Let’s have a vote.

Is it more important to dedicate time, energy and taxpayer money glorifying the umbrella entity known as the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration?

Or should more such assets be used to enhance the resources of the National Weather Service, an agency dedicated to predicting dangerous weather patterns like, say, hurricanes?

Actually, sorry, your vote doesn’t count. The powers that be over at NOAA have opted to invest their energy in making sure you know that the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center are mere cogs in the greater NOAA weather wheel. They will even spend about $4 million celebrating a 200th anniversary of the NOAA. Never mind that the actual agency did not exist until 1970 — their publicity campaign argues that agencies which make up the NOAA derive their roots from 200 years ago, or something like that.

The campaign is driving officials at the National Weather Service crazