The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, within the Department of Commerce, is among a host of federal agencies with science-based missions that have been rocked by deep budgetary and staffing cuts imposed by the Trump administration and its so-called Department of Government Efficiency. Similar cuts are also upending environmental science efforts at the Department of the Interior and the Department of Energy, as well as at independent agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation, and the Marine Mammal Commission. Even departments that have lesser-known environmental- and conservation-focused offices—including Agriculture, Defense, Justice, and State—have not gone unscathed.
The blueprint for downsizing and dismantling vast portions of the federal government was initially presented in Project 2025, a 900-page policy playbook published by the Heritage Foundation in 2023. However hair-raising the plan may have appeared on paper, though, its materialization has proven far more disruptive and disheartening than most people could have imagined. The New York Times estimated that, as of mid-May, nearly 135,000 federal employees had left their posts—nearly 59,000 of whom were abruptly terminated and more than 76,000 of whom chose to accept one of the buyouts rather than face continued uncertainty over their jobs and the future of their programs—and the administration was seeking to cut over 149,000 additional employees. Paradoxically, between lawsuits challenging the terminations and funding cuts, staff shortages that have rendered government agencies unable to accomplish mission-critical work (sometimes leading to the rehiring of fired employees), and other fallout, the results thus far have been anything but efficient.
In February and March, over 800 NOAA employees—primarily those on “probationary” status who had been in their positions at the agency less than a year or two—were dismissed. Multiple lawsuits challenged the legality of these firings. Some individuals were subsequently rehired, only to be fired again by April. NOAA’s eligible remaining staff were given a late-April deadline to accept a buyout package and told that decisions regarding a subsequent workforce reduction would depend on how many existing employees had accepted buyouts.
Although precise numbers remain unclear, it is estimated that, by April, NOAA had lost around 2,200 employees, representing approximately 20 percent of its workforce. According to a statement from NOAA’s deputy undersecretary for operations, Vice Admiral Nancy Hann, these staff departures equate to the loss of a combined 27,000 years of agency experience and expertise. Morale at the agency has understandably plummeted.
On May 2, the administration released its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, which aims to shrink NOAA’s Operations, Research, and Facilities budget by 28 percent ($1.33 billion) via a 29 percent cut to National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) funding, a 50 percent cut to National Ocean Service funding, and a devastating 74 percent cut to Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research funding. Entire programs critical to coastal resilience, marine wildlife conservation, fisheries recovery, climate research, and ocean science are marked for elimination.
The very existence of NMFS’s Office of Protected Resources (OPR) has been threatened, with the administration floating the idea of subsuming it into the already overtaxed Ecological Services (ES) program of the Department of the Interior’s US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). While both the OPR and ES play crucial roles in their respective agency’s administration of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA)—laws which themselves are increasingly threatened by legislative attacks—their roles and responsibilities under these laws vary.
According to the budget proposal, consolidation of the OPR and ES under one roof (while taking a wrecking ball to what lies under that roof, as the USFWS is also among the agencies that have experienced mass firings) would be “consistent with” the administration’s “deregulatory agenda.” The administration is also prioritizing fossil fuel permitting while simultaneously ending what it refers to as the “Green New Scam”—a derisive reference to the Green New Deal, a policy initiative focused on renewable energy development as a vehicle to create economic opportunities and address climate change.
NOAA is our nation’s oldest scientific agency—the agency and its predecessors date to the 1800s. NOAA in its current form was established by Congress in 1970 under President Nixon’s Reorganization Plan No. 4. Within a few years, landmark statutes that were enacted with bipartisan support—including the MMPA, the ESA, and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act—tasked NOAA with protecting marine wildlife and ecosystems from unregulated exploitation and with conserving and overseeing fisheries resources in federal waters. For over 50 years, NOAA has been working through NMFS to protect marine wildlife while promoting American industries such as commercial fishing and shipping. Now, even the commercial fisheries industry is experiencing hardships—such as delayed openings and closures—due to this massive downsizing and reduction of government support for scientific research.
The president’s budget also seeks to eliminate funding for the Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), an independent agency created by the MMPA “to provide independent, science-based oversight of domestic and international policies and actions of federal agencies addressing human impacts on marine mammals and their ecosystems.” Only 14 full-time staff members support the three-member MMC and its nine-member Committee of Scientific Advisors. According to the MMC chair, this small but mighty federal agency has fulfilled its statutory mission for over 50 years “at a cost of just over 1 penny per American per year.”
The draconian cuts and proposed upheavals threaten to dismantle decades of progress in ocean and climate science, marine conservation, and coastal as well as tribal community support. AWI is fighting to preserve the laws, programs, and science-based policies that are so vital to our work on behalf of marine wildlife. In addition to our impassioned advocacy in the halls of Congress, we are working within multiple NGO coalitions, submitting detailed analysis when the administration solicits public comments on proposals, and taking every opportunity to raise public awareness of these dire situations. The marine wildlife and habitat protections mandated under the MMPA, ESA, and other laws cannot be implemented unless agencies such as NOAA, the USFWS, and the MMC are well-staffed and properly funded.