Texas Sen. Ted Cruz slashed funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mere days before his state was hit by deadly flash floods.
According to a report from The Guardian, Cruz amended President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” to end a $150M fund that sought to “accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public.” The ultimate goal of the federally funded program was to create better forecasts with more lead time.
The funding cuts follow staffing reductions at the NOAA, prompted by the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year. At the time, experts warned those cuts could “severely impair” NOAA’s performance.
In the aftermath of the flooding in Texas, questions have been raised about whether staffing cuts played a role in the disaster’s impact, including by Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who called for an investigation into whether understaffing led to “delays, gaps, or diminished accuracy”. National Weather Service offices in Austin-San Antonio and San Angelo – those involved in forecasting and warning the areas around the Guadalupe River — have 10 combined vacancies. But the NWS is defending itself against any implication that its understaffing exacerbated the disaster.
Tom Fahy, legislative director for the NWS, said weather forecasting offices “had adequate staffing and resources as they issued timely forecasts and warnings leading up to the storm.”
Cruz has called critiques of the NWS “partisan fingerpointing” and told CBS News now isn’t the time to place blame.
“With any disaster, you see people playing politics and trying to finger-point at their political opponents. That’s not the time for this. The time for this is to come together and support each other,” Cruz said. “But we should also have a serious examination of what steps can be put in place in terms of early warning and being proactive.”
Cruz was on vacation in Greece when fatal flash flooding hit central Texas last week. Cruz made it back in time to visit the disaster site in Texas on Monday.
This is the second time the Texas senator has been caught vacationing while disaster strikes his state; Cruz fled to Cancun amid a winter storm in 2021 that left millions of Texans without power for multiple days.