https://blog.ucs.org/carlos-martinez/documents-show-real-reason-why-the-white-house-wants-to-break-up-ncar/
Documents Show Real Reason Why the White House Wants to Break Up NCAR May 7, 2026 | 11:52 am
From aviation safety and improved weather forecasts to products for agricultural planning and flood risk assessment, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) plays a foundational role in the nation’s public safety, economic prosperity, and national defense. It is a critical research center that develops and supports tools we rely on to may everyday decisions.
Late on December 16, 2025, Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced that NCAR would be broken up and, soon after, the National Science Foundation (NSF), which sponsors NCAR, outlined plans to restructure the center. Already, NSF has stated they will transfer NCAR’s supercomputer, Derecho, to an unknown third-party entity.
At UCS, we sought greater transparency into these proposed and enacted changes. To that end, we have issued a public comment. In addition, we’ve made formal requests to NSF for the cooperative agreement governing NCAR, all public comments submitted during the agency’s request-for-information process, and documentation of internal decision-making involving OMB. These efforts reflect a broader concern within the scientific community: major decisions about national research infrastructure appear to be moving forward without clear public justification or a transparent scientific basis—and that could put critical life-saving science at risk.
Now, through documents released in the ongoing lawsuit brought against NSF and OMB by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), the manager of NCAR, we are beginning to see why. The documents suggest that the White House OMB directed NSF to restructure and break apart NCAR, and that parts of NCAR’s scientific portfolio were specifically identified to be cut or spun off because they viewed them as misaligned with its political priorities.
What the documents say
Materials submitted by the OMB and NSF provide a substantial window into the thinking behind proposed changes to NCAR. The volume of documentation is significant, including a version of the cooperative agreement between UCAR and NSF, FY27 NSF Budget communications between OMB and NSF, and a NOAA document (Page 30-31) detailing their policy-aligned functions of NCAR activities, and suggested some of NCAR activities be moved to “better-aligned university programs across the country.” For readers interested in the complete record, the April 23 defense filings offer a comprehensive set of materials.
I do, however, want to highlight two key documents that illustrate the direction and intent of the proposed NCAR restructuring.
November 19, 2025 OMB Draft Memo
A draft memo from OMB staff to the OMB director, dated November 19, 2025, outlines a proposed approach to restructuring NCAR, nearly one month before the public announcement by OMB Director Russell Vought on December 16, 2025, that NCAR would be “broken up.”
The memo “directs NSF to accelerate restructuring of NCAR through an RFI [public comment] process”, where key components of its “reform” would include “spin off components of [NCAR]” such as its supercomputer and two aircraft and “rescope the research and modeling of NCAR to focus on weather and not on climate modeling.” A reasoning for doing is that it “will make it easier to align NCAR’s mission more closely with Administration priorities.”
Screenshot of the Draft Memo by OMB, found here on Pages 3 and 4.
According to the declaration by Stuart Levenbach, associate director for Agriculture, Commerce, Resources, and Science Programs at OMB, the OMB director “considered the information in [the] memo, which ultimately led to the Director’s approval to pursue restructuring NCAR as part of the FY27 budget.”
December 17, 2025 Internal OMB and OMB/NSF Communications
Another document from December 17, 2025, the day after the announcement by Russell Vought, includes Internal OMB communications that identify an initial version of specific areas of NCAR research as misaligned with Administration priorities.
Screenshot of December 17th Email thread between OMB Staff and between OMB and Acting NSF Director on NCAR, found here on Pages 4 and 5.
Under “What we’re taking action against” includes work on human-caused climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. Studies on climate variability, long-term fossil fuel-caused climate change, and atmospheric chemistry are singled out as areas to be reduced or redirected, because it “informs regulations on emissions that the Administration does not support.”
At the same time, OMB outlines “Things that NCAR does well that we are keeping,” including its supercomputer and the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, but these are accompanied by their proposed transfer to “a different management entity.”
Finally, the memo includes background information on NCAR’s physical locations, which includes the proposal of closing NCAR’s Mesa Lab as stated by the OMB director, transferring or relocating its aircraft, and stating the University of Wyoming would take over management of the supercomputer.
Although this was the initial version, Brian Stone, the acting director of the NSF, stated in response that “many” of the NCAR activities OMB suggested for alignment “already track with what we consider aligned.”
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楼主: Gillen
发表于 2026-3-24 14:49:12
