A bill to establish a meteorological office failed to make it out of the Senate Government Operations, Veterans Affairs, and Consumer Protection Committee on Tuesday after lawmakers voiced concerns over costs.
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ray Fonseca, calls for the office to be housed within the V.I. Territorial Emergency Management Agency and to monitor weather conditions, provide accurate forecasts, establish a Doppler radar station, “and enhance preparedness and response to weather-related hazards in the territory.”
Fonseca said the territory faces a number of weather-related threats. “When storms come close to our shores — as Hurricane Dorian did in 2019 — we cannot afford to wait even three hours for updates from San Juan or from the National Weather Service in the continental United States,” he said. “This bill gives the USVI the capacity to track and to generate and to interpret weather data for ourselves.”
Fonseca added that the Trump administration’s deep cuts to the National Weather Service and its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have already put the U.S. Virgin Islands at risk as it heads into the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season. The administration also abruptly fired Acting FEMA Director Cameron Hamilton days after he testified that the agency — which Trump has criticized repeatedly — shouldn’t be completely shuttered.
“The Trump administration proposed 30-percent reduction in NOAA’s six billion dollar budget has already led to the loss of over two thousand employees since January, including meteorologists and data scientists critical to weather forecasting,” he said, adding a moment later that the cuts “are being felt nationwide.”
Lawmakers also heard from Sanaa Burke, a meteorology and climate science student at the University of Delaware. Burke said she was recently accepted by Pennsylvania State University’s graduate program in meteorology and atmospheric science.
“The need for a local meteorological office is no longer a matter of convenience or academic interest. It is a necessity,” she said. “The Virgin Islands continue to face the escalating impacts of climate change, including increasingly powerful hurricanes, erratic rainfall, extended drought periods, and rising sea levels.”
Burke said these “active realities” threaten the territory’s infrastructure, food supply, public safety, and economic stability.
Assistant VITEMA Director Ovid Williams testified that the office would enhance the agency’s already “strong relationship” with the NWS branch in San Juan.
“One of the greatest benefits of adding a meteorologist to the VITEMA team is to provide the much-needed technical input to San Juan National Weather Service for timely notification of weather conditions to St. Croix, St. Thomas, St. John and Water Island based on the input from local observations in the territory,” he said. That input, he said, would allow severe weather warnings to be issued earlier over multiple emergency alert systems.
Williams noted issues with establishing a Doppler radar station on St. Croix because the construction of VITEMA’s Hermon Hill Emergency Operations Center “is several years behind schedule and is currently only at 30 percent design.”
“VITEMA cannot provide an anticipated date of availability and recommends partnership with NWS for identification of alternate locations on St. Thomas or St. Croix,” he said. Separately, the St. Croix Coastal Zone Management Commission voted late Tuesday to grant VITEMA’s federal consistency determination for the Hermon Hill facility.
Lawmakers expressed reservations about spending money to stand up a new office when the territory already receives free weather alerts and forecasts from San Juan. Sen. Alma Francis Heyliger said she couldn’t “in good conscience” support the measure given the territory’s existing fiscal challenges.
“You’re potentially asking me as a legislator to now come up with millions of dollars to not only set this up, but also roughly about $1.5-2.5 million on an annual basis to maintain something we’re already getting for free,” she said. “Now, I understand the localized aspect of it, but when we get to a point that we need to focus on that — I think maybe in the future, if we have the necessary resources, we can do that.”
Sen. Franklin Johnson asked Williams directly if VITEMA had the budget to facilitate the office.
“At this current funding ceiling? No sir,” Williams said.
Lawmakers voted to hold the bill in committee for further review and consideration.
Earlier Tuesday, the committee approved two resolutions honoring Sonya Hough, creator of the famed Crucian Hook bracelet, and funeral director James Sasso for his 17 years of service in the mortuary and funeral industry.
