Panel to look into report of NOAA coercion

WASHINGTON — A congressional committee opened an inquiry Wednesday into a report that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross coerced the head of a federal science agency into supporting President Donald Trump’s erroneous statements about Hurricane Dorian.

In a letter to Ross, top officials of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology demanded documents and information related to an unusual, unsigned statement that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued Friday that was perceived as rebuking its own scientists for contradicting Trump’s claim that Alabama was in the path of Hurricane Dorian.

“We are deeply disturbed by the politicization of NOAA’s weather forecast activities for the purpose of supporting incorrect statements by the president,” wrote Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, the chairwoman of the committee, and Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the chairman of its oversight subcommittee.

A Commerce Department spokesman denied the reports and said in an emailed statement that “Secretary Ross did not threaten to fire any NOAA staff over forecasting and public statements about Hurricane Dorian.”

On Sept. 1, Trump wrote on Twitter that Dorian would hit Alabama “harder than anticipated.” A few minutes later, the National Weather Service office in Birmingham, Ala., which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, posted on Twitter that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”

Alabama was not struck by the hurricane.

Ross, whose department has authority over the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, then called Neil Jacobs, the acting head of the agency, early Friday to tell him that the political staff at the agency would be fired if the situation was not fixed, according to three people familiar with the conversation. Later that day, the agency issued the unsigned statement that contradicted the Birmingham office, calling the weather service’s statement “inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”

In addition to emails, memos, text messages and records of phone calls, the lawmakers on the House Science Committee asked Ross to answer a number of questions, including whether any representative of the Executive Office of the President directed the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue the statement Friday or specified the language in it.

Trump on Wednesday denied that he pushed for the federal agency to repudiate its weather forecasters, responding to New York Times’ reporting that acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney directed Ross’ actions after a request from the president.

When Trump was asked if he told Mulvaney to disavow the Alabama forecasters, he said, “No, I never did that,” then called the story a “hoax.”