Judge blocks NCAR lab transfer
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The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Photo: Autumn Parry/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
The Trump administration's efforts to dismantle Boulder's National Center for Atmospheric Research hit a roadblock Monday, as a federal judge halted the transfer of the lab's supercomputing center.
Why it matters: The ruling keeps one of the nation's premier climate and weather research hubs intact for now.
The latest: Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson granted a temporary injunction Monday blocking the transfer of the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center to the University of Wyoming.
- The order comes as a lawsuit from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which manages NCAR, is pending.
Zoom in: Jackson ruled that the National Science Foundation failed to justify transferring management of the supercomputing center.
- Administration officials had raised concerns about DEI policies and climate change "alarmism," but Jackson said the NSF did not present those arguments in court. Even if it had, there was no evidence the transfer would address either issue.
- Jackson also wrote "the sequence of events strongly suggests that the outcome was predetermined" before a public comment period ended.
- "NSF's flagrant disregard of its own mechanism for receiving and considering stakeholder and public feedback further illustrates the arbitrary and capricious nature of the agency's decision," Jackson wrote.
Zoom out: Jackson also lent weight to UCAR's claim that the move may have been retaliatory.
- The judge wrote that the transfer "may also or instead have been motivated by the Trump Administration's dispute with the state of Colorado."
- He noted the breakup announcement came shortly after Trump called Colorado Gov. Jared Polis a "weak and pathetic man" over the state's initial refusal to release former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters.
- "The inference that retaliation played at least some role in the transfer decision is considerably strengthened by the fact that the federal government simultaneously undertook several other actions adverse to Colorado," Jackson wrote.
What they're saying: "We are pleased that Judge Jackson recognized how damaging the proposed transfer of the NWSC to another operator would be for the nation's scientific community," said UCAR interim president Eric Barron in a statement.
The bottom line: For Colorado officials, the injunction is more than a procedural win; it's the strongest judicial rebuke of Trump's actions against Colorado.