The meteorologist known for his involvement in the infamous “Sharpiegate” fiasco is now set to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Senate confirmed Neil Jacobs, who formerly served as the agency’s acting administrator during President Donald Trump’s first term, in a 51-47 vote on Tuesday night. Trump nominated Jacobs to the post in February, five years after he was found to have violated the agency’s ethical code for his involvement in the so-called “Sharpiegate” incident.
The incident centered around Trump’s claim in September 2019 that Hurricane Dorian, which peaked at Category 5 strength, would hit Alabama “harder than anticipated.” The National Weather Service in Birmingham rejected Trump’s claim and posted on X that “Alabama will NOT see any impacts” from the hurricane.
The president stuck to his claim and later displayed, in the Oval Office, a map of Hurricane Dorian’s path that was altered with a black Sharpie to show it would hit Alabama.
NOAA then shared an unsigned statement claiming the National Weather Service’s claims about the hurricane path were “inconsistent” with forecasts at the time. The statement raised questions about whether there was political pressure on NOAA officials to release it.
“The Birmingham National Weather Service’s Sunday morning tweet spoke in absolute terms that were inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time,” the statement read.
The hurricane did not hit Alabama, according to The New York Times.
A panel commissioned by NOAA later investigated whether the statement was “driven by external political pressure from Department of Commerce senior leaders.” The panel found Jacobs and another official violated the agency’s ethical code when they issued the statement, according to a June 2020 memo shared by NOAA official Stephen Volz.
At the time, Jacobs rejected the panel’s findings, claiming it had “applied an overly broad interpretation and created new standards for scientific misconduct that are inconsistent with NOAA’s own scientific integrity policy,” according to the Times.
“The NOAA statement was not intended to imply Birmingham did anything wrong,” he said in a statement. “The intent was to reconcile the forecaster’s duty to convey information to the public with probabilistic numerical model guidance that was still showing a small, but non-zero, chance of impacts.”
When Senator Ben Ray Luján asked Jacobs about the incident during his confirmation hearing in July, the meteorologist said that there were “probably some things I would do differently” and explained he took steps after the incident to prevent it from happening again, The Washington Post reports.
Luján went on to ask Jacobs: “Would you sign off on an inaccurate statement due to political pressure in the same event, yes or no?”
“No,” he responded.
Jacobs also said he stands behind the Trump administration’s decision to make sweeping cuts at NOAA, while also claiming that staffing will be his “top priority” if confirmed. He also shared ideas about using satellites to improve weather warnings and “modernizing” the agency’s weather radios.
The Independent has contacted NOAA and Jacobs for comment.
