Oceana Condemns Proposed Funding Cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - Oceana USA

Oceana Condemns Proposed Funding Cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Press Release Date: April 11, 2025

Location: WASHINGTON

Contact:

Erin Vande Ven | email: EVandeVen@oceana.org | tel: 303.829.3877

The Trump administration is proposing massive funding cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the upcoming federal budget. This news comes just hours after terminating hundreds of NOAA employees. 

NOAA is a world-renowned science agency that positions the United States as a leader on global issues including oceans and weather. The agency manages our nation’s fisheries, monitors and forecasts our weather, charts our oceans, and protects our coastal communities and infrastructure. It has set the standard for fishery management around the world.     

“This is ludicrous! Whether you live on a coast or in the heartland, these proposed cuts to NOAA will impact you,” says Beth Lowell, Oceana’s Vice President for the United States. “Eliminating funding and staffing won’t just cause chaos and confusion within NOAA – it would undermine people and businesses across the country. It opens the door to overfishing and would leave fishers with uncertainty about how they will support their families.  It would put Americans in harm’s way as critical weather updates may be offline. Protected animals like whales and sea turtles could go extinct with scientists no longer on duty.  Congress must act to stop the dismantling of NOAA that would directly threaten the millions of Americans that depend on healthy oceans for their jobs, businesses, and seafood dinners.” 

Some potential ocean-related consequences from cutting NOAA resources: 

  • U.S. fisheries set the bar as some of the best managed, most abundant fisheries in the world, but without effective management, U.S. waters could become overfished, depleted, and empty; 
  • Increased imports of illegally sourced or mislabeled seafood into the United States will unfairly disadvantage U.S. fishers;  
  • Endangered or threatened marine wildlife like North Atlantic right whales and loggerhead sea turtles could go extinct;   
  • With a lack of information about severe weather events to convey timely and life-saving information, more lives and property could be lost in disasters; and more.