The United States Senate confirmed Neil Jacobs as the new head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the government agency responsible for understanding and predicting changes in Earth’s environment, and conserving and managing coastal and marine resources. For outdoor lovers, from tube hounds to powder hounds to environmental activists, the administration’s research and data support the tools we use for short-term forecasts, seasonal outlooks, efforts to protect the places we love, and more.
Jacobs takes the helm of a government entity being stripped of funding and losing waves of critical personnel since Donald Trump took office in January. Before his confirmation, Jacobs told Congress that weather service staffing would be a top priority. But in the day since his confirmation by Senate members, his link to 2019’s infamous “Sharpiegate” has been a focal point.
The 2019 controversy occurred when President Trump, then in his first term, declared on September 1 that Hurricane Dorian could strike Alabama. Residents of the state responded by calling their local weather bureau to confirm the information, which the National Weather Service’s Birmingham office insisted the state was not at risk. Trump continued to insist his previous statement was accurate, and on September 4, he presented a map of Hurricane Dorian’s forecast track and intensity to members of the media in the Oval Office. The map had noticeably been altered to show Alabama in the storm’s cone — a mark made by a Sharpie — supporting Trump’s days-old claim.
On September 6, 2019, NOAA published a statement supporting Trump’s claim that Alabama was in the storm’s path and threw its Birmingham office under the bus for denying the President’s assessment. In later investigations, it was discovered that the administration had been ordered to issue the statement in support of the President by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who had been told to do so by Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. For Jacobs’ part, the National Academy of Public Administration found that he had violated NOAA’s ethics policies, which address scientific integrity, objectivity, conflict of interest, and prohibition of interference.
A memo detailing the allegation of scientific integrity misconduct said the incident showed “reckless disregard of the code of Scientific Conduct” and the NOAA staff who published the memo felt “significant external pressure to do so.”
For context, earlier forecasts leading up to Trump’s original claim that Alabama was being threatened had included the state in a possible path of the storm. That information was outdated and inaccurate by the time Trump had made his first claim, however. Jacobs’ confirmation has drawn into question NOAA’s future vulnerabilities to bending to political pressure. However, Jacobs said in his confirmation hearing that he would not handle the situation the same way if it happened now.