Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Mrs. FLETCHER. Madam Chair, I urge support of my amendment to H.R. 3055 that would require the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to contract with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to undertake an inaugural decadal study of the terrestrial U.S. weather enterprise. This amendment would require the study be completed no later than December 15, 2020.

The landscape of weather prediction and forecasting in the U.S. has changed in the last decade due to the tremendous growth of the enterprise, which is made up of public, private, and academic sectors. Despite new innovations and technologies that have been developed, the U.S. currently finds itself trailing other countries in weather modeling and forecasting capabilities when it was once the global leader.

We are at a crucial juncture, and it is important to understand what the current challenges the U.S. weather enterprise faces so that we can improve U.S. weather modeling and forecasting capabilities and help the U.S. regain international leadership in this field. Although these sectors operate in complementary roles to provide accurate and timely weather forecasts to the American public to protect life and property, their individual goals don't always align in a way that provides the largest possible benefit to society.

A decadal survey would provide an opportunity to define a unified vision and long-term goals for the private, academic, and government sectors of the weather enterprise. This survey would include a current assessment of all sectors of the weather enterprise, and also look back over the last five years to understand how it has performed. Policymakers would be able to use the decadal survey to prioritize and guide future investments for the next decade in science, weather modeling, forecasting, data assimilation, and observation technologies.

I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

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