“Move fast and break things” is a catchphrase popularized by Mark Zuckerberg, suggesting that rapid innovation and progress are achieved by embracing experimentation and accepting that mistakes and failures are inevitable. It essentially advocates for prioritizing speed and disruption over careful planning, with the belief that progress is often made through learning from failures. While this approach may have benefits in the tech world, it is no way to run a nation, yet, sadly, this is what we are now experiencing in Washington, D.C., with the administration’s plans underway now to essentially destroy the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The state of California has jurisdiction over our ocean backyard from the Mean High Tide Line out to three miles offshore; beyond that the federal government takes over. And while there are multiple federal agencies with some role in those waters, what we know about them and how we use them (including the Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management, to name a few), I believe that the federal agency with the most involvement in our ocean backyard, is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA.

This agency has many responsibilities that affect us all. Perhaps the program we benefit from the most is the National Weather Service (NWS), which produces those maps we see in the morning newspaper or on TV in the evening – what we can expect in the hours and days ahead, whether storms, rainfall, snow and alerts about hazardous conditions that we, as well as aircraft and ships, would like to avoid.

NOAA also manages the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, which maintains all the satellites that provide the information that the National Weather Service utilizes to produce the images and maps displaying that weather information.

The National Ocean Service (NOS) maintains hundreds of tide gauges along the nation’s coasts with records available on an easy to access website that are used by ships (including the U.S. Navy), fishing boats, ports and harbors, pleasure boaters, surfers, hikers, tide poolers or ocean explorers, in order to know when the low and high tides will be and their elevations, as well as the extreme water levels to be expected during king tides and El Niño events (https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/map/). All these tide gauges, some of which have now been in operation for over 150 years, are also providing a record of how rapidly sea level is rising at individual sites in coastal states. NOS also is the agency that develops the nautical charts that boaters and ships around the nation and world use for safe navigation.

The Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) provides the research that gives us a better understanding of the way our ocean and atmosphere work, how it is changing, and what this means for us. With the information gathered from the NOAA fleet of ships and planes, this allows meteorologists to produce more accurate weather forecasts and provide earlier warnings for natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornadoes, atmospheric rivers and tsunamis. The role of this branch is to provide unbiased science to better understand the environment, nationally and globally.

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) tracks the nation’s fresh and saltwater commercial and recreational fisheries and helps set quotas on what can be harvested each year to maintain a sustainable population of each species. The NMFS scientists are also responsible for marine mammal protection, whether sea otters, whales, dolphins, seals or sea lions as well as endangered species conservation.

We have a National Marine Fisheries Service Laboratory with a group of scientists here in Santa Cruz at the university’s Coastal Science Campus. They study groundfish (rockfish and flat fish such as halibut and sole, among others) and anadromous species (fish that migrate between fresh and saltwater) including Coho and Chinook salmon and steelhead. These scientists focus on causes of variability in abundance and the health of fish populations, and the economics of exploiting and protecting natural resources. They also assess the stocks of species targeted by various fisheries and assist in evaluating potential impacts of human activities on threatened or endangered species. Results of this research are used by the Pacific Fishery Management Council to manage fisheries and by NOAA Fisheries to manage threatened and endangered species and their habitats. The NMFS scientists also support research carried out by UC Santa Cruz scientists and students, a unique opportunity for both groups.

Another important component of NOAA is the National Marine Sanctuaries program, including our Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which protects over 6,000 square miles of ocean and extends for 276 miles along the state’s coast from the Marin Headlands to Cambria, one of the largest in the national marine sanctuary system. Through an innovative partnership, the city of Santa Cruz and the National Marine Sanctuary collaborated to build the Exploration Center that complements existing local marine educational facilities such as the Seymour Marine Discovery Center and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

The national Sea Grant program is also part of NOAA. It is a federal-university partnership program established by Congress in 1966 that brings science together with communities to create and maintain a healthy coastal environment and economy. This network consists of partnerships between NOAA and 34 university-based programs in every coastal and Great Lakes state, Puerto Rico and Guam. This network has used the expertise of over 3,000 scientists, engineers, public outreach specialists, educators and students for nearly 60 years to help us better understand, conserve and utilize the nation’s coastal resources.

Despite all that NOAA does for the American public and the oceans, a very recent memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget outlines plans to effectively break up NOAA, cut program budgets, and end its climate work by abolishing its primary research office and forcing the agency to help boost U.S. fossil fuel production – really? They are going to help the oil companies find and extract more oil and gas? This is all part of Trump’s broader goals of slashing federal spending, gutting climate research and expanding U.S. energy production. As it turns out, U.S. oil and gas production is at an all-time high, and with the price of oil and the uncertainty now with tariffs and global economics, the oil companies are very cautious about investing in more drilling, regardless of any presidential ambitions.

NOAA’s office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research which is responsible for research on the Earth’s oceans, atmosphere, climate and weather patterns, would be eliminated under the proposed plans.

According to a leaked document from the Office of Management and Budget, the Trump administration is planning to end climate research at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. If this goes ahead, it would be an illegal escalation by the Trump administration against the United States’ scientific enterprise and will directly hurt American livelihoods, leading to more deaths and greater economic damage from extreme weather events. Congress holds the power of the purse in our democracy and should step up to oppose harmful cuts to NOAA and NASA.

While the proposed cuts claim to only be directed at climate change research, which would be disastrous on its own, the scientific institutions on the chopping block are imperative for the prediction and research of extreme weather events, including tornadoes, hurricanes and floods. The memo proposes closing all 16 Cooperative Research Institutes in 33 states, every one of the 10 research labs, all six regional climate centers, slashing the budget for the NASA Goddard Space Institute, and ending $70 million in grants to research universities. Thousands of seasoned scientists, early career scientists, and young scientists in graduate schools will lose funding. These folks have spent their livelihoods conducting research that improves climate and weather prediction that directly affects every American. Andrew Rosenberg, the former deputy director of NOAA Fisheries under the Obama administration said “It’s devastating. It’s idiotic and abusive.”

The oceans and atmosphere have no political affiliation, they belong to and serve all of us. What are these people thinking?