1. United States
2. Texas
3. Letter

Please speak out and take action to restore funding and support for NOAA’s Atlas 15 Volume 2 project—the critical rainfall prediction tool that the Trump administration quietly shelved this spring. This project was nearly complete and would have provided future-oriented, climate-adjusted rainfall projections—something communities across the country desperately need as floods become more frequent, deadly, and unpredictable. Right now, infrastructure like bridges, stormwater systems, and roads are still being built using outdated rainfall assumptions—some based on data from the 1970s. That’s dangerous. And it’s expensive. Atlas 15 wasn’t a bloated budget line—it was a low-cost, high-impact project that engineers, local planners, and emergency responders were counting on. Unlike previous versions like Atlas 14, which are based only on past events, this one would have offered a standardized national dataset forecasting how extreme storms are expected to change with global warming. The decision to halt this work doesn’t just ignore science—it undermines public safety. FEMA flood maps, building codes, zoning laws, and resilience planning all rely on NOAA data. Without a forward-looking tool like Atlas 15, local governments are left guessing—and people pay the price when infrastructure fails during extreme storms. I urge you to push for immediate reinstatement of Atlas 15 and to oppose any further attempts to suppress federal climate science. This isn’t partisan. It’s about saving lives and taxpayer dollars in a rapidly changing climate.