Floodwaters are receding from the Gulf Coast, giving up their dead and laying bare the full scope of destruction. “This is going to be a multiyear project for Texas to be able to dig out of this catastrophe,’’ Governor Greg Abbott said Friday. The ground has also shifted radically in the Republican-controlled Congress, where lawmakers are pledging federal aid to help rebuild communities and return tens of thousands of water-logged refugees to their homes. Even Senator Ted Cruz, who opposed a bill to help the Northeast cleanup after Hurricane Sandy struck in 2012, might be shamed into voting the right way.
The most obvious save: the budget for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was destined for a cut of nearly $876 million. That plan now looks unlikely.
But as long as it’s Opposite Day in Washington, lawmakers might also consider bolstering programs that enhance our understanding of weather and climate. Last spring, President Trump proposed slashing $250 million in funding for coastal and marine programs run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis-tration. In a long-tail recovery like that faced by Texas and Louisiana, the data generated by NOAA on flood and storm patterns seem crucial to efforts to rebuild the region’s infrastructure safely.
There is one glimmer of good news for NOAA, which is working without a permanent administrator: Trump spared the agency’s fleet of weather satellites from further cuts. The newest bird in the flock, GOES-16, is aloft in a geostationary orbit over the eastern United States and providing high resolution images of the storm and its aftermath. The new satellite, which launched last fall, is a much-needed high-tech update over the previous generation, able to scan the Earth five times faster, and equipped with a lightning mapper. Two more GOES satellites are scheduled for launch, one in spring 2018 and one in 2020. Another key launch, of a satellite in the Joint Polar Satellite System, is scheduled for Nov. 10, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
In recent years, NOAA’s weather satellite programs were hobbled by delays, data gaps, and cost overruns — so much so that they were listed as high-risk by the Government Accountability Office. But the agency is now at least moving in the right direction, according to GAO official David Powner. Unseen and under-appreciated, these satellites need concerted political advocacy — and continued funding — to ensure that the nation can gird itself against nature’s wrath.
