The following is a transcript from this edition of Oregon On The Record.
From KLCC studios. This is Oregon on the record.
Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. Historically, it's been easy to attack federal workers and large federal contracts. The narrative of out of control spending coupled with civil service employment protections for un-productive workers has been a theme for decades. Sure, just like the private sector, no government agency is perfect, but if the Trump administration gets its way, we may be headed for a perfect storm of unregulated disasters and vital research getting shelved. Today on the show, you'll hear from my colleague at OPB and her reporting on how federal cuts are eviscerating jobs in Oregon and creating fear amongst that workforce, and you'll hear from the state climatologist who worries that cuts to organizations like the National Weather Service and NOAA won't just cost jobs, but could cost lives, property and even whole communities.
The Trump administration and the doge staff have been cleaving through the federal government, not with a scalpel, but with a chainsaw. In their wake, thousands of federal workers and billions in research funding lay in waste. Today on the show, we'll bring you an Oregon perspective on what it all means. First up, a report from OPB on what's happening around our state. Lauren Dake, the politics reporter over at OPB, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
Lauren Dake: Thank you for having me.
Michael Dunne: I enjoyed the story that you did on your website - "Oregon agencies begin to grapple with Trump's federal funding freeze." Why don't you give us a general overview of the story you did. And certainly it's on everybody's mind about how much money might be in jeopardy, how many programs, that are important here in the state of Oregon, might be at risk. Give us the overview of your story.
Lauren Dake: Well, just to take a step back here first, we all know President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are really working to downsize federal government. So I spent much of the last week just writing about, you know, what that could mean for Oregonians, and really, there are two ways it's going to impact the state. A lot of these federal agencies interact with our state agencies, they offer technical support, they partner on actual projects, like actual housing projects, for example, and then they also fund a lot of state agency work. Separate from that, a lot of these federal agencies have employees in Oregon, and they're seeing layoffs. And then within the state agency, relationships with the federal government, some state agencies, like the Oregon Department of Transportation, they have quite a bit of clarity about what it means for them as an agency that some of this funding is going to be frozen, at least in the short term. So, a lot of funding for them is on pause as they process to apply for new grant opportunities, for example, is on hold. Separate from the transportation issue, we recently learned that the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, known as HUD, is downsizing, and people are certainly worried how that could impact Oregon, as we know we're in the midst of a housing crisis. And I also touched upon layoffs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, where a lot of people at the Oregon coast are working as scientists and also funded by the federal government.
Michael Dunne: It's far reaching. And you talked to a lot of these agencies, you know, you just, you just named an alphabet soup of several of them. What were generally speaking, whether it was on the record or just off the record, what were some of the comments that you were hearing from people whose funding might be in jeopardy or their very job might be in jeopardy?
Lauren Dake: Well, one person I heard from was the director of the Hatfield Marine Science Center at the Oregon coast, and that is where some people were being laid off losing their jobs. And he said, you know that the work that the scientists do there has a huge economic impact on the state of Oregon. He said, You know, some of the scientists who lost their job work on pretty niche projects, and they work on them for years. I mean, this is their career. They're in the midst of these long, multi year projects, and they do all sorts of things. So they forecast the weather, They help people prepare for when wildfires are going to come, they forecast ocean temperatures. So people who help oyster farmers know when to protect their brood stock, and they're really integral in helping sure that the fish that we raise in Oregon is a sustainable economic driver. So those were some examples of people I heard from.
Michael Dunne: Maybe this is tough to sort out, but I mean, was it overwhelming? Was it anger? Was it frustration? Was it fear, or maybe an equal dash of all those in terms of how they were feeling?
Lauren Dake: You know, we've heard a lot from the federal government that these cuts were coming, and there has been uncertainty in the air for a long time. I think that it felt like for people who were losing their jobs, very scary. I mean, this is their livelihood, and, like I said, for some of these people, it's their career. They're in the midst of multi year research project where the skills aren't necessarily transferable to another job. You know, it's not particularly easy, if you've been studying oyster livelihoods for 12 years, to just go out and transfer those skills into another career path. And yeah. I mean, I think we're hearing from all levels, from housing, transportation to the Forest Service, that they're worried about, what the impacts of these job cuts could
Michael Dunne: We're talking with Lauren Dake. She's the politics reporter at OPB. A lot of this has happened extremely fast, and there's been a bit of, I guess the best word might be whiplash. Oh, we're going to cut this many and then all of a sudden you hear word that, oh, well, maybe we need to bring those folks back. Or here's a memo saying, do this. Oh, wait, disregard that. I guess. What I wanted to ask you is, was there some, I don't know, hope, or perhaps even, you know, kind of a an assumption that this is going to kind of shake out, and then perhaps when the dust clears that some of the funding that's in jeopardy now are already cut, might be restored?
