NOAA Has Not Had A Senate-Confirmed Leader For Four Years; CEI/Heartland Hack Now On The Job
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The cloud of "Sharpiegate" is at least part of the reason that NOAA has been without a permanent administrator throughout the Trump administration. It is NOAA's longest stretch without a Senate-confirmed leader since its creation in 1970. And, as the agency marks its 50th anniversary, its budget is, for the fourth consecutive year, facing a White House proposal for deep cuts. Congress has thus far rejected the proposed cutbacks, but like all federal agencies, NOAA is operating under a stopgap budget that expires Dec. 11, leaving the funding decision in the hands of the lame duck Congress.
Despite the uncertainty that has hung over the agency's leadership and budget, there is widespread praise in the scientific community for the work that NOAA's nearly 7,000 scientists and engineers have continued to do. In September, NOAA's storm-monitoring was much in the news, as the agency tracked 10 named tropical formations, a record for the month. At the same time, it was monitoring the spread of wildfires in the West, which has set records for the number of acres burned and the size of the fires. In response, media coverage of climate change soared.
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As recently as 2018, Legates described himself as a scientist who had been ostracized by NOAA and other federal agencies for his outlier views on climate. "I have been notified (unofficially) that I am on a federal 'do-not-fund' list simply because I have been critical of the official position on anthropogenic global warming," Legates said in a legal brief submitted in support of oil companies that were being sued over climate change. (Legates did not respond to requests for an interview for this story.)
In submitting the brief, Legates and other climate science skeptics were represented by a lawyer for Heartland, the conservative think tank that has led a years-long campaign to discredit climate science. The Heartland group went beyond the position of the oil companies in the suit, which focused their challenge on whether climate change was the appropriate basis for a lawsuit. Legates and his colleagues disputed the essential science of global warming, arguing that there was no scientific consensus on the cause of climate change or its dangers. (The case remains in litigation.) It is an argument Legates has made often to Congress, state legislators, judges, including the Supreme Court, and most expansively, in lectures and panel discussions organized by Heartland and other groups that dispute climate science.
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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23102020/noaa-climate-denial-david-legates
