Two senior NOAA officials were just placed on leave. Both led 'Sharpiegate' inquiry

Source: CNN Weather

Updated Jul 25, 2025, 12:20 PM ET
PUBLISHED Jul 25, 2025, 9:47 AM ET


Two high-ranking officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration with a connection to the likely incoming NOAA administrator were placed on administrative leave Thursday, according to two former NOAA employees familiar with the situation and one current agency official.

While the reasoning behind the move is not clear, the two officials affected — Steve Volz, who heads NOAA’s satellites division, and Jeff Dillen, deputy NOAA general counsel — led the investigation into whether NOAA’s scientific integrity policies were violated during the so-called Sharpiegate scandal of President Donald Trump’s first term.

“It’s an interesting coincidence that less than a week before Neil Jacob’s senate committee vote, the two dedicated career civil servants who investigated him for scientific integrity violations around Sharpiegate were dismissed from service,” one former NOAA official told CNN.

The inquiry found then-acting NOAA administrator Neil Jacobs and another NOAA official violated the agency’s scientific integrity policy by backing Trump’s hand-drawn version of the forecast for 2019’s Hurricane Dorian. Trump’s modification to the National Weather Service’s forecast, drawn in a Sharpie, suggested the storm would hit Alabama. Hurricane Dorian did not strike Alabama, instead making landfall in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on its northward track along the East Coast.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/25/weather/noaa-sharpiegate-hurricane-officials-trump