Lauren Dake: I didn't hear a lot of hope in the moment, to be honest. I mean, I think that we did hear from people who said, of course, there's always room for agencies to be more efficient, to be streamlined and and some understanding that maybe some changes needed to be made. But really this felt like, I think, to a lot of people, almost just like flipping a switch, like too fast. It just there was no long strategic planning here. And people were really focused more on, you know, their immediate job, the immediate funding losses and and I think more than hope, I heard a lot of just, it felt more like chaos and uncertainty.
Michael Dunne: Another thing I'm wondering about, it seems as though, as part of this, as part of these federal cuts, there seems to be rhetoric coming out of the administration that - oh, you know, this is government. The work isn't important, this is bureaucracy, this is redundancy. This was all these things. And just wondering if some of the people you talk to, did they also feel like they they are either maybe at the best case misunderstood, or at the worst case that the federal government has no idea how important their work is, and is therefore doing these cuts willy-nilly, without taking a lot of time to realize, Oh, if you make cuts like in weather prediction that could have a ripple effect, that could be very, very negative and downright dangerous?
Lauren Dake: Yeah. I mean, especially on the housing front. I heard from the former head of the regional Portland office of HUD, who said some of the people who are losing their jobs are ironically, the people whose whose charge is to make sure that taxpayer dollars are being spent wisely without waste and fraud, which is, you know, what the Trump administration has said very clearly, they're trying to do is ensure dollars are being spent wisely. Some of the people whose job is to to have oversight over the grants that are spent and the housing money that comes through the state, those are the very people that are losing their jobs. And I do think it's also worth mentioning here that, you know, and we're just not talking about, is that the freezing of the grants is another piece of this, and that has also had real repercussions. There is a big restoration project underway in Milwaukie that's supposed to do all kinds of things, from earthquake resiliency to helping salmon and steelhead to creating this new bridge, and the federal funding for that is on pause. Another grant project that people were hoping to apply for would have prevented flooding on US Highway 101, or prevented rocks falling from I 84 so there's, you know, these real projects that are going to have to pivot and just start looking for funding elsewhere.
Michael Dunne: She's the OPB politics reporter, Lauren Dake. I'm sure that this will not be the last time you write about this. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about how these federal funding freezes and potential job cuts might be impacting Oregonians here. Thank you again, so much.
Lauren Dake: Thank you for having me.
Michael Dunne: Weather research and reporting is not just about letting us know if we need an umbrella tomorrow. It keeps planes and ships safe and helps dictate how commerce and society runs. We talk now with our state's chief climatologist, Larry O'Neill, Associate Professor at Oregon State University, and the state climatologist for Oregon. Thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
Larry O'Neill: Thank you for having me.
Michael Dunne: Let's start with this. Talk about what you do, and also talk about the work that people in your organization do.
Larry O'Neill: So for me, just very broadly, as the state climatologist for Oregon, I'm tasked with working with state and federal agencies and basically all Oregonians to bring better and more informed decisions around weather and climate, and so that includes how we observe it, how it's projected into the future. And also, as a climatologist, I function a little bit as like a historian of the weather, and that's very valuable for these purposes, because a lot of our decisions about t anything to do with weather or climate are informed by what has happened, you know, in the past, and so things like drought or extreme weather, extreme heat or cold, those are all things that that I study quite closely and can kind of and you'll be surprised with how, how much that impacts our everyday lives. More broadly, through our association with Oregon State University, we do a lot of research on a variety of things concerning weather and climate, how they impact us, from fisheries to precipitation, droughts, agriculture, the list goes on and on, but it's really wide ranging. And one of the really cool things that we do is we try to really see how this impacts society, impacts our economy, and also impacts our culture.
Michael Dunne: We've all seen this, massive shock to the system, with regard to whole departments being cleaved. A lot of workers in limbo about their jobs. What are you seeing and hearing regarding layoffs, especially with the departments and whatnot that you liaise with, that you work with?
Larry O'Neill: Yeah, so this happening more on the federal level and not as much on the state our state agencies, but the caveat is that the there's a lot of collaboration across agencies. So even though a state agency might not be losing personnel or funding, they do rely very heavily on the things that the many federal agencies provide in this context right now, both NOAA and the weather service and the Department of Agriculture, are being severely impacted. And so this is really impacting our work across, you know, across all sectors, both in public and private realm. And this is really inhibiting our ability to do our jobs. And there will be, very quickly, some very adverse impacts to everyday Oregonians, and then also to our economy as well.
