North Carolina's historic rainfall this past week is the sort of extreme weather

event that's become more frequent and more severe.

According to the union representing its employees, by July the National Weather Service had issued some 13,000 severe thunderstorm warnings,

2,000 tornado warnings, and 1,800 flash flood warnings.

The Weather Service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration, or NOAA, are targeted for drastic changes in Project 2025.

That's the roadmap for the next conservative president.

Many of its authors are former Trump administration officials,

although the former president has tried to distance himself from it.

Rachel Cleetis is policy director in the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Rachel, the section on NOAA in this Project 2025 is written by Thomas Gilman.

He was in the Commerce Department and the Trump administration.

He was an executive at Chrysler before that.

The section says that NOAA has become one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm

industry and as such is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.

It should be broken up and downsized.

What do you say to that?

Well, that is an extremely damaging attack on an agency that is providing signs that helps keep people safe, helps keep critical infrastructure and our economy safe.

As you pointed out, NOAA's weather service is providing information that helps

communities get prepared ahead of things like extreme heat waves, major storms and hurricanes, when we have these flooding events,

when we have wildfires, this agency is crucial in providing the kind of information that helps first respond

or get out ahead, helps communities prepare and saves lives, frankly.

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