The Trump administration is pausing plans to dismantle a major federal ocean monitoring system after bipartisan opposition in Congress, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The National Science Foundation is expected to announce Thursday that it will halt efforts to remove the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $368 million network of underwater instruments that tracks coastal flooding, marine heat waves, ocean currents, and other climate-related conditions.
The agency plans to convene an expert panel to determine the program's future.
The reversal comes one day after the Senate unanimously approved a measure blocking the dismantling effort. The legislation was sponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Murkowski said shutting down the system would be particularly troubling as forecasters monitor the development of El Nino and its potential impact on global weather.
"This is all happening at a time when everybody's talking about El Nino and what that is going to bring in terms of the potential for extreme weather events," Murkowski said.
"This is not the time to be turning off one of our most valuable scientific assets," she added.
The NSF announced in May that it would begin removing instruments from sites off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina, and the North Atlantic, arguing the move would save roughly $48 million annually in operating costs.
Scientists have used data from the network for a decade, and the system's real-time data is also used by fishermen, meteorologists, and emergency managers.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, welcomed the administration's decision but vowed continued oversight.
"This pathetic scheme was illegal," Lofgren said in a statement Thursday.
"My oversight team and I will be following closely what NSF does next," she said.
Lofgren added that the agency's "next steps must be nothing short of replacing any of the instruments that have already been removed and ceasing all activities to descale until legitimate expert advice has been sought."
The Trump administration had previously sought to cut funding for the program, but Congress restored the money in each of the past two years.
It remains unclear whether any equipment has already been removed from the ocean.
The controversy also drew attention overseas.
Following the administration's announcement in May, European Union fisheries and oceans commissioner Costas Kadis warned that "extremely worrying signals are coming from the other side of the Atlantic" as the EU moved forward with its own investments in ocean observation systems.