Federal Cuts to Research Have Impacted Hurricane Season; How is Florida Fighting Back

MIAMI, FLA — In 2025, Carlos Martinez, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, was working as a fellow at the National Science Foundation, managing the Coastlines and People Program, which used federal funds to connect climate science to hazards along the coasts of the U.S.

But after the signing of a slate of executive orders on January 20, 2025, cuts, freezes, and rescissions to the National Science Foundation, as well as other government agencies the federal government viewed as ‘wasteful,’ Martinez foresaw his future at the NSF, and he left the agency by June of that year.

“I was actually finishing that fellowship with the intent of pursuing future job opportunities at the agency,” said Martinez. “And then we saw what happened in January of 2025, where… the administration brought a sledgehammer and destroyed and fractured the entire research enterprise within the federal government… I knew there wouldn't be opportunities for me to stay.”

But Martinez isn’t alone.

After President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, cuts to federally funded scientific research projects led to the loss of over 20,000 jobs over the year, according to a study by the Progressive Policy Institute.

In Florida, one of the states most affected by Hurricanes, these cuts are echoed through loosened forecasting, mitigation, and preparation efforts. As hurricane season approaches its peak, experts across the nation are raising questions about the state’s ability to prepare for and recover from a hurricane.

But Florida has found ways to adapt to the cuts, especially through state-funded projects—such as Florida’s Hurricane Loss Mitigation Project and Resilient Florida—that provide funding to fill gaps left by the cuts.

What are the cuts, and how do they affect Florida?

Around the country, several government agencies work hand in hand to prepare for, recover from, and forecast climate disasters, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Weather Service (NWS), and the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Over the past year, each agency has experienced several funding cuts that have drastically affected how states handle climate disasters.

The Trump Administration has cut more than 100 climate studies at the National Science Foundation by reducing funding for projects related to keywords the administration says are at odds with its political agenda.

As for the NSF’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027 (FY2027), the Trump Administration is requesting a 54% decrease from the foundation’s FY2026 budget of $8.8 billion, leaving it with a little bit over $4 billion.

In 2025, the Trump Administration announced a plan to end a large portion of NOAA's climate research by reducing funding for the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR) Office by over $485 million, effectively eliminating the office.

OAR serves as NOAA's main research arm, conducting scientific research and providing data to help develop technology for forecasting, warning systems, and understanding natural disasters affecting the country.

Although Congress rejected this proposal, it still moved certain research projects and operations to the National Weather Service, reducing OAR's overall funding by nearly 10%, according to a congressional report.

In 2026, Congress again faced the task of cutting funding for OAR and other NOAA functions to allocate budget for FY 2027. According to reports from the Congressional Research Service, House appropriators on July 28 declined the Trump Administration’s proposal to shut down OAR for a second year, instead choosing to cut OAR programs by only 2 percent.

But these proposed cuts to NOAA aren’t the only ones affecting researchers and climate scientists around the country.

In December 2025, the Trump Administration announced plans to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, the nation’s largest and most important atmospheric science center.

For Melina Matos, assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Fla, these proposed changes to NCAR’s operations signify an important move in the work done by scientists who work on national multi-year projects, such as those at NOAA and the NSF.

“We work with the community, we inform the community, we work a lot with this applied research… I’m not alone in doing that,” said Matos. “We have so many scientists that do that, and we are great, and we help the whole world. And suddenly… [our work] is gone.”

But scientific research isn’t the only aspect being cut by the federal government. Recent cuts to FEMA have also shaken up the world of climate resilience and disaster preparedness.

FEMA works to provide logistical capacity and expertise based on the needs of communities across the country. This is done through its role in coordinating the distribution of essentials such as food, water, and medical supplies to local communities.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA sent over 17,000 personnel and delivered 20 million liters of water during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

But following recent changes to FEMA’s operations — including a 14% cut to FEMA’s workforce, the closure and eventual reinstatement of the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grant, nonrenewal of emergency call-center contracts, and the cancellation of a door-to-door canvassing initiative in disaster areas — the agency has left its most vulnerable communities fighting to ensure proper disaster recovery and its staff at a dead end.

Additionally, the NWS has also been affected by cuts that have severely impacted its operations and forecasting abilities. The agency works to provide “weather, water, and climate data, forecasts, warnings, and impact-based decision support services,” according to its website.

Recent cuts, however, have created gaps in the service’s ability to operate 24/7 and suspended operations, including daily recurring weather balloon launches, and created gaps in public broadcast warnings and communications.

In Florida, the roles of each of these agencies are crucial to the state’s ability to address these weather events. Across the state, the NWS operates seven offices dedicated to monitoring regional weather 24/7.

NOAA operates a wide range of offices within the state as well, including an Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection and three Natural Estuarine Research Reserves that serve as spaces for scientists to study historical aspects of the state’s composition and climate.

According to reporting from the WLRN, Miami’s NWS office was operating with about half of its normal staffing by 2025. WLRN also reported that about a dozen scientists at NOAA’s Virginia Key Offices in Miami were laid off.

16 scientists working in local fisheries and half a dozen working on projects surrounding hurricane modeling and forecasting were also fired, according to a report from NPR.

