The Commerce Department inspector general has faulted the department for its role in pressuring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue an unsigned statement backing President Donald Trump's claims that Hurricane Dorian would severely affect Alabama, against the guidance of its own forecasters.
A report says the Commerce Department ran a "flawed process" that went against the interests of NOAA and the National Weather Service, which are branches of the department.
The report, from Inspector General Peggy Gustafson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, took 10 months to complete; a summary of it was posted online late Monday. That document includes redactions that it says the Commerce Department requested, "while the Department and its stakeholders complete a pending privilege review."
The full report, which will also contain redactions, was not yet posted on the inspector general's website as of Tuesday morning, despite the memo's statement that it would be posted on June 29.
The summary of the report does not make clear what the White House role was in pressuring the Commerce Department to have NOAA issue a statement, and that may be the focus of some of the redactions.
The Sept. 6, 2019, NOAA statement backed up repeated, inaccurate claims by Trump regarding the hurricane's threat to Alabama and contradicted public statements and weather forecasts issued by NOAA's National Weather Service forecast office in Birmingham, Ala. The inspector general's examination of "the circumstances surrounding the statement" began Sept. 7 amid fierce public blowback against NOAA.
The memo summarizing the inspector general's report concluded that the Commerce Department "led a flawed process that discounted NOAA participation." The unsigned statement released by NOAA, which backed the president, involved only acting administrator Neil Jacobs and his communications director Julie Kay Roberts, both political appointees.
It did not engage scientists within the National Weather Service, which was found to be a violation of NOAA's scientific integrity policy, according to a separate investigation released in June.
The inspector general's report also found that the unsigned statement "did not further NOAA's or NWS's interests." The statement's release provoked an uproar among NOAA constituents, who said it harmed the agency's credibility. Scientists and high-level officials within NOAA expressed anger, as shown in records released in several Freedom of Information Act requests from The Washington Post and other media outlets. Many feared the statement would damage public trust in the weather service's forecasts.
The inspector general's report further faulted the Commerce Department for not sufficiently considering "the public safety intent" of a tweet from the National Weather Service's Birmingham office, which appeared to contradict the president when it stated that Dorian would not affect Alabama.