Rep. Flood Wants Weather Balloons Back

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Congressman Mike Flood on the Newsmaker hotline. Mike, good morning,
Good to have you back.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yeah, good to be here. Thanks Garry, you bet.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
But I wanted to start with the reason I asked
you to come on is this story popped up, I
don't know a week week and a half ago about
staffing issues at the National Weather Service office in Valley
to the point where they're not able to do the
weather balloon releases as often as they had been. And
some of the meteorologists in the area are concerned about that,
and you met with them. What have you been able

(00:29):
to find out about what's going on there?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
All? Right?

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Now?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Due to staffing issues, weather balloons aren't going up in
Omaha Valley, they're not going up in Rapid City North
Platt's only putting one up at six in the morning.
They're not doing the six pm. Now, all of those
balloons generate data that gets fed into our computer models.
Let us do those seven day forecast let's just kind
of predict severe weather days, and they're absolutely valuable for

(00:55):
not only the National Weather Service but everybody relying on
that data. Off at Air Force Base, we have the
other wing there. They provide Weather Services for the entire
Department of Defense. So I went down to the Weather
Service on Monday. I talked to the top administrator yesterday.
Essentially under Joe Biden, we were down five positions that
they didn't allow them to hire. And then you come

(01:16):
in with the Doge effort, and several of the meteorologists
forecasters have taken the buyout, and so right now we
are thirty six percent under our authorized strength. And they,
the administrator, said, hey, we had to make some decisions.
They worked with the union. They want the weather balloons up.
I can tell you the people the National Weather Service,

(01:38):
We're used to having three people on duty. We're having
one to two on duty. Middle of the night. Obviously
they snap up for severe weather. So basically, what I'm
working with the White House and the Administration and the
Department of Commerce in omb we need to classify the
National Weather Service as a public safety entity and then
they would get the ability to hire for some of

(02:00):
these positions that are currently vacant. April seventeenth, that is
the deadline for taking the buyout. If that day comes,
I'm worried we're going to be fifty percent understaffed in Omaha.
Not to mention North Platte, which is thirty one percent
understaffed right now, and I don't know the number of
a rapid city, but those balloons need to get launched

(02:21):
because they obviously work their way eastward providing that data.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Right. So this was that letter went out to every
federal employee basically right offering the buyout, whether they were
under the gun or not. And so some of them
just opted to say, look, I'm not going to take
a chance. I'm going to take the buyout. Uh. You know,
it's one It's one thing to look at USAID and
funding left handed, left handed gay dance parties in Uganda,

(02:51):
that's one thing. But here here is a public safety
issue that's actually important to people. So have you got
you wrote a letter of the authorities. Have you heard
anything back.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Well, yeah, I talked to the administrator at the National
Weather Service yesterday. I've talked to folks in the White House,
you know, at the end of the day for years, decades.
They said they've been trying to get the National Weather
Service classified as public safety. And my hope is that
with the pressure we're putting on them, I'm working with
other members of Congress, we can get them reclassified. Here's

(03:23):
an example, Tinker Air Force Base down in Oklahoma. Eleven
hundred people were eligible for the buyout. The base commander
basically said, of the eleven hundred, nine hundred were ES
Central and they didn't qualify for the buyout. We need
that same protection for the National Weather Service, and I
think it's a classification issue. And I can tell you

(03:45):
the White House has been responsive. I talked to the
director of OMB. I'm talking to the top folks of
the National Weather Service. We understand how important this is
in Nebraska. I basically said, we had one hundred tornadoes
last year in Nebraska from very dangerous, deadly ones and
we didn't lose a person because of the hard work
of the folks in the National Weather Service office. So

(04:06):
we're going to get this fixed. I'm confident.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Okay, that's good news. Incidentally, I don't know how much
is involved in releasing a weather balloon, but I would
volunteer to do that if that would help. You know,
I don't know how much training you need to do that,
but that's not too far from where I live. I
go out there.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, as long as we know it's ours, not the Chinese.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Hey, Mike, we got a remedy for that.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Talking with Congressman Mike Flood here before we run, what's
your take on the tariff slash the diving stock market
this morning.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Well, we've seen this before and Trump's first term, he
engaged in tariffs and we ended up with a better deal,
a trade deal with China, with Mexico, with Canada. We're
going to have a better deal. There is going to
be an adjustment period. At the end of the day.
The message is out that we want fair trade. Obviously
we have to get I want this adjustment period to
be as short as humanly possible. But you know we're

(04:59):
in it now. Donald Trump ran on this, he wants this.
He's got the support of the House representatives. I know
there's a few senators that are questioning him. But at
the end of the day, this will turn out better
for the United States. And like your last segment there,
let's get to the end of the AAR and take
a look at where we're at. I think we'll be
in a much better position. And by the way, how

(05:20):
many countries like Mexico, for instance, under Joe Biden, they
refused to take our white corn because they were concerned
it was genetically modified. There was no health concern. And
did Joe Biden stand up one time and go to
bat for the farmers? Not on All he had to
do is stand up and do something. At least we've
got a president that's fighting for us.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
So Joe Biden, Biden didn't even know how to eat
corn on the cob. So trust me, you know, asking
him to make that kind of partial mental you know,
leap ye him, that mental trampoline for him was just.

Speaker 1 (05:54):
A little high. Mike, thanks for the time this morning.
Always good to the chat.