1/3 Of USGS Climate Adaptation Science Centers Will Close 9/30 - Interior Officials Refuse To Sign Funding Authorization
Tracking bird populations after hurricanes. Mapping the risk of megafires across the Midwest. Identifying less expensive ways to battle invasive plants. Preparing communities’ stormwater drains against intense flooding. A third of the nation’s offices that do this work — known as the U.S. Geological Survey’s Climate Adaptation Science Centers — are expected to drastically wind down and possibly close after Tuesday because of a lack of funds, according to employees and an announcement by one of the closing centers.
The potential shuttering of the South Central, Northeast and Pacific Islands centers, which collectively cover about one-third of the U.S. population and are funded under the Interior Department, would hamper projects aimed to help people, wildlife, land and water adapt to a changing climate locally. Their demise is unconnected to a possible federal shutdown: Instead, employees say, Interior Department officials have not approved paperwork that would help fund them for another five years.
“We’re not willing to just drop everything and walk away,” said Bethany Bradley, the co-director of the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center and a University of Massachusetts professor. “But the reality is we can’t do this for free and pay our [research] students nothing.” In recent weeks, federal workers across all adaptation centers have also been unable to spend money on traveling, publishing papers or funding new projects without approval. The Washington Post spoke with 10 people who confirmed the funding issues and ongoing repercussions. Some USGS employees spoke on the condition of anonymity because they said they feared retaliation.
For more than a decade, researchers at the nine centers have studied how to protect the nation’s resources on a warming planet, receiving bipartisan support from many lawmakers and supporting hunting and fishing communities, water and transportation agency officials, and tribes. The South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center confirmed last week that it and the two other centers were on the brink of losing federal backing. The center said in an announcement on its website Thursday that beginning Wednesday, it “will fully transition to minimal operations” until more federal funding is acquired.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2025/09/28/trump-climate-usgs-funding-shutoff/