By Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids denounced Tuesday “indiscriminate” staffing cuts at the National Weather Service that limited operations of the Goodland, Kansas, facility serving 80,000 people in three states.
Davids, a Democrat serving the 3rd District in Kansas, said the Goodland office of NWS lost its ability to deliver regular 24/7 forecasting services due to downsizing of personnel.
“Every single person in this country relies on the NWS in their daily lives,” Davids said. “This agency is a top priority for public safety and national security, and indiscriminate cuts have only worsened the success of our nation’s weather forecasting.”
Davids said consequences of President Donald Trump’s elimination of NWS personnel prompted a plan to fill gaps at NWS field offices by reassigning employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and by hiring more than 100 meteorologists, scientists and technicians.
“This clearly demonstrates that the Trump administration’s scorched-earth approach to the federal workforce was reckless, dangerous and inefficient,” Davids said.
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, said he secured a national exemption for the NWS from a federal hiring freeze to enable the agency to hire forecasters. The Goodland office stopped night-time forecasting during May due to staffing shortages, he said.
Moran proposed legislation exempting NWS employees from any executive order or memorandum imposing a hiring freeze.
“As we work to install new technology and modernize the National Weather Service, it is important the NWS is able to continuously fill critical public safety roles as they become vacant to make certain communities across the country receive timely, accurate weatherdata,” Moran said.
In a letter to U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Davids said the NWS facility in Pleasant Hill, Missouri, which served much of her Kansas City-area congressional district, also was dealing with meteorology vacancies.
Davids said the commerce department ought to outline the geographic distribution of new NWS staff and offer a timeline for restoration of 24/7 operations.
Kansas farmers rely on weather data supplied by NWS for producing agricultural crops, she said. Kansas has routinely been been hit by severe storms, damaging winds, flooding and tornadoes, she said.
“Just days after the Goodland facility ceased around-the-clock services, an EF-3 tornado touched down just one hour away,” Davids said.
