President Donald Trump’s budget request would completely eliminate funding for five National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research laboratories in Tennessee, a new interactive map of the national weather and climate agency’s locations shows.
Trump’s proposal would terminate all funding for the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, an arm that NOAA states “enables better forecasts, earlier warnings for natural disasters, and a greater understanding of the Earth.”
New York-based nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund released the interactive map, created using public “NOAA in Your State and Territory” documents and other government sources, earlier this month. It lays out NOAA’s 735-site national reach “to help policymakers and the public alike understand the agency’s local footprint and impact,” the nonprofit stated in a news release.
The map shows nine NOAA locations in Tennessee, including three National Weather Service offices and a Center Weather Service Unit at the Federal Aviation Administration’s Memphis Air Traffic Control Center, in addition to the five research laboratories housed under the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Three of those research centers are based in Oak Ridge.
NOAA’s Tennessee research facilities range in focus from air quality to forest carbon sequestration to climate anomalies and historical context.
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory houses a NOAA supercomputer called “Gaea” that is used to “develop and refine advanced weather and climate models,” according to NOAA documents. A NOAA research location in Crossville is one of more than 138 stations nationwide that feeds climate monitoring data to the U.S. Climate Reference Network.
The president’s $4.5 billion budget request for NOAA in fiscal year 2026 represents a 30 percent cut, focused on programs having to do with climate research, including the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. Some of the research office’s functions would be moved to other offices.
NOAA’s research office received $656 million in fiscal year 2024. Trump’s fiscal year 2026 proposal would slash that to $0.
NOAA Budget proposals from the U.S. House and Senate take a less drastic approach: making small cuts and avoiding laboratory closures or keeping the budget flat, Inside Climate News reported on Sept. 13.
The new federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1. If Congress does not pass a budget or a resolution to extend government operations under the current budget by then, the federal government will shut down.
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