Customs and Border Protection using Elon Musk’s Starlink for officer communications

Customs and Border Protection has deployed Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service so that officers working in remote border locations can send certain data when other communications systems aren’t available. 

The program, which is called the Seamless Integrated Communications program, is meant to streamline a series of communications technologies, including Starlink. But in the midst of cost-saving measures, two satellite locations used for backhaul data communications are being replaced with ground-based connectivity in fiscal 2025, a CBP spokesperson told FedScoop on Wednesday.

A privacy threshold analysis released by CBP this month details aspects of the SIC program. The context in which CBP agents might rely on this tool — which is supposed to provide “enhanced situational awareness” and continuous communications — is redacted from the PTA. But the document states that Starlink is supposed to be used as a backhaul method and facility network enhancement when fiberoptic systems aren’t sufficient. Increased data flow, the document states, will help the agency stop illicit activity.

“The purpose of Seamless Integrated Communications (SIC) is to provide a mesh network of both fixed locations and mobile devices in harsh and remote border environments where CBP experiences limited to no cellular service. SIC enables limited point-to-point or multi-hop data communications,” a CBP spokesperson told FedScoop. The system isn’t a cell phone signal booster and doesn’t support voice capabilities, they said, but is meant to support data sharing across commercial cellular, satellite, and direct network connections. 

“Satellite connectivity for backhaul is employed on a case-by-case basis, based on the operational environment, when no other persistent or cost-effective means to perform backhaul is available. In two limited cases, Starlink is used for satellite backhaul,” the spokesperson said. “SIC will transition these satellite locations to ground based connectivity in FY 2025 due to cost savings.” 

The original privacy threshold analysis was published on a CBP site after FedScoop reported on its existence and subsequently asked for the document to be made public. 

The revelation of CBP’s use of Starlink comes at a time when Musk, the world’s richest man, has wielded massive influence over the U.S. government as his Department of Government Efficiency slashes the federal workforce.

Musk’s business interests with the federal government have come into greater focus since his immersion into the Trump administration. NASA and the Defense Department spend heavily contracting with Musk’s SpaceX for satellite launches, while some federal agencies, such as the Federal Aviation Administration, are also using the company’s satellite constellation internet service. 

Other documents highlighted by FedScoop, meanwhile, indicate that CBP appeared at one point to be exploring the use of Starlink as part of its autonomous surveillance tower program. It’s not clear where that work currently stands. 

The SIC program was first developed in April 2020 and was scheduled to end in April 2024, but a spokesperson told FedScoop last month that work with Starlink had been extended until at least next month and could be extended further. 

Federal spending records show that CBP has made other purchases related to Starlink.  

Senate panel, with plans for AI-fueled efficiencies, waits on DOGE to call

Democratic leadership on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee sees “real opportunities” for bipartisan artificial intelligence work that could unearth the kind of inefficiencies in government that the Trump administration says it wants to target. But contact with Elon Musk’s DOGE to move that ball forward hasn’t materialized so far.

David Weinberg, staff director for the Democrats on the powerful tech-focused panel, told FedScoop on Wednesday on the sidelines of the Elastic Public Sector Summit that ranking member Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and other minority members are “hoping for more transparency” from DOGE and anxious to “hear more about what they’re thinking.” 

“We don’t hear much from them,” Weinberg said of DOGE, which has focused much of its early efforts on mass firings across the federal workforce, canceling contracts and funded programs, and overstating supposed cost savings. 

“We do hope that they look at more than just reducing headcount as they’re trying to find efficiencies,” Weinberg continued. “We do think that there are a lot of efficiencies to be had — in software purchases, consolidation, the harmonization stuff we’ve been discussing. We have just not been privy to much of that.”

Peters, who led a letter last month asking the White House chief of staff to pause DOGE’s work in federal agencies, has long been focused on government efficiency. In his role as the top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Peters has championed legislation that would curb duplicative agency purchases of software and AI tools. 

