Trump budget targets hundreds of National Weather Service jobs: report

President Trump’s 2019 White House budget reportedly includes a proposed cut to the National Weather Service that would eliminate hundreds of jobs.

As part of an 8 percent cut to the agency’s budget, the Trump administration would nix 355 jobs, including 248 forecasters, saving an estimated $15 million, according to The Washington Post.

Last year, the total cost of weather and climate change-related disasters totaled more than $300 billion, making 2017 the costliest year on record for such events.

The budget would also cut millions of dollars to the agency’s surface and marine observations program, the tsunami-warning program and activities that invest in weather modeling.

{mosads}An agency workforce analysis from 2016 noted a “mismatch … between workforce and workload” in some aspects of the National Weather Service, evidence cited in the budget as a reason to cut positions.

The National Weather Service’s labor union criticized the cuts, saying they would create a “perfect storm” hindering the agency’s ability to provide reliable forecasts and natural disaster warnings.

“We can’t take any more cuts and still do the job that the American public needs us to do,” union president Dan Sobien told the Post. “There simply will not be the staff available on duty to issue the forecasts and warnings upon which the country depends.”

Trump’s budget proposes cuts across federal agencies and projects for a total of $3 billion in cuts over the next decade.