Oregon’s Bonamici Wants NWS, NOAA Funded

Oregon Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici says there’s a bipartisan effort to maintain services at the National Weather Service and its parent agency, NOAA.  She tried to ease concerns at a recent wildfire briefing in Portland.

“The more we tell the stories about the importance of what the Weather Service does- I have people in agriculture, people who work out on the coast who fish for a living. They don’t look at the weather every day, they look at it every hour," Bonamici said.

She added a meteorologist at the Northwest Coordination Center told her for the past few months, he’s receiving less data from weather balloons NOAA doesn’t have the staff to launch  She believes that will improve.

“I think the National Weather Service has been able to hire back some people already,” she said.  

Bonamici also supports a bill to improve research and data at NOAA, legislation that has taken 12 years to work through Congress.

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