“Democrats aren’t opposed to a more efficient government. We just have some concerns with how they’ve gone about this and what their focus is,” Weinberg said. “I do hope that we can kind of point them in a productive, bipartisan direction. But it does seem like they’ve had sort of a laser focus on [reductions in force], without thinking about some of these more structural issues.”

Some of those structural issues could be ironed out with a more focused approach to AI regulation. During an on-stage interview at Wednesday’s FedScoop-produced Elastic event, Weinberg acknowledged the challenges agencies and industry have faced in unpacking “three pretty different executive orders on AI” over the course of the past three administrations.

Having that “pendulum swinging back and forth” isn’t helpful for the federal workforce or the private sector, he added, so having “more legislative structure” in place “really makes sense.” 

“There certainly are real opportunities to use AI to find efficiencies,” Weinberg said. “We’re still getting our arms around what we expect to see from this administration as it comes to AI. We have seen some of their nominees and senior leadership talk about moving from a sort of risk-based to impact-based analysis for uses. We’re not really sure exactly what that means. We want to make sure we get conscious of the risks that are raised by some of these uses.”

Peters is interested in pushing two bills this Congress that are aimed at helping agencies be better prepared to use AI. The Promoting Responsible Evaluation and Procurement to Advance Readiness for Enterprise-wide Deployment (PREPARED) for AI Act, which Peters introduced with Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. last year, would establish guardrails and risk assessments around agency purchases of AI technologies. Another piece of legislation deals with data modernization and harmonization, calling on agency chief data officers to essentially pursue a “whole of government” approach to AI purchasing decisions.

Weinberg told FedScoop that Peters wants to have discussions with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who chairs HSGAC, and other Republican members before reintroducing both bills. 

“All roads on the committee now run through Chairman Paul,” he said. “So we’re in the early stages of those conversations with them, and I’m sure they’ll want to see what the new administration has to say as well. We are trying to do some of the lowest-hanging fruit from last Congress first. I’m hoping this stuff will be [in] the next tranche.”

For HSGAC Democrats, all of these tech-related legislative paths point back to Washington’s cause du jour: efficiency. In Weinberg’s view, that means hoping DOGE steers away from RIFs and toward transparency, and making sure agencies aren’t duplicating efforts in software buying or in AI development. Harmonizing across the federal government and letting the private sector lead the way with “cost-effective and efficient” tools makes the most sense for all parties, he said

“I don’t think we’re going to see a significant AI private sector-facing regulatory framework going forward or enacted,” Weinberg said during his panel interview. “That being said, setting some guardrails and rules around federal government procurement — the federal government, being the biggest purchaser in the world, can really help shape the market in ways that we think are productive and responsible.”

House Democrat wants to modernize privacy law in light of DOGE data access

As litigation plays out on DOGE access to individuals’ sensitive data, a House lawmaker is asking civil society groups, privacy experts, government technologists and others to inform legislation seeking to modernize the Privacy Act of 1974.

Rep. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., said in a press release that she is beginning an effort to reform the Privacy Act, which has been cited in various lawsuits against agencies over allegedly allowing unauthorized DOGE staffers to access data that could contain personally identifiable information. “Unaccountable billionaires, inexperienced programmers and unvetted political appointees are perpetrating the biggest government privacy scandal since Watergate,” Trahan said in the release.

Ann Lewis, former director of the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services, said in a statement that “the Privacy Act lacks necessary provisions to address modern challenges presented by national-scale data breaches, widespread adoption of AI, and the need for secure cross-agency information sharing. Additionally, it lacks sufficient transparency and accountability mechanisms for how agencies use emerging technologies to collect, store, and analyze personal information.”

In order to begin this effort, Trahan is asking the public to respond to a series of questions, including the federal government’s need to balance privacy with other priorities like reducing waste, how the government can effectively leverage privacy-enhancing technologies, the privacy risks associated with artificial intelligence and more. 

Other questions include whether the modernized privacy act should address privacy concerns faced by organizations, including businesses and nonprofits, and how potential legislation could accomplish that. Trahan is also interested in disclosure requirements, including how those regarding individuals’ access to and ability to amend their information could be improved and how agencies’ implementation could be modernized. 

