Proposed Federal Budget Would Eliminate Sea Grant Program

In late March, President Trump proposed a budget that would slash the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s funding by 17 percent and eliminate several educational and research programs, if Congress approves.

- John Clarke

One of the proposed cuts would eliminate NOAA’s $73 million National Sea Grant College Program, which supports coastal research conducted through 33 university programs across the country, including every coastal and Great Lakes state, Puerto Rico, Lake Champlain and Guam.

The Sea Grant program, according to Trump’s budget plan, is a low priority that primarily has a state and local impact. “Mr. Trump is trying to eliminate us, but we are one of the solutions,” says Paul Anderson, director of Maine Sea Grant. “It’s pretty evident the process the administration has gone through to identify these cuts was not articulate. It was just line-item mathematics.”

Anderson says he is “mystified” by the Trump administration and feels its decision to cut the program puts the nation’s health and safety at risk. “The things we have created in this nation are through lessons learned — from creativity and mistakes,” he says. “You create electrical safety standards because someone was electrocuted. There’s a role government has. Trump’s approach is so naive to any of those structures that it puts our nation at risk for all kinds of things. Health, well-being and good, safe, clean domestic food and water are important.”

The president has prided himself on cutting bureaucratic red tape and connecting the right people to the right jobs to find the right solutions, says Sylvain De Guise of Connecticut Sea Grant. “It’s ironic,” he says. “There’s a disconnect between the president saying he wants to cut the red tape and help out the regular Joes and cutting our program. That is exactly what Sea Grant is really good at.”