About half of the staff at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Global Monitoring Lab in Boulder will be furloughed in May if federal funding is not released.
The lab tracks and analyzes greenhouse gases, solar radiation, aerosols and ozone levels. More than half of the scientists at the lab work through CU Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), one of 16 cooperative institutes affiliated with NOAA. Their work and salaries are funded through federal grants that were paused Feb. 27, according to CIRES Director Waleed Abdalati.
Abdalati said that the federal government typically funds the labs several months to a year in advance, and in the past, when funding lagged, the university trusted “that the government was good for it.”
“But given the current funding environment, that’s a risk that we just can’t take,” he said. “So when the money runs out, we need to stop the work.”
Funding officially ran out for CIRES Global Monitoring Lab employees on March 24. The university informed 42 employees this week that they would be furloughed without pay on May 15 unless federal funding comes through — in which case the furloughs would be rescinded.
To read the entire article, visit Boulder Reporting Lab.
