At least 1, 000 protesters gathered outside the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, building in Boulder yesterday to speak out against the Trump administration’s layoffs of an unknown number of employees at that facility.
According to Reuters, two current employees said the federal layoffs affected upward of 10 percent of scientists at NOAA in Boulder. The protest was organized by former U. S. Congressman David Skaggs, a Colorado Democrat, who is the namesake of the research center in Boulder where NOAA is housed. Skaggs is a former representative of Colorado’s second congressional district, and he told The Denver Post that he planned that protest just one day before hundreds of Department of Commerce employees were fired.
During the protest, Skaggs read a statement by congressman Joe Neguse which said, “Reckless mass terminations and the administration’s unilateral gutting of federal agencies are already causing deep harm to our country and the communities right here in Colorado. These actions threaten vital scientific programs and groundbreaking research and will undoubtedly have disastrous ramifications for the scientists and experts working right here in our very own backyard to ensure accurate forecasting, issue severe weather alerts, and provide the community with emergency information.”
KGNU’s Don Davis attended the protest and spoke with protestors on the ground – both of whom were recently laid off.
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MorningMagazine_2025-03-04 Gabrielle Mendoza
