March 14, 2011 11:21 PM UTC

Wait, Tsunami Warnings Cost Money?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Notwithstanding the excellent case the tragic news from Japan this weekend makes for living at 5,000 feet above sea level, the New York Times reports from Washington:

A spending bill passed by House Republicans last month could affect the nation’s tsunami monitoring system, which issued warnings in response to last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, opponents warn. The plan cuts $126 million from the 2011 budget of the National Weather Service, which runs the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii.

The cuts amount to about 15 percent of the National Weather Service’s $900 million budget, but putting them into effect now would require the agency to reduce spending by nearly 30 percent through the rest of the year. Democrats seized on the cuts as an illustration of Republican recklessness in pursuit of reduced federal spending.

“Earthquakes and all weather events happen anywhere, anytime, putting everyone at risk,” Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, said in a statement. “Congress must heed this cruel wake-up call and stop proposed cuts to essential N.O.A.A. prediction programs that would endanger lives.”

…[E]ven were the tsunami warning system maintained, the Republican spending cuts would result in significant reductions in spending on weather monitoring, reducing the reliability of such forecasts. One proposed cost-saving measure would reduce the deployment of weather balloons by half.

We’re not vulnerable to tsunamis in Colorado, but we do have lots of NOAA employees.

However it works out, for at least awhile, the usual Grover Norquist jokes about “drowning the government in a bathtub” will likely fall under the heading of poor taste.