In yesterday’s Portland Press Herald, I had a follow-up on Tuesday’s report on President Trump’s proposal to dramatically cut funding to NOAA, including killing the 50-year old Sea Grant program entirely.
The new story reveals that the NOAA cuts also imperil Maine’s popular Wells Reserve at Laudhom Farm, the Great Bay reserve across the border in southern New Hampshire, and 27 other National Estuarine Research Reserves, which would see their federal funding completely eliminated.
In related stories, 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.
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.