"A growing number" of National Weather Service employees "are miffed that forecast offices are being asked to scale back" while millions of dollars "are lavished" on the National Marine Fisheries Service, reports the Ft. Lauderdale Sun- Sentinel.
Both agencies are a part of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Although the Weather Service is "looking for operating funds following a $27.5 million shortfall in 1997, times haven't been as austere" at the NMFS.
Under President Clinton's fiscal 1998 budget request, NMFS funding would jump $16.6 million. The money would be used to build a new fisheries laboratory in Santa Cruz, CA, design "acoustically quiet" fishery research vessels that won't "frighten" fish, and protect the endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal.
Critics say NMFS programs like these should be eliminated before any more Weather Service funding is cut.
But NMFS proponents "say they're finally getting their due after years of neglect caused by a $4 billion Weather Service modernization program."
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