NOAA Tradeoff DA

1NC

***UQ

***Link

Plan Trades off with Satellites

Ocean Exploration Link

Link Booster – Aquaculture/Fisheries

Zero-Sum

AT “Already Allocated”

***Impact

Turns Case

Key to Forecasting

Warming

Readiness

Readiness Impacts

***Aff Answers

UQ/IL

No Impact

AT Readiness Impact

1NC

2015 NOAA budget allots adequate funds for weather and climate satellites

Walker ‘14

[Molly, March 19, NOAA satellite spending to nominally increase under budget request,

Systems acquisition for major satellite programs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would nominally increase under the president's fiscal 2015 budget proposal.¶ Several of the civil satellites, which are focused on collecting the planet's envirionmental data, have garnered attention from Congress and industry as cost and schedule overruns could result in a gap in reporting data because some currently-orbiting satellites are approaching the end of their predicted lifespan.¶ "One of the greatest challenges facing NOAA today is ensuring continuity of satellite operations to provide uninterrupted coverage of weather forecasts and environmental measurements into the future," says the Commerce Department'sbudget proposal (.pdf) for NOAA.¶ The Geostationary Operational Environmental System-R Series satellite acquisition program – a partnership between NOAA and NASA – will launch its first satellite in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, says the proposal. GOES-R satellites will carry improved environmental observation instruments and NOAA budgets $980.838 million for systems acquisition in fiscal 2015. That's nominally more than the $941.89 enacted in fiscal 2014.¶ To continue progress on Jason-3 , a satellite program operated with NOAA's European partners to continue precise measurements of sea surface heights, NOAA requests $25.65 million for acquisition costs in fiscal 2015, or nominally more than the $18.50 million enacted in fiscal 2014.¶For the Joint Polar Satellite System, which delivers polar satellite weather observations, NOAA also requests a nominal increase for systems acquisition - $916.26 million in fiscal 2015 versus the $820.85 enacted in fiscal 2014.¶ In all, the National Environmental Satellite Service would receive $2.078 billion under the request, a number nominally larger than the current year's estimated funding, and would see no increase in personnel.

Spending trades off with weather satellites –makes forecasting impossible - crushes the economy and destroys military readiness.

Conathan ‘11

[Michael, Director of Oceans Policy at American Progress.

, The GOP decides accurate weather forecasting and hurricane tracking are luxuries America can’t afford¶ , ¶

In fact, NOAA has been making great strides in hurricane tracking. The average margin of error for predicting landfall three days in advance was 125 miles in 2009″”half what it was 10 years prior. This data translates into a higher degree of confidence among the public in NOAA’s forecasts, which means individuals will be more likely to obey an evacuation order. Further, since evacuating each mile of shoreline costs approximately up to $1 million, greater forecasting accuracy translates to substantial savings.¶ The United States needs these satellites if we’re to continue providing the best weather and climate forecasts in the world. The implications of the loss of these data far exceed the question of whether to pack the kids into snowsuits for the trip to school. The concern here is ensuring ongoing operational efficiency and national security on a global scale. In some cases it can literally become a question of life and death.¶ Consider the following numbers:¶The $700 billion maritime commerce industry moves more than 90 percent of all global trade, with arrival and departure of quarter-mile long container ships timed to the minute to maximize revenue and efficiency. Shipping companies rely on accurate forecasts to set their manifests and itineraries.¶ Forecasting capabilities are particularly strained at high latitudes and shippers have estimated that the loss of satellite monitoring capabilities could cost them more than half a billion dollars per year in lost cargo and damage to vessels from unanticipated heavy weather.¶ When a hurricane makes landfall, evacuations cost as much as $1 million per mile. Over the past decade, NOAA has halved the average margin of error in its three-day forecasts from 250 miles to 125 miles, saving up to $125 million per storm.¶Commercial fishing is the most dangerous profession in the country with 111.8 deaths per 100,000 workers. A fisherman’s most valuable piece of safety equipment is his weather radio.¶ When disaster strikes at sea, polar-orbiting satellites receive emergency distress beacons and relay positioning data to rescuers. This resulted in 295 lives savedin 2010 alone and the rescue of more than 6,500 fishermen, recreational boaters, and other maritime transportation workers since the program began in 1982.¶Farmers rely on NOAA’s drought predictions to determine planting cycles. Drought forecasts informed directly by satellite data have been valued at $6 billion to 8 billion annually.¶ NOAA’s volcanic ash forecasting capabilities received international attention last spring during the eruption of the Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallaj¶kull. The service saves airlines upwards of $200 million per year.¶NOAA’s polar-orbiting satellites are America’s only source of weather and climate data for vast areas of the globe, including areas key to overseas military operations. Their data are integral to planning deployments of troops and aircraft””certain high-atmosphere wind conditions, for example, can prohibit mid-air refueling operations.¶ All of these uses will be compromised if the Republicans succeed in defunding NOAA’s satellite program. At least an 18-month gap in coverage will be unavoidable without adequate funding for new polar-orbiting satellites this year. More troubling, taking an acquisition program offline and then restarting the process at a later date would lead to cost increases of as much as three to five times the amount the government would have to spend for the same product today.¶ So here’s the choice: Spend $700 million this year for continuous service or $2 billion to $3.5 billion at some point in the future for the same equipment and a guaranteed service interruption.¶ Environmental satellites are not optional equipment. This is not a debate about whether we should splurge on the sunroof or the premium sound system or the seat warmers for our new car. Today’s environmental satellites are at the end of their projected life cycles. They will fail. When they do, we must have replacements ready or risk billions of dollars in annual losses to major sectors of our economy and weakening our national security.¶ That’s an ugly forecast. Tragically, it’s also 100 percent accurate.

