Wired reports that Trump administration cuts to NOAA are threatening an already-delayed update to the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS), which was supposed to replace NAD 83 and NAVD 88 in 2022 with corrected spatial measurements more in line with satellite data. (See this 2020 post on the difference in elevation data.) “According to former staff, NGS was sitting at 174 employees at the start of the year, with staff looking to fill an additional 15 positions to help with rolling out the new datums and educating federal agencies and local governments on their use. Since January 20, the agency has lost nearly a quarter of its staff and has had to freeze planned hiring.” Wired situates this in the context of the U.S. falling further behind in geodesy research.