Sen. Maria Cantwell urges Trump to invest in modernized weather forecast system: "The money will save you money" [View all]
Source: CBS News
Updated on: July 21, 2025 / 6:06 PM EDT
Sen. Maria Cantwell is urging President Trump to prioritize modernizing the nation's weather forecasting system, saying the investment will save lives as well as money down the road. She released a letter to the president Monday, following through on her pledge to provide guidance that the administration can use to upgrade weather forecasting infrastructure.
"The money will save you money, for sure," Cantwell said in an interview on CBS News Monday. "The kind of investments you could make here are about taking a $20 billion [disaster] event and saying, if we would have done these things in advance, it wouldn't have cost us that much money. If storms are costing us this much, we have to come up with better solutions."
The Democratic congresswoman, a prominent voice in environmental policy on Capitol Hill and ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which oversees weather and disasters. Cantwell penned the letter in the wake of disastrous flooding that killed at least 135 people in Central Texas. The July 4 flash flood prompted a massive search and recovery operations and raised questions about whether forecasts and warnings could have been more effective ahead of time.
Cantwell's letter outlined five bipartisan recommendations to improve U.S. forecasting. It comes as the Trump administration continues to make cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agency focused on weather and climate, and the National Weather Service, its subagency in charge of daily forecasts.
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/maria-cantwell-trump-letter-weather-forecast-system-money-savings/
Link to Senator Cantwell PRESS RELEASE - In Letter to Trump, Cantwell Unveils 5-Point Plan to Improve Nation’s Weather Readiness in the Face of NOAA Cuts
Link to LETTER (PDF) - https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/5529EF50-E590-4AB6-8C73-9D9C1A05B1CE
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