For the Oregon Weather Service offices, it's something like they're short staffed by about 30 to 40% and so some immediate impacts we'll start to see is there, you know, there'll be less timely weather watches and warnings. There'll be degradations to our weather radar network and to the all the weather stations that they operate, and the forecast may start to degrade in accuracy. And there are a lot of so these the weather service information is used by a lot of different agencies. So this has been really interwoven, and it's really should be considered an essential public service. And some examples I can give are last week or two weeks ago, we had the ice and snowstorm throughout West New Oregon and Washington. That those warnings are issued is that there's a lot of response to emergency management agencies and other public utilities, you know, the electric companies and things like that, and they will pre-position resources in places to get ready for power outages so they can respond more quickly to it. Emergency management agencies will, you know, they'll go through their protocols to make sure roads are de iced, that, you know, roads are shut down if needed be, that emergency personnel are positioned in places that they can react quickly to things that happen, you know, bad things that happen during those events, and above that is that everyday Oregonians are given that information that, hey, there is an ice storm, so maybe we shouldn't travel. Or maybe, you know, a lot of school districts will close. One other more severe one that we are going to see a problem with is, you know, with the weather service, and actually with some of these other federal agencies that fight wildfires, is that they're losing a lot of personnel to be able to either fight the wildfires or to provide support for them. One thing the Weather Service does is they provide incident they provide meteorologists to big fires so that they can provide very timely forecasts and observations to Incident Command teams so that they could better fight wildfires.
Michael Dunne: We're talking with Larry O'Neill. He is an associate professor of Oregon State University and also the state climatologist for the state of Oregon. What does it do to the mood of someone such as yourself, but also the organizations that you work directly for or in collaboration with, when not only are people losing their jobs, but there's also, it really seems like there's this move to really devalue what you do?
Larry O'Neill: Yeah, yeah, to a certain extent, it does sink morale a little bit, you know, a lot of these different agencies, they do absolutely essential work, and really should be considered an essential public service, and should really be kind of exempt from some of these things. And you know, this idea that, you know, these, a lot of these programs are, you know, some, some sort of waste, fraud or abuse is, is really not accurate. And, you know, I think we can all agree that going after genuine waste, fraud, abuse, is a noteworthy goal. And we all want as efficient, you know, an efficient, you know, our taxpayer dollars to be used efficiently. And I really just want to get out there that these, you know, many of these programs are being caught up in this net. These programs, they're not wasteful, there provide an extreme benefit to the nation, and for really cheap cost, it's always amazing to hear how little these programs cost relative to the benefit they provide. And you know, the people who work for these, these agencies, you know, they're, they're really public servants, and they take, take it quite seriously that they're, you know, that they're here to help to provide an essential benefit to both the public and also to our economy and everything else.
Michael Dunne: Are we heading towards a point now where, like I said, things that we in the general population take for granted, won't work anymore? I'm looking at my phone right now, and there's a weather app, and I use it every single day. Are things that we're taking for granted that a government employee does? That we may be heading for a very uncertain future where those things are no longer either there or reliable?
Larry O'Neill: Yes. So with things that you know specifically around weather and, you know, the observing network we have, the people that we worked, that worked to, you know, provide the information to the public and try to mitigate impacts from extreme weather events, you know, you're right that we take it for granted because we don't necessarily notice them and how intertwined they are with society. It's much like how you go on a road trip on I-5 and you cross, you go 50 miles, and you cross like 30 bridges, and you don't even notice how critical and lucky you should be, or lucky you are that there is that sort of infrastructure in place, and it's so reliable that you do not think twice about going over the Willamette River on a bridge at 70 miles an hour with, you know, 60 other cars, yeah, and so reliable and things like that, and the weather service, and a lot of these other eight. Agencies have become something like that is that, you know, you just think that it will always be there. And that's, you know, it's become so reliable that they become a product as their success in such that a lot of other critical agencies and things that people do rely on it heavily. They think there will always be there. There will always be a warning if something bad is coming my way, for hurricanes coming or something like that, there'll be relatively accurate information, and that a lot of the other emergency management agencies, your fire departments, etc, will have that information, be able to respond in a timely manner. And that is something that the public sector, or, you know, private industry, cannot replicate so things like AccuWeather, or your apple weather app, or any of these smaller weather companies, they do not provide warnings and watches. They they're not obligated to provide timely information. A lot of these services are subscription services. And so if you don't have a tier two prescript subscription to it, you know, maybe you don't get good information or whatever. And so this is something, it can't be replicated. And this is something that's all across the federal agencies. A lot of the really critical services they provide you, you cannot replicate that.
Michael Dunne: He's the state climate climatologist for Oregon, and he is an associate professor at Oregon State University. Professor Larry O'Neal, thank you so much for talking with us.
Larry O'Neill: Thank you very much.
Michael Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon on the record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Next on the show, we'll take a break from the troubling Federal News and break a leg on stage. Actually, we'll take you behind the scenes of the Hult Center and learn what it takes to ensure that the show must go on. I'm Michael Dunne, and this has been Oregon on the record from KLCC, thanks for listening.
This transcript was produced with an AI service. It may contain errors.
