This is a brief diary because it is time sensitive. The Senate will vote tomorrow (Tuesday) on a budget amendment that would gut the National Weather Service satellite program.
On Saturday, Jeff Masters of Weather Underground posted a warning about an upcoming budget vote in the Senate.
The QuikSCAT satellite, launched in 1999, provides crucial measurements of surface wind speed and direction over Earth's oceans twice per day. Forecasters world-wide have come to rely on data from QuikSCAT to issue timely warnings and make accurate forecasts of tropical and extratropical storms, wave heights, sea ice, aviation weather, iceberg movement, coral bleaching events, and El Niño... Originally expected to last just 2 - 3 years, QuikSCAT is now ten years old, and will be lucky to survive into 2010. NASA and NOAA notified Congress in September that there is a significant chance QuikSCAT will fail in the next few months.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-TX) has introduced an amendment (Amendment #2666 to the Commerce State Justice Appropriations Act for 2010, H.R. 2847) to cut the NOAA budget by $172 million.
And where does Hutchinson want to divert this money? To the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program. I've never heard of this program before, but here's a description from the Immigration Daily website:
The State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) was created by §20301
of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994... The program is
administered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), which is part of the
Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Justice Programs (OJP). The Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) aids BJA in administering the program. SCAAP is
designed to reimburse states and localities for correctional officers’ salary costs
incurred for incarcerating "undocumented criminal aliens."
Yes, Hutchinson wants to gut a crucial component of hurricane protection to score political points with her wingnut base by posturing herself as being tough on illegal immigrants. Now you'd think that a Senator from a state vulnerable to hurricanes would know better, especially after Galveston was devastated by Hurricane Ike last year. And she wants to be Governor besides.
Please e-mail your Senators immediately.
Thanks.