Tesla Slides on Concern Musk's New Party Will Exacerbate Slump
The chief executive officer announced over the weekend that he'll take on Republicans and Democrats with the 'America Party,' focusing for the next 12 months on House and Senate seats. After that, backing a candidate for president isn't out of the question, Musk wrote Sunday on X.
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E&E News
3 minutes ago
- E&E News
Flood predictions could worsen when Trump's cuts take hold
The White House is rejecting assertions from Democrats and former NOAA officials that its cuts to weather and disaster spending contributed to the Texas flooding that killed more than 100 people. But that stance sidesteps a looming reality: The vast majority of President Donald Trump's rollbacks to the agencies' funding, staffing and science have yet to land. Scientists and weather prediction experts warned that once he fulfills his agenda, areas around the country could face new risks as federal programs are degraded — from disaster warning systems and satellite observations to funding for flood projects and disaster aid. The Trump White House has proposed cutting $163 billion from the federal budget in the next fiscal year — making it the smallest in recent history. Advertisement 'Lives are going to be lost, property is going to be damaged,' said Rick Spinrad, who served as NOAA administrator under former President Joe Biden. On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt described Democrats who had pointed to Trump's cuts at the National Weather Service in the aftermath of the floods as 'depraved and despicable' and said the offices in the affected area were fully staffed. In fact, both offices had vacancies in key positions, according to NOAA's own records. A spokesperson for the White House budget office rejected the idea that Trump's policy ideas could affect the outcome of disasters. 'It is sad that while recovery efforts are ongoing, people are opportunistically trying to score political points by faulting unrelated budget cuts like the Green New Scam,' said Rachel Cauley. It's true that weather forecasts and warnings were accurate ahead of the disaster despite widespread cuts at the National Weather Service, which is part of NOAA. But weather predictions and forecast accuracy stand to change as Trump cements his agenda, according to a former top NOAA official and climate scientists. Hundreds of NWS officials have already lost their jobs, leaving vacancies in top meteorological roles that warn communities of looming weather extremes. The agency's basic functionality is already suffering. Billions more in federal budget cuts to agencies involved in weather and climate prediction and planning is slated for elimination. That includes cutting entire divisions of atmospheric research at NOAA, half of NASA's science division, labs that study extreme weather, weather-monitoring spacecraft now in orbit and thousands of additional scientists. The proposed Trump administration cuts are so steep to weather prediction and science that the forecast in Texas could be far more accurate than future predictions, Spinrad said. 'If you have a problem with the quality of that forecast, then you want to have a real problem with eliminating the National Severe Storms Laboratory,' Spinrad said, referring to one of the NOAA labs — an extreme weather research facility that Trump has slated for elimination. 'Our ability to improve the forecast, the understanding and the guidance with respect to responding to events like this is only going to degrade, not improve, and this is after decades and decades of improvement in all of these forecasts.' That includes tools for flood prediction and recovery — setting the country up for potentially worse outcomes when extreme rainfall strikes. Compromised flood predictions Chief among the proposed cuts is the elimination of NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which coordinates scientific studies on everything from extreme weather to marine ecosystems. Its facilities 'provide indispensable scientific research and analysis for meteorologists across the country,' said Tom Fahy, legislative director at the union that represents NWS employees. OAR houses a network of NOAA laboratories and 16 science consortiums involving dozens of research institutes across 33 states. Many of them study extreme weather, from hurricane research in Miami to severe thunderstorm research in Norman, Oklahoma. They also help build weather models that scientists use to forecast events like the Texas floods. Trump's proposed cuts would also hamstring one of the main tools for observing weather in real time: Our eyes in space. The proposed NASA budget would severely cut funding for spacecraft that are used for weather prediction and modeling future conditions. A number of targeted satellites are already in orbit. NASA's $7 billion science division is slated to be cut in half, with the budget ax centering on climate research. That means predicting future floods — and the development of new tools for forecasting intense rainfall events — would be compromised. The next generation of Landsat satellites is a key example. For about 50 years, the satellites have been an essential tool for monitoring and mapping floods. Their data is important 'for assessing risk, mapping the extent of damage, and planning post-disaster recovery,' according to NASA. Trump is working to eliminate its funding. A few weeks ago, Trump administration officials archived the Landsat account on X and deleted information related to the planning for Landsat Next, the tenth