The chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee today introduced legislation to take NOAA out of the Department of Commerce and establish it as an independent agency. Rep. Frank Lucas argues it will streamline NOAA operations and make them more transparent to Congress and the public. Only one part of NOAA, the Office of Space Commerce, would remain within the DOC.
Lucas (R-OK) began circulating draft legislation late last year. NOAA has a significance presence in his home state including at the National Weather Center on the campus of the University of Oklahoma that houses NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center and National Severe Storms Laboratory.
In addition to getting input through comments on the draft legislation, Lucas held a hearing in April with three former Republican NOAA Administrators or Acting Administrators: Conrad Lautenbacher, Tim Gallaudet, and Neil Jacobs. Committee Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) commended Lucas for trying to get a Democratic former agency head to testify, but it wasn’t possible.
NOAA was created by President Richard Nixon in 1970 via Executive Order. Lucas says the debate over where to put NOAA was controversial at the time. The Department of the Interior was another option, as was the idea of an independent agency even back then. “Ultimately the President chose to combine several prior existing administrations, bureaus and agencies into a single entity within the Department of Commerce” that today “exists through a patchwork of roughly 200 statutes that have resulted in an agency with complex organizational challenges and, at times, an ill-defined mission.”
As introduced today, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Act of 2023 — often referred to as a NOAA Organic Act — directs the head of the independent agency to submit a reorganization plan within 18 months to improve efficiency and collaboration across mission areas and reduce overlap. That’s one of four key provisions identified in the committee’s press release:
NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce has its own complicated history. Created by the Secretary of Commerce in 1988 as part of his office, it was moved into DOC’s Technology Administration in 1996 and codifed by Congress as the Office of Space Commercialization in the Technology Administration Act of 1998. In 2005 it was moved into NOAA. In 2015, Congress restored the name to Office of Space Commerce in the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, but kept it in NOAA as part of NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NOAA/NESDIS), which operates the nation’s civil weather satellites.
The Trump Administration’s Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, wanted to use OSC as the nucleus of a Bureau of Space Commerce or even a SPACE Administration with broad responsibilities for commercial space activities including serving as the U.S. government interface with civil and commercial satellite operators on Space Situational Awareness and Space Traffic Management. The organizational change never happened, but OSC was tasked with SSA/STM and did merge with NOAA’s Office of Commercial Remote Sensing Regulatory Affairs. Last year, OSC was elevated out of NEDSIS and now reports to the office of the NOAA Administrator.
Lucas’s bill would restore OSC to its original home in the Office of the Secretary of Commerce.
During the April hearing, Lofgren thanked Lucas for trying to get a witness with a Democratic perspective, albeit unsuccessfully, and “strongly” encouraged him to hold a second hearing with a variety of stakeholders “because this is not inherently a partisan debate.” NOAA is more than half of DOC’s budget, she said, so removing it would be a major reorganization “that will require input from not only our colleagues on other Congressional committees, but also the Secretary of Commerce and the President as well as external stakeholders.”
She noted that more than a dozen previous attempts to pass a NOAA Organic Act were derailed over the scope and details of what should be included even though the idea itself had bipartisan support. “Today’s political environment is not going to make our job any easier this time around. However, I am happy to work with the Chairman and my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to elevate NOAA in the public discourse and see what we can achieve.”
The bill introduced today has only Republican co-sponsors: Rep. Randy Weber (R-TX), Rep. Brian Babin (R-TX), Rep. Jim Baird (R-IN), Rep. Mike Garcia (R-CA), Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK), Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA), Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR), Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY), and Rep.Tom Kean (R-NJ). All are members of the committee.