Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research have spent decades developing and improving the models that forecast where hurricanes will make landfall, how severe storm systems will develop, and how wildfire conditions will change under changing climate patterns on the mesa west of Boulder, in a cluster of modernist buildings that have been quietly producing some of the most significant atmospheric science in the world since the 1960s. NASA uses the work. The Department of Defense uses it.
Most people are unaware of this type of unglamorous, infrastructure-level research unless they are watching a cyclone track in real time and the forecast proves to be correct. A federal lawsuit filed in March 2026 claims that the Trump administration has been working to demolish it for reasons other than budget efficiency or scientific redundancy. The reason for this is that the governor of Colorado declined to pardon an election denier who had been found guilty.
The administration’s actions are allegedly unconstitutional retaliation against Colorado and Governor Jared Polis, according to a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for Colorado by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which oversees NCAR through a consortium of 129 universities.
The complaint claims that Polis’s refusal to pardon Tina Peters, a former Mesa County clerk found guilty of election meddling after the 2020 election cycle, is the specific grievance. The lawsuit claims that in response, the administration targeted NCAR’s structure and financing, citing Colorado’s extensive usage of mail-in ballots as an additional rationale for the changes. If the characterization holds up legally, the combination of those two stated reasons is striking in its candor.
In reality, the administration moved to shift NCAR’s supercomputing facility to the University of Wyoming and initiate what it called a “comprehensive review” of the climate center—language that, in the current federal landscape, tends to precede dissolution rather than reform. The supercomputer is not an add-on. It is essential to NCAR’s modeling work for the programs and organizations that rely on it. While moving it to a different university is not the same as closing the lab, it does remove a vital component of the infrastructure in a way that could eventually achieve the same result. The lawsuit seeks to determine whether such was the intention.
A federal judge heard arguments in May 2026 over whether to halt the restructure while the issue is still pending. Government lawyers argued that no final agency decisions had been made. This is a common procedural argument in administrative law disputes, and depending on how far along the actions are, judges may or may not accept it. Regardless of whether official decisions have been codified in writing, the presiding judge advised that both parties seek a compromise specifically around the Wyoming supercomputer transfer, which may show some uncertainty about how voluntary the situation actually is.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the exact method implicated here—using institutional restructuring and federal financing as leverage against a state for its governor’s political decisions—raises issues that extend far beyond this single lab. Every state-federal relationship involving federal funding is affected if the administration can legitimately threaten to relocate or dismantle federally funded research infrastructure as a result of a governor refusing to pardon someone. The most pressing practical issue would be weather forecasting. The court will have to respond to the constitutional question that lies beneath it.