Yoca Arditi-Rocha, CEO of the CLEO Institute — a Miami-based “non-partisan organization exclusively dedicated to climate crisis education and advocacy,” according to its website — believes that these cuts are imperative to the state’s reaction to hurricanes.

“Hurricanes don't care about politics, and they don't care who you vote for; they don't care about geographies, and they truly respond to physics,” Adriti-Rocha said. “And Florida is one of the most hurricane-exposed states in the nation. So our ability to protect lives and to protect our communities, our property, and our economy should be of all everybody's best interest.”

Adriti-Rocha explains that these cuts not only weaken funding towards research, but also what she calls institutional knowledge.

“It's about weakening the foundation that informs emergency management, that informs local planning, that informs infrastructure investment, insurance risk assessments, and quite frankly, public communication,” said Adriti-Rocha. “When research slows, the ability to anticipate future risk also slows. I think when you have fewer resources to tell the public to prepare and to prepare for what you know, the bottom line is we have fewer resources to do so effectively and safely.”

What is the state doing to fight back?

But when federal funding disappears, many functions once funded by the federal government are redirected to state and local governments.

Florida’s Hurricane Loss Mitigation Project, a mitigation program aimed at minimizing hurricane damage, is state-funded and run by Florida’s Division of Emergency Management.

Resilient Florida, enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May 2021, specifically works to ensure coordination of Florida’s resilience in coastal and inland area but protecting waterways, coastlines, and shores.

The program has created a wide range of grants that counties, municipalities, and special districts can apply for to address flooding and sea-level rise impacts, plan for vulnerabilities, and implement mitigation projects.

Although the program was originally set to expire in 2025, the state legislature renewed it last year without any controversy.

However, concerns about the program’s survival arose after the establishment of Florida’s version of the Department of Governmental Efficiency (FL DOGE), which began cutting state funding for projects aimed at combating climate change.

According to a report from FL DOGE, various efforts have been made to create investments in climate advocacy and resilience programs around the state, based on a controversial finding by the U.S. Department of Energy that “scientific evidence does not support claims of a long-term increase in so-called ‘extreme’ weather events, including hurricanes, tornadoes, [and] floods.”

Experts were concerned that these cuts would affect Resilient Florida, one of the largest state-led resilience efforts in the country, but after securing funding from a $6 billion deal with the Seminole Gaming compact, an agreement between the Seminole tribe of Florida and the state government for online betting to fund environmental projects, the project will continue to be funded at $150 million.

The program’s ability to cut through state funding to remain active reveals the larger role Congress plays in allowing state-funded and even federal programming to persist.

Various proposed cuts targeting NOAA and other government agencies faced scrutiny from Congress and were ultimately rejected, including a cut to NOAA facilities that would have shut down all weather and climate research labs.

But as the federal administration keeps pushing for deeper cuts, Martinez emphasizes that Congress's and the courts’ roles in deciding the future of environmental programming and emergency management become more pronounced.

“Congress has done some things, particularly appropriating funds and rejecting the proposed funds that the administration wanted, but the administration is still using very slow disbursement tactics to lapse funding in order to get to the funding levels that the president wanted, and this has an oversight authority,” said Martinez.

Arditi-Rocha notes that when it comes to protecting the environment, Congress needs to set aside its partisan biases.

“Protecting Americans' lives from hurricanes or wildfires or extreme heat is not a partisan issue. Should not be a partisan issue,” said Arditi-Rocha. “Every family and every community can benefit from accurate forecasts.”

Organizations and non-profits such as the Ocean Conservancy Group have also worked to create advocacy for change.

In June, Ocean Conservancy, an organization that works to protect the world's oceans through advocacy, set off on a statewide “Florida Needs NOAA” tour, sounding the alarm about the impacts of funding cuts on the state while informing citizens about NOAA and climate research.

At the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, the recently founded Florida Flood Hub for Applied Research and Innovation arose from the very Senate bill that funded Resilient Florida. The research lab hopes to direct state funds towards projects related to mitigating flood risks.

Other projects at universities that fill some of the gaps left by state and federal funds include the Wall of Wind (WoW) simulator at Florida International University, which simulates hurricanes for testing building materials and design.

What’s next for resilience science and natural disaster preparedness?

Bryan Koon, President and CEO of Integrated Emergency Management (IEM), worries about the future of resilience science and the consistency of national funding towards emergency management projects.

“There's a lot of moving parts right now that particularly local government are going to find challenging in how they deal with disasters because [states] just don't know where the support's coming from,” said Koon. “They don't know where the money's coming from, and the money's looking to be reduced in the future, particularly in Florida.”

His agency, which works primarily with state and local agencies following natural disasters and other emergencies,

Matos believes that although funding for scientists and researchers is being cut, they believe in the importance of their work and may continue to pursue it even if it isn’t at the federal level.

“We cannot just stop funding, and the science that we are working on right now in terms of resilience, in terms of mitigation,” said Matos. “It's something that is extremely important because it will make of how can communities be safer.”

Gabriela Quintero is an incoming freshman at Barnard College of Columbia University, pursuing her B.A. in Political Science and Economics. Interested in politics, migration, policy, and culture, she hopes to pursue a career in political and cultural journalism.