With the reconciliation package all but wrapped up, Congress will now need to turn its attention to the full federal budget bill, and the separate cuts the White House is proposing in that spending plan, which includes significantly slashing funding for climate-related research at NOAA to the tune of nearly $2 billion and about 2,000 full-time employees.

According to budget documents, the proposed cuts would shut down a 57-year-old partnership between a Princeton University lab and the U.S. government that produces what many consider to be the most accurate and advanced climate modeling and forecasting systems in the country.

Ted Goldberg reports.

A lab that's been on the cutting edge of weather forecasting and climate modeling is now on the chopping block.

Ending some of the other research that NOAA performs through its research labs would be a tremendous loss for American science, but maybe more importantly, it's a tremendous loss for the American people.

As part of the latest federal budget proposal, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, will cut about 2,000 employees and reduce spending by nearly $2 billion.

Among the closures would be the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, or GFDL, in Princeton, which has been used to predict weather and study the atmosphere since 1955.

The tools that we have today for forecasting the weather and for understanding the Earth's climate are the result of research that goes back decades.

And in an environment where the benefits have to be experienced more quickly, I'm not sure we would do that same kind of long-term research that has been done at GFDL.

Anthony Broccoli worked at GFDL for 21 years.

Understanding how the climate will change in the future has real-world impacts because, among other things, the probability of getting various extreme weather events is changing as a result of climate change.

So we use these models to try to understand what kind of changes may lie ahead.

While Zachary Laib spent a little under three years there researching the science behind heat waves and heavy rainfall.

What we really tried to do is better understand future changes in those types of extremes, both at sort of longer timescales, like later in the 21st century, but also shorter.

So trying to think of, can we better understand months in advance where things like extreme heat waves will impact parts of the US?

Laib was caught up in the mass layoffs at NOAA back in February, and he's concerned that closing this lab will make it harder to predict weather and see storms before they develop.

Any of the cuts to resources that, you know, for forecasters or for the research that feeds into the weather forecast, that will, you know, make communities more at risk, you know, increases public safety concerns, increases economic concerns.

The proposed closing of the GFDL is part of a wider push from the Trump administration to slash spending and research regarding climate change.

Trump's big, beautiful bill, the center of attention today, includes its own cuts for climate programs.

Back in April, the Department of Commerce cut $4 million in grants to Princeton, all related to climate change research.

Secretary Howard Lutnick said of one program, "Its focus on alarming climate scenarios "fosters fear rather than rational, balanced discussion."

He added that for another program, "Using federal funds to perpetuate these narratives "does not align with the priorities of this administration."

Well, it's certainly not the language that I would use to describe that work.

Those in the science community disagree with the notion that they're trying to scare people or create narratives.

I don't think that the purpose of doing that research is to alarm.

I think the purpose of doing that research is to inform.

Scientists working in a new way are trying to better understand the science, communicate the impacts to people effectively, and educate others.

The damage would be very difficult to come back from because what essentially you're doing is firing a lot of the expertise, you know, experts and people that run these facilities so they move on.

Congressman Frank Pallone has been a frequent critic of the administration when it comes to cutting spending on climate science, saying it used to be one of the few issues Congress could agree on.

It didn't matter who the president was or whether the majority party in Congress was the Democrats or Republicans, but now Trump has decided, "I don't want any of this "'cause I don't believe in science, "I don't believe in climate change."

The Trump administration has defended these cuts by saying the federal government needs to be streamlined and spend less money overall, which would leave GFDL with a very cloudy future.

In Princeton, I'm Ted Goldberg, NJ Spotlight News.

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