September 12: On This Day In 2020
Today marks yet another chapter in the book of disastrous Trump staffing decisions. This guy had a remarkably awful career in government over the span of just four months.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issues reports which help Americans understand the impacts of weather and climate change across the globe. NOAA relies on extraordinary, massive collections of data -- and world-class supercomputers -- to analyze the complex factors influencing short and long-term weather. Their scientists are generally among the most-respected experts in their fields.
Act I
So does it make sense to you that Trump would appoint to a key NOAA post a renowned science denier? Doesn’t make sense to us either. But, that’s exactly what the Trump Administration did OTDI 2020 when they elevated David Legates, a professor who was infamous in the scientific community for spending much of his career questioning and denying basic tenets of climate science.
Act II
Just two months later, after losing the 2020 election, Trump gave him a new promotion – to become the head of a 13-agency task force. It seemed they wanted Legares in there specifically so he could quash a new science-led climate assessment that contradicted Trump's personal feelings about climate change.
(Trump, of course, believed that Obama didn’t have a right to appoint a new Supreme Court justice in 2016 because there was going to be an election coming up nine months later; notice, again, in this case Trump elevated Legates after he’d already lost.)
Act III
By January, with just five days left in his term, even the Trump Administration had had enough of the guy. So, they “reassigned” him after they caught him issuing unauthorized research reports utilizing the official presidential seal.
Get Weirder; Dive Deeper
NPR reports on appointment of Legates at NOAA
Science.org report on Legates and the efforts to quash the new climate assessment
WaPo reports on his post-election move to the new position
NYT's report on draft of new climate assessment under Biden/Harris
Delaware Online has the coda
On This Day In The Trump Administration: Trump appoints science denier to key NOAA post