THE WEATHER IS NOT A STATE SECRET.

JUSTICE · ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Published by Langhorne P. Breedlove

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026 · 1:06 AM ET

Tags: NOAA · Public Weather · Climate Records · Scientific Independence · Emergency Alerts · Open Data

Dear fellow American proletariat: The weather does not ask whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, a billionaire, a farmer, or a fellow who thinks hurricanes are a conspiracy conducted by the neighbors. It arrives regardless. A country that can land a spacecraft on Mars should certainly be able to tell a family when a tornado is coming without making them subscribe to the premium forecast tier.

American Proletariat proposes durable protections for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the National Weather Service, its observing networks, public scientific archives and access to government-funded environmental information. The proposal does not require every research program to remain unchanged forever. It requires that decisions about public science be grounded in evidence, statutory obligations, transparent budgets and the safety of people who depend upon the results.

THE MANDATE

Guarantee reliable nationwide weather forecasts and emergency warnings, preserve long-term weather and climate observations, and maintain free public access to data that may lawfully be released. Require transparent standards for archiving, dataset changes, metadata, forecasting performance, scientific integrity and continuity of service. Safeguard access for communities, researchers, farmers, transportation operators, Tribal governments, journalists and private businesses alike.

Commercial forecasting companies can create useful services from public data. They should compete on analysis, delivery and added value, not on an exclusive franchise to the underlying observations financed by the public. Exceptions for privacy, security, licensed third-party data and legitimate scientific restrictions require clear legal treatment—not an excuse to lock everything away.

ROOTS & HISTORY

Congress assigned federal weather forecasting and storm-warning duties in legislation dating to October 1, 1890. The law now codified at 15 U.S.C. §313 directs the Commerce Secretary to provide forecasts, storm and flood warnings, river measurements and climatic observations for agriculture, commerce and navigation (Source 01). Public weather information is therefore a longstanding statutory responsibility, not a courtesy a government agency happens to extend when it feels generous.

NOAA operates within the Department of Commerce and includes the National Weather Service, the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, the National Ocean Service, marine fisheries, and ships and aircraft operations (Source 02). Those different offices help explain why safeguarding NOAA means more than preserving one weather-app feed.

The National Centers for Environmental Information maintain archives spanning atmospheric, oceanic and environmental measurements collected across many scientific disciplines and periods (Source 03). Their Climate Data Online service provides free access to historical observations including temperatures, precipitation, wind and climate normals (Source 04). Today’s observation becomes tomorrow’s historical baseline; a broken data series can compromise questions that have not yet been asked.

TODAY & THE EVIDENCE

For fiscal year 2026, Congress provided NOAA approximately $6.6 billion in discretionary direct obligations for operations, research, facilities and procurement, including about $6.1 billion in appropriations. The enacted appropriations were around $1.6 billion above the administration's request, according to the Congressional Research Service's March 12, 2026 review (Source 02). These are distinct budget accounting concepts, and neither figure is an estimate of AP's proposed new spending.

NOAA's public weather information is generally usable without charge for lawful purposes, subject to conditions that prevent false official attribution or unauthorized claims of government endorsement (Source 05). NOAA's data management guidance also calls for freely available, reusable environmental data, with legally necessary exceptions (Source 06). Existing commitments should be tested for reliability in practice: public availability is little comfort if an archive disappears, its documentation is lost or an alert arrives after the storm.

The risk is wider than a discontinued website. Scientists need stable observation records to compare seasons and long-term trends; emergency managers rely on timely warnings; coastal communities and commercial operators require marine information. Private services may republish or interpret public forecasts, but public agencies must maintain authoritative access and disclose forecast uncertainty. Information should be accurate, timely and preserved even when politically inconvenient.

THE LEGAL PATH

Congress can set funding requirements, data-access duties, archival obligations and independent oversight by statute. The Commerce Department and NOAA would administer those requirements within their existing authorities, while federal records and open-data laws supply additional obligations (Sources 01, 06). Scientific-integrity protections must distinguish disagreements over methods from prohibited political interference, and they must preserve lawful peer review, corrections and transparent quality control.

A new law should specify which observational systems and emergency functions require continuity plans, how nonpublic or restricted information is handled, how datasets are documented and versioned, who may authorize changes, and what remedy applies when agencies fail to fulfill a legally enforceable duty. NOAA's weather services also operate alongside state, local, Tribal and territorial emergency systems, which should remain partners rather than be treated as branch offices of Washington.

THE PLAN

PHASE ONE · AUDIT WHAT THE PUBLIC ACTUALLY USES

Inventory public datasets, warning systems, satellites, observing stations, laboratories, archive dependencies, software interfaces and records at risk of interruption. Identify staffing shortages and single points of failure. Publish measurable service levels for data availability, alert timing, archive completeness and documentation, along with remediation priorities. Prioritize life-safety systems before improving the aesthetics of the homepage.

