US Hurricane Center faces review, not closure under Project 2025 proposals

"Maybe now is a good time to mention Project 2025 ends the National Hurricane Center," an October 12, 2024 post on Threads said, days after Hurricane Milton's landfall in Florida.

The same claim spread on Instagram in a post supporting Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

Similar claims circulated in September as Hurricane Helene caused death and destruction over a wide area in the southeastern states.

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A screenshot of a post on Threads taken on October 25, 2024

Project 2025 is a blueprint for reshaping the federal government should a Republican win the presidential election this fall. An 887-page book titled "Mandate for Leadership: A Conservative Promise" outlines its goals (archived here).

The Heritage Foundation has put together a series of conservative guidelines ahead of presidential elections for decades, but its president called Project 2025 a plan for "institutionalizing Trumpism" (archived here).

Donald Trump has distanced himself from the initiative (archived here), but multiple news outlets reported that many of his allies and former administration members have ties to the project (archived here, here and here).

Project 2025 has been the target of multiple claims on social media, some of which AFP debunked, and claims that a Trump administration would automatically dissolve the NHC -- whose mission is to save lives, mitigate property loss and improve economic efficiency by issuing watches and warnings of hazardous tropical weather -- is inaccurate.

No such wording exists in Project 2025 or on the Republican candidate's campaign platform, AFP found.

Heritage Foundation senior communications manager Ellen Keenan (archived here) told AFP on October 22 that the statement made in the social media posts was false. 

She said specific text focusing on changes to the NHC, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, can be found on page 675 (archived here) of the document and are as follows:

Review the Work of the National Hurricane Center and the National Environmental Satellite Service. The National Hurricane Center and National Environmental Satellite Service data centers provide important public safety and business functions as well as academic functions, and are used by forecasting agencies and scientists internationally. Data continuity is an important issue in climate science. Data collected by the department should be presented neutrally, without adjustments intended to support any one side in the climate debate.

Project 2025 "makes clear that, although NHC work product should be reviewed, the NHC would be preserved," said Emory University School of Law professor, Jonathan Nash (archived here).

It "bears emphasis that, whatever Project 2025 says or contemplates, former President Trump has stated numerous times that he has no connection to it, that he has had no role in formulating it, and that it is not part of his platform," Nash told AFP on October 21.

Nevertheless, many environmental and policy experts have voiced serious concerns about the Project 2025's proposals and the future of NOAA if they were to be implemented.

Ken Alex, climate director at UC Berkeley (archived here), warned: "Project 2025 is a massive defunding and unwinding of government, and the proposal around NOAA and its components is indicative of this effort." 

It also reflects "a strong sense of climate change denial and support for fossil fuels," he said on October 22. 

Weather data access

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund attorney, Chris Marchesano (archived here), told AFP on October 22 that the document hints at privatizing US weather data and forecasts, services often taken "for granted" by the general public, a move that could impact preparedness and response to natural disasters.

"Imagine getting your daily forecast through a subscription service that can be sponsored or owned by a flood insurance company or an oil and gas company," Marchesano cited as an example.

According to the attorney, such reform would take "the objective science away from the National Weather Service." 

Climate Science Legal Defense Fund's Marchesano also pointed to a section of the document that concerns the revamp of FEMA: "One of the proposed changes in writing would be to completely end the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which offers insurance at prices lower than the fair rate" for states regularly impacted by extreme weather, he said. 

Albany Law School's environmental law professor Keith Hirokawa (archived here) said Project 2025 shows "animosity" toward NOAA.

"There is good reason to believe that our climate information and emergency response capabilities would be severely limited under Project 2025 parameters," he said on October 24.

Budget cuts

Project 2025 also calls to "downsize" certain branches of NOAA, including the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which researches Earth's oceans, atmospheric and coastal areas.

Juliette Finzi Hart (archived here), an oceanographer at the University of Colorado who served in the Trump Administration, said the former president was "very successful at muzzling our work and zeroing our budgets related to climate."

Read more of AFP Fact Check's climate coverage here.