WASHINGTON — Representatives of billionaire Elon Musk’s task force gained access to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s headquarters in Maryland this week, sources told NJ Spotlight News, as the Trump administration removed troves of climate and weather data from the internet.
The appearance at NOAA’s Silver Spring facilities came as staffers with Musk’s group — the Department of Government Efficiency, which President Donald Trump established via executive order — have entered the buildings of government departments around Washington, D.C., in recent days, locked out agency staff and accessed sensitive federal data.
Over the weekend, Musk’s team, which is not an official government agency, gained access to the U.S. Agency for International Development, a U.S. government department created by Congress and one of the world’s biggest foreign aid arms, locking out staffers.
This week, staffers in Musk’s group, which is supported by Trump and his allies in Congress, obtained personal and financial data at the Treasury Department of millions of Americans, prompting activists and Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Rob Menendez (D-8th) and LaMonica McIver (D-10th), to protest on the department steps. In addition to being one of the world’s richest people, Musk and his companies are major government contractors.
Musk and his lieutenants are expected to target the departments of education and labor this week.
Concerns for vital NOAA data
Shutting down NOAA, home to some of the world’s most advanced climate and weather data, would be a hammer blow to climate science internationally and domestically and could put lives at risk.
Privatizing or breaking apart NOAA, which includes the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, was a goal of Project 2025, the conservative road map Republicans wrote as a guide for the second Trump administration which has so far materialized in a blitz of executive orders and other actions, including those by Musk and his team.
NOAA, part of the Commerce Department, owns or operates 18 satellites, thousands of ocean buoys and generates a foundation of weather information that private forecasters rely on daily.
‘Let’s be clear: this is dangerous and corrupt, plain and simple. We will fight this Trump-Musk power grab with everything we’ve got – our safety and economy are not for sale.’ — Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th)
Altering that foundation could get people killed, David Robinson, New Jersey’s state climatologist, said in a recent interview. “You would see death tolls explode, frankly, without proper warnings,” Robinson told NJ Spotlight News.
Closing a federal agency or making a new one requires an act of Congress, though Republicans in the first Trump administration tried to impose deep budget cuts on federal environmental agencies, including NOAA, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Energy Department, to hobble them.
Credit: (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)Musk’s efforts have drawn federal lawsuits from unions who represent federal workers, who have argued that his group should not be in possession of or disclose sensitive data.
“Before our very eyes, an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government,” said Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat who leads his party in the Senate.
Importance to New Jersey
U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th) said NOAA’s fisheries division is vital to support the coastal economy and people who make their living from the ocean.
“The Jersey Shore’s economy and safety depends on honest and dependable weather and tidal information,” Pallone said.
“The United States has the best scientists in the world, including right here at the NOAA fisheries lab on Sandy Hook,” he said, referencing the James. J. Howard Marine Sciences Laboratory.
“Let’s be clear: this is dangerous and corrupt, plain and simple. We will fight this Trump-Musk power grab with everything we’ve got — our safety and economy are not for sale.”
Credit: (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)There are NOAA offices across New Jersey, including in Mount Holly, home to a National Weather Service station, and NOAA shares two other research centers, according to a summary of NOAA’s reach in the state.
Last year, NOAA provided about $72 million statewide in funding to limit flooding. The year prior, it allocated $82 million in federal funding to protect the North Atlantic right whale, a critically endangered species.
Key information taken offline
Howard Lutnick, Trump’s Commerce Department nominee, told senators at his confirmation hearing he opposed privatizing or splitting apart NOAA.
Lutnick’s nomination on Wednesday advanced out of committee. Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) voted against Lutnick, who will likely get confirmed in the full Senate chamber.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said Democrats were overreacting to Musk and his team.
“It looks radical. It’s not. I call it stewardship,” Johnson said Wednesday.
Federal websites and databases NOAA maintains were pulled offline this week, including a tool to track greenhouse gas emissions and the Keeling Curve, a dataset maintained since the late 1950s that charts the rise of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere.
Those sites are among the thousands of federal tools online that have been removed or no longer work, including at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the EPA, the National Institutes of Health, the Census Bureau and NASA.
