In the 1996 action movie “Twister,” the scientists risk their lives to try and gather valuable data about tornadoes that could give more time for people to get to safety. A sequel, “Twisters” just came out. Yet next year — thanks to Project 2025, and depending on the Presidential election outcome — Americans may have to pay even more for those valuable weather reports that could affect their ability to be safe from tornadoes, hurricanes, and other forms of severe weather, a move that could also hurt family farms as well.
Several media outlets have reported that Project 2025 intends to eliminate “free” weather reports. That’s not entirely accurate. These aren’t “free” since we, as taxpayers, already pay for them. It just means we’ll pay extra for them.
In the United States, as in most other countries, weather forecasts are a freely accessible government amenity. The National Weather Service issues alerts and predictions, warning of hurricanes and excessive heat and rainfall, all at the total cost to American taxpayers of roughly $4 per person per year. Anyone with a TV, smartphone, radio, or newspaper can know what tomorrow’s weather will look like, whether a hurricane is heading toward their town, or if a drought has been forecast for the next season. Even if they get that news from a privately owned app or TV station, much of the underlying weather data are courtesy of meteorologists working for the federal government.
According to Scientific American, it’s part of a plan to target The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS), for sometimes reporting inconvenient things such as historically hotter temperatures and an increase in severe weather. They’ll be replaced by political appointees who under a new administration will be under a lot of pressure to say what the higher-ups tell them to say, not what they observe, if the “Sharpie” incident concerning a hurricane warning to the southeast United States years ago is any indicator. A new regime could be telling us that temperatures are getting cooler, and there aren’t many severe storms, whether it is actually happening or not, because it fits a political narrative, and not environmental reality.
A fact-checker on this report adds “The document also calls for focusing the NWS on commercial operations. ‘Because private companies rely on these data, the NWS should fully commercialize its forecasting operations.’” By the way, AccuWeather, touted by the report, doesn’t think that this is a good idea.
Non-private companies, like families in the path of destruction, also need to hear these valuable weather reports. Is a tornado or hurricane headed our way, and where should we go… or how much time do we have to get to safety? What about a heat wave or a blizzard? Should we know there’s lighting or hail out there so we can tell the kids to come inside from playing outdoors, or bring that school picnic indoors to be safe?
With Project 2025 making private companies the priority, our corporate farming operations may be doing okay. But it’s not clear that family farms are going to fare so well. My dad was raised on one, and I know that family farms dearly rely on those weather reports. Are we going to have to pay again and again for daily weather reports, or are we going to have to pay one big lump sum (probably more than $4 a year, given how critical the data is for us) annually? Somebody’s going to make a killing off of this, as this public data is priceless in private hands.
News about Project 2025 has shown the plan’s ideas are wildly unpopular with most Americans. That’s why, as CNN reported, “Trump posted to Truth Social: “I know nothing about Project 2025.” The former president frequently says he’s never heard of something or ever met someone. Yet as Scientific American documents, “But in 2022 Trump said the Heritage Foundation — the think tank that authored Project 2025 — would “lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” Much of Project 2025 already aligns with the ex-president’s policy proposals.
In that article, CNN also revealed that more than 140 former Trump Administration workers helped put together Project 2025, including six former cabinet secretaries. Should we consider these changes to our weather alerts a done deal, if Trump wins?
John A. Tures is Professor of Political Science and Coordinator of the Political Science Program at LaGrange College, in LaGrange, Georgia.