07/09/2025 at 10:00AM
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, will convene a nominations hearing for nominees of the Department of Commerce at 10:00 AM EST on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.
Nominees:
- Dr. Neil Andrew Jacobs Jr., of North Carolina, to be Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere (NOAA Administrator)
- Taylor R. Jordan, of the District of Columbia, to be an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Environmental Observation and Prediction (NOAA)
- Harry Kumar, of New York, to be an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs
In 2019, Jacobs was the acting NOAA Administrator who forced NOAA to issue a false statement in support of Donald Trump’s altered projection of Hurricane Dorian’s path, the incident known colloquially as “Sharpiegate.” Jacobs was found to have violated NOAA’s code of ethics. Jacobs is the acting NOAA Adminstrator.
Jordan is a Republican climate policy expert, former Trump NOAA official, and corporate lobbyist whose clients have included artificial intelligence, weather and satellite companies, including AccuWeather; PlanetiQ, a commercial weather data company; the SmallSat Alliance, a group of small satellite manufacturers; MeetKai, an AI company; and Ideanomics, a commercial EV support company. He composes ambient music under the names “The Greatest Hoax” and T.R. Jordan.
Kumar is a former Trump Department of Commerce official, oil industry lobbyist, and chief lobbyist for battery-recycling startup Li-Cycle, which recently filed for bankruptcy. He is currently Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary at the U.S. Department of Commerce.