The White House says it’s targeting the “premier research stronghold for left-wing climate lunacy.”
Trump Team ‘Breaking Up’ Top Climate Research Center
Robin Bravender / Greenwire
(December 17, 2025) — The White House plans to break up a major scientific research center as the Trump administration continues its quest to obliterate federal climate change programs.
The National Science Foundation will be “breaking up” the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought posted on social media Tuesday.
He called the facility one of the “largest sources of climate alarmism in the country” and said any
“vital activities” done by the research center — “such as weather research” — will be moved to another entity or location.
The announcement is the latest move by the Trump administration to target federal work on climate change, which President Donald Trump has forcefully derided as a scam. The Trump administration is also working to wipe out the long-standing government finding that underpins federal climate regulations, and officials have axed federal funding for climate and renewable energy programs they have labeled as part of a “Green New Scam.”
The Trump administration views the research center as a prime target as it aims to yank federal support for climate change research. Trump’s critics, meanwhile, said they were shocked by the announcement and warned the plans will devastate U.S. climate research.
Details of the administration’s plans to restructure the research center weren’t immediately clear.
The National Science Foundation established the center in 1960. The federally funded research center is managed by a nonprofit consortium of more than 120 colleges and universities. It’s headquartered in Boulder and has additional facilities in Wyoming and Hawaii.
The center “houses the largest federal research program on climate change — serving as the premier research stronghold for left-wing climate lunacy,” said a senior White House official granted anonymity to speak freely.
The National Science Foundation will “eliminate Green New Scam research activities,” the White House official said. “Any vital functions, such as weather modeling and supercomputing, will be moved under the purview of another entity or location. Parts of the lab may be moved to another entity.”
The National Science Foundation on Wednesday posted a brief announcement on its website that it is “reviewing the structure” of the research center. NSF “remains committed to providing world-class infrastructure for weather modeling, space weather research and forecasting, and other critical functions,” the agency said.
USA Today first reported the news of the administration targeting the research center.
Destruction of Knowledge’
The Trump administration’s plans prompted an outcry from Colorado’s Democratic governor and scientists who warn the move will dramatically curtail domestic climate research.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) issued a statement Tuesday saying that his state had “yet to receive information” about the Trump administration’s plans to dismantle the “global leader in earth system science.”
Climate change “is real, but the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science,” Polis said. “NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families.”
Vought on Tuesday reposted news stories on his social media account detailing how the Trump administration was targeting funding for other Colorado projects. Those detailed the cancellation of environmentally focused transportation grants and a move to halt Energy Department fundingslated for the state.
In response to a question Wednesday about the plans to break up the Colorado climate research center, the senior White House official said, “Maybe if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump, his constituents would be better served.”
Michael Mann, director of Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, said defunding the research center “very much undermines the United States’ standing when it comes to the advancement of climate science.”
The center “has played a key role in developing the science of climate modeling and the measurement of climate observations going back more than a half-century,” added Mann. The Trump administration’s move is “symbolic of the actual destruction of knowledge,” he said.
A video on the research center’s website on Wednesday says it’s working to address “the most pressing environmental challenges facing our nation and the world, from more intense hurricanes and larger wildfires to deepening droughts and rising seas.” The center says it’s “building on decades of research breakthroughs that have significantly improved the ability to predict severe weather and detail the consequences of climate change.”
Carlos Martinez, senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists who served as an early career researcher at the center, was in “complete shock” over the announcement, he said Tuesday in a statement.
Dismantling the center “would impact every earth science and atmospheric science university department in the country,” Martinez said. Its research “influences every piece of weather and climate prediction in the United States, enabling air quality monitoring, forecasting of droughts and extreme precipitation events, and improving hurricane intensity forecasts.”
Eliminating that work, Martinez said, “would leave people across the nation less prepared for the dangers of a warming world.”
