February 16, 2018 — President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cuts more than $1 billion from the agency that manages the nation’s fisheries and coastal ecosystems, explores space and forecasts weather and changing environmental conditions.
On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton of Salem criticized the proposed cuts, saying the proposed 14 percent decline reflects the administration’s shallow understanding of the importance of NOAA’s programs to coastal communities, maritime industries and the national resources the agency is tasked to protect.
“It’s a recipe for disaster,” Moulton said of the withering budget cuts.
A spokeswoman at NOAA’s Gloucester-based Greater Atlantic Region Fisheries Office said the agency would have no comment on the budget proposal.
Still, the numbers remain unnerving — and the opposition more unified among a disparate band of conservationists, fishing stakeholders and political forces — when the cuts within the cuts are explored.
Local groundfishermen, already buffeted by heightened regulation, shrinking quotas and climactic changes, fear the cuts will kill any possibility that NOAA will continue reimbursements for portions of their at-sea monitoring costs in 2018.
Conservationists, such as Oceana, have railed against the deep cuts in ocean-funded research, such as the 33 percent cut in the National Ocean Service.
“The president’s proposal would cripple NOAA, the nation’s premier agency for ocean management and research,” Oceana said in its statement responding to the Trump budget proposals. “Major NOAA programs would suffer massive cuts.”
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