Transcription: Senator Maria Cantwell in

The next is the transcription of an interview with Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, who issued himself in “facing the nation with Margaret Brennan” on July 13, 2025.

Margaret Brennan: And now we are accompanied by Senator Maria Cantwell, who is the main Democrat in the Commerce Committee, which has a supervision of the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration, or NOAA, and the National Meteorological Service. Good morning, senator.

Sen. Maria Cantwell: Good morning.

Margaret Brennan: These agencies are being carefully considered at this time, as you know. Just this morning in Texas, we are seeing that the National Meteorological Service issues another sudden flood warning for that same part of the center of Texas, Kerville. In fact, the victims’ search had to be detained due to this warning. There has been so much scrutiny of what went wrong or what else could have been done. In your opinion, at the federal level, is the National Meteorological Service doing everything you should be doing?

Sen. Cantwell: Do you mean this moment?

Margaret Brennan: Yes, did it work as planned?

Sen. Cantwell: Well, I think, what’s happening here, and we have to pause. I’m glad of the president and the first lady, and there are definitely many things that are said, but what is the real question, what can we do to improve the time prognosis of this nation? Use science, use better assets, to make a unique investment in life to update the system so that we could have given people in Kerville more time, more warning and the same for tornadoes, hurricanes and fires. So, I think what we are learning is that in this last week, we have had four events that have broken huge records for weather and precipitation. That means more floods. So now we know we have a more extreme climate. What is our answer to that to make sure we never have another Kerville?

Margaret Brennan: Then, the most extreme climate, there is more stress in the system. At the same time, the Trump administration has at least proposing that they will make a budget cut of 27% to NOAA. However, the Secretary of Commerce said he will not touch the public forecast. However, we have seen, on the democratic side, the leader Schumer says that there should be an investigation into whether the staff short, for example, led or contributed to Texas disaster. Are the Democrats too fast here to blame politics?

Sen. Cantwell: You know, I liked you—

Margaret Brennan: You are not.

Sen. Cantwell: I liked your opening story about Gao’s report and I saw what my colleagues presented. You know, I was on that call the day the president was shot and a shot and …

Margaret Brennan: You are talking about Butler.

Sen. Cantwell: In Butler. And basically I asked the question on the call that day, did they use drones? There was a dead silence. So now I’m glad that Gao, an arm respected from our organization and government, is producing a report. Do you want the same type of report a year within now? Yes. What we want is to make sure that we understand what happened, but to blame the games will not bring people back. But the press has every right to ask difficult questions to try to find out what we should do to improve the weather forecast, for …

Margaret Brennan: Well, I ask because the DNC and the Democratic leaders have said things like this, you are talking about a specific, specific, specific.

Sen. Cantwell: Yes, yes.

Margaret Brennan: -idioma -Policy. That is not what comes from leadership. That’s why I ask.

Sen. Cantwell: Well, the important thing is that in this particular storm, what we had are very warm surface conditions in the Gulf. We had, that meant that the storm was going to move more slowly. It meant that I was going to leave more precipitation. We, as a nation, should not be second in Europe or anyone to be a nation ready for the weather. We should be the most intelligent government in the world, use technology, analyze the data and establish a forecast system that provides people with that type of system. Then, recently, in the west, that work of NOAA and the time forecast system and the laboratories helped give information on how to get out of the path of a tornado two hours in advance, not 15 minutes or 13 minutes, but two hours. And I will send a letter to the president making five recommendations, and some of them are very bipartisan recommendations, things that Senator Cruz or Wicker or Moran support, which basically do this a unique investment in life. Therefore, we have the best information, the best analysis, the best people to interpret it in the field for local responders and help Americans get out of the way of a storm.

Margaret Brennan: then, at that point, in its recommendations, we are still seeing a proposed budget cut, we are still seeing staff cuts, and the administration is talking about privatizing parts of NOAA.

Sen. Cantwell: Yes.

Margaret Brennan: Can you do all that and then achieve the result you are asking for?

Sen. Cantwell: Well, I think that is what we are going to try to get attention. The Senator Cruz and I admitted to update our Doppler radar system. That is having a system that gives you more information about what is likely to make the storm. It is one of the reasons why Europe is a bit ahead of us, and listens to its prognosis system, it is because they make more analysis of data that give them greater predictability. I think we are in the same place. Let’s get the best system in the country. The Wicker Senator and I supported these oceanic buoys. Those buoys tell you the temperature of the ocean. Why was it so important in this case? Because I needed to know, that temperature tells him how, how much that storm could move or maintain in a pattern, and how much precipitation could advance and turn in a community. So–

Margaret Brennan: And do you think this has to happen at the federal level? It is not a state -directed response in that way, or prostication rather.

Sen. Cantwell: Well, this is: this is a national responsibility. And I think of, you know, if you want your snow to get worse, yes, you want the mayor to appear, but if you want precise weather information, it is not community to community. It is a national system, and we share it with local people and help them respond better. And today, my state has a red flag that warns right on the Seattle Times, telling the entire state very bad conditions today, very bad temperatures, very high winds. That means a fire could be explosive.

Margaret Brennan: So much warning in advance. Let’s talk more about this on the other side of this break. Stay with us, if you want. We will return.

[COMMERCIAL BREAK]

Margaret Brennan: Welcome again to face the nation. We return to our conversation with Senator Maria Cantwell. Only to resume where we leave it when talking about how, at least, warning the most before possible disasters related to the climate. You know, there is still no Chief of NOAA confirmed by the Senate. You checked a hearing on the committee very recently. And the nominee, Dr. Jacobs, told him that the main mission will still be kept under this administration. Do you feel comfortable in the potential leadership of Dr. Jacobs? Will you vote to confirm it?

Sen. Cantwell: I haven’t decided yet, I have to do. For registration, he said some very positive things that an organic act of NOAA wanted. He wants the meteorological law that Senator Cruz and I have proposed. He said he wanted other resources there. I have to deepen exactly what he thinks will happen in the scientific mission and how we are going to preserve that, because the nation is now spending billions of dollars in storms. In fact, Susan Collins and I had a gao report in the last year that showed how much we spent on the impacts of the climate and the extreme climate. So, the point is that it is a tiny investment to maintain some of the scientific research functions in NOAA to help them better prepare people for hurricanes, for tornadoes and floods. It is a tiny amount of money. So, we want to be smarter about it, and the more I can get the people and resources on the path of a storm, the more it can predict what could happen, the better prepared we will be, and that will help us save lives and certainly save dollars. So I want, I want to get from him exactly how he thinks this will work. But he did say some positive things about the structure. People do not understand, but NOAA is really a scientific arm of our government to do all this for the nation and the weather service. So literally they have to finance hurricane hunters, those are the planes that fly to a hurricane, and we have helped support that in the past in a bipartisan way. Basically, they finance these, the research that really, I think that Europe is at this time, simply make a better analysis of the data. They are not doing anything extraordinarily better than us. They probably just spend more time. And if that is a few million dollars and the supercomputing time, we should do it.

Margaret Brennan: speaking of Europe and the commercial conversation that the president has renewed just on Saturday, saying that he will put tariffs to the European Union, and will also upload them to Mexico, for August 1. You know, there has been a lot of concern about what I would do to the economy. The stock market seems to be deactivating the impact. In his state, Boeing, a great taxpayer to the economy of the United States, is headquarters there. In fact, they had a 27% increase in aircraft deliveries in June. Eight to China, because there has been this type of cooling with them. If that is in the background, are you less concerned about the commercial war?

Sen. Cantwell: Oh no, no, no, no. I am very worried that we are in an endless summer of commercial war, rates and chaos. I am very worried about this. It is affecting our businesses. We are one of the most dependent states of the nation’s trade, but it is affecting our ports. I mean, literally, trade with our ports is, you know, at least 20% lower during the past year, the month of May of the previous year. The Washington Companies Association is launching a study that they have planned with us, and its membership, 75% of them have said that they are already affected by tariffs. About–

Margaret Brennan: Those are medium -sized businesses or …

Sen. Cantwell: Yes, there are probably a few as big. But they are saying that 30% of them say that costs have basically increased costs in some way, and 15% of them said we have fired people or that they plan to fire people in the future. So, for us, we are seeing the economic impacts of this and our competitiveness, although people have planned to store a lot of material, you know, obtain supplies, try to prepare for this, this up and down, you know, you really have a cost effect.

Margaret Brennan: So it seems that you are saying at this time, we have not yet seen that the economic impact has completely felt. So, for the market to be betting that the president will go back or that this is not as harmful as some predicted, he is saying that he only waits and see.

Sen. Cantwell: Oh, I think the market has been very clear. When he says he advances with tariffs, they don’t like it, and you see a fall and … when he pauses, but that is not the problem. The problem is small businesses. We have, you know, 75% of the jobs They are created by small businesses, and those small businesses do not have the same flexibility that a large company does to get out of the path of a supply chain that is now interrupted. Or, you know, there was a Japanese company, a large supplier for US car manufacturers. UU., Which closed. So now we have aluminum prices that affect everything, from our transport infrastructure investment to, you know, I heard on Amazon that tea teteras rose, you know, as 40 or 50% in cost. Therefore, it is affecting all kinds of products. And, you know, while we may not see all that at this time, I guarantee that, as the results of the next quarter enter, I am sure we will see some effects of these rates. So we use our alliances to create again. You know, why are we not working with Europe at this time to counteract, you know, Russia, instead of being in a discussion with them about some of these problems that could be solved? In a different way.

Margaret Brennan: We will see if an agreement is reached before August 1. Senator, thank you very much–

Sen. Cantwell: Thank you.

Margaret Brennan: -To join us today. We will return more to the nation.

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