Even as Donald Trump’s campaign has said it had no part in Project 2025, it’s widely seen as a blueprint for a possible second Trump administration. Private weather companies have not endorsed the calls for “commercializing” Weather Service data. Still, as the prospects of a second Trump presidency rise, meteorologists and climate scientists are voicing concern over what these proposals would mean for the millions of people they are working to inform and protect.

During Trump’s term, scientists said they were sidelined, muted or forced out by the hundreds and raised concerns that the administration misrepresented their research on the coronavirus and reproduction — as well as on hurricane forecasting, environmental advocates said.

“It does worry me what the future will hold” for staff at NOAA and the Weather Service, said JoAnn Becker, president of the National Weather Service Employees Organization. The union represents 4,000 workers at those agencies.

“There’s a lot of questions and no answers yet,” Becker said. “We just want to do our work protecting lives and property no matter who is president.”

Government agencies, including NOAA and the Environmental Protection Agency, have for months been preparing for the possibility that Trump will return to the White House by strengthening safeguards around scientific integrity and job security.

In a 2019 incident that became known as Sharpiegate, Trump used a marker to incorrectly suggest Hurricane Dorian could impact Alabama — a scandal that underscored the potential damaging impacts of political meddling. An investigation later found political influence led NOAA to release a statement improperly backing Trump, and ultimately undermining its own forecast. Some have looked to such clues from Trump’s four years in the White House to try to glean what may come in a second term.

Now, some scientists’ concerns stem from Project 2025, a 900-page document drafted by right-wing policy experts and former Trump officials. It calls for breaking up NOAA, whose climate research it calls “harmful to future U.S. prosperity.” It suggests the Weather Service should “fully commercialize its forecasting operations,” because its data is already used widely by private companies.

The report bases that proposal on an assertion that “forecasts and warnings provided by the private companies are more reliable than those provided by the NWS.” The report cites a consultant report that analyzed forecast accuracy and found the Weather Service ranked behind private-sector meteorologists, who use government-funded observations to inform predictions shared via TV and radio stations, weather websites and smartphone apps.

That includes outlets such as AccuWeather, the Weather Channel and Weather Underground — channels that help the Weather Service distribute its severe weather watches and warnings to a wider audience.

But it was not immediately clear what it might mean for the Weather Service to run more like a business. The agency tracks data on everything from land and sea temperatures, precipitation and atmospheric conditions.

A Project 2025 spokeswoman declined to make Thomas Gilman, who wrote the report’s recommendations for NOAA and the Weather Service, available for comment. Gilman served in the Trump administration as chief financial officer of the Commerce Department, which is the cabinet-level parent agency of NOAA and the Weather Service.

Weather Service spokeswoman Susan Buchanan said the agency does not comment on “speculation” over how a future administration could change its operations.

So far, some in the weather industry oppose the idea.

AccuWeather chief executive Steven R. Smith said NOAA’s “foundational data” helps inform AccuWeather’s own forecasting software, artificial intelligence and meteorologists, and that “it has never been our goal to take over the provision of all weather information.”

Smith said the company “does not agree with the view … that the National Weather Service should fully commercialize its operations.”

Whether Trump agrees is not clear.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said the former president “has nothing to do with Project 2025” and pointed to the Republican Party’s official platform. The platform makes no mention of weather or climate, and Cheung did not respond to further questions about the campaign’s position on NOAA or the Weather Service.

Some former Trump administration officials say they don’t share Project 2025’s visions for federal weather agencies, nor would they expect Trump to embrace them during a second term.

“There is 0% chance that anything in Project 2025 related to NOAA or weather will ever be considered or implemented,” Ryan Maue, a meteorologist who briefly served as NOAA’s chief scientist under Trump, wrote on X.

Stuart Levenbach, who served as NOAA chief of staff under Trump, said the administration made no efforts to privatize the Weather Service, though it did pursue increased funding for buying weather data generated by private-sector companies, including data on ocean surface winds, space weather and Earth’s atmosphere.

Under Trump, NOAA also worked to combat overfishing and other harms caused by Chinese fishing operations, speed up permitting processes that consider endangered species impacts and streamline the licensing processes for commercial satellites, Levenbach noted in a 2021 farewell letter to agency staff that he shared with The Washington Post.

Trump’s initial pick to lead NOAA was former AccuWeather CEO Barry Myers, though the Senate never confirmed his appointment and he withdrew it two years later.

While Myers never joined the agency, former NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service deputy director Andrew Rosenberg said the appointment suggests a more commercial approach to weather forecasting may have always been in the Trump playbook.

But Maue and Levenbach pointed to an alternate proposal floated by Republicans in Congress and supported by former NOAA officials who served during Republican administrations. They want to separate NOAA from the Commerce Department and develop it into an independent agency within the executive branch.

The idea was the subject of a House bill and hearing last year. Such independence could have prevented Sharpiegate, for example, Neil Jacobs, the acting NOAA administrator at the time, told a House committee last year.