version of the satellite, from its webpage. Weather forecasts gradually improve as scientists add more data. But they'll likely plateau — or even degrade — as NOAA's research and observation functions vanish, many scientists warn. OAR's research 'has been amazing at developing computer models to help in the forecasting of these types of events,' said John Sokich, NWS's former director of congressional affairs, referring to the Texas floods. But if the office isn't reinstated by Congress for 2026, he said, 'that's going to stop.' Some of the agency's most valuable models for flood prediction might be in jeopardy sooner rather than later. The government's accurate forecasts of the deadly floods were made possible by a suite of high-resolution NOAA weather models designed to predict thunderstorms, Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA, said in a live YouTube talk Monday. Having multiple models in the system helps scientists evaluate a range of possible outcomes when severe weather is on the horizon. NOAA tried to consolidate the collection of models into a single forecasting system a few years ago. But meteorologists expressed concern that it might not perform as well, and the change was delayed. Trump plans to revive the plan. 'There's benefit in having multiple models,' Swain said. 'How expensive is it really to maintain that, as opposed to the cost of them missing a catastrophic flood?' 'A disconnect' Meanwhile, staffing cuts at NWS offices across the country are likely to take a toll over time, experts say. NWS offices were adequately staffed during the Texas floods, in part because agency officials called 'all hands on deck' to deal with the disaster, according to Fahy. But the offices still have vacancies in key roles, including a permanent meteorologist-in-charge in San Angelo and a warning coordination meteorologist in San Antonio. Other offices across the country face similar shortages, and experts have raised alarms about the potential for burnout — which can lead to forecasting errors — among exhausted staff working overtime during disasters. At the same time, Trump has cut funding for activities that help meteorologists engage with local authorities. Warning coordination meteorologists — a top position at NWS offices — serve as liaisons with emergency managers and other officials, attending meetings, conferences and tabletop exercises aimed at planning for extreme weather events. Trump has suspended travel funding for these activities, according to Fahy, which could lead to long-term breakdowns in communication and collaboration between forecasters and their communities. 'They need to be able to do this,' Fahy said. 'That is the core function of their duties, which is the outreach of their message.' According to Fahy, vacancies at the NWS offices in Texas didn't cause problems during the deadly floods. But some experts are worried that they contributed to a gap between the severity of the weather forecasts and the way local authorities communicated the dangers to the public. 'Clearly there was a disconnect — the message didn't get to the people who need it when they needed it or they didn't understand it,' said Swain. He added that the science was spot on during the floods. In this case, forecasters were still able to do their jobs. But if Trump's proposed cuts become reality? 'That will 100 percent be responsible for costing lives,' Swain said. Reporter Daniel Cusick contributed.
The Hill
9 minutes ago
- The Hill
Trump goes off on questions surrounding Epstein: ‘This creep?'
President Trump expressed exasperation on Tuesday at questions about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein after the Justice Department announced Epstein did not have a 'client list' and confirming he died by suicide. During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, a reporter asked Attorney General Pam Bondi a question about aspects of the DOJ's announcement regarding its conclusion, which has generated anger and spawned further conspiracies among some on the far-right. Trump then jumped in ahead of Bondi, to express his frustration over being asked about it. 'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking — we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about hits guy? This creep? That is unbelievable,' Trump said. 'I mean, I can't believe you're asking a question on Epstein at a time like this where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy, with what happened In Texas,' Trump added. 'It just seems like a desecration.' The Justice Department and FBI on Monday published a memo concluding that there was no evidence of a so-called 'client list' detailing individuals connected to Epstein, a convicted sex offender. The existence of such a list had become fodder for conspiracy theories, particularly among those on the right who claimed prominent Democrats were on the list. The memo also concluded Epstein died by suicide, debunking another common conspiracy theory that he had died under suspicious circumstances. Prominent Trump administration officials like Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino have come under scrutiny from prominent voices in the MAGA movement who have questioned whether the government is covering up salacious information around Epstein. Patel and Bongino are among those who had pushed such theories before joining the government. Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to separate sexual misconduct charges and was federally charged in 2019 over allegedly leading a sex trafficking operation involving underage girls from 2002 to 2005.
