You are here: Fairness.com > Resources > National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)


Self Description

Third-Party Descriptions

May 2010: "Some people are questioning the independence of the Texas lab. Taylor Kirschenfeld, an environmental official for Escambia County, Fla., rebuffed instructions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to send water samples to the lab, which is based at TDI-Brooks International in College Station, Tex. He opted instead to get a waiver so he could send his county’s samples to a local laboratory that is licensed to do the same tests."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/21/science/earth/21conflict.html

April 2010: 'As oil edged toward the Louisiana coast, fears continued to grow that the leak from the seabed oil well could spiral out of control. One official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in a widely distributed warning on Friday, said the oil flow could grow from the current estimate of 5,000 barrels a day to “an order of magnitude higher than that.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/us/01gulf.html

November 2008: "The fact is that for years the quota in the West has also been much too high, due to commercial and recreational fishing industry lobbying. And we continue fishing in the spawning area. (Earlier this month I lost a long-running lawsuit against N.O.A.A. to close the Gulf to gear capable of catching bluefins during the spawning season.) It’s all subject to limits but the limits are too high. If they weren’t too high, we would not have the problems. So we have a collapsed western stock and a rapidly declining eastern stock because of greed all around."

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/26/the-tuna-tragedy-of-the-commons/index.html

January 2006: "The fight between Dr. Hansen and administration officials echoes other recent disputes. At climate laboratories of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, for example, many scientists who routinely took calls from reporters five years ago can now do so only if the interview is approved by administration officials in Washington, and then only if a public affairs officer is present or on the phone."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/29/science/earth/29climate.html

July 2007: Proenza, 62, has repeatedly criticized his bosses at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, saying they have not provided the Hurricane Center with adequate research funds and failed to plan for the eventual demise of an important weather satellite.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/03/AR2007070302427.html

May 2006: The Washington office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- the agency responsible for protecting endangered salmon -- has instructed its representatives and scientists in the West to route media questions about salmon back to headquarters. Only three people in the entire agency, all of them political appointees, are now authorized to speak of salmon, according to a NOAA employee who has been silenced on the fish.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/30/AR2006053001057.html

July 2005: The sincerity of the administration's policy is also being questioned by some scientists who work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service, according to a survey of agency employees released Tuesday by the Union of Concerned Scientists and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. It found that about two-thirds of those surveyed did not believe the agency, responsible for protecting endangered fish and their habitat, was effectively doing its job. More than half of respondents said they knew of cases in which 'commercial interests' or senior administration officials have 'inappropriately' influenced agency decisions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/01/AR2005070101808.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) National Hurricane Center (NHC) Organization Feb 12, 2006
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Organization Feb 15, 2006
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) National Undersea Research Center (NURC) Organization Dec 31, 2006
Owner of (partial or full, past or present) National Weather Service (NWS) Organization Feb 12, 2006
Financial Supporter of (past or present) TDI-Brooks International Organization May 21, 2010
Owned by (partial or full, past or present) US Federal Government - Independent Agencies Organization May 6, 2005
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) Kathleen Crane Ph.D. Person Sep 5, 2011
Organization Executive (past or present) Dr. William "Bill" T. Hogarth Person Sep 22, 2005
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Vice Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr. Person Dec 31, 2006
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Dr. Jane Lubchenco Ph.D. Person May 26, 2010
Organization Executive (past or present) Monica Medina Esq. Person Jun 27, 2010
Organization Executive (past or present) Dr. Steven A. Murawski Person Jul 2, 2005

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
May 22, 2010 Obama Gives a Bipartisan Commission Six Months to Revise Drilling Rules

QUOTE: Mr. Obama tapped two prominent former officials to lead the commission — Bob Graham, the former senator from Florida, and William K. Reilly, the former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency — and gave them six months to come up with a plan to revamp federal regulation of offshore oil drilling.

 New York Times
May 20, 2010 Conflict of Interest Worries Raised in Spill Tests

QUOTE: Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, since those readings [taken by local environmental officials--Ed.] will be used by the federal government and courts to establish liability claims against BP. But the laboratory that officials have chosen to process virtually all of the samples is part of an oil and gas services company in Texas that counts oil firms, including BP, among its biggest clients.

 New York Times
May 12, 2010 The Price and Who Pays: Updates From the Gulf

QUOTE: attempts to shut off the flow of oil streaming into the Gulf of Mexico have been unsuccessful and the search continues for a cause and for ways to prevent such blowouts in the future. Questions persist about who will be liable for damage from the spill and the risks to local wildlife.

 New York Times
Apr 30, 2010 BP Is Criticized Over Oil Spill, but U.S. Missed Chances to Act

QUOTE: BP officials said they did everything possible, and a review of the response suggests it may be too simplistic to place all the blame on the oil company. The federal government also had opportunities to move more quickly, but did not do so while it waited for a resolution to the spreading spill from BP...

