Trump Administration Reverses Ocean Observatory Shutdown After Congress Intervenes

The Trump administration has reversed its plan to dismantle the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a network of 900+ instruments monitoring oceans across the Pacific and Atlantic. Lawmakers opposed the closure before the reversal occurred. The OOI provides continuous ocean data essential for climate research; decommissioning would have destroyed irreplaceable infrastructure worth hundreds of millions of dollars and decades of accumulated measurements that cannot be quickly reconstructed.