In this morning’s Portland Press Herald, I report on the reaction to President Trump’s proposal to dramatically cut funding to NOAA, the government’s principle marine-related agency, including killing the 50-year old Sea Grant program entirely.
The University of Maine is one of the nation’s 33 Sea Grant universities, and he marine community is expressing alarm at the proposal, which also effects fisheries management, weather forecasting, and Earth observation from space, including documenting climate change. (The latter a major concern in the Gulf of Maine region.)
I’ve previously reported on how Trump’s “2-for-1” regulatory reform order is expected to paralyze big picture fisheries management, and how an early plan to eliminate NASA satellite monitoring of Earth would upend Maine-based research into the changing climate.
[Update, 3/10/17: The NOAA cuts also imperil the Wells Reserve and 29 other estuary reserves across the country.]
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author, historian and award-winning journalist. He is the author of seven books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at Maine's Portland Press Herald, he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a 2016 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.