Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, Chairman Smith, for yielding me time to speak on this important legislation. It has become increasingly apparent with every major weather event that our forecasting services are desperately in need of a major overhaul. I am happy to support legislation that will do just that. H.R. 353, the Weather Research and Forecasting Innovation Act, will put our country's weather forecasting back on track to provide citizens with lifesaving predictions and warnings. I specifically point to this bill's innovative language on weather technology planning. H.R. 353 calls on NOAA to evaluate the combination of observing systems it needs to meet weather forecasting requirements. It also requires the agency to conduct experiments on different observing systems to evaluate their costs and benefits. Such reforms will grant NOAA more flexibility to develop new technologies while scrapping older approaches that do not bring enough value to our forecasts. We need to better assess our observing system resources instead of continuing to rely on outdated methods. This bill will help push NOAA to consider new approaches, including those from the private sector. For its part, the growing private sector has signaled it is ready and willing to work with NOAA to bring better weather forecasting to our citizens, and we should welcome this development. I am confident that H.R. 353 will create the kind of meaningful change that we want to see at NOAA.…”