Trump picks former chief entangled in 'Sharpiegate' to lead NOAA
Neil Jacobs, assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction, stands next to a chart during a briefing with President Donald Trump on the 2020 hurricane season in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on May 28, 2020. Credit: AP/Evan Vucci
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has nominated Neil Jacobs to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, turning to the man who was his acting NOAA chief in 2019 when Trump altered an expected hurricane impact map in what became known as the “Sharpiegate” scandal.
After Alabama meteorologists had contradicted an earlier Trump tweet warning of Alabama being in a storm's path, the Jacobs-led agency chastised them. That eventually drew criticism of Jacobs and his political higher-ups in a Department of Commerce inspector general's report on Sharpiegate.
NOAA oversees the National Weather Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, the National Ocean Service and other offices. Along with many other federal agencies, NOAA was targeted in Project 2025, a conservative blueprint for change in a second Trump administration. That document called to “break up NOAA," criticizing the agency as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.”
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