The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) today begun the mass firing of hundreds of federal employees under the agency and its several child agencies, including the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the National Weather Service (NWS), which has already been suffering from low-staffing over the last few years. The cuts are expected to effect up to 1,830 of NOAA’s 11,000 staff across the United States, roughly 10% of the agencies employees; with a push by NOAA to obtain a “public safety exemption” for meteorologists and forecasters with the NWS being largely denied. It is not currently known if these cuts will include those in the NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps, one of the eight federal uniformed services of the United States.