Trump moves to close facility that helps track planet-warming pollution

The Trump administration is planning to cancel its lease at a government laboratory in Hawaii, a site where scientists support key observations of surging greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, according to a list obtained by Democratic members of Congress and shared with the Washington Post.

The Global Monitoring Laboratory in Hilo, Hawaii, is on a list of dozens of National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration facilities whose leases are set to expire later this year. The lab is connected to the Mauna Loa Observatory, where scientists gather data from atop a volcano to produce the famed Keeling Curve, a chart on the daily status of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. The observatory itself is not on the list of potential closures, but staff in the Hilo lab work to maintain it, according to the lab’s website.

Data collected from the observatory has shown global carbon dioxide levels – the most significant driver behind record planetary warming – are rising faster than previously recorded. Trump has been dismissive of that data and the consensus around climate change, and his allies who wrote the policy playbook Project 2025 proposed dismantling NOAA, calling it a source of climate alarmism.

The Hawaii lab is one of several NOAA facilities on the list whose lease termination has not been previously reported, as the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service announce massive cuts to government real estate and personnel.

“The building lease issue is in flux, so there’s nothing we can tell you at this time,” NOAA spokesman Theo Stein said in an email, referring The Post to the General Services Administration. GSA officials said in a statement the office is reviewing options to optimize spaces used and lease terms.

“A component of our space consolidation plan will be the termination of many soft term leases,” the statement said. “To the extent these terminations affect public facing facilities and/or existing tenants, we are working with our agency partners to secure suitable alternative space.”

The facilities are the focus of a letter that House Democrats sent to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, whose department oversees NOAA, requesting a full picture of any NOAA facility closures the administration is planning.

“NOAA provides critical information about extreme weather and coastal hazards, manages fisheries, conserves coastal and marine resources, and protects American fishermen and consumers,” the members wrote. “Closing field facilities will compromise NOAA’s ability to provide these services and damage the local communities and economies that rely on them.”

The letter was signed by Democratic Reps. Jared Huffman (California), Zoe Lofgren (California), Maxine Dexter (Oregon) and Gabe Amo (Rhode Island).

Other facilities on the list include nearly two dozen field offices of the National Marine Fisheries Service, which oversees fishing industries to ensure safety and sustainability; offices overseeing the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Washington state.

National Weather Service facilities on the closure list include its western regional headquarters in Salem. Previously reported planned lease cancellations for key Weather Service facilities in Oklahoma and Maryland also appeared on the list.

Data collected from Mauna Loa have been key to human understanding of global climate change since Charles David Keeling started recording atmospheric concentrations of CO2 atop the volcano in the late 1950s, the first known effort to measure the planet-warming gas over the long term.

A chart of those observations, now known as the Keeling Curve, is considered among the most reliable and sound data on greenhouse gas concentrations because the Mauna Loa Observatory is so far from the influences of any major pollution sources. The observatory is about 35 miles away from the Global Monitoring Laboratory in Hilo, whose lease is set to expire Aug. 31, according to the list of terminations. A staff of eight people works there to maintain the observatory, according to the lab’s website.