NWSEO Suspending Blog

NWSEO national officers want to thank all the members who responded to our initial effort to provide a blog on NOAA and NWS issues. As a matter of fact, the responses were very impressive.

However, the current format provided through our blog for outreach to members is very time consuming and the NWSEO will need to re-evaluate its resources for keeping such a page on line.

We will keep you posted.

Begging for money for the NWS on Capitol Hill

This morning I met with the Chief of Staff to Senator Barbara Mikulksi, the Chair of the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Subcommittee, as well as with the subcommittee's Staff Director and the committee staff member who handles the NOAA budget. I came on behalf of NWSEO to explain our serious concern about the cuts which Congress made to the President's funding request for the NWS in the Omnibus Appropriations bill passed and signed into law just before Christmas. Specifically, the line item for "Local Warnings and Forecasts" - which funds most of NWS's employees salaries - was reduced by $12 million below the amount that was requested by the President (although the amount that was appropriated was still $35 million more than fiscal year 2007.) At the same time, Congress added millions of dollars of extra "earmarks" to fund other weather related projects. Some of these earmarks have dubious value - such as $200,000 to use NWS radar to study bird migration in Vermont, and $ 4.4 million in grants to universities to study weather.

I explained to these senior staffers that the reductions made by Congress were the equivalent of the salaries and benefits of 123 forecasters, or the entire amount that the NWS spends on training each year. I told them that the NWS attempts to cover the ongoing funding shortfall by a rolling hiring freeze - known as "lapsed labor" - which keeps vacancies open longer than they should be. (The vacancy rate at NWS headquarters is now about 8%).

I also explained that the President has failed to request enough money for the NWS in the first place - and I showed them documentation that demonstrates that the NWS needs $30 million above the amount requested by the President for full funding for "Local Warnings and Forecasts."

I was assured that Senator Mikulksi cares deeply about the health of the NWS and about NWS employees' jobs. (In fact, just about 18% of all NWS employees work in Maryland, her state.) They explained that President Bush's threat to veto the Commerce and other appropriations bills made it necessary to drastically cut virtually every other agency - such as the National Science Foundation (a $400 million cut), AF&T, NASA, and millions in funding for local police forces. They pointed out that the Federal government's budget woes are largely the result of cost of the Iraq War.

They also explained that Senator Mikulski substantially increased funding for the new building that will be the home of NCEP so that our members can move out of the substandard facilities where they now work.

We agreed to remain in contact and to work with NWSEO on these and other issues throughout the coming year. But I think we have tough times ahead because it is an election year and no one expects that the Congress and the President will cooperate with each other very well. And next year might be far worse, when whomever gets elected President has to start dealing with the budget deficit caused by the Bush Administration's tax cuts and war in Iraq.

Stay tuned.

We want your feedback!

Welcome the NWSEO's blog. We are going to use this space to keep you updated on what NWSEO's officers and representatives are doing on a day-to-day basis to protect your job and the ability of the National Weather Service to protect the American public. We'll report to you about our meetings with Congressional leaders on Capitol Hill, with agency officials, and when we attend meetings of the meteorology and emergency management community. But more importantly, we want NWS employees - union members and non-members as well as managers and supervisors - to give us their thoughts on what we are doing or what we should be doing.

In addition, we can't forget that NWSEO represents four other groups of NOAA employees - the employees at the Wallops Command and Data Acquisition Station at Wallops Island, VA; the attorneys in NOAA's Office of General Counsel; the staff at OAR's lab in Key Biscayne; and the civilians crews at NOAA's Aircraft Operations Center. This will be a forum for all NWSEO communities to learn about what each other is doing and what common issues we all face.

But most importantly, this blog needs to be a two-way street. So please give us you comments. You can begin today by telling us what issues you would like us to address, and what you think NWSEO's priorities should be for 2008.

Let's begin to talk.