I. M. Pei designed a structure on the mesa above Boulder that appears more appropriate for a desert observatory than a government research complex. Only in the 1960s, when the nation still thought atmospheric research was worth a piece of land that lovely, were the pink sandstone walls mined to match the hillsides behind them. That structure is the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and it is currently the focus of a federal lawsuit that has a lot to do with politics and very little to do with weather.
The Trump administration’s attempt to dissolve and relocate NCAR isn’t actually about money, according to UCAR, which filed the lawsuit in Denver. The complaint claims that it is retaliation, specifically related to Colorado’s mail-in voting system and the prosecution of former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, an election denier found guilty of tampering with voting equipment. Judges, scientists, and at least some Washingtonians who would typically regard federal lab funding as a silent line in an appropriations bill have taken notice of this unique framing for a dispute involving supercomputers and storm models.
The political assertion might be true. The administration’s claimed justifications, which include budget cuts and the discontinuation of diversity initiatives, may also represent actual, albeit debatable, goals. The disparity between what NCAR does and the speed at which choices regarding it have been made is more difficult to overlook. NASA, the FAA, the Department of Defense, and hundreds of colleges rely on the forecasting infrastructure provided by the facility. Evacuation orders in the West are based on wildfire modeling. studies on hurricane intensity. the type of labor for which there is no private sector alternative because no one will independently create a backup version.
Located in Cheyenne, across the Wyoming border, the supercomputing center is a year-round hub that processes the data that underlies most of what Americans see on their weather applications without realizing it. Parts of NCAR’s atmospheric research operations have been canceled, and the administration has attempted to transfer that facility. In May, the Department of Justice contended that since nothing had been formally resolved, the lawsuit ought to be dismissed. Judge R. Brooke Jackson appeared unconvinced. While deciding whether to issue an injunction, he encouraged both sides toward a negotiated compromise and publicly acknowledged possible political motivations from the bench.
As this case progresses, it seems like something more significant is being put to the test. Although federal labs have always been on the outside of politics, it has long been customary to treat their fundamental infrastructure as off-limits because it is too important, too long-term, and too closely related to public safety to be used as a negotiating chip. According to the UCAR complaint, that boundary has been violated. In response, the government claims that as no final decisions have been made, no line has yet been crossed. Technically, both can be true simultaneously, which contributes to the case’s uniqueness.
Additionally, it’s difficult to ignore the larger pattern. Over the past few years, scientific consortiums, research organizations, and universities have quietly recalculated their political exposure. One of the more prominent instances is NCAR. Judge Jackson’s decision to grant the injunction will reveal how courts perceive this novel situation. The lab’s survival will reveal something very different: what federal science the nation still views as sacrosanct and what it no longer does.
