WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Democratic Senator Adam Schiff on Tuesday urged Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s acting secretary to restore a database that tracked billion-dollar U.S. disasters.
He said its removal prevented lawmakers, insurance companies and taxpayers from seeing the growing cost of more frequent natural disasters and from planning for future extreme weather events.
NOAA announced last week it was removing the “billion-dollar weather and climate disasters” database from its website “in alignment with evolving priorities,” the latest example of the agency ending ongoing scientific datasets.
Schiff, who represents California, also warned that sweeping job cuts at NOAA have left the agency understaffed ahead of hurricane season, which begins June 1, saying that 30 of 122 weather forecast offices at the National Weather Service lack chief meteorologists.
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT
The database showed that the number of billion-dollar disasters grew from just a few per year in the 1980s to an average of 23 per year over the last four years, which climate scientists have attributed to a rise in global temperatures. In 2024, the database showed 27 confirmed disaster events whose losses exceeded $1 billion each in 2024.
CONTEXT
The Trump administration has moved quickly to reverse and remove all federal spending related to climate change and remove any regulation aimed at addressing greenhouse gas emissions as part of its effort to bolster oil, gas and mining operations.
KEY QUOTE
“The termination of this database … suggests that this program may have been targeted because it shows the American public just how much climate change has been fueling more frequent billion-dollar weather disasters,” Schiff said in a statement. “If this is the case, it is disturbing that the administration would prefer to keep the public in the dark about the effects of climate change and hinder the country’s ability to prevent and mitigate the human, economic, and environmental costs of extreme weather events.”
(Reporting by Valerie VolcoviciEditing by Rod Nickel)
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