"The complaint says efforts to dismantle an atmospheric research center are part of a broader political campaign that endangers climate and weather studies."
"The Trump administration has targeted a climate and weather research lab as retribution against Colorado officials for imprisoning a county clerk backed by the president who was convicted of helping election deniers meddle with voting equipment in 2020, a lawsuit filed Monday by the lab’s leadership alleged.
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a nonprofit consortium of 129 North American universities, filed a lawsuit against four federal agencies and their directors on Monday claiming that the administration’s efforts to dismantle the Boulder, Colo., lab “pose a direct threat to national security, public safety, and economic prosperity and risk setting back the country’s global leadership in weather and space weather modeling and forecasting.”
The Trump administration has been trying for months to break apart the laboratory, the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The National Science Foundation, the center’s main funder, said it wants to transfer parts of its research portfolio to other institutions, move the center’s two research aircraft to other federal agencies and sell the institution’s buildings and land, according to a January letter to the scientific community.
These moves have occurred without warning or justification, violating federal law and the Constitution, the lawsuit argued."
Eric Niiler reports for the New York Times March 16, 2026.
