Mr. Volz also recommended that the agency create a formal agreement guiding interactions between NOAA and Department of Commerce officials, “acknowledging the responsibility for NOAA to own the scientific content and allowing for Commerce to weigh in on policy content.” And he called for NOAA’s senior leadership and political officials “to take scientific integrity training” and then sign a statement saying they would follow those principles. Michael Halpern, deputy director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the report confirmed what was already known, but stopped short of providing accountability.

NOAA Officials Feared Firings After Trump’s Hurricane Claims, Inspector General Says. [1], Jacobs earned two Bachelor of Science degrees, in mathematics and physics, from the University of South Carolina, followed by a Master of Science and PhD in atmospheric science from North Carolina State University.[2][3]. [7][8][9], Jacobs lives in Raleigh, North Carolina with his wife and two children.

In Monday’s report, Stephen M. Volz, an assistant administrator at NOAA who was chosen to review the complaints and make recommendations, called for the agency to better ensure “the right of NOAA scientists to review, comment, and amend any official communication that relies on their scientific analysis.”. Mr. Trump, Mr. Mulvaney said, “wants either a correction or an explanation or both” for the forecasters’ statement, according to the report.

On Sept. 6 NOAA issued an unsigned statement calling the Birmingham office’s Twitter posting “inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”.

She did not find “credible evidence” that top Commerce Department officials explicitly threatened to fire Neil Jacobs, then the acting administrator of NOAA.

The pressure on Dr. Jacobs and his staff originated with Mr. Trump’s acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who emailed Secretary Ross while in Greece on agency travel the morning of Sept. 5 asking him to look into the discrepancy. In September 2019, President Donald Trump claimed that Hurricane Dorian would make landfall over Alabama. Craig McLean, the agency’s acting chief scientist and one of the people whose complaints prompted the review, said the process “demonstrated that scientific integrity is at the core of NOAA’s mission and culture and is essential for us to maintain the public’s trust.”, Dr. Jacobs disputed the findings. “The political leaders who interfered in our emergency response system need to publicly apologize or resign.”. “The NOAA statement was not intended to imply Birmingham did anything wrong,” Dr. Jacobs said. “In the immediate term, there are no consequences for the senior leaders who betrayed their scientific staff,” Mr. Halpern said. Scott Smullen, a spokesman for the agency, said that NOAA “welcomes the report and its recommendations, which would strengthen the policy of consulting NOAA scientists in developing communications materials involving their expertise.”. Mr. Walsh proposed that Dr. Jacobs issue a statement, in which Dr. Jacobs would say that he had told Mr. Trump during a briefing on the previous Sunday that “there was a strong possibility that the hurricane would punch through Florida and hit the panhandle including Alabama,” in Mr. Walsh’s proposed language.

But Dr. Jacobs told investigators that he “definitely felt like our jobs were on the line” if he refused to counter his own weather forecasters. The findings prompted criticism from Democrats as well as science advocates.

The current acting Under Secretary is Neil Jacobs, the agency’s assistant secretary for environmental observation and prediction, who took office on February 25, 2019, after being promoted to replace Timothy Gallaudet so that Gallaudet could focus on his Senate-confirmed post as the assistant secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere. Ms. Roberts responded to Mr. Walsh: “We did not tell him Alabama was in play on Sunday.”, In a response included in the report, Mr. Walsh called the report’s conclusions “completely unsupported by any of the evidence.”. “The Department views this matter as closed,” Mr. Brebbia concluded.

In a report last month, NOAA concluded that the statement from Dr. Jacobs’s office violated the agency’s code of conduct. [4] Jacobs was later selected to serve as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction, performing the duties of the Under Secretary in an acting role.

Neil Jacobs was mowing his lawn in North Carolina when he got the call.

[11], American scientist and government official, Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "Neil Jacobs, meteorologist and acting head of NOAA during a turbulent time, nominated to lead the agency", "Dr. Neil Jacobs | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration", Bio for Dr. Neil Jacobs – Panasonic Avionics Corporation, "Introducing the New NOAA Administrator Nominee: Dr. Neil Jacobs", "White House Pressured NOAA Response to 'Sharpiegate,' IG Says", "Top weather official who defended 'Sharpiegate' makes tearful clarification", "NOAA Chief Violated Ethics Code in Furor Over Trump Tweet, Agency Says", "NOAA leaders violated agency's scientific integrity policy, Hurricane Dorian 'Sharpiegate' investigation finds", "Report finds NOAA 'sharpiegate' statement 'not based on science' but political influence", "Trump nominates acting NOAA leader to be permanent chief", "POTUS Appoints Outer Banks Surfer to Head NOAA", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Neil_Jacobs&oldid=982065676, United States Under Secretaries of Commerce, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 5 October 2020, at 23:57.

“Scientific integrity is at the core of NOAA’s work and is essential for maintaining the public’s trust in the agency’s ability to provide accurate, thorough and timely science,” Mr. Smullen added.

She called that statement “contrary to the apolitical mission” of the science agency and described it as “the end result of events triggered by an external demand placed on Secretary Ross — specifically, a request from the White House to, in Secretary Ross’s words, ‘close the gap’ between President Trump’s statement and the NWS Birmingham tweet.”. We repeat, no impacts from Hurricane Dorian will be felt across Alabama.”, Five days later, Dr. Jacobs’ office issued an unsigned statement calling the Birmingham office’s Twitter posting “inconsistent with probabilities from the best forecast products available at the time.”. The report found White House pressure led to NOAA’s rebuke of forecasters who contradicted Mr. Trump’s inaccurate claim that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama. In 2017, Jacobs was nominated to serve as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction. That report did not address the actions of Secretary Ross or other officials at the Commerce Department. “Alabama will NOT see any impacts from Dorian,” they wrote.

Prior to serving in the Trump administration, Jacobs was the chief atmospheric scientist at the Panasonic Avionics Corporation in Lake Forest, California. Neil Jacobs violated the agency’s scientific integrity policy with a statement last year backing the president’s inaccurate claim that a hurricane was headed for Alabama, a panel found. In a separate response, Sean B. Brebbia, the department’s acting deputy general counsel for the Office of Special Projects, said the report’s lack of formal recommendations “shows that there were no major flaws in the Department’s handling of this situation.". The report found White House pressure led to NOAA’s rebuke of forecasters who contradicted Mr. Trump’s inaccurate claim that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama. It found a politicized process that investigators described as having “significant flaws” in which late-night demands from White House led to urgent intercontinental telephone calls, text messages and emails that culminated in a controversial NOAA statement criticizing the forecasters. Neil Jacobs violated the agency’s scientific integrity policy with a statement last year backing the president’s inaccurate claim that a hurricane was headed for Alabama, a panel found. An earlier forecast, which was out of date by the time of Mr. Trump’s post on Twitter, had shown a small chance that Alabama would experience moderate winds from Dorian. On September 6, the NOAA released a statement in support of Trump's claim, including Alabama in the list of states that Dorian was expected to reach.

On an Oval Office briefing with reporters, Trump later displayed a map including the altered projection that Dorian would make landfall in Alabama. “The American people have placed their trust in our national emergency response systems to keep them safe and informed during a crisis,” Representative Paul D. Tonko, Democrat of New York, said in a statement. On Sept. 4 Mr. Trump appeared in the Oval Office with an altered map of Hurricane Dorian’s path, increasing scrutiny of the president’s insistence that Alabama was in danger and lending the moniker “Sharpiegate” to the episode.

By Christopher Flavelle and Lisa Friedman.