The Trump administration’s plans to shut down and dismantle the in Boulder — a global leader in climate and Earth systems research — drew sharp rebukes from elected officials in Colorado, two of whom accused the president of retaliating against the state.
“This facility is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” Russ Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, asserted in Tuesday evening confirming the plans. “A comprehensive review is underway & any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”
Vought said the National Science Foundation, which is , "will be breaking up" NCAR. White House officials pointed in part to the "woke direction" of the nonprofit consortium that manages NCAR and called several of its initiatives wasteful and frivolous, according to USA Today.
While the institute investigates climate change, its mission is much broader and encompasses every aspect of how the earth's atmosphere and weather systems interact, including earthquakes, flooding, drought, geomagnetic storms in space, wildfires, wind, storms and more.
Scientists warned that NCAR's dismantling would hamper the country's ability to understand and prepare for extreme weather like floods, hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes -- while local officials said its closure could harm Boulder's local economy and cost hundreds of jobs.
“Dismantling NCAR is like taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet,” Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist who works at Texas Tech University, .
A White House statement to The Denver Post on Wednesday asserted that NCAR served as "the premier research stronghold for left-wing climate lunacy" and referenced a 2022 visit to the facility by U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat and the then-House speaker.
The move -- and the White House's statements justifying it -- are the latest in a series of Trump administration attacks against efforts to study and combat climate change. In September, the president "the greatest con job" during a speech at the United Nations.
President Donald Trump has stopped renewable energy development, and this month federal officials renamed the Golden-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory to the National Laboratory of the Rockies as an Energy Department official said, "We are no longer picking and choosing energy sources." Last summer, the massive tax-and-spend bill passed by Republicans phased out tax credits for wind and solar projects.
The Trump administration cut funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and it fired hundreds of scientists working on a congressionally mandated report that's used to prepare for extreme weather events, .
Now, Trump's eyes have turned to NCAR.
The Boulder lab is managed by the on behalf of the NSF. It was created in the years , when interest in meteorology, solar observations and atmospheric science increased. NCAR's budget more than doubled from the 1980s to the 1990s, driven by increased federal focus on climate change research.
The center provides the data and models that other institutions and universities rely on for forecasting and research. Industries like aviation, agriculture and shipping also rely on its information to make decisions.
“NCAR has been for decades the premier weather and climate and natural hazard institute in the world, not just the U.S.," said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the California Institute for Water Resources within the University of California's Agriculture and Natural Resources division.
Its Boulder facility is owned by the U.S. government, property records show, and more than half of its budget came from NSF in 2025, . The outlet reported in October that NCAR had already laid off 29 employees and eliminated another 21 vacant positions amid pressures from the federal government.
The foundation previously announced plans to cut NCAR's budget by 40%, bringing the prospect of "large-scale cuts" to the lab in Boulder.
Colorado has yet to receive information about President Donald Trump's intent to pull funding for the lab, .
"If true, public safety is at risk and science is being attacked," Polis said. "Climate change is real, but the work of NCAR goes far beyond climate science. NCAR delivers data around severe weather events like fires and floods that help our country save lives and property, and prevent devastation for families."
Closure of iconic campus
Federal efforts to dissolve NCAR will begin immediately, which first reported the administration's decision Tuesday night. The plan, the newspaper reported, includes full closure of the center's , which opened in 1967 and overlooks south Boulder.
On its website, the National Science Foundation said Wednesday that it was "reviewing the structure of the research and observational capabilities operated by the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)."
The foundation will explore the transfer of supervision over NCAR's supercomputer facility in Wyoming to another operator; the divesting or transferring of two foundation aircraft that NCAR operates; and a redefinition of "the scope of modeling and forecasting research and operations to concentrate on needs such as seasonal weather prediction, severe storms, and space weather."
"NSF remains committed to providing world-class infrastructure for weather modeling, space weather research and forecasting, and other critical functions," the foundation wrote.
It's unclear how quickly that work will be undertaken or what it will mean for NCAR's roughly 820 employees. Mike England, a spokesman for the NSF, declined to comment further. A spokeswoman for Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the potential impact on that state's NCAR facility.
The White House statement said the lab will be broken up "to eliminate Green New Scam research activities" and added that certain "vital functions," like supercomputing and weather modeling, will be given to another entity or moved to a new location. Parts of the lab may also be moved under the umbrella of another group.
Among critics of the White House's plan was Roger Pielke Jr., a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who called the impending shutdown "vindictive governance" Wednesday . He worked as a programmer at NCAR early in his career.
"The Trump administration’s claim that NCAR is a home to 'climate alarmism' is simply false," Pielke wrote. "Trust me -- I call out politicized climate science all the time, and NCAR is not even on the list of institutions that I’d name in this category. NCAR has in the past certainly been home to climate activists ... and has also taken on institutional positions that arguably went beyond its mission, but today NCAR is just a big science organization filled with nerds trying to make the world a better place."
In , Antonio Busalacchi, the president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which manages NCAR, said he didn't have any information yet on coming changes.
"Any plans to dismantle (NCAR) would set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for, and respond to severe weather and other natural disasters," Busalacchi said.
Last week, NCAR officials announced it was selected by NASA to develop a breadbox-sized satellite to better study solar storms and improve warning systems when the storms impact power grids, satellites and communication systems on Earth. One study earlier this year looked into how precipitation patterns have shifted in the Midwestap Corn Belt, a critical agricultural region.
Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett said he was hopeful that NCAR’s Mesa lab wouldn’t be shuttered and was encouraged by statements from local representatives.
“The safety of our residents and people across the country is literally dependent on the important work that NCAR does,” Brockett said.
U.S. reps suggest retaliation at play
U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse, a Democrat who represents the Boulder area in Congress, to shutter NCAR "deeply dangerous -- and blatantly retaliatory." U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, who represents the district south of Boulder, said in an interview that the decision was "an assault on Colorado and political retribution."
The decision to close the lab comes as Trump has increasingly criticized Polis publicly amid the president's ongoing attempts to free his election-denier ally Tina Peters from a state prison.
Late last week, Trump attempted to pardon Peters, a former Mesa County clerk who is serving a nine-year sentence in an election-interference case. But because Peters was convicted for state crimes, legal experts say the president cannot pardon her.
On Monday, days after he referred to the governor as a "sleazebag." That comment came after the Colorado Department of Corrections announced -- prior to Trump's pardon -- that it would not comply with an earlier federal request to transfer Peters to a federal prison.
In response to the new NCAR plan, an unnamed senior White House official told that Colorado would be better served if Polis wanted to work with Trump.
Asked about Neguse's retaliation comment, his spokeswoman, Grace Martinez, pointed to about Trump's frustration with Polis and linking it to Peters' release.
The White House did not directly respond when asked if the decision was influenced by the Peters case.
In a Wednesday email, Polis' office declined to comment beyond its prior statement, which also cited that more than $100 million in transportation-related grants bound for Colorado were being canceled.
The U.S. Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on those reports Wednesday morning.
Together with a coalition of other states, the Colorado Attorney General's Office sued the DOT on Tuesday related to other funding cuts. That lawsuit covers one of the newly terminated grants included in a recent Colorado Sun report, said Lawrence Pacheco, a spokesman for the attorney general. Pacheco said the office is now looking into the other cuts.
Scientists, community leaders criticize lab closure
The "woke" NCAR programs cited by the Trump administration as part of the basis for its decision include a Rising Voices Center for Indigenous and Earth Sciences, a water-focused art series that uses recycled materials and wind turbine research.
Scientists across the country decried the Trump administration’s decision Tuesday night and Wednesday. NCAR serves as a crucial source of research into improving weather forecasting as well as understanding and predicting extreme weather and disasters, they said.
The center created and maintains a supercomputer that models global climate and weather -- an endeavor too expensive for any single university to maintain, said Carlos Martinez, a senior climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. That data, and the code underlying it, is available publicly for other scientists and the private sector.
More fundamentally, the institution has served as an intellectual hub for scientists working to better understand the world, the scientists said.
Martinez decided to pursue climate science after participating in an NCAR program as an undergraduate student. He also completed a post-doctoral research program there. The announcement of the intent to close the center sent shockwaves through a gathering of thousands of earth scientists convened in New Orleans this week for the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
“There are generations of students who have benefited and participated in programs from NCAR that have led them to be the authors of the intergovernmental climate change report, work in the federal government and (work) in the private sector," Martinez said from New Orleans. “Itap not only devastating for research but, for many in the climate community, itap personal because NCAR granted us the opportunities to do the work we do now."
In Boulder, the timing of the NCAR news stung, said John Tayer, CEO of the city's Chamber of Commerce.
“Itap ironic that this announcement comes on a day when we are anticipating a power shutdown due to the risk associated with disturbances in our weather system that are related to the changing climate,” Tayer said, referring to Xcel Energy's preemptive outages amid red flag conditions. “We make a huge mistake as a nation if we don’t continue to invest in understanding the evolution of our climate and the impacts that will have on society, let alone the local impacts on our economy.”
Given the number of climate scientists in the Boulder area, Tayer said NCAR's dismantling was "existential for our community character." It also could have an economic impact, with the chamber estimating potential local payroll losses at up to $49 million, based on the roughly half of NCAR employees who live in the Boulder area, and total direct and indirect impacts at nearly $98 million.
Dan Powers, the executive director of CO-LABS, a nonprofit group that champions the value of taxpayer-funded research, questioned the legality of dismantling NCAR and whether the intended extent of Trump's proposal was even achievable.
He said he expected that "our political leaders are looking at what type of legal constraints and legal processes must be followed relative to this proposal."
Members of the state's congressional delegation were still examining their options Wednesday morning. In a joint statement with Neguse, U.S. Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet pledged to "fight back against attempts to gut this cutting-edge research institution with every tool we have."
Pacheco, of the state attorney general's office, said Attorney General Phil Weiser is "reviewing options."
"(Trump) may not like Colorado’s voting system or the fact that we take action to protect the integrity of our voting systems," Weiser said in a statement. "But he has no authority to act in this manner, and we will not be swayed by his efforts to threaten, intimidate, or punish our state. We are already in court defending Colorado and will continue to do so, including, as appropriate, in the face of these latest actions.”
If the lab is dismantled, the impact would be "hard to measure," Powers said.
“The economic and intellectual impacts on the city and the state," he said, "would be immense.”
Denver Post staff writer John Aguilar and the Associated Press contributed to this story.
