The June-August summer season ended with a long-lasting heatwave that produced more than 2000 new daily high temperature records across the southern and central U.S., according to scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. The record heat helped make this the second warmest August and the 6th warmest summer on record for the contiguous U.S., based on preliminary data. At the end of August drought affected almost half of the contiguous U.S. The global surface temperature was 7th warmest on record for the June-August period.
The Climate of 2007
a thought or two:
It is revealing to note that the National Climatic Data Center is situated within the Department of Commerce [On October 3 1970, NOAA was created within the Dept of Commerce combining Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, Weather Bureau, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Environmental Data Service, National Oceanographic Data Center and the National Satellite Center.] and that the U.S. Department of Commerce is "the voice of business in government."
This was to be a temporary arrangement- initial proposals placed the NOAA within the Department of the Interior or in a newly-created Department of Natural Resources.
Nixon's Commerce Secretary Maurice Stans was able to convince Nixon to bring the new agency into the Department of Commerce- where it remains, 37 years later.
from A History of NOAA
Immediately after publication of Our Nation and the Sea, Congress responded by beginning deliberations on the creation of the new agency. The concept was also incorporated into President Nixon's Advisory Council on Executive Organization. This Council, appointed in 1969 and chaired by Ray L. Ash (Litton Industries), made a series of recommendations on re-structuring the executive branch.
One of those proposals was to replace the Department of Interior with a new Department of Natural Resources. One of the elements of the Department was to be a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which would combine some elements of the Department of Interior with the Environmental Science Services Administration (ESSA) of the Department of Commerce.
Then Secretary of Commerce, Maurice Stans, noting that ESSA would comprise more than two-thirds of this new Agency (some 10,000 employees and an estimated FY 1970 budget of approximately $200 million) countered with a proposal to, at least initially, consolidate and house NOAA within Commerce and transfer it to the proposed Department of Natural Resources at a later date.
Prior to the Stans' proposal, the Administration had been considering housing an interim organization in the Department of Interior. The logic of Secretary Stans' recommendation, possibly combined with some political tensions between the White House and Interior Secretary Hickel, led to a decision in favor of Commerce. Deliberations within the Executive Branch finally resulted in Reorganization Plan No. 4 of 1970 which was proposed in early July and became effective ninety days later in October 1970.
President Nixon had concurred with Secretary Stans and, incorporating elements from the Stratton Commission Report, the Ash Council recommendations, and Congressional deliberations, proposed that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration be created within the Department of Commerce.
How many of the current Republican Administration's politically motivated reorganizations will survive into the future?
-glassfrequency
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