HUNTSVILLE, Ala. \u2014 The acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said his agency likely violated its scientific integrity rules last week when it publicly chastised a weather office that contradicted President Donald Trump\u2019s claim that Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two top NOAA civil servants not so quietly revolted against an unsigned agency press release issued late Friday rebuking the Birmingham weather office for saying Alabama was safe. The agency\u2019s top scientist called Friday\u2019s release \u201cpolitical\u201d and the head of the National Weather Service said the Alabama office \u201cdid what any office would do to protect the public.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy understanding is that this intervention to contradict the forecaster was not based on science but on external factors including reputation and appearance, or simply put, political,\u201d acting chief scientist and assistant administrator for ocean and atmospheric research Craig McLean wrote to staffers Sunday night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the email, first reported by The Washington Post, McLean said he is \u201cpursuing the potential violations\u201d of the agency\u2019s science integrity policy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
NOAA spokesman Scott Smullen said Monday, \u201cNOAA\u2019s policies on scientific integrity and communications are among the strongest in the federal government, and get high marks from third-party observers. The agency\u2019s senior career leaders are free to express their opinions about matters of agency operations and science. The agency will not be providing further official comment, and will not speculate on internal reviews.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, another career civil servant, National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said forecasters in Birmingham did the right thing Sept. 1 when they tried to combat public panic and rumors that Dorian posed a threat to Alabama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey did that with one thing in mind: public safety,\u201d said Uccellini, who prompted a standing ovation at a meeting of the National Weather Association by asking members of the Birmingham weather staff to stand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnly later, when the retweets and politically based comments started coming to their office, did they learn the sources of this information,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kevin Laws, science and operations officer for the weather service in Birmingham, declined comment on Uccellini\u2019s remarks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think the speech speaks for itself,\u201d Laws said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
McLean in his letter said the Birmingham staff \u201ccorrected any public misunderstanding in an expert and timely way as they should. There followed, last Friday, an unsigned press release from \u2018NOAA\u2019 that inappropriately and incorrectly contradicted the NWS forecaster.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
McLean said that the NOAA Scientific Integrity Policy tells all agency employees to \u201capproach all scientific activities with honesty, objectively, and completely, without allegiance to individuals, organizations, or ideology.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said the Friday NOAA press release \u201ccompromises the ability of NOAA to convey life-saving information\u201d and \u201cviolated NOAA\u2019s policies of scientific integrity.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The policy said employees should not \u201cintimidate or coerce employees, contractors, recipients of financial assistance awards, or others to alter or censor scientific findings.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The scientific integrity policy is not criminal and has no punishments, said former NOAA general counsel and deputy administrator Monica Medina, who served in the Barack Obama and Bill Clinton administrations. She praised McLean and Uccellini \u201cfor looking into the matter and holding their current leadership accountable.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the National Weather Association\u2019s annual meeting, members including its president, signed two posters supporting the hurricane center and Birmingham office. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe make forecasts, we don\u2019t deal with politics,\u201d said association president Paul Schlatter, who works for the weather service in Boulder, Colorado. \u201cOur job is to protect the American public with the weather information we pass around. Of course, it\u2019s frustrating when things get politicized and we are the scientists and the communicators that are delivering the message for weather safety.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has defended his Sept. 1 tweet that said Hurricane Dorian would threaten Alabama. Last week Trump displayed an altered hurricane forecast map in the Oval Office that included a crudely drawn addition in black ink to include parts of Alabama, in an attempt to make his point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alabama had never been included in hurricane forecast advisories. Trump cited older and less authoritative information, which was based on outdated computer models and older graphics on wind speed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Borenstein reported from Washington.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The agency\u2019s top scientist called a Friday press release rebuking the Birmingham weather office for contradicting President Donald Trump \u201cpolitical\u201d and the head of the National Weather Service said the Alabama office \u201cdid what any office would do to protect the public.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":61383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":40,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[104,106,31,33,9,40],"tags":[],"coauthors":[5653],"class_list":["post-20651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-acquisition-update","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-newsletters","category-federal-oversight","category-watchdogs"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"DJY2P7SPN5GJZEKE52G2E3OEXA","arc_canonical_url":"\/federal-oversight\/watchdogs\/2019\/09\/09\/noaa-scientist-agency-likely-broke-science-integrity-rules\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n