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.
“Our legislation will reverse the Trump Administration’s reckless decision and restore this database so crucial to emergency preparedness and reducing costs of natural disasters,” Welch said in a statement. “This database has been absolutely essential in providing information about the cost of building back homes, businesses, and towns across the country after major weather disasters.”
A Trump administration official said in an email that NOAA ended the billion-dollar database project because of uncertainties and differences in how it estimated the cost of disasters. The project cost about $300,000 annually and required substantial staff hours, while the data "serves no decisional purpose and remains purely informational at best."
"This data is often used to advance the narrative that climate change is making disasters more frequent, more extreme, and more costly, without taking into account other factors such as increased development on flood plains or other weather-impacted spots or the cyclical nature of the climate in various regions," the official said.
More than a dozen senators are co-sponsoring the bill, including Angela Alsobrooks and Chris Van Hollen of represent Maryland, where NOAA is headquartered.
The bill most likely stands a slim chance as stand-alone legislation; Republicans control the Senate, and none of them are listed as co-sponsors.
There are growing concerns and protests against funding cuts at NOAA and other climate-focused agencies, including the departure of a key scientist leading work on NOAA’s billion-dollar data, Adam Smith. He left the agency in May over plans to shutter the database. He has been hired by Climate Central, a nonprofit research group focused on climate change, to re-develop the work he was doing at NOAA.
Tom Di Liberto, a spokesman for Climate Central, said the organization does not comment on policy or legislation that is under consideration.
"We look forward to continuing to develop a billion dollar disaster dataset in-house," Di Liberto said in an email.
From 1980 to 2024, the NOAA database tallied 403 billion-dollar disasters. Last year, NOAA counted 27 billion-dollar disasters, which cost about $182.7 billion. The year had the second most billion-dollar disasters in the report’s history, after 2023.
The analyses captured the “direct costs” of disasters, like damage to buildings, infrastructure and crops. But it didn’t factor in other considerations, like loss of life, the health-related costs of disasters or the economic losses to “natural capital” like forests or wetlands, according to a report this year from the Congressional Research Service.
NOAA’s analysis adjusted its data each year to account for inflation.
Previous reports noted that the number and cost of weather and climate disasters had increased over time because development in areas prone to flooding, wildfires and other natural disasters was increasing the number of assets at risk.
In addition, extreme weather is becoming more frequent, according to climate scientists. Climate change is driving temperatures higher, increasing the risk of heat waves, extreme precipitation and rapidly intensifying hurricanes.
NOAA used private and public data to make its estimates, including data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Agriculture Department and the National Interagency Fire Center, as well as private insurance information.
Like NOAA, those agencies have been affected by cuts.
