Senate Democrats want to revive a NOAA database that tracked billion-dollar natural disasters

Senate Democrats are seeking to revive a database that had tracked billion-dollar climate and weather disasters for decades until the Trump administration retired it in May.

Senate Democrats are seeking to revive a database that had tracked billion-dollar climate and weather disasters for decades until the Trump administration retired it in May.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had kept a database of disasters that exceeded $1 billion in damage in the United States since 1980, but it halted the project this spring as the Trump administration cut back climate science research at government agencies.

The database, and annual reports drawn from it, offered useful illustrations of how climate change is shifting patterns of extreme weather at the same time people are increasingly moving into areas prone to disasters like flooding and wildfires. Lawmakers used the reports in disaster funding decisions and for public awareness of the costs of natural disasters.

In May, a NOAA spokesperson told NBC News the decision to end the database was “in alignment with evolving priorities and staffing changes.”

Senate Democrats, led by Peter Welch of Vermont, introduced a bill last Thursday that would require NOAA to restore the database and update it at least twice a year with a new accounting of billion-dollar disasters using much the same methodology it used in the past. Congress determines NOAA's budget and can outline the executive branch agency's duties.