PHASE TWO · PROTECT SCIENCE FROM POLITICAL EDITING

Establish documented scientific-review procedures, whistleblower safeguards within applicable law, transparent corrections and a publicly accessible change history for substantive data and methodology revisions. A government can set policy using scientific evidence; it should not secretly rewrite measurements to manufacture agreement. Require independent assessment of alleged interference without treating an ordinary scientific disagreement as misconduct.

PHASE THREE · KEEP DATA AVAILABLE AND UNDERSTANDABLE

Fund redundant archives, interoperable formats, public programming interfaces, reliable metadata, secure backups, long-term preservation and nontechnical access channels. Provide downloadable historical records and accessible emergency communications. Coordinate with libraries, universities, community organizations and Tribal data stewards while respecting sensitive location and cultural information.

PHASE FOUR · TEST THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Measure warning performance, archive reliability, request fulfillment, dataset discoverability, accessibility, scientific reproducibility and disaster-related service disruptions. Publish annual independent assessments and practical corrective plans. Private vendors may improve their products; federal public access should remain the reference point that allows everyone else to check the claims.

THE ONE-YEAR & TEN-YEAR LEDGER

The enacted FY2026 NOAA budget is the starting baseline, not a proposed AP appropriation (Source 02). A ten-year fiscal model must distinguish existing Weather Service operations, satellite and observing-system capital investment, research, archive stewardship, staffing, cybersecurity, disaster continuity, technology replacement and any new legal oversight. Money already provided for these functions cannot be counted again as incremental cost or imagined savings.

For transparent illustration only, suppose Congress authorized $150 million in new first-year archive and infrastructure improvements plus $25 million in program assessment and oversight. That is $175 million in hypothetical first-year gross spending. If years two through ten required an additional $85 million annually for continuing archive resilience, access and oversight, the flat undiscounted ten-year arithmetic would be $940 million. Those figures are planning assumptions, not NOAA estimates, proposed appropriations or evidence that this is the right program size.

The actual ten-year ledger should publish annual capital, maintenance and workforce expenses, replacement schedules, procurement risks, inflation, existing-budget offsets, financing assumptions and uncertainty bands. Any claimed savings from better forecasts or disaster preparedness must distinguish broader economic benefits from cash reductions in federal expenditures. Do not call a forecast profitable merely because someone has put a large dollar sign next to avoided damage.

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

Permanent funding guarantees can reduce flexibility if every legacy system is protected regardless of performance. Open data can carry privacy, cybersecurity, sensitive ecological or contractual concerns. Redundancy is expensive; procurement can be slow; satellite and sensor systems age. Overly rigid scientific-integrity rules can unintentionally discourage legitimate revisions of methods, while vague rules may fail to deter political meddling.

Critics may favor private delivery, tighter budgets or consolidation of overlapping federal functions. Others favor robust public ownership and access as safeguards against paywalls and fragmented services. The question is which arrangements produce verifiable reliability, lawful access, scientifically defensible results and responsible costs. Those outcomes should be tested, not assumed from the institution's name or the provider's profit status.

MEASURING SUCCESS

Publish forecast skill and warning metrics with uncertainty, public service uptime, archive completeness, restoration times after failures, data reuse, access requests, documented methodological changes, integrity complaints resolved, cyber incidents, costs by service, and accessibility in rural, Tribal and underserved areas. Evaluate results independently without turning scientific performance into a popularity contest.

The clouds have no party affiliation. A river does not care who controls Congress. The evidence should remain available before, during and after the next election. If the public paid to measure the weather, the public should be able to see what the instruments recorded.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

01 · U.S. House Office of the Law Revision Counsel — 15 U.S.C. §313, Duties of Secretary of Commerce; weather forecasts and warning responsibilities.

https://uscode.house.gov/us/usc/119-134/t15/s313/

02 · Congressional Research Service — National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) FY2026 Budget Request and Appropriations, IF13024; updated March 12, 2026.

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/IF13024.html

03 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information — Archive: Long-term Stewardship of Environmental Records.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/archive

04 · NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information — Climate Data Online: Free Historical Weather and Climate Data.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/cdo-web/

05 · National Weather Service — Disclaimer and Use of NWS Data and Products.

https://www.weather.gov/disclaimer

06 · NOAA / National Centers for Environmental Information — NOAA Administrative Order 212-15B: Management of NOAA Data and Information, Data Management Handbook; October 2024.

https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/2025-04/NAO_212-15B-Data_Mgt_Handbook-2024-Oct-1_destinations_2025.pdf%23.pdf

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WE ARE ONE.  ·  E PLURIBUS UNUM.