The Trump administration is dropping near-term plans to dismantle a $386 million federal ocean-observing system after encountering resistance from scientists and Congress.
The National Science Foundation said Thursday it will pause efforts to decommission most of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a network of sensors in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that track climate change, marine ecosystems and coastal flooding. The agency will conduct a review of the system’s future with stakeholders, it said in a statement.
The change comes a day after the US Senate passed a bipartisan measure to halt what lawmakers called the “reckless” dismantling of the network. That effort was led by Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a Democrat, and Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican. Merkley described the planned dismantling of the system as “supreme stupidity.”
Read More: Trump Scraps Ocean Sensors Providing Crucial Data on Climate, Flooding
Known as OOI, the Ocean Observatories Initiative entered into full operation in 2016 and was designed to provide continuous observations for at least 25 years. Last month, the NSF announced that it would remove almost all in-water infrastructure belonging to the system. The agency said at the time that it sought to align research infrastructure spending with evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies.
In its 2026 budget request, the NSF had proposed cutting funding for the initiative by 80% but Congress rejected the reduction.
The NSF said in its Thursday statement that one of the seven OOI arrays, the Endurance Array off the coast of Oregon, has already been removed. The agency plans to “redeploy” that equipment “after servicing,” it said.
Scientists and environmental groups have questioned why the government would retire functioning infrastructure that was built with hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding.
Walking away from the investment “in a state-of-the-art system, a feat of engineering already paid for by the American people, is absolutely myopic,” Chris Robbins, associate director of scientific initiatives at the Ocean Conservancy, said in response to the proposed dismantling.
Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has cut staff and funds for research on climate change and the environment and removed climate data and reports from government websites. The federal government has also stopped publishing the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.
Photo: Researchers conduct routine maintenance on a research buoy in Biscayne Bay in Miami.
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