 New York Times
Apr 14, 2010 U.S. Leads New Bid to Phase Out Whale Hunting

QUOTE: The compromise deal, which has generated intense controversy within the 88-nation International Whaling Commission and among antiwhaling activists, would allow the three whaling countries to continue hunting whales for the next 10 years, although in reduced numbers.

 New York Times
Nov 27, 2008 Dot Earth: The (Tuna) Tragedy of the Commons

QUOTE: in a world seeking to manage limited, shared natural resources while also spurring economic growth — whether the resource is the global atmosphere or an extraordinary half-ton, ocean-roaming predator. The European stance — insisting on a harvest in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean 50 percent above the limit recommended by scientists — was sharply criticized by environmental campaigners, marine biologists and United States fisheries officials.

 New York Times
Aug 15, 2007 NASA Revisions Create a Stir in The Blogosphere

QUOTE: NASA has slightly revised its record of average annual temperatures in the United States since 2000 -- modifications that researchers say are insignificant but that some conservative commentators and bloggers have seized upon to assert that global warming has been hyped as a problem.

 Washington Post
Jul 04, 2007 Storm intensifies as forecasters want director removed: The director of the hurricane center confronted a new challenge as three top forecasters called for his departure.

QUOTE: Three senior forecasters at the National Hurricane Center called Tuesday for the ouster of the new director, Bill Proenza, saying he has damaged public confidence in their forecasts, fractured morale and lost their support.

 Miami Herald
May 09, 2007 Fired federal worker sues over googling (Police blotter)

QUOTE: A government worker claims a department official violated his "right to fundamental fairness" by using Google to research his prior work history in a dispute over the use of government property .... The appeals court, however, disagreed. It ruled that the Google searches were not prejudicial and affirmed Mullins' dismissal as a civil servant.

 News.com
Feb 13, 2007 On Fla. Menus, a Favorite Fish Experiences Identity Theft

QUOTE: In this area that some consider the national capital of grouper -- more than three-quarters of the U.S. catch comes from Florida's Gulf and a grouper sandwich downed at a waterside bar is cherished as an authentically Floridian repast -- the finding has amplified a local outrage that, experts say, points to a larger national problem of fish fakery.

 Washington Post
Aug 07, 2006 Oceans in Crisis But U.S. Slow to Act

QUOTE: The federal government is failing to respond to alarming evidence that the oceans are in crisis, ocean experts told a Senate panel last week. Two years after a federal commission called on the Bush administration and Congress to aggressively overhaul the nation's ocean policy, key recommendations have not been implemented and critical ocean research efforts face deep funding cuts.

 Oneworld South Asia
May 31, 2006 Questions About Salmon Are Directed Upstream

QUOTE: the agency responsible for protecting endangered salmon..has instructed its representatives and scientists in the West to route media questions about salmon back to headquarters. Only three people in the entire agency, all of them political appointees, are now authorized to speak of salmon...

 Washington Post
Jan 29, 2006 Climate Expert Says NASA Tried to Silence Him

QUOTE: The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

 New York Times
Aug 24, 2005 Wave of Marine Species Extinctions Feared

QUOTE: Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist at the advocacy group Oceana, said he has repeatedly seen government officials provide shifting estimates of how many threatened or endangered sea turtles can acceptably die each year in eastern scallop fisheries.

 Washington Post
Jul 02, 2005 Future of Salmon Leads to Dispute Over Federal Dams: Environmental Effect Is Questioned

QUOTE: ...described the administration's 2004 biological opinion -- it says dams are an ineluctable part of the river's environmental baseline -- as a document written "more in cynicism than in sincerity." The sincerity of the administration's policy is also being questioned by some scientists who work for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service...

 Washington Post
Oct 09, 2004 Ocean Exploitation Surfaces as Crisis: Widespread Pollution, Overfishing Spur Presidential Panel to Urge New Rules

QUOTE: For centuries, the various studies note, Americans have treated coastal waters as theirs for the taking, seeking bounty with little government oversight. Fishing boats trawled and trapped at will, oil companies built huge rigs to tap offshore resources, and cruise ships crisscrossed sensitive habitats so tourists could gawk at marine life.

 Washington Post
Apr 25, 2004 NASA Curbs Comments on Ice Age Disaster Movie

QUOTE: The initial efforts by NASA headquarters to limit comments [about "The Day After Tomorrow”--Ed.] angered some government researchers. "It's just another attempt to play down anything that might lead to the conclusion that something must be done" about global warming, one federal climate scientist said.

 New York Times
Jul 16, 2002 Navy Cleared to Use a Sonar Despite Fears of Injuring Whales

QUOTE: The Navy won approval yesterday to deploy two ships that use controversial low-frequency sonar...despite continuing questions about whether the system's loud blasts will injure whales and other ocean mammals.

 Washington Post