On February 10, 2020, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released the Trump administration's proposed budget for the U.S. Government in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021. Under the budget proposal, total funding for the Department of Commerce (DOC) would decline by $7.3 billion or 48 percent, compared to FY2020 levels.
A budget analysis published by DOC indicates the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would receive $4.6 billion in funding in FY2021, which represents a 14.8 percent decline, compared to FY2020 levels. According to the analysis, NOAA's FY2021 budget "prioritizes core government functions that promote national security and public safety and support economic opportunity." It provides for, among other things, "sustaining current weather satellites to provide vital forecast information for significant weather events, and in deep space to provide data used to generate warnings for damaging solar events." The budget would, however, eliminate funding for several "lower priority" programs, including NOAA's Sea Grant, Coast Zone Management Grant, and Education Grant programs, and the Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. The budget proposal states that those programs "generally support State, local, and/or industry interests, and often are not optimally targeted," justifying their elimination.