A bipartisan coalition of senators and House Democrats moved Monday to stop the National Science Foundation from dismantling a vast ocean sensor network, with some lawmakers accusing the agency of acting illegally without proper congressional notification.
The Ocean Observatories Initiative spans more than 900 instruments deployed across coastal waters from Oregon to Greenland. Built at a cost of $386 million over the past decade, the system continuously tracks ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, and extreme weather patterns. The data flows freely to the public and has fueled over 500 scientific publications. The project was authorized to operate another 15 to 20 years.
The NSF ordered removal of most instruments by 2027, a move the agency framed as "descoping" to align with evolving priorities and emerging technologies. Scientists received no advance warning and no scientific review preceded the decision. The Trump administration's 2026 budget proposal included a 55 percent cut to the NSF overall.
Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, a Democrat, called the move "supreme stupidity" and a constitutional violation. "This program is authorized, it's funded, and for the administration to shut it down without direction from Congress violates that vision in which the people's representatives decide what's done and funded," he told the Associated Press.
Merkley and Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska led a letter signed by nine other Democratic senators including Elizabeth Warren and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and Ron Wyden of Oregon. The group demanded the NSF halt the dismantling and conduct a full review with input from the marine science community.
"Eliminating most of this complex ocean monitoring system threatens the safety of our coastal communities while undermining our nation's ability to monitor coastal environments, marine currents, and extreme weather events," the senators wrote.
House Democrats escalated the pressure. Representatives Zoe Lofgren and Jared Huffman, top Democrats on the science and natural resources committees respectively, led a joint letter from 23 Democratic members demanding the NSF "cease this expensive, destructive, and crucially illegal action at once."
The House letter cited a potential breach of federal appropriations law. The statute requires the NSF to notify both appropriations committees at least 30 days before decommissioning assets worth more than $2.5 million. No such notification was transmitted, the letter stated.
Merkley discovered the dismantling through news reports. "It was like the alarm bells just went off," he said. "None of us knew about this, and there didn't appear to have been any consultation or any scientific commission or stakeholders that were leading to this." His office is still verifying whether proper notification occurred, but he suggested the lack of notice could render the plan illegal.
The NSF responded in a June 3 statement that its decision drew from a 2025 National Academies report on the future of ocean science. "NSF remains committed to ocean science and will continue working with the scientific community on high-priority research objectives," the agency said.
Merkley and Murkowski planned to introduce legislation Monday to prohibit the NSF from spending federal funds on decommissioning until a thorough review is complete. Scientists were scheduled to remove the first buoy from the Oregon coast Tuesday, signaling the project moves forward despite the legislative pushback.
The senators highlighted the approaching El Niño cycle as evidence the cuts are poorly timed. "The loss of this deep-water observation system would threaten our ability to prepare for and monitor future El Niño events," they wrote, warning coastal communities, fishermen, and emergency responders would lose critical information during a period when Pacific warming disrupts weather patterns and intensifies marine heat waves.
House Democrats offered a scathing fiscal critique. "Instead of paying for the valuable insights that can be gleaned from the 10-years-and-counting continuous monitoring, taxpayers are now paying for research vessels to span the ocean dredging up hundreds of pieces of instrumentation. This is pathetic," their letter stated. "In a time of strained resources, the NSF is wasting time and money to destroy its own scientific infrastructure."
The ocean monitoring cuts reflect a broader pullback from environmental and climate research under the Trump administration, which has scaled back research programs, reduced staffing at agencies like NOAA and the EPA, and loosened emissions rules.
Author James Rodriguez: "A Republican senator joining Democrats to block a science agency's power grab should be a moment of constitutional clarity, but the fact that it even needs saying shows how far executive overreach has drifted."
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