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NOAA Chief Neil Jacobs, Defending Trump on Dorian, Also Tries to Buoy Scientists Image
Source: New York Times
NOAA Chief, Defending Trump on Dorian, Also Tries to Buoy Scientists
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Christopher Flavelle and Lisa Friedman
Sept. 10, 2019
Updated 2:09 p.m. ET
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Neil Jacobs, head of the federal scientific agency threatened with firings after one of its offices contradicted President Trump on Hurricane Dorian, defended the administration Tuesday even as he issued a carefully worded defense of agency scientists.
The remarks were the latest example of a Trump administration official facing enormous political pressure in an atmosphere that prioritizes loyalty above all else.
“This administration is committed to the important mission of weather forecasting,” Dr. Jacobs, acting administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in remarks at a weather conference here. “There is no pressure to change the way you communicate or forecast risk in the future.”
Dr. Jacobs’s speech attracted outsized attention because of President Trump’s insistence that Alabama was in Dorian’s path and a subsequent New York Times report that Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr. had threatened to fire NOAA’s political staff unless the agency stood by the president.
“He’s between a very big rock and a very hard place,” said Rear Admiral David W. Titley, a former oceanographer for the Navy who served as the chief operating officer of NOAA under President Barack Obama. “I would argue he needs to go home and look in the mirror and decide: Can he serve a boss who has no respect for the federal work force and the National Weather Service.”
-snip-
By Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Christopher Flavelle and Lisa Friedman
Sept. 10, 2019
Updated 2:09 p.m. ET
HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Neil Jacobs, head of the federal scientific agency threatened with firings after one of its offices contradicted President Trump on Hurricane Dorian, defended the administration Tuesday even as he issued a carefully worded defense of agency scientists.
The remarks were the latest example of a Trump administration official facing enormous political pressure in an atmosphere that prioritizes loyalty above all else.
“This administration is committed to the important mission of weather forecasting,” Dr. Jacobs, acting administrator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in remarks at a weather conference here. “There is no pressure to change the way you communicate or forecast risk in the future.”
Dr. Jacobs’s speech attracted outsized attention because of President Trump’s insistence that Alabama was in Dorian’s path and a subsequent New York Times report that Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr. had threatened to fire NOAA’s political staff unless the agency stood by the president.
“He’s between a very big rock and a very hard place,” said Rear Admiral David W. Titley, a former oceanographer for the Navy who served as the chief operating officer of NOAA under President Barack Obama. “I would argue he needs to go home and look in the mirror and decide: Can he serve a boss who has no respect for the federal work force and the National Weather Service.”
-snip-
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/climate/neil-jacobs-noaa-hurricane-dorian.html
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