University of Colorado offers to run NCAR if feds insist on restructuring

BOULDER — If the Trump administration insists on restructuring the Boulder-based National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado says it — along with several other public universities in the West — should be allowed to take over management of the weather-science institution.

“At a time when extreme weather, wildfire, drought, flooding, and geomagnetic disturbances are imposing increasing economic and national security risks, the nation depends on stable and integrated scientific infrastructure,” CU Boulder chancellor Justin Schwartz and vice chancellor Massimo Ruzzene wrote last week in a letter to National Science Foundation leaders.

Rather than relocate NCAR or sell off portions of the organization to for-profit entities, CU suggested the formation of “a complementary university-led consortium that would manage and expand capacity at NCAR.”

NCAR provides weather modeling, supercomputing and atmospheric research used by federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Leadership at the Boulder university “believes that NCAR is a uniquely valuable national asset that should remain intact. Splitting up NCAR resources and functions across organizations would be problematic, financially costly, and inefficient,” CU’s letter said. “Fragmenting NCAR would destabilize specialized scientific expertise, disrupt modeling, and weaken national predictive capacity. NCAR’s value goes well beyond the sum of its parts. Therefore, maintaining the United States’ world-leading position in atmospheric and Earth system science requires that NCAR continues to operate as a publicly managed, community-serving institution. Transferring its management to a for-profit organization or a mission-specific agency would risk undermining the open, community-driven model that has enabled its success.”

CU recommends to the NSF that the school be joined in the NCAR-management consortium by the University of Wyoming and the University of Oklahoma. 

“A focused consortium of a small number of research universities is well suited to managing a national center such as NCAR because it combines operational capability with clear governance and accountability. Leading research universities routinely manage large, complex scientific enterprises — including major federally funded facilities, advanced computing infrastructure, and interdisciplinary research centers — and have the administrative capacity, technical expertise, and workforce development programs needed to steward national scientific infrastructure. In addition, a university-led organization would fully leverage technology transfer and innovation ecosystems to accelerate deployment of solutions,” CU’s letter said. 

University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a Boulder-headquartered consortium of 129 universities, manages NCAR under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. UCAR sued the federal government this month over its attempts to dismantle NCAR, efforts that the plaintiff called a “campaign of retaliation” against Colorado after state officials refused to comply with federal pressure related to election administration and the prosecution of former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted in 2024 for her efforts to breach election equipment.

According to the lawsuit, tensions escalated after President Donald Trump publicly demanded Peters’ release and criticized Colorado’s vote-by-mail system.

When Colorado officials refused to release Peters or change election procedures, UCAR alleges that federal agencies began taking punitive actions against the state and institutions located within it.

Those actions included terminating federal funding programs, denying disaster relief and announcing plans to break up NCAR and relocate its activities outside Colorado, the lawsuit alleges.

UCAR argues that the federal government’s actions are unconstitutional and violate the Administrative Procedure Act.

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