Neil Jacobs, who was an interim administrator of the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration in 2019 when President Trump altered an expected hurricane impact map -A incident known as “Sharpie-Gate” -Trump has been chosen again to direct the agency.
Jacobs, an atmospheric scientist who has worked in the public and private sectors in the last two decades, and other leaders of the agency were criticized in the report of the general inspector of the Department of Commerce on the incident.
On September 1, 2019, since the National Meteorological Service predicted that Hurricane Dorian would rise along the Atlantic coast, Trump incorrectly tweeted that Alabama was on the path of the storm.
Later that day, the National Meteorological Service in Alabama tweeted: “Alabama will not see any impact of #dorian”.
Three days later, on September 4, Trump insisted that the storm had previously been in a course for the State. He showed a one -week map of the storm route, altered with a black marker to portray the hurricane as potentially aimed at Alabama.
“That was the original chart,” Trump said. “I was going to hit Georgia but Florida. He headed towards the Gulf.”
EVAN VUCCI / AP
The hurricane finally did not touch land in the United States, or approached Alabama.
Shortly after, NOAA’s leadership issued a statement that supported Mr. Trump and criticized the work of his meteorological forecasts.
The Inspector General’s report said the statement “unnecessarily rebuked NWS’s forecasts … for doing their job.”
According to a report by a panel of the National Academy of Public Administration of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Inspector’s General Report, the investigations concluded that the declaration that supports Mr. Trump was “promoted by external political pressure”, to Through a “request for” request from the Chief of Cabinet of the White House that acts and then Jacobs, the Chief of NOAA who has been nominated again, “violated the Code of Ethics for the Supervision and Management of Sciences established in Section 7.01 of NOAA’s scientific integrity policy when they failed to involve Birmingham’s bifo in the development of the September 6 declaration. “
The National Academy’s report said: “In addition, the panel finds that they participated in intentionally, knowingly or in the reckless contempt of the Code of Scientific Conduct or the Code of Ethics for the Supervision and Management of Sciences in the Integrity Policy NOAA scientist. ”
According to the inspector’s general report, Jacobs felt pressed.
“In Dr. Jacobs, it could make the statement more precise, but the department would issue, or make NOAA issue a statement in one way or another,” said the report. “If he resigned or was fired, he reasoned, the final statement would probably have been worse and more inflammatory.”
Despite the incident, some climate professionals at the American weather society meeting in New Orleans last month supported Jacobs, telling Associated Press that they expected Trump to choose Jacobs to lead NOAA again.
“I think Neil Jacobs’s appointment is a strong choice,” Victor Gensini, a professor of meteorology at the University of Northern Illinois, told AP.
Laura Geller and David Schechter contributed to this report.
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