The “disparate goals” of the Commerce Department and NOAA “have had a demonstrably adverse impact” on the scientific agency, Levenbach and retired Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, another top NOAA official under Trump, wrote in an opinion column in the Hill last year.

“An independent NOAA will ensure that America will better weather the storms in our future,” they wrote.

But others have expressed concern that — though NOAA could benefit from more resources and may not be a logical fit within Commerce — making the agency stand alone could remove layers of bureaucracy that ultimately insulate it from politics.

“You make NOAA separate, it’s a tiny little agency and [it becomes] subject to political whims both on the Hill and in any given administration,” Rosenberg said.

The diplomatic feat was grandiosely titled the “Abraham Accords” and its promoters cast it as a civilizational breakthrough and the beginning of a new age — no matter that the two Gulf states had never been at war with Israel and already had substantial clandestine dealings with the Jewish state. “This day is a pivot of history,” Netanyahu proclaimed, alongside Trump and top officials from the UAE and Bahrain. “It heralds a new dawn of peace. For thousands of years, the Jewish people have prayed for peace. For decades, the Jewish state has prayed for peace. And this is why, today, we’re filled with such profound gratitude.”

The deals generated some lucrative business links between Israel and the monarchies, and were padded by major U.S. arms sales to the Arab kingdoms. But even as more Arab countries warmed to the prospect of normalization with Israel, the new understandings did little to build peace in the context where it was needed most: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That was arguably by design: Netanyahu, a longtime opponent of a separate, sovereign Palestinian state, saw a pathway thanks to Trump to further integrate Israel into its neighborhood while placing the “Palestinian problem” on the back burner. Israel’s burgeoning crop of Arab partners, wary of Iran and frustrated with the dysfunctions within the Palestinian national movement, seemed content to go along with the process.

Netanyahu was forced out of power but eventually returned at the helm of the most right-wing coalition in Israeli history. He showed up in September at the dais of the U.N. General Assembly with a map of Israel’s new connections in the region labeled “The New Middle East”; any trace of Palestine or Palestinian claims was wiped off the map.

Then Oct. 7 happened, and the world changed. The war that followed militant group Hamas’s deadly strike on southern Israel has convulsed the region. Israel’s ongoing campaign against Hamas pulverized the Gaza Strip, led to tens of thousands of deaths and a sprawling humanitarian catastrophe. International legal action against Israel and its right-wing government have picked up: The International Criminal Court may issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in a matter of days for their role in allegedly starving Gazans; the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s judicial arm, is hearing a case accusing Israel of carrying out genocide and separately ruled Friday that Israel ought to end its occupation of Palestinian territory and dismantle its settlements.

That’s a political nonstarter for Netanyahu, under whose long tenure in power the Israeli settlement project has flourished and expanded across the West Bank. He comes to Washington this week ahead of a controversial speech to Congress, with months of trauma and ruin looming behind him, and a murky political future ahead of him.

A clutch of Israel’s Arab neighbors, along with President Biden and his allies, have fitfully tried to negotiate a truce between the warring parties. Talks have yet to yield the cease-fire desired by Palestinians and much of the international community, or the wholesale release of Israeli hostages sought by a grief-stricken Israeli public. In private conversations, some U.S. and Arab officials blame Netanyahu — whose own position may be imperiled in the event of a cessation of hostilities — for deliberately thwarting an agreement.

“Netanyahu is under pressure from all quarters. He has a coalition that is unhappy with him and [far-right] partners in Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir threatening to bring it down if he agrees to a ceasefire,” explained Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum. “He has hostage families and the political opposition demonstrating in the streets in increasing numbers in favor of a ceasefire, and a security establishment that is also strongly in favor of a deal to pause the fighting and bring living hostages back home. Biden has been pushing unreservedly for a ceasefire and hostage agreement, and Israel’s regional partners all want the fighting to have come to an end months ago.”

The wily Israeli prime minister’s trip to Washington is a gambit to relieve some of this pressure. Netanyahu’s “prime directive is maintaining himself in power, and he’s succeeding,” Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a veteran former U.S. negotiator, told me. He is “coming here to use Congress and the White House as props, in demonstration of his indispensability” to the Israeli public, Miller added, suggesting Netanyahu was “playing for time.” Republicans, eager to twist the knife into an already beleaguered Biden, will probably embrace Netanyahu and his defiant position on the war.

“What Netanyahu is probably seeking is to make it to the end of the month and the parliamentary summer recess,” wrote Neri Zilber in the Financial Times. “The break stretches until late October, during which it is extremely difficult to topple or replace a sitting government. If Netanyahu makes it this far, the earliest an election could be held would be the first quarter of 2025.”

By that point, there may be a new occupant of the White House, and Netanyahu probably expects a second Trump term to boost his own political fortunes — much as the first term did. But the Republican presidential nominee has shown less enthusiasm for Netanyahu in recent months, while the Abraham Accords — cast by Trump as his hallmark foreign policy accomplishment — seem an irrelevance in the current moment.