Decline of readiness guarantees China, Russia, and North Korea lash out causing escalation and global war

Olsen 14 (Wyatt; Military’s reduced readiness seen as emboldening China, Russia; May 20; kdf)

When the U.S. could be making a show of strength toward China and Russia as several Pacific flashpoints heat up, it is instead mired in debates about military readiness, troop reductions and deep budget cuts. The result could be a series of opportunistic “bites-of-an-apple” provocations that fall below the level that would trigger a U.S. military response, eroding confidence in America's commitment to help current and possible allies, analysts say. INTERACTIVE MAP | Flashpoints of conflict in the Pacific Earlier this month, China floated a mobile oil-drilling rig in Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone, setting off a standoff of flotillas in which Hanoi claims two of its ships were rammed. Violent riots in Vietnam have left dozens of ethnic Chinese injured or dead. Just to the west, China recently began preparations for what the Philippines described as a possible military airstrip on a reef in the Spratly Islands, which both countries claim. Meanwhile, Russia has ratcheted up its presence in the Pacific — including long-range air patrols off the coast of California and near the U.S. territory of Guam — to gather intelligence and display its military might. The Japan Air Self Defense Force almost doubled its number of scrambles against Russian aircraft in the 12 months leading up to March compared with the previous year. And North Korea has intensified its rhetoric amid what appear to be preparations for its fourth underground nuclear weapons test.The U.S. still maintains the most formidable force in the Pacific. The Pacific Fleet consists of about 180 ships, which include five aircraft carrier strike groups and almost 2,000 aircraft, according to U.S. Pacific Command. One aircraft carrier and about 65 ships are permanently forward deployed in Japan. By comparison, as of last year China’s navy had only 52 frigates and 23 destroyers, many of them antiquated, according to the Pentagon’s most recent assessment of China’s military. Russia’s Pacific Fleet consists of a missile cruiser, five destroyers and a few dozen submarines, according to recent news reports. “The U.S. certainly retains an ability to project an awful lot of air and sea power for more limited contingencies — and do so very quickly,” said Anthony Cordesman, a defense expert at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. And even if U.S. forces did become embroiled in Pacific confrontations such as those unfolding in Vietnam and the Philippines, they aren’t the kind of interventions that demand huge follow-up forces, he said. Cordesman cautioned against equating these kinds of skirmishes with a potential outbreak of hostilities on the Korean peninsula because the U.S. is prepared and willing to match escalation there, he said. “You’re not going to go to general war over an [exclusive economic zone] or a reef somewhere in the Pacific,” he said. Still, Cordesman admitted, irrational behavior and miscalculations by adversaries can quickly lead to escalation and “the need for putting many more follow-on forces in the field over time.” Some experts say that flagging readiness — real or perceived — actually invites escalation by weakening America’s “deterrent effect” as China and Russia continue beefing up their Pacific forces. In congressional testimony, top-ranking military chiefs have already warned that readiness is deteriorating, partly because of cuts from last year’s sequester at a time the military is struggling to refit and retrain after a decade of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. forces in South Korea, testified before a Senate subcommittee in March that he was concerned about the readiness of “follow-on forces” that would be required should the peninsula enter crisis.Marine Corps Commandant Gen. John Amos told the same committee last fall that budget cuts leave “fewer forces, arriving less-trained, arriving later in the fight.” Reduced readiness cuts two ways, said Todd Harrison, a defense expert with the nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C. “I think this reduction in readiness that we’re looking at will reduce our confidence in the ability of our military to intervene successfully if called upon,” he said. “That may weaken the deterrent effect on potential adversaries, but it could also create a situation where we self-deter.”Dakota Wood, a defense expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., said that America’s current budget and readiness woes do not go unnoticed by China and Russia. “There’s this deterrent value in being strongly forward, being strongly postured and having the perception that not only are your forces ready for action, but that the government in the U.S. is willing to press that case if it comes to it. “When it comes to China, we are seeing increasing aggressiveness in trying to push forward their territorial claims in the East and South China Seas. “China is likely viewing this as a window of opportunity to aggressively press its claims in these waters, and the U.S. is not well postured to come to the assistance of friends and allies in the region.” Wood described this “pattern of conduct” as “taking small bites of an apple,” which over time will consume it. “So each one of these little actions is below the threshold that would invite a large-scale conventional military response,” he said. “But they’re willing and able to take these small bites because they know the U.S., by this series of incidents, is unwilling to press the case.” Terrence K. Kelly director of the Strategy and Resources Program at the RAND Corporation, said that individual skirmishes such as these might seem insignificant. But over time countries such as China and Russia can achieve their goals by “nibbling away” with “subresponse-level” aggression, Kelly said. “It’s probably calculated to slowly over time achieve an effect that won’t elicit a military response from the U.S. or its allies,” he said. Cordesman said, however, that even a modest U.S. intervention could lead to unintended escalation. “The problem is that the United States responding — even if it solves one small, short-term problem — may lead to the other side responding in ways that again produce a steady pattern of escalation,” Cordesman said. Judging by the testimony of the Chiefs of Staff earlier month during a Senate hearing on the Pentagon's proposal to reduce compensation and benefits for troops, the services aren’t hankering for a greater show of force in the Pacific. If Congress doesn't approve those compensation cuts, the Air Force will consider cutting $8.1 billion from readiness, mondernization and infrastructure accounts over the next five years, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh III told a Senate Committee. “We’ll take significant cuts to flying hours and weapons system sustainment accounts, reduce precision munitions buys and lower funding for training ranges, digging our readiness hole even deeper,” Welsh said.

