WASHINGTON — The Senate Commerce Committee advanced the nomination of Neil Jacobs to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as that agency’s top satellite official remains on administrative leave.
The committee favorably reported Jacobs’ nomination to the full Senate on a voice vote during an executive session July 30, sending it to the full Senate. While there was no roll call taken, at least seven senators, all Democrats, requested to be recorded as voting no on the nomination.
Both the chair of the committee, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), and its ranking member, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), said they supported the nomination. Cruz, citing recent floods in Texas and a tsunami in the Pacific, said he hoped Jacobs “would improve our systems to better respond to such disasters.”
“In the face of a rapidly changing climate, increasingly extreme storms and wildfires, the NOAA position could never be more important,” Cantwell said, explaining her support for the nomination. “And while we may have some differences with Dr. Jacobs and some issues with his previous time, I believe that he is in agreement on what NOAA’s priorities should be.”
Jacobs served as acting NOAA administrator for much of the first Trump administration. That included the “Sharpiegate” incident in 2019 involving conflicting communications by NOAA and the White House about the threat posed by a hurricane. A panel convened by the National Academy of Public Administration at the request of NOAA concluded that Jacobs violated NOAA’s code of ethics as a part of that.
The NOAA official designated to review and, ultimately, accept that report was Stephen Volz, associate administrator for satellite and information services. NOAA said July 25 that Volz, among with the agency’s deputy general counsel, were placed on administrative leave for undisclosed reasons.
Volz, in a note posted on LinkedIn July 28, said he did not know what prompted the agency to place him on leave. He said he was informed July 24 by Laura Grimm, the acting NOAA administrator, that he would remain on leave “until further notice, pending the outcome of an investigation into (my) recent conduct.”
“When I know more about what drove this action, and what conduct was considered egregious, I will share it with you,” he wrote.
Volz, who has served as associate administrator in charge of NOAA’s National Environment Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS) for more than a decade, used must of the post to express his appreciation to NOAA and NESDIS staff for their work. “It has been the most rewarding period of my career to lead NESDIS and to work at NOAA for these last ten years,” he wrote.
He appeared, though, to accept the possibility he will not be able to continue at NOAA. “I know my colleagues will continue to do their best work, but while my future is uncertain, I am resigned to the reality that I will not be able to lead NESDIS again as I have,” he wrote. “I will miss it dearly.”
NASA center bill
The committee also approved on a voice vote the Space Exploration Research Act, introduced earlier this month by Cruz with several bipartisan co-sponsors.
The bill would allow NASA to lease property at its centers to local and state governments as well as educational and nonprofit institutions. They would then build research or training facilities on that property, which could then be leased back to NASA. One example of such an agreement is between Johnson Space Center and Texas A&M University, with the center leasing land to the university for the construction of the Texas A&M Space Institute.
“This helps not just Johnson Space Center in Texas but every NASA facility,” Cruz said of the bill at the markup.
“This purpose is to support activities related to space and aeronautic research, and workforce training and education and public-private technology partnership,” Cantwell said of the bill during the session. “And I can just tell you, from the Pacific Northwest, we have a very big space industry, and we want to continue to see it grow.”