During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) sparred with President Trump's nominee to be NOAA administrator Dr. Neil Jacobs about funding for NOAA.
00:05Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For decades, NOAA has collected and made public information
00:13on how many extreme weather-related disasters caused by more than a billion dollars worth of damage.
00:20In the 1980s, the U.S. experienced a weather or climate disaster that caused more than a billion dollars in damage
00:30every four months, on average. Now, in our climate change era, our communities are hit by a disaster of that magnitude
00:38on average by every three weeks. So, Dr. Jacobs, I appreciated our conversation on this yesterday.
00:46Do you stand by your statement that you made to me yesterday that NOAA's data on billion-dollar disasters should be made available to the public?
00:56So, the data that NOAA collects to produce that? Yes, I think that that's a really important thing.
01:02No, thank you. And that's great to hear. Back in May, the Trump administration announced that it was going to stop burying that information
01:13and stop informing the public about the cost of weather disasters. And I appreciate your commitment.
01:19And the administration is fighting disasters the only way they know how, by denying they even exist.
01:29And the only problem solved by burying weather data is the Trump administration's PR problem.
01:36But that's all that's buried. The actual information should be out there so the public can see how much worse these storms are,
01:42as each decade is unfolding. So, Dr. Jacobs, do you think that climate-focused research data and grant programs are relevant to NOAA's mission
01:54to understand the health of coastal and marine resources and predict marine environments?
02:01Well, weather, water, and climate is essential to NOAA's mission. It's a fundamental part of it. And so, data along the coastline obviously is critical to that.
02:14So, I'm glad that we agree on that. So, do you support the efforts to collect and understand regional climate data,
02:21which is so important for developing the forecast that our farmers and other small business owners use to make decisions every single day?
02:31Well, essentially, all data is regional at some level.
02:36Right. I know. But do you agree that there should be a continuation of the collection of the data?
02:42Yes. Collecting of data observations is a core essential to NOAA's mission.
02:48Yeah. So, and that's absolutely critical as well because it's too bad that President Trump's budget uses the exact language on climate research as a justification to kill that exact program at NOAA.
03:06And frankly, I'm shocked that an agenda that would cause such problems could even be talked about in the era that we're in right now.
03:19Dr. Jacobs, the Trump administration wants to cut NOAA's budget by 27 percent.
03:26No climate, weather, sea grant, ocean labs, or many other programs exempted.
03:31Dr. Jacobs, yes or no, do you support these cuts?
03:36Yes, I support the President's budget.
03:38Dr. Jacobs, do these cuts improve the weather readiness of our country?
03:44The cuts I believe you're referring to, a lot of that work is being transitioned in from the research side to the operations side.
03:53So, the National Weather Service, the National Ocean Service, their mission essential functions will continue.
04:03I have a disagreement with you.
04:05A 27 percent cut is going to have an impact because there's a definite ripple effect that occurs when that kind of funding is slashed.
04:15Because weather readiness without funding is an hallucination.
04:20You know, you can't cut something by 27 percent even as the storms are enhanced as each year goes by without having that additional capacity.
04:31So, I do not agree with you on that issue.
04:35And finally, Mr. Jordan, in 2012, Senator Inhofe wrote a book called The Greatest Hoax, How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.
04:46The next year, you adopted the social media handle at The Greatest Hoax as a reference to that book.
04:54Is that correct?
04:56So, thank you for the question, Senator.
04:59That particular name came about while I was earning my master's.
05:03I appreciate that.
05:04Can you explain why you chose and kept The Greatest Hoax as your online identity based upon Senator Inhofe's book?
05:12What was the joke in that?
05:14So, there is no joke.
05:15It was a young man's attempt at wit and there's really no deeper meaning.
05:20They came about contemporaneously and that's about it.
05:26No, I appreciate that.
05:27But if you want to be a comedian, you should maybe go to open mic night at the local club because this is serious business.
05:36The Greatest Hoax is not in any way a joke.
05:40It's an attempt to undermine legitimate climate science, undermine those who lead on weather, those who lead on protecting our oceans.
05:49So, it just says to me that all the rest of us have to get more serious if the greatest hoax is your handle because that is not where our country should be.
