"Scores of employees working to ensure offshore wind has a low impact on whales, birds, and other wildlife were cut in a major round of layoffs at the agency."
"The Trump administration axed hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the key agencies tasked with making sure offshore wind activities can coexist with wildlife, including whales.
The firings on Thursday affected more than 800 federal employees, The New York Times reported. Many of NOAA’s roughly 13,000 staff members famously provide the nation’s weather forecasting services. But dozens are climate and wildlife scientists who work to ensure offshore wind development complies with U.S. wildlife protection laws.
America already has one large-scale offshore wind farm in operation. Two more are expected to come online this year: the 800-megawatt Vineyard Wind 1 project in Massachusetts and the 715 MW Revolution Wind project in Rhode Island.
A biologist working on the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, which migrates annually from Canada to the Southeast through key wind farm areas, described getting a termination email Thursday at 3:45 p.m. ET. When she spoke with Canary Media five hours later, her access to NOAA’s email server had already been cut off."
Advertisement 
