A bipartisan group of U.S. senators and House Democrats sent letters Monday to the National Science Foundation demanding it halt plans to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $386 million ocean monitoring network, with House lawmakers accusing the agency of acting illegally by violating federal appropriations law.
The Ocean Observatories Initiative is a network of more than 900 sensors built at a cost of $386 million over the past decade. It tracks ocean circulation, marine ecosystems, climate change, and extreme weather, publishing data that has informed more than 500 scientific studies. The system was designed to operate for another 15 to 20 years.
The National Science Foundation directed the removal of most instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina, and Greenland by 2027. The agency described the move not as a cancellation but as a “descoping” aligned with a strategy to prioritize “evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies,” according to a June 3 statement from the NSF. The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget included a 55% cut to the agency.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who said he learned of the dismantling through news reports, called the decision “supreme stupidity and a violation of the fundamental distribution of powers in our Constitution.” He told the Associated Press: “This program is authorized, it’s funded, and for the administration to shut it down without direction from Congress violates that vision in which the people’s representatives decide what’s done and funded, and the executive branch executes that vision.”
Merkley and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) co-led a letter signed by eight other Democratic senators — Edward Markey, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, Sheldon Whitehouse, Chris Van Hollen, and Ron Wyden — urging the NSF to halt the dismantling and conduct a thorough review with input from the marine science community before further action.
“Eliminating most of this complex ocean monitoring system threatens the safety of our coastal communities while undermining our nation’s ability to monitor coastal environments, marine currents, and extreme weather events,” the senators wrote.
In a separate, sharper rebuke, Democrats from the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and the House Natural Resources Committee sent a joint letter demanding the agency “cease this expensive, destructive, and – crucially – illegal action at once.” The letter, led by Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Jared Huffman of California and signed by 23 Democratic members from each panel, cited a federal law requiring the NSF to notify House and Senate appropriations committees at least 30 days in advance of any planned decommissioning of agency-owned facilities or assets valued at more than $2.5 million. The House letter said no such notification had been transmitted.
“Instead of paying for the valuable insights that can be gleaned from the 10-years-and-counting continuous monitoring, taxpayers are now paying for research vessels to span the ocean dredging up hundreds of pieces of instrumentation. This is pathetic,” the House letter states. “In a time of strained resources, the NSF is wasting time and money to destroy its own scientific infrastructure.”
Merkley said his office is still confirming whether formal notification was given, but added: “If there was no notification, this would appear to be illegal.” He and Murkowski planned to file legislation on Monday that would prohibit the NSF from spending federal funds to decommission instruments until a thorough review has been completed.
Scientists are scheduled to begin pulling the first buoy off the Oregon coast on Tuesday.
In their letter, the senators cited the approaching El Niño – a periodic Pacific warming that disrupts weather patterns and supercharges marine heat waves – as evidence the cuts are particularly ill timed. “The loss of this deep-water observation system would threaten our ability to prepare for and monitor future El Niño events,” they wrote, warning coastal communities, fishermen, and emergency responders would be left without crucial information.
The ocean observatory cuts are part of a broader retreat from environmental and climate-related science under the Trump administration, which has moved to scale back research programs, reduce staffing at agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, and ease emissions regulations, according to the report.