
President Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, and Sen. John Cornyn arrived in San Antonio on Friday to visit Kerrville following devastating floods over the Fourth of July weekend. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images)
Sen. Ted Cruz inserted language into President Trump’s budget bill cutting $150 million in funding for weather forecast improvements.
Days before a flash flood surged through Central Texas, killing over 130 people, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn voted to cut funding for weather forecast research, with Cruz authoring the language behind the cuts.
The flood, which devastated Kerr County on July 4, has left Texans trying to make sense of how this tragedy occurred, and if it could have been prevented.
While there’s been no shortage of finger-pointing and debate around who’s at fault for forecasters’ failure to accurately predict the intensity of the rain and local and federal officials’ slow responses to the flood, Cruz in particular has been under the microscope.
He and Cornyn both proved decisive in passing President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill, which passed the Senate in a 51-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance serving as the tie-breaking vote. Both Republicans voted to pass the bill, which includes the closure of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and cuts to grant funding to study how the climate is impacting weather systems. Trump signed it into law just hours before the flood.
But Cruz also inserted language into the legislation, cutting $150 million in funding meant to “accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public,” around weather forecasting, according to a recent bill analysis from The Guardian.
Following the flood, Cruz emphasized the need for Texas to be proactive, but said there was a time and place for “trying to finger-point at political opponents.”
“That’s not the time for this,” Cruz said during an interview with CBS. “The time for this is to come together and support each other. But we should also have a serious examination of what steps can be put in place in terms of early warning and being proactive.”
Trump and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott took a similar approach, calling anyone who questions the readiness and response of both Kerr County and the Federal Emergency Management Agency “evil” and “losers.”
Attention turns to National Weather Service understaffing
On the other side of the aisle, some Democrats, including Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), have asked if Trump administration staffing cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service earlier this year may have hindered forecasters’ ability to predict how much rain was coming and coordinate timely responses with local emergency management officials.
Earlier this year, nearly 600 employees were laid off at the National Weather Service as part of Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE initiatives, resulting in vacancies at 40% of weather forecasting offices across the country.
“For months, I have been sounding the alarm about the danger to Central Texans from the Trump staffing cuts and hiring freeze at the National Weather Service and NOAA,” said US Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) in a press release. “The Administration has been unresponsive to my repeated attempts to secure information about the extent of the harm it has caused to our local NWS office.”
“Without complete and accurate information about what really occurred last week at NWS, we cannot prevent future catastrophes, like the loss of lives in the recent Kerr County flooding, which is causing such extraordinary pain to so many families,” Doggett said.
In San Antonio, which covers areas affected by the floods, a warning coordination meteorologist position—who plays a role in communication coordination between forecasters, emergency response, and the public—was vacant.
“ We have 26 spots in Texas, and six are currently unfilled, said State Rep. Mihaela Plesa (D-Dallas) during a July 10 town hall. “These are critical spots. Senior Meteorologist sounds important. Another spot that’s vacant is a warning communications meteorologist, sounds like we might have needed that position. So these are positions that I think we need to fill as soon as possible, that would’ve helped prevent some of this tragedy or would have helped get communications out earlier.
NWS officials are defending themselves amid the scrutiny, telling NBC News that warnings issued in the run-up to the flooding were “about as timely and accurate as could be expected with the weather data available in real time.”
Trump also rejected the idea of investigating whether NWS cuts contributed to the flood’s devastating death toll.
But Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-San Antonio) recently told CNN that an investigation should be carried out to determine if the previous job cuts played a role in the flood zone not being properly prepared.
And during a press conference on July 8 in Kerr County, Gov. Greg Abbott said the special legislative session that starts July 21 will address the state’s natural disaster readiness and response, and that committees are being formed to investigate how this tragedy occurred.
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