were an uptick from December’s numbers, according to the U.S Census. It was also a 23 percent increase from January 2024’s imports and a 4.1 percent boost from January 2024’s exports.

“Those ships cannot get into the ports without NOAA navigational charts, without the ports system,” Arguelles said.

“It’s a very precise system that has been developed, has helped massive ships to get into ports safely,” she continued.

“Sometimes it’s a matter of inches between the top of a bridge or the bottom of a waterway, and as ships get bigger, that precision, that ability to say, ‘Yes, wait, out there for another five minutes, the tides moving,’ it’s an extraordinary system.”

Last spring, one of those container ships, the MV Dali, struck a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland after it lost power, killing six members of a maintenance crew working on the span. The bridge’s collapse destroyed a major artery into Baltimore and blocked ships from coming in and out of the city’s port for nearly three months. It was estimated that the economic impact of the port closure was $15 million a day.

The incident, coming off the supply chain disruptions that snarled the economy during the pandemic and added to inflation, was a reminder to many Americans about the fragility of the systems and mechanisms that support modern life.

Seafood Dinner

Another place where the cuts to NOAA could materialize, Arguelles said, is seafood.

The National Marine Fisheries Service, which is also a part of NOAA, is responsible for the country’s marine resources. According to its website, the agency ensures that fish populations stay health and sustainable to help support the nation’s seafood supply, protect ecosystems and create jobs. In 2017, U.S. commercial and recreational fisheries contributed to over 1.7 million jobs and over $244 billion in national fishery sales.

“Seafood plays an essential role in feeding the world’s growing population,” the NOAA Fisheries’ website states. “Healthy fish populations lead to healthy oceans and it’s our responsibility to be a part of the solution. The resilience of our marine ecosystems and coastal communities depend on sustainable fisheries.”

“If you’ve eaten fish in the last week, safe, sustainable seafood is brought to you by your friends at NOAA,” Arguelles said.

Beyond that, she also added that the agency is critical to helping forecasters on the ground during hurricane and tornado season, or any other type of extreme weather.

She said that despite the personal circumstances of many NOAA staffers who were affected by the recent cuts, “Every single person that I know and have spoken directly with are so deeply concerned about the American people, because the mission matters.”

“What these people at NOAA do is incredibly impactful and important,” Arguelles said. “They became public servants because they believe in the work that NOAA does, the core values of science, service and stewardship to the nation are critical.”