The Hill
19 minutes ago
- The Hill
The Democrats' restaurant boycott only undermines DC workers
Democrats in Congress are boycotting D.C. restaurants, thus handing restaurant workers even more challenges as they fight to win back their pay. As part of its campaign to organize local restaurant workers, UNITE HERE Local 25 has called for consumers to stop patronizing local restaurants, with publicity-hungry members of Congress like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) reportedly happy to oblige. This political stunt could not come at a worse time for the city's servers and bartenders. For several years now, they have been fighting a harmful law backed by the union that changed the District's tipping system. In 2018, a New York-based labor group called One Fair Wage bankrolled a ballot measure, Initiative 77 that would replace D.C.'s current tipped wage system (known as a tip credit), which allows tipped income to be counted toward an employee's minimum wage requirement. Their plan was to replace the system with a new one that dramatically increased the base wage but put workers' tips at risk. Though voters passed it narrowly, the Initiative proved deeply unpopular with servers and bartenders, who campaigned aggressively against it. The D.C. Council later overturned Initiative 77, following a 12-hour hearing during which countless servers and bartenders urged the council to save their industry. That should have been the end of it. But these same funders came back to prop up a similar measure, called Initiative 82, in 2022, when the restaurant industry and its workers were struggling post-pandemic. This time, no one put up a serious fight. The measure sailed through with promises of a stronger and more vibrant restaurant industry. Instead, the opposite has happened. Now, tipped workers' incomes are down as a consequence of the law. A boycott — urged by the law's supporters, no less — would put servers' pay further at risk. The damage is seen most clearly in data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which shows that D.C. restaurants and bars lost nearly 5 percent of industry employment since the law went into effect, even though the rest of the District's industries gained jobs. Employees also lost out on $11.8 million in earnings because of this law. In January, Councilmember Anita Bonds convened a roundtable hearing for tipped workers to share their experiences under the law. It ran for nearly six hours, with dozens of workers sharing the negative consequences that Initiative 82 has had on their livelihoods. Laura, a longtime D.C. bartender, said: 'Since Initiative 82 … I'm now making up to 50 percent less.' Another server, Yana, explained that her 'working hours were cut by five to 10 hours per week.' Lili, another server, explained the impact on staffing: 'Since Initiative 82 … staff was cut. All of the sudden I don't have my food runners and bussers. I don't have my polishers. I'm now having a larger section with less help.' It's not just employees who are struggling — their employers are, too. Seventy-three restaurants closed last year, and more than 20 have closed so far this year. Many, including Brookland's Finest and Sticky Rice, explicitly blame Initiative 82. Even Michelin-starred Tail Up Goat announced it would be closing this year, citing the insurmountable costs of doing business in the District: 'The margins keep getting smaller.' Local lawmakers are paying attention. In May, Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed to restore the District's tipping system, citing adverse economic impacts that eliminating the tip credit has had on D.C.'s restaurants and workers. Last month, the majority-Democratic City Council voted 8-4 to pause a $2 increase in the base wage for tipped workers while it assesses the mayor's proposal. One of the groups still advocating for this devastating law is UNITE HERE Local 25. It has the backing of out-of-touch federal politicians ignorant of how Initiative 82 has hurt local workers. If Washington Democrats want to bring attention to the plight of restaurant workers, they would support the repeal of Initiative 82 instead of boycotting restaurants for a union-backed publicity stunt that is hurting workers. Michael Saltsman is the executive director and Rebekah Paxton is the research director at the Arlington, Va.-based Employment Policies Institute.
