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The Hill
4 minutes ago
- The Hill
Amid bipartisan concern, NOAA nominee pledges to make Weather Service staffing a ‘top priority'
As lawmakers from both parties raised concerns about staffing at the National Weather Service (NWS), President Trump's pick to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) promised Wednesday to make the matter a 'top priority.' Neil Jacobs, who led the agency in an acting capacity during the last Trump administration, said, 'If confirmed, I will ensure that staffing the Weather Service offices is a top priority. It's really important for the people to be there because they have relationships with the people in the local community.' The matter was particularly top-of-mind in the wake of last week's deadly floods in Texas that killed more than 100 people. Questions were particularly raised in light of across-the-board layoffs and buyouts conducted by the Trump administration in order to reduce the size of the government. After those layoffs, the administration has sought to shuffle staffers or hire more people as some Weather Service offices were deemed 'critically understaffed.' One employee who took a Trump administration buyout was the warning coordination meteorologist in the Austin/San Antonio office of the NWS, a job that includes making sure the public is aware of the forecasts. Jacobs heard concerns about Weather Service staffing from several lawmakers during his confirmation hearing. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said that an office in his state was 'short' meteorologists because there had been a hiring freeze. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) lamented that at the Weather Service 'a decision was made to close overnight service in Cheyenne and route evening coverage' through a town hundreds of miles away called Riverton. Several Democrats raised similar worries about staffing levels. 'NOAA has lost at least 1,875 employees, totaling a combined 27,000 years of experience and institutional knowledge, and now has over 3,000 vacant staff positions,' said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). During the hearing, Jacobs also promised to try to improve community warning systems. 'I think there's an opportunity to modernize NOAA Weather Radio, and then potentially also look at some satellite capabilities,' he said. 'An all-the-above approach and modernizing the way to distribute these watches and warnings is something that is going to be a top priority of mine.' Meanwhile, several Democrats also raised issues with proposed research cuts at the agency — arguing that those cuts could make the agency less able to understand the weather. 'I support the president's budget,' Jacobs said when asked by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) about proposed cuts to weather and climate research in the administration's proposed budget. Markey said he believed the administration's proposed cuts would hamper the agency, saying 'a 27 percent cut is going to have an impact, because there's a definite ripple effect that occurs when that kind of funding is slashed.' Asked about climate change, Jacobs cited both human activity and 'natural signals.' 'Obviously there's a lot of natural signals that are mixed in there too and so in the absence of any natural signals that might dominate that, yes there's human influence,' he said. When Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) followed up and asked if human influence was 'part of the concern' about climate change, Jacobs responded, 'Yes, there's influence.' Human activities that emit greenhouse gases are the main driver of climate change. Jacobs had been a central figure in the 2019 Sharpiegate controversy, in which Trump edited a map with a Sharpie to bolster his claims that Hurricane Dorian could hit Alabama. At the time, NOAA released a statement backing the president and rebuking a NWS tweet that contradicted him. Asked about the incident on Wednesday, Jacobs said, 'There's probably some things I would do differently.' Asked by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) whether he would 'sign off on an inaccurate statement due to political pressure in the same event,' Jacobs said no.
TechCrunch
5 minutes ago
- TechCrunch
California lawmaker behind SB 1047 reignites push for mandated AI safety reports
California State Senator Scott Wiener on Wednesday introduced new amendments to his latest bill, SB 53, that would require the world's largest AI companies to publish safety and security protocols and issue reports when safety incidents occur. If signed into law, California would be the first state to impose meaningful transparency requirements onto leading AI developers, likely including OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI. Senator Wiener's previous AI bill, SB 1047, included similar requirements for AI model developers to publish safety reports. However, Silicon Valley fought ferociously against that bill, and it was ultimately vetoed by Governor Gavin Newsom. California's Governor then called for a group of AI leaders — including the leading Stanford researcher and co-founder of World Labs, Fei Fei Li — to form a policy group and set goals for the state's AI safety efforts. California's AI policy group recently published their final recommendations, citing a need for 'requirements on industry to publish information about their systems' in order to establish a 'robust and transparent evidence environment.' Senator Wiener's office said in a press release that SB 53's amendments were heavily influenced by this report. 'The bill continues to be a work in progress, and I look forward to working with all stakeholders in the coming weeks to refine this proposal into the most scientific and fair law it can be,' Senator Wiener said in the release. SB 53 aims to strike a balance that Governor Newsom claimed SB 1047 failed to achieve — ideally, creating meaningful transparency requirements for the largest AI developers without thwarting the rapid growth of California's AI industry. 'These are concerns that my organization and others have been talking about for a while,' said Nathan Calvin, VP of State Affairs for the nonprofit AI safety group, Encode, in an interview with TechCrunch. 'Having companies explain to the public and government what measures they're taking to address these risks feels like a bare minimum, reasonable step to take.' Techcrunch event Save up to $475 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Save $450 on your TechCrunch All Stage pass Build smarter. Scale faster. Connect deeper. Join visionaries from Precursor Ventures, NEA, Index Ventures, Underscore VC, and beyond for a day packed with strategies, workshops, and meaningful connections. Boston, MA | REGISTER NOW The bill also creates whistleblower protections for employees of AI labs who believe their company's technology poses a 'critical risk' to society — defined in the bill as contributing to the death or injury of more than 100 people, or more than $1 billion in damage. Additionally, the bill aims to create CalCompute, a public cloud computing cluster to support startups and researchers developing large-scale AI. With the new amendments, SB 53 is now headed to California State Assembly Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection for approval. Should it pass there, the bill will also need to pass through several other legislative bodies before reaching Governor Newsom's desk. On the other side of the U.S., New York Governor Kathy Hochul is now considering a similar AI safety bill, the RAISE Act, which would also require large AI developers to publish safety and security reports. The fate of state AI laws like the RAISE Act and SB 53 were briefly in jeopardy as federal lawmakers considered a 10-year AI moratorium on state AI regulation — an attempt to limit a 'patchwork' of AI laws that companies would have to navigate. However, that proposal failed in a 99-1 Senate vote earlier in July. 'Ensuring AI is developed safely should not be controversial — it should be foundational,' said Geoff Ralston, the former president of Y Combinator, in a statement to TechCrunch. 'Congress should be leading, demanding transparency and accountability from the companies building frontier models. But with no serious federal action in sight, states must step up. California's SB 53 is a thoughtful, well-structured example of state leadership.' Up to this point, lawmakers have failed to get AI companies on board with state-mandated transparency requirements. Anthropic has broadly endorsed the need for increased transparency into AI companies, and even expressed modest optimism about the recommendations from California's AI policy group. But companies such as OpenAI, Google, and Meta have been more resistant to these efforts. Leading AI model developers typically publish safety reports for their AI models, but they've been less consistent in recent months. Google, for example, decided not to publish a safety report for its most advanced AI model ever released, Gemini 2.5 Pro, until months after it was made available. OpenAI also decided not to publish a safety report for its GPT-4.1 model. Later, a third-party study came out that suggested it may be less aligned than previous AI models. SB 53 represents a toned-down version of previous AI safety bills, but it still could force AI companies to publish more information than they do today. For now, they'll be watching closely as Senator Wiener once again tests those boundaries.
Yahoo
5 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Nvidia Hits $4 Trillion--And It's Still Just Getting Started
Nvidia (NVDA, Financials) just crossed a milestone no company ever has before; on Wednesday, it became the first public firm in history to hit a $4 trillion market cap. Shares popped 2.5% to an all-time high of $164; the message from Wall Street is clearAI is here, and Nvidia is leading the charge. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Signs with NVDA. This time last year, Nvidia had just hit $1 trillion; now, in just over 12 months, it's quadrupled that figurefaster than either Apple (AAPL, Financials) or Microsoft (MSFT, Financials) ever managed. Once known for gaming GPUs; then for powering crypto mining rigs; Nvidia has reinvented itself againnow as the engine room of global AI infrastructure. The company now carries the biggest weight on the S&P 5007.3%; that's more than Apple; more than Microsoft. The stock is up 22% year-to-date; and after getting knocked down in Aprilthanks to Trump-era tariffs and Chinese AI jittersit's bounced back fast, gaining 74% from those lows. That rebound wasn't just hype; Q1 revenue jumped 69% to $44.1 billion, with earnings of 81 cents per share. And for Q2, Nvidia expects $45 billion in revenue, give or take 2%; it'll report those numbers on August 27. Despite the monster rally, the stock trades at a forward P/E of 32below its three-year average of 37; that suggests investors don't think it's overheated just yet. With that kind of trajectoryand dominancesome would argue this is Nvidia's world now; the rest of us are just living (and computing) in it. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
