Top NOAA officials placed on leave. One said he clashed with Trump appointees.

Washington Post

2 days ago

Two high-ranking officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration were placed on leave this week, including one official who said he had recently clashed with officials over the Trump administration's proposals for the agency.
Former agency officials said both Steve Volz, assistant administrator in the agency's satellite division, and Jeff Dillen, deputy NOAA general counsel, held positions that allowed them to push back against Trump's NOAA appointees. While the pair had only occasionally worked together while at NOAA, they also led the investigation into the 'Sharpiegate' scandal during the first Trump administration.
Volz was not given an explicit reason why he was placed on administrative leave but said tensions between him and Trump's appointees had been rising. For one, Volz said he had recently pushed back during discussions of commercializing satellite operations.
'The question that I would ask is, why now?' Volz said in an interview. 'Maybe the desire here is to get anybody who might slow down their ability to execute their plan out of the way. I think I'm one of those people.'
During Trump's first term, Volz and Dillen served as the senior executive and senior council during an investigation that found NOAA's leadership violated its scientific integrity policy. The agency had released a statement backing Trump's hand-drawn version of a forecast for 2019's Hurricane Dorian, which showed the storm threatening Alabama.
Neil Jacobs, Trump's pick to head NOAA who is on the path to confirmation, was the acting NOAA administrator at the time.
For his part, Volz said he thought it was a coincidence that both he and Dillen had been placed on leave, and that he had not received any indication it was related.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for NOAA said there is no connection between the two officials being put on leave.
'Mr. Dillen was placed on administrative leave by the department's senior career attorney pending a review of performance issues over the past several weeks,' NOAA spokeswoman Kim Doster said in an email. 'Separately, Dr. Volz was placed on administrative leave on an unrelated matter.'
Volz is the longest serving assistant administrator of the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, working in the role for 11 years across both Republican and Democratic administrations. He works alongside Trump's NOAA appointees in his capacity as Assistant Secretary for Environmental Observation and Protection.
The Trump administration has not publicly endorsed privatizing satellite or weather operations. A conservative blueprint for this second term outlined proposals to privatize some of the National Weather Service work while breaking up NOAA.
Monica Medina, who served as deputy administrator of NOAA during the Obama administration, said debates about privatization have occurred under many past presidents, but that rebuking those who oppose commercialization would be a concerning move.
'Career civil servants have a historical understanding of the agency, of the work, of how to run the operation,' Medina said. 'What you want is to have them feel like they can speak up and tell you when you when you might not see around a blind corner or have that crucial experience that they've had in other difficult situations.'
Dillen, who has served as deputy general counsel for NOAA since 2016, could not be reached for comment. Former NOAA Chief Scientist Craig McLean who has worked with Dillen in the past said he would not be surprised if he was also active in critiquing the Trump administration from a legal perspective.
'I could easily imagine how Jeff would be the conscience of law to tell the Trump administration where and why they are wrong and unlawful in certain pursuits they might be engaging in,' McLean said.
CNN first reported earlier Friday that Volz and Dillen had been placed on leave.
A NOAA official familiar with the matter said that if confirmed, Jacobs intends to work closely with Irene Parker, currently the deputy assistant administrator for systems.
'[Jacobs] and Irene [Parker] are both wholehearted proponents of commercializing the federal weather satellite operation, Steve [Volz] has been in their minds an obstacle to that,' the official wrote to the Post on the condition of anonymity. '[Volz's] view has been there should always be a federal backbone of satellites operating because the work we do is so sensitive and critical, the calibration needs to be so precise. But what Irene [Parker] wants is just a full commercialization of the entire process.'
McLean said placing Volz on leave is legally dubious.
'Steve Volz is a career senior executive,' McLean said. 'There are rights that senior executives have, though the Trump administration has stepped on them. And to the people whose rights have been stepped on, that awaits formal adjudication and a determination.'
The letter Volz received informing him of his leave, reviewed by The Post, said there would be an investigation into his 'recent conduct.'
'Conduct is very conspicuous,' McLean said. 'Conduct is one of the few reasons that somebody could be dealt with in a prejudicial manner.'
The removal of the two officials comes at a time when NOAA has faced deep cuts that include hundreds of scientists and meteorologists that have left through firings, buyouts and retirements.
In his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Jacobs expressed concern about cuts to Weather Service staffing.
'If confirmed, I will ensure that staffing the Weather Service offices is a top priority,' he said. 'It's really important for the people to be there, because they have relationships with the people in the local community.'
And there have been even more recent resignations, including a swath of senior NOAA employees like Jeff Thomas who directs NOAA's Acquisition and Grants Office. The agency has a more than $6 billion budget, but Trump has proposed cutting it by more than one-fourth.
'We're losing experienced people,' Medina said, 'not only because they're good at what they do, in terms of taking the weather data and creating local forecasts on a timely basis every day without fail, but also because they also have the connections in communities where they are.'
Volz said amid increasingly devastating natural disasters and a challenging environmental landscape, he is most concerned about experienced officials being pushed out of their positions.
'I have been through three administrations and transitions,' Volz said. 'I don't think that the execution of the mission will be directly impacted. I do think this sends a message, a very clear one, to people who take adverse opinions to what they're directed to do.'