***UQ

Squo funding geared toward satellites

Leone 6/12 (Dan, NASA reporter for Space News, “House and Senate Find Common Ground on NOAA Budget”, Space News, Jun. 12,

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee on June 5 approved a budget bill that would give the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about $5.4 billion in 2015, including some $2.1 billion for its major weather satellite programs — a small increase over 2014 that is about even with the White House’s 2015 request and what House appropriators included in a competing bill approved in May. Senate and House appropriators now seem to be more or less on the same page when it comes to the weather agency’s 2015 budget, even if they do not agree fully with the White House — or each other — on every detail. The Senate committee broke with the House in directing NASA to take over full development responsibility for the Jason-3 ocean altimetry satellite and the Deep Space Climate Observatory, stripping NOAA management of its role in the development process but keeping the weather agency in charge of on-orbit operations. The House and Senate bills differ on funding levels for these two projects. Senate appropriators included $25.6 million for Jason-3, a little less than the $25.7 million the White House wanted but $10 million more than the House bill includes. The Deep Space Climate Observatory would get $24.8 million under the Senate bill — $4.8 million more than the House approved and $3.5 million more than the White House requested. Senate appropriators, however, fell into step with House appropriators in denying the $15 million the White House requested for the newly proposed Solar Irradiance Data and Rescue effort — NOAA’s latest plan to find rides to space for scientific and search-and-rescue payloads once manifest for flight on a civil-military polar-orbiting satellite weather satellite program canceled in 2010.Likewise, the Senate committee joined the House in recommending $6.8 million for NOAA to upgrade its ground systems to handle forecast-supplementing GPS radio occultation data that will be beamed back by the Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate satellites. These satellites, jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force and the government of Taiwan, would launch in two tranches of six: the first in late 2015 and the second around 2018, according to the Boulder, Colorado-based University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the academic consortium leading the project. The Senate committee also wants NOAA to produce a report on GPS radio occultation data, including a roadmap for building and launching the second half of the planned U.S.-Taiwan constellation, and “an analysis for acquiring radio occultation weather data from private sector providers.” PlanetIQ of Bethesda, Maryland, says it can provide GPS radio occultation data with its envisioned fleet of commercially operated satellites. Meanwhile, the Senate committee reiterated its concerns about the potential gap in weather data from the polar orbit that might occur following the end of the Suomi NPP satellite’s five-year primary mission in 2016, and the scheduled launch of its successor, the Joint Polar Satellite System-1 spacecraft, in 2017. The Senate committee directed NOAA to provide a gap mitigation plan in the 2015 operating plan the agency would have to submit to Congress 45 days after the bill is signed. Finally, Senate appropriators scolded NOAA for excluding the Commerce Department’s inspector general from portions of the monthly Program Management Council meetings — internal meetings in which the agency discusses its major weather satellite programs. The Senate’s bill report directs NOAA to ensure that the watchdog’s office is represented at these meetings.