Congress Must Stop Trump from Erasing NOAA Climate Data

NOAA’s climate and severe weather data are some of the most critical public resources our country has. Communities rely on this information to prepare for hurricanes, floods, wildfires, severe storms, and other disasters made worse by climate change.

But now those critical datasets are at real risk.

The danger isn’t hypothetical — the Trump administration has already let key storage and hosting contracts lapse at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), causing multiple regional climate-center websites and data portals to go dark. Without a law requiring uninterrupted storage, data sets spanning decades — used to forecast hurricanes, plan for droughts, and track long-term climate trends — could disappear overnight.

We cannot allow that to happen.

That’s why Congress must immediately pass the NOAA Data Preservation Act — a bipartisan bill designed to protect NOAA’s data from sudden deletion, loss, or disruption. The bill requires NOAA to have a new storage system fully in place before ending any existing contract. It ensures continuity, safeguards historical records, and keeps this essential data publicly accessible.

Rep. Elfreth — one of the bill’s primary sponsors — put it plainly: NOAA’s forecast and climate information is “life-saving data,” and Congress has a responsibility to make sure political decisions or administrative failures never jeopardize it.

Climate-driven storms are getting stronger, not weaker. This is no time to risk losing the very data that help communities prepare for them.

Please sign this petition to urge Congress to pass the NOAA Data Preservation Act immediately and guarantee that NOAA’s climate and severe weather data remain protected, stable, and accessible to the public. Our safety depends on it.

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Sources

E&E News (Bipartisan bill would ensure online access to NOAA data) https://www.eenews.net/articles/bipartisan-bill-would-ensure-online-access-to-noaa-data/

Rep. Elfreth (Elfreth Introduces Bipartisan Legislation to Preserve Crucial Data at NOAA for Severe Weather Prediction and Response) https://elfreth.house.gov/media/press-releases/elfreth-introduces-bipartisan-legislation-preserve-crucial-data-noaa-severe