Trahan argued in the request for feedback that the federal government’s use of technology has “dramatically evolved,” since the Privacy Act’s enactment, which was created in response to the Watergate scandal. Since then, Congress has implemented legislation that governs the federal management of electronic information, like the E-Government Act of 2002 or the Federal Information Technology and Modernization Act.

“The combination of challenges stemming from unchecked government officials and significant technological advances warrant a reevaluation of the Privacy Act … and related laws governing privacy and federal information technology,” Trahan wrote.

Agencies that fired 25,000 federal workers comply with court-ordered reinstatements

Several federal agencies responsible for terminating nearly 25,000 federal probationary status workers told a federal court Monday evening that they’re complying with an order to reinstate those employees, giving thousands of people their jobs back for the time being.

According to a status report and corresponding declarations filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, 18 federal agencies and their subcomponents said they were working to reinstate their fired probationary employees following the court order. Most of those agencies said those workers would be placed on administrative leave.

While the court order doesn’t cover all fired probationary workers, the declarations in the case offer one of the first clear windows into the breadth of firings under President Donald Trump. Per figures in those declarations, the agencies initially terminated 24,813 probationary workers. Of that total, 15,499 were offered reinstatement as a direct result of the court’s order.

An additional 5,925 employees, at least, were previously offered reinstatement by those respective agencies before the court’s order. That includes the 5,714 terminated employees in the U.S. Department of Agriculture who got their jobs back for 45 days as the result of a ruling by a quasi-judicial body within the executive branch known as the Merit Systems Protection Board. 

A more detailed version of the chart below with descriptions of each figure can be found here.

The government’s status report on compliance and agency declarations are the latest in a legal challenge to the firings filed by a coalition of states being led by Maryland. On March 13, Judge James K. Bredar of the District Court of Maryland granted a request by the states for a temporary restraining order, which required the 18 impacted agencies to reinstate fired probationary workers by Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern. 

In a memorandum accompanying the order, Bredar said that the government’s actions showed that the terminations were reductions in force, or RIFs, rather than firings based on performance as the government stated. As such, the government should have followed RIF procedures, which includes providing notice to states when a RIF involves at least 50 employees in a “competitive area.”

Bredar’s ruling applies to the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration, and U.S. Agency for International Development.

The government has appealed that ruling to the Fourth Circuit.

According to a letter sent to fired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees Monday that FedScoop viewed, workers at the agency will be reinstated “and placed in a paid, non-duty status until” the litigation is resolved or the department takes other administrative employment action. That correspondence was sent by John Guenther, the Department of Commerce’s acting general counsel.

NOAA terminated roughly 650 probationary workers in late February, according to a spokesman for Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. Former NOAA workers, advocates and lawmakers criticized those terminations, arguing that they could disrupt important services the agency provides, such as sending severe weather alerts, providing data for local forecasts, and tracking hurricanes.

A NOAA spokesman referred requests to comment on the letter to the Department of Commerce, which didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Separate reinstatement ruling stands

The reinstatements also came as an appeals court denied a request by the Trump administration to halt a separate district court ruling that requires six agencies to offer reinstatement to fired probationary workers.

That decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit lets the lower court ruling by a San Francisco-based federal judge stand while the appeal moves forward. In denying the government’s request, two of the judges on a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit wrote that staying the district court order would “disrupt the status quo and turn it on its head.”

Voting to deny the request were Judges Barry Silverman and Ana de Alba. Judge Bridget Bade partially dissented and said she would have granted a limited administrative stay. Doing so, she argued, would preserve that status quo and prevent the government and workers from potential “whiplash caused by diverging downstream decisions.”

The denial is the latest in a legal challenge brought by federal worker unions and other organizations against the mass terminations of probationary workers in the federal government. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleged that the Office of Personnel Management unlawfully exceeded its authority in ordering other agencies to fire their workers. 

While the government challenged that allegation, arguing OPM didn’t direct agencies to terminate workers and only provided them with guidance, Judge William Alsup sided with the plaintiffs and has issued temporary restraining orders halting and reversing the terminations at certain agencies. In his second order on March 13, he required six agencies to reinstate workers. Those agencies were the VA, USDA, DOE, Interior, Treasury and the Department of Defense.

Lawmakers seek drone-fighting abilities for federal nuclear facilities

A bipartisan group of lawmakers want to give the Energy Department component charged with managing the country’s nuclear stockpile more power to protect against unmanned aerial systems flying nearby. 

The Nuclear Ecosystem Drone Defense (NEDD) Act from Reps. Susie Lee, D-Nev., Mark Amodei, R-Nev., Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., and Seth Moulton, D-Mass.,would expand the National Nuclear Security Administration’s authority to build and develop counter-drone technology. The legislation, introduced Tuesday, comes in response to a series of unauthorized drone sightings near NNSA facilities.

While the NNSA has the power to defend infrastructure that houses nuclear material, the semi-autonomous Energy Department component needs the ability to protect other nuclear-related systems, the lawmakers argue.

The legislation will allow NNSA to protect facilities that store the components of nuclear weapons as well as vehicles that might be used for their transport. The bill would also empower the NNSA to purchase drone technology and develop systems to defend against drone threats. 

Drones remain a major concern for the NNSA. The Federal Aviation Administration can bar drones from flying through the airspace over nuclear facilities, but sightings of unmanned aerial systems are common. Amodei said in a press release that there have been six recent incidents near the NNSA’s national security site in Nevada. 

Lee, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee’s Defense Subcommittee, said in a statement that “unauthorized drones pose a serious threat to America’s nuclear resources related to national security, including at the Nevada National Security Site where we maintain America’s nuclear weapons ecosystem.” 

“Our bipartisan NEDD Act bill will give the Department of Energy the tools it needs to defend all its nuclear and national security assets from unauthorized enemy drones,” Lee added.  

The NNSA previously said it deployed a system to counter unauthorized drones flying over its Y-12 National Security Complex, located near the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. The NNSA’s acting principal deputy administrator said last year that the agency was continuing to invest in systems meant to track drones approaching its nuclear facilities, looking to systems based on open architecture, proprietary sensors, and mitigation tools. 

“Our adversaries should not be able to fly a drone over anywhere in this country that makes part of a nuclear weapon,” Moulton said in a statement. “This bill closes down loopholes to make sure the Department of Energy can fully protect our most sensitive national security capabilities against the threat of drones.” 

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., is leading companion legislation in the Senate.

IRS misspent Inflation Reduction Act modernization funds on legacy IT, watchdog says

The Internal Revenue Service spent millions of dollars earmarked for business systems modernization on the operations and maintenance of legacy IT systems, according to a watchdog report released last week.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found that from August 2022 through September 2023, $4.6 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds that were supposed to go toward modernization were “inappropriately” diverted instead to three legacy systems.

Based on those findings, TIGTA estimated that the actual tally of IRA modernization funds used for legacy ops and maintenance was roughly $21 million across 14 systems. The IRA, which was signed into law in 2022, stipulated that funding for IRS modernization could not be redirected to legacy systems.

The IRA’s IRS modernization priorities, including the development of technology to provide more personalized customer service, were to be implemented by the tax agency’s IT organization management. But over the course of its investigation, TIGTA found that those IT managers “were not aware of the IRA prohibition.” 

“Information Technology organization management then explained they have a process in place that would ensure that IRA [business system modernization] funding is spent only on modernization programs and not legacy systems,” the report noted. “They stated that internal order codes are used to distinguish between the [operations and maintenance] and development, modernization, and enhancement spending, and that these internal order codes are reviewed and validated to ensure that purchases of products or services use appropriate funding.”

The watchdog called that process “ineffective” due to the fact that internal order codes are assigned to modernization programs at the IT investment level, as opposed to the system level. TIGTA also pointed out that the process lacked any review mechanism to figure out whether certain tasks were meant for operations and maintenance or development, modernization or enhancement.

“Not being able to identify IRA information technology contracts could result in noncompliance with IRA funding restrictions,” the report continued. “It also demonstrates that the IRS did not effectively implement the IRA provisions, which resulted in BSM funding spent inappropriately for O&M costs of legacy systems. IRA BSM funding is limited and is estimated to be exhausted by Fiscal Year 2026. With the IRS misspending it on legacy systems, it may not be able to complete some of its modernization efforts.”

TIGTA delivered three recommendations to the IRS’s chief information officer aimed at effectively identifying funding sources for IT contracts, training stakeholders on compliance with the disbursement of IRA monies, and updating internal guidelines for modernization spending. The IRS agreed with all three recommendations.

Lawyer linked to DOGE is defending OPM mass email system lawsuit

A lawyer who’s said to have played a central role in the Department of Government Efficiency’s attempted takeover of at least one federal organization is now defending in court the DOGE email system used to send email blasts to the entire U.S. government workforce.

During a Feb. 6 hearing, Jacob Altik joined the defense in the ongoing lawsuit where pseudonymous federal workers have accused the Office of Personnel Management of standing up its new governmentwide email system with inadequate privacy and security protections in place. While the defense introduced him at the time as being “from OPM,” counsel for the plaintiffs filed a new notice early Monday essentially connecting the dots that Altik, through other lawsuits and public reports, has played a hands-on role in supporting the DOGE.

Altik was first identified as a DOGE lawyer with an official DOGE email address hosted by the Executive Office of the President in a ProPublica article from early February, the Monday legal notice notes. An associate for the D.C. law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges and a former clerk for Judge Neomi Rao in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Altik is also slated to be a clerk in the upcoming Supreme Court 2025-2026 term for Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, the article states.

In a Jan. 20 executive order bringing the DOGE to life as part of the U.S. Digital Service, now renamed the U.S DOGE Service, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to create DOGE Teams, which would “typically include one DOGE Team Lead, one engineer, one human resources specialist, and one attorney.”

In addition to the ProPublica story, Altik was identified in a separate ongoing lawsuit as working hand-in-hand with DOGE associates in the organization’s attempt to dismantle the U.S. African Development Foundation, whose mission is closely tied to the broader scope of the recently shuttered U.S. Agency for International Development.

In the lawsuit, which argues only Congress can dissolve the U.S. African Development Foundation, Elisabeth Feleke, chief program officer of USADF, swore in testimony that Altik was one of three people presenting themselves as DOGE members who landed at the foundation Feb. 21 following the issuance of a Feb. 19 executive order calling for its reduction to “minimum presence and function” within 14 days. After signing a memorandum of understanding related to purported IT matters, that team provided a reduction in force plan to slash the organization’s staff to only its board and CEO, Feleke testified.

Altik, who “stated that he was a lawyer from the White House Personnel Office,” threatened that “if the Board didn’t approve the plan, the Board would be dismissed,” Feleke wrote. Then, Altik and another DOGE member “demanded immediate access to USADF systems including financial records and payment and human resources systems, which include staff job descriptions, personnel files, salaries, and organizational structure.” She said the team “secured the memorandum of understanding under false pretenses — stating that they would modernize our computer systems but then attempting to shut down USADF,” leading the agency’s general counsel to withdraw from it.

Bringing things back to the OPM case, Kel McClanahan, counsel for the plaintiffs, wrote in the Monday notice that with the relevant information about Altik, “it has become apparent that [Department of Justice attorney] Ms. [Elizabeth] Shapiro may have misrepresented — knowingly or unknowingly — his affiliation to the Court on 6 February — perhaps to preserve the illusion that OPM’s counsel were ignorant of what OPM was doing with the Government-Wide Email System, or perhaps to obscure the role of DOGE and the White House in this case.”

McClanahan also said because of Altik’s reported connection to the DOGE, “the Court should demand testimony from Mr. Altik about what he knew about the GWES system and when he knew it before it assigns any value to OPM’s arguments about the lack of its counsel’s understanding” about what OPM has represented in key privacy assessments for the system.

In February, while litigation for this case was active, OPM replaced the email system’s privacy impact assessment that is central to the lawsuit without notice, swapping out key language that was the basis for a motion for sanctions filed by plaintiffs that same day in federal court.

“A lawyer who claims to work for three separate offices and has the authority to unilaterally dismiss board members from a federal agency would definitely know what one of those offices — which he claims to represent — was doing with such a critical piece of information technology,” McClanahan wrote in Monday’s notice.

Defense attorneys issued a response to the notice Monday afternoon, calling the filing and its accompanying argument “ridiculous on its face.”

Officials from the Department of Justice claim that “in identifying Mr. Altik along with other counsel appearing on behalf of Defendants, Ms. Shapiro was not making any broader representation about Mr. Altik, including any relationship he may have or have had with other governmental components then, in the past, or in the future. She was simply introducing him and other counsel at counsels’ table, a routine step lawyers take at virtually every hearing in this Court and in other courts. Mr. Altik was not discussed at the hearing after this initial reference; he was simply present.” The response doesn’t mention DOGE or Altik’s connection.

McClanahan told FedScoop: “This guy seems like he has his fingers in all the DOGE pies, and if anyone would be unable to claim ignorance of what was going on in DOGE, all evidence points to it being him. When DOJ lawyers across the country are all singing the same refrain that they just don’t know the answers, sorry Your Honor, Jacob Altik should be at the top of every plaintiff’s lawyer’s call sheet.”

Since plaintiffs first filed their initial lawsuit, OPM has used its governmentwide email system to facilitate sending email blasts to all federal workers about the administration’s deferred resignation plan and to solicit five bullet points from federal workers about the work they’d accomplished the week prior.

DOGE staffer violated security policies at Treasury Department, court filing shows

NOAA firings spark concerns for agency’s data-centric mission 

Firings at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have former workers, lawmakers, and advocates concerned about impact on the agency’s efforts to produce climate and weather information critical to public safety. 

NOAA is one of many federal agencies in the U.S. that has cut probationary workers in recent weeks as part of President Donald Trump’s plan to reduce the size of the federal government. While critics of the Trump administration have argued the rapid and widespread staffing reductions could have adverse consequences across the government, the picture they paint with respect to NOAA’s terminations is particularly grim. 

That’s because the agency’s mission impacts every American, former NOAA workers told FedScoop. The recent cuts to staff put that work at risk, particularly for areas at the agency where staffing levels were already an issue, they said. What’s more, there are areas outside of staffing cuts where efficiencies could have been achieved through consolidating work and technology advancements.

“What we do is for everybody,” Andy Hazelton, a former physical scientist for the National Weather Service who was among the probationary workers who lost their jobs, said of NOAA’s mission. There are changes expected with new presidential administrations, Hazelton told FedScoop, but the “unprecedented level of just systematic dismantling, I think, has got people rightfully up in arms.”

The weather and climate agency’s responsibilities range from weather forecasting and climate monitoring to tracking and studying severe weather and stewarding the nation’s fisheries. Specifically, that translates into activities such as providing the data for local forecasts, flying planes through hurricanes to collect more precise information about the storm’s potential impact, and conducting underwater surveys of fish populations to inform industry and prevent overfishing. 

Timothy Gallaudet, who served as assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and acting NOAA administrator during the first Trump administration, criticized the firings in an interview with FedScoop as an ineffective way to improve government.

Instead, Gallaudet suggested focusing on eliminating redundancies within the government to improve efficiency. For example, he said multiple agencies conduct climate modeling, which would be better centralized at NOAA.

“Those redundancies are replete across the government, and that’s just the better way. They didn’t really put any thought, in my opinion, to these firings,” Gallaudet said.

Probationary firings, more possible

NOAA terminated roughly 650 probationary workers last month, according to a spokesman for Sen. Chris Van Hollen. The Maryland Democrat, who has been vocal about the terminations, is the ranking member of a Senate appropriations subcommittee with oversight of NOAA. The chair of that subcommittee, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

On Wednesday, the Associated Press and USA Today reported that the agency told people internally it was laying off an additional 1,000 workers. 

NOAA declined to confirm the number of probationary workers who were fired, citing a longstanding practice of “not discussing internal personnel and management matters,” and referred FedScoop’s inquiry about the 1,000 workers figure to the Department of Commerce. Commerce has not responded to multiple emailed requests for comment.

In response to an inquiry about concerns that NOAA could struggle following cuts to staff, however, a NOAA spokeswoman provided a statement that the agency is continuing its work. 

“NOAA remains committed to its mission, providing timely information, research and resources that serve the American public and ensure our nation’s environmental and economic resilience,” the spokeswoman said. “We continue to provide weather information, forecasts and warnings pursuant to our public [safety] mission.” 

Since the second Trump administration began, advocates have expressed concern about NOAA’s future, given a recommendation in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 that the agency should be dismantled. Although Project 2025 is not directly affiliated with the Trump administration, some policies are aligned with the administration’s actions and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought was one of its authors. 

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, however, said he had no interest in separating the agency and it wasn’t part of his agenda during his confirmation hearing.

Leading up to the firings, Congressional Democrats urged Lutnick to protect NOAA employees and other Commerce employees from the mass firings. Democrats on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology said those firings would risk Americans being “unprepared for the next extreme weather event, and lives may be lost that could have been saved.” 

During a recent call with press, Van Hollen similarly said the terminations could result in harm to people. “NOAA, of course, is our first line of defense against extreme weather events. They’re our eyes and ears,” Van Hollen said, adding that “when you close your eyes and you plug your ears, people will get hurt.”

Backfilling positions

Former officials told FedScoop that the probationary firings will primarily deprive NOAA offices of staff they already needed following departures.

“This will just exacerbate a problem of not having enough people to do what they need to do — and do it well, and accurately, and reliably,” Gallaudet said of the terminations. He added: “That pretty much involves every NOAA mission.”

Nicole Rice, a former communications specialist at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory who was among those fired, told FedScoop many probationary status workers are backfilling positions for continuity of operations. 

“We had a ton of retirees over the last few years, so these were positions that were being back filled. These are not new positions,” Rice said. “We were not creating additional positions.”

Hazelton, who worked on hurricane modeling, similarly said the Environmental Modeling Center where he worked had a lot of probationary people following retirements. The component was “just starting to get back to where you want to be staffing wise,” he said. “And then this happened, and now it’s just back to a rough situation.”

Probationary status, which lasts roughly one to two years in the federal government, occurs after an employee is hired or after they’re promoted. In some cases, employees on probationary status were working for the agency for years on a contract or other means and were then directly hired. 

In Rice’s case, she had worked for NOAA for 10 years but was only on probationary status because she had been promoted. 

Hazelton, meanwhile, had worked at NOAA for over eight years in various capacities, including as a postdoctoral researcher after he received his PhD in meteorology from Florida State University and as a scientist at the University of Miami working with NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division. In October, he was officially hired by NWS.

Hazelton said he was probationary in the sense that he was a new federal employee, “but I was definitely not a new NOAA employee.”

Impact of cuts

Storm warnings and hurricane research and monitoring are among the most immediate impacts that former workers cited.

Hazelton said terminations hit a variety of roles, including jobs involving data collection, modeling, quality control, and computer expertise. Not having those workers could result in fewer people available to issue warnings and develop and test models, as well as a lack of certain types of data and a potential slowing or reversal of “some of the forecast improvements that we come to rely on,” Hazelton said.

The firings also impacted the Hurricane Hunters, he said, which is the team responsible for flying two Lockheed WP-3D Orion planes into hurricanes to better understand the storm.

In a government watchdog report released Friday, staff shortages and maintenance issues were specifically cited as hurdles officials said prevented the Hurricane Hunters from meeting the rising demand for their work amid increased tropical cyclone activity.

Gallaudet similarly pointed to severe weather warnings, noting that those warnings go to every county in the country to alert people to severe events like hurricanes, blizzards, high winds, and thunderstorms. “That’s what affects most people in the country,” he said.

