Leaders with the Fort Collins Area Chamber of Commerce and Boulder Chamber have joined state and local business groups from around Colorado in signing onto a letter urging President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to preserve funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s national network of Cooperative Institutes and NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.
“The national network of 16 cooperative institutes across 33 states plays a critical role for businesses and the economy on a daily basis both in Colorado and across our nation,” the letter said.
NOAA is one many federal agencies targeted by the Trump administration. There have been several protests in recent months opposing jobs and funding cuts at the NOAA offices in south Boulder.
“The raw direct economic importance to Colorado of NOAA’s national network of Cooperative Institutes and NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is enormous, representing thousands of jobs and knock-on multiplier benefits to Colorado-based businesses and industries,” Boulder Chamber CEO told BizWest in an email Friday. “There also is a pride that our state, with Boulder in the epicenter, takes in serving as the global leader in understanding weather patterns and atmospheric conditions and their impact on everything from the airline industry to farmers and ranchers across our country.”
Colorado’s economy relies on scientific research, with federally funded research producing an economic impact of about $2.3 billion annually and 12,000 jobs, according to CO-LABS, with labs concentrated in Boulder, Jefferson and Larimer counties.
CO-LABS’s estimate take into account the economic impact of federal labs such as NOAA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Vector Borne Diseases in Fort Collins; and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, among others.
On Feb. 11, Trump issued a directive for federal agencies to implement “large-scale reductions in staff” and to submit their staff-reduction plans within a month. The Department of Veterans Affairs has said it seeks to reduce its workforce by 80,000 employees. The Department of Health and Human Services has proposed eliminating up to 10,000 jobs, including 4,700 job cuts between the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. NOAA could lose another 1,000 employees after a round of firings that began in early March.
Beyond economics, there are real-world consequences of slashing agencies such as NOAA, which provides critical information about the weather and climate.
“Our community has the additional particular interest in the critical role that NOAA’s Cooperative Institutes and Oceanic and Office Atmospheric Research play in forest fire response, given the direct threat wildfires pose to our public safety,” Tayer said.
In addition to the Boulder and Fort Collins chambers, the letter to Lutnick was signed by Action Colorado, Club 20, Colorado Business Round Table, Colorado Chamber of Commerce, Colorado Farm Bureau, Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce, Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce, Latino Chamber of Commerce of Pueblo and South Metro Chamber of Commerce.
“As a business community reliant on this information, analysis and prediction, we must speak with one voice about the importance of the work occurring in these institutes,” the letter said. “While we understand and respect the need to manage the federal budget and carefully steward taxpayer investments, the cooperative institutes are places where we all receive far more in return than we individually invest. The business community of Colorado, evidenced by the broad spectrum of interests as signatories below, implores you to preserve our cooperative institutes in Colorado and across our nation.”
