Trump administration cancels disaster training for meteorologists amid staffing, travel cuts
The Trump administration has canceled a training that prepares meteorologists to forecast during disasters, The Hill has learned.
The incident meteorologist training for the National Weather Service was canceled amid “short staffing” and a severe reduction in how much employees are allowed to spend on travel, according to an email viewed by The Hill.
An agency source expressed concern that the cancellation of this session would delay new incident meteorologists from being certified — leaving the weather service less able to respond to disasters like fires and putting an even greater strain on the existing workforce.
The source said that employee purchase cards were reduced to $1, so people were unable to book travel and some who had already booked travel had to cancel their flights.
The weather service is far from the only federal agency seeing similar cuts while Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency seeks to downsize the government. The Hill reported the Interior Department, which manages national lands, parks and tribal affairs, also reduced employee purchase cards to $1.
The weather service is a particularly high-profile agency that has generally had bipartisan support.
The office is one of several within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that’s facing cuts.
The agency has already lost hundreds of staffers amid the firing of probationary employees — or those who have been at the agency for a short time or were recently promoted. It’s set to lose 1,000 more staffers, with cuts expected as soon as this week.
Other agencies across the federal government are also set for further mass firings. The National Park Service could lose 30 percent of its payroll, The Hill first reported. Meanwhile, other departments, like the Department of Veterans Affairs, could lose 80,000 staff members.
The incident meteorologist training is also not the only loss the weather agency has sustained: Offices in Alaska, New York and Maine have said they are no longer sending up data-collecting weather balloons amid staffing shortages.
Incident meteorologists are specially trained forecasters who have typical meteorology jobs at the weather service but also volunteer to work on disasters, said Larry Van Bussum, national fire weather operations program manager at the weather service.
They get 250 hours of training to give weather information to incident managers as part of an effort to keep response crews and the general public safe.
Van Bussum said the weather service currently has 85 qualified incident meteorologists and 35 trainees. Typically they respond to fires, but he noted they have also helped with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and hurricane recovery.
Lynn Budd, the director of Wyoming’s Office of Homeland Security, said that during a fire, meteorologists give crews real-time information that can be lifesaving.
“They're there to help us make that prediction so we can protect lives and property as incidents evolve,” said Budd, who is also the president of the National Emergency Management Association.
Meanwhile, this also does not appear to be the only government training that has recently been canceled.
A senior Department of Homeland Security Official confirmed to The Hill that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was cancelling similar courses, saying via email, “The bottom line is we are no longer paying for non-employee travel. We are only authorizing travel for mission critical programs, this isn’t one.”
The official said that some classes are still available online.
The Washington Post and Associated Press previously reported the cancellation of the FEMA trainings.
Budd said she heard that holdups at FEMA’s National Fire Academy are related to federal travel. She says she hopes the delay is just temporary.
More broadly, President Trump has also indicated he may want to reshape the way the nation’s emergency services are run, suggesting overhauling FEMA or even eliminating it entirely.
The Trump administration broadly has framed its cuts as eliminating waste, fraud and abuse and making the government more efficient. Opponents argue that they could disrupt vital government services.
— Updated at 4:55 p.m. EDT
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