Biden, meanwhile, is facing an insurgency from the left over Israel’s conduct of the war and the United States’ enabling of it. He has sought to enlist the Gulf kingdoms and some of Israel’s other Arab neighbors in an ambitious “day after” project for Gaza that would see a Palestinian technocratic entity jointly administer that territory and the West Bank, funding from the Gulf for reconstruction pour into Gaza and the Israelis and Palestinians reentering talks over a two-state solution.

As the war drags on and Netanyahu remains in office, that vision for peace also seems doomed. The Knesset, the Israeli parliament, voted on Friday to reject the establishment of a Palestinian state — a symbolic move that underscored Netanyahu’s attitude ahead of his trip to the United States.

“As long as Netanyahu is there, there’s no chance of any movement toward the ‘day after’ plan,” an Arab official involved in the talks over postwar Gaza told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the press.

There’s no “pivot of history” in sight, in other words. That may be exactly how Netanyahu wants it.

Let me point out something that should be obvious: The Democratic Party, which relies on Black women as its most reliable voters, would be underestimating how they will react if such disregard is shown to the first Black female vice president.

I don’t know how Democrats will try to explain that leapfrog move, but it will take some high-level, hat-in-hand, verbal voodoo to ease the pain and anger that a lot of Black voters will justifiably feel. “The party elites would be committing suicide,” said Cornell Belcher, a pollster political analyst who worked for both Obama campaigns.

This question should have been a settled years ago, when Biden picked Harris as his running mate — and a majority of Americans voted to elect them as a team. Yes, Harris had a tough first year finding her voice, her footing and a team that best supports her leadership. But it is evident that Harris has found her stride, especially since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, as she has traversed the country trumpeting the long-term effects of that ruling. She has been steadfast in the weeks since Biden’s troubling debate performance last month. She knows she has been in the spotlight, quietly auditioning for a job that her boss was, until Sunday, determined to hold on to. Let’s just concede that walking that tightrope was not easy.

The pundit class and cable-news armies are salivating over the prospect of an open primary that would now drive ratings. Democrats pushing for an open primary claim the contest would boost voter engagement and also avoid the appearance of a coronation after Biden’s endorsement of Harris on Sunday. Plus, there simply isn’t time for that exercise.

But it is long past time to stop underestimating what Harris can do for a party that is in a ditch, thanks to this overlong Shakespearean drama about Biden’s acuity. She has strong support among Democrats, has muscled up on foreign and domestic issues in a manner few can because of her unique perch, not to mention daily access to classified briefings and her experience serving on key Senate committees.

And many of the things that were once points of criticism move into the plus column. Some progressives have called Harris a “cop” because of her background as a prosecutor. She was attorney general of the most-populous state, and, in this presidential match up, a litigator could bring special skills running against a felon who is still facing a mountain of legal charges and is backed by an army of conservatives who want to erode or erase our constitutional rights.

The criticism of her easy laugh — even her smile — are the stuff of high school taunts, and yet a youthful candidate who brings joy and light to the campaign trail while taking on heavy issues will appeal to voters who are yearning for optimism after a long period of turbulence. Her multicultural background and marriage allow her to build a narrative around change while facing opponents whose retrograde MAGA political messaging would take America backward.

I know some people will say I am arguing that the Black vice president should automatically get the job to avoid upsetting voters of color. Let me set that straight: The perceived insult is but one factor. A vice president who has performed admirably should get top consideration for the post because stepping up in case of emergency is the central part of the job. And many of the people who would likely be offended if she is passed over have a deep gut hunch that a White man would not be so easily dismissed.

At a time when reproductive rights are such a linchpin issue for female voters, the potential for treating Harris with disregard seems particularly reckless. Doubts about the vice president’s ability to ascend to the top jabs at a deep-tissue wound that throbs inside so many American women who have to work twice as hard and be over-credentialed before being even considered for a role they can clearly handle.

It’s one reason women over-index in measures of achievement in college and yet are grossly underrepresented in top corporate leadership. Women CEOs run barely 10 percent of Fortune 500 companies. It’s why people so often look past gleaming résumés and oodles of experience to float questions about whether a woman is really the right fit. It’s why so many people mask their own stubborn consternation about female authority by asking whether others will accept a woman in a top job.

Will voters accept her? Don’t forget that people (including a lot of Black voters) initially asked the same question about Barack Obama. And yes, voters asked that question about Hillary Clinton, as well. But let’s also remember that, not long ago, people questioned whether women could handle their own credit card or be trusted to vote.

If the Democrats opt for an open primary, I hope they have some muscular messaging to explain why they swerved from succession protocol. Otherwise, they are not just underestimating Harris, they are also underestimating a voting bloc that holds the key to their victory.

What do you think President Biden should do with the rest of his time in office? Share your responses with us, and they may be published in The Post.