The White House has released its official “skinny budget” for fiscal year 2026, which outlines drastic cuts to NOAA and targets climate-related programs.
“For decades, the biggest complaint about the federal budget was wasteful spending and bloated bureaucracy,” U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought said in a statement. “But, over the last four years, government spending aggressively turned against the American people and trillions of our dollars were used to fund cultural Marxism, radical Green New Scams, and even our own invasion. No agency was spared in the Left’s taxpayer-funded cultural revolution.”
News outlets had reported in April that U.S. President Donald Trump was planning major cuts and changes to NOAA, including NOAA Fisheries, which oversees the nation's fishing sector. The White House’s skinny budget confirms those reports, with a proposed USD 1.3 billion (EUR 1.1 billion) cut to NOAA’s overall budget. According to the Trump administration, the budget will terminate a large number of climate-related grants and research programs.
“NOAA’s educational grant programs have consistently funded efforts to radicalize students against markets and spread environmental alarm,” the administration noted in the budget outline. “NOAA has funded such organizations as the Ocean Conservancy and One Cool Earth that have pushed agendas harmful to America’s fishing industries. These NOAA grants were funding things such as: George Mason University’s ‘Policy Experience in Equity Climate and Health’ fellowship, a workshop for ‘transgender women and those who identify as nonbinary,’ and NOAA Climate Adaptation Partnerships, which funded webinars that promoted a children’s book ‘designed to foster conversations about climate anxiety’ as therapy.”
The proposed cuts drew immediate condemnations from conservation groups.
“The Trump administration’s proposed budget would eliminate many of the programs designed to protect our oceans – putting marine life and the marine economy at risk. Congress needs to stand up for every American who depends on healthy oceans and reject this ridiculous proposal,” Oceana Senior Director of Federal Policy Lara Levison said in a statement.
The administration is also proposing massive cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency; the budget would slash the agency's funding by ...