When asked how firings at NOAA might impact the economy, Gallaudet highlighted the agency’s work managing fisheries, stewarding marine sanctuaries, and supporting sea ports. Issues with NOAA’s work observing and monitoring current water levels and surveying sea ports, for example, could disrupt the operation of those facilities, which contribute roughly $2.9 trillion to the U.S. economy, he said.

The way the agency interacts with the public and produces research will also likely be impacted. 

Rice said the entire communications team was fired at her office, so there isn’t any messaging coming out of the laboratory. That lab studies the stressors on the Great Lakes, such as harmful algal blooms, invasive species, extreme weather impact, and ice cover, she said. “There is no one left to discuss science with the community,” Rice said. 

Her absence alone might interfere with a statutory requirement. Rice was the program manager for publishing the lab’s results consistent with the Public Access to Research Results Act, which requires scientific entities in the government to produce their research in a timely manner. 

“There is no one who has access to that system or the ability to do that, so we will not be able to complete that mission,” she said.

Areas for efficiency

During Trump’s first term, Gallaudet said NOAA was able to do good work and was, for the most part, “left alone” by the administration. “The White House liked a lot of what we were doing, so we advanced some initiatives,” he said.

But Gallaudet — who described himself as a conservative who agrees with some of the current administration’s policies — said he didn’t want to work for Trump again, criticizing his leadership and his divisiveness. He’s set to publish a book on his experience at NOAA during the first administration in August.

In addition to getting rid of repeated work, Gallaudet said another area NOAA could focus on to gain efficiency instead of staffing cuts is its advances in artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies.

Drones are being used to map the sea floor, measure wind speed in hurricanes, and observe weather and currents. AI, meanwhile, is being used by the agency to automate tasks, improve modeling and forecasts, and support decision making, he said. 

“We put in some really smart things to make NOAA more efficient,” Gallaudet said, adding that this administration could follow that playbook and build on it.

Hazelton was directly working on some of those AI efforts. 

At the Environmental Modeling Center, he helped write the component’s plan for how it planned to use AI over the next five to 10 years to improve forecasting. He said he could see AI as the way forward for a lot of things, and being a part of that work was one of his professional development goals for this year. That is, before he was fired.

“The thing is, getting rid of younger … talented people is not the way to move an organization into the future,” Hazelton said.

DHS picks Marine, intelligence veteran as new CIO

The Department of Homeland Security has selected Antoine McCord as its new chief information officer, a spokesperson with the agency’s Management Directorate confirmed Friday.

As CIO, McCord will be tasked with overseeing DHS’s roughly $11 billion IT budget, the largest of any federal agency in fiscal 2025. A bio for McCord on the DHS website said he “emphasizes mission-driven leadership, focusing on operations to neutralize threats against the Department.”

Details about McCord’s background are scarce, beyond what’s contained in that DHS bio page. According to the agency, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps, specializing in cyber and intelligence operations and “gaining hands-on experience in threat detection and technology integration.”

After his time with the Marines, McCord joined the U.S. Intelligence Community, according to DHS, in roles that saw him oversee cyber operations against advanced threats and serve as an adviser on national security issues. 

McCord, who DHS said has more than 18 years of experience in cyber ops and national security, also spent time in the private sector in cybersecurity and defense technology roles, according to the agency.

Nextgov was first to report the news of McCord’s appointment.

McCord will be stepping into a CIO role that was filled during the Biden administration by Eric Hysen, who also led the department’s artificial intelligence efforts. Hysen, a Google alum and a founding member of the White House’s U.S. Digital Service, oversaw the creation of DHS’s AI Corps, the publication of an AI roadmap and the release of commercial generative AI guidance.

McCord joins Ross Graber at the Department of Energy and Pavan Pidugu at the Transportation Department as the latest CIO hire at a time when the Trump administration is eyeing changes to how the position is classified. An Office of Personnel Management memo sent last month recommended that agencies change CIO designations from “career reserved” to “general,” an apparent attempt to make the technical position more political.