Northern Illinois & Washington, D.C. – As DOGE has been making cuts in government agencies all across the Federal Government, a new bill being introduced could protect our nation’s meteorologists who warn us about everything from hurricanes and flash flood to tornadoes and even wildfires.
Two Congressmen have partnered on a bipartisan bill to reclassify the National Weather Service Employees as critical to public safety, allowing for faster hiring across hundreds of vacant positions.
Representatives Mike Flood and Eric Sorensen have introduced that legislation putting forecasters in the same category as air traffic controllers and FBI agents. This follows news that the National Weather Service can rehire more than 120 open positions after public backlash about staff shortages across the agency.
Megan also happens to live in the district represented by the only meteorologist in Congress, and he shares her concern about widespread staff shortages across the National Weather Service.
Representative Eric Sorensen from Illinois says, “I value that in the middle of the night when the worst storm doesn’t wake me up, that their warning will wake me up, so that I can get my kids down in the basement. That has incredible value.”
That’s why Sorensen visited his local weather service office to listen to, and encourage the forecasters stretched so thing, sometimes they can’t do basic things like launch a weather balloon. Fewer balloon launches also grabbed attention 300 miles to the west, and across the political divide.
“I could see in their eyes they were burnt out. They were concerned,” says Representative Mike Flood. Flood visited his district’s weather service office in April, also short staffed at the time, when six tornadoes hit eastern Nebraska.
Right after, he called The White House, and pushed for what became the announcement that 126 vacant positions would be filled across the weather service, roughly a fourth of the total vacancies.
“We’re fixing it... We’re going to fund them. It’s not going to get privatized. And I think it’s an opportunity for some real change and hopefully some additional investment,” says Flood.
Now, Flood is partnering with Sorensen on a bipartisan bill to further protect weather service forecasters by reclassifying them as “public safety,” alongside FBI agents and air traffic controllers. That would be a first in the 155-year history of the National Weather Service.
Sorensen says, “We have to make sure that we’re protecting them. Because they don’t just serve my constituents here. They serve the constituents of every member of Congress.”
“I really feel confident this is not a partisan issue. This is not a red issue. This is not a blue issue.. We all see value in it, including the White House,” Flood adds.
The bill introduced is called “The Weather Workforce Improvement Act,” and it has 6 bipartisan sponsors in the House and a verbal support of the President. Along with the President’s support, Flood tells us he’s also working with the House Appropriations Committee to ensure the weather service maintains full funding.
A spokesperson for the National Weather Service says they’ll soon post openings for those 126 “permanent, mission-critical field positions.” We’ll continue to follow this bill as it makes it way through Congress.
The Congressmen who introduced this legislation say staying safe in severe weather should be one thing that we can all agree on.
On this fourth generation farm in Northern Illinois, weather and climate predictions dictate everything from water for their cattle, to when to plan, and for this mother of four, when to take cover.
“I want to be confident that if there is severe weather heading my way, that I’m informed that I know about that... And if we cut some of these services that have been around for, you know, over 100 years, it becomes really challenging for some of those big decisions that impact our bottom line,” says Megan Dwyer, Corn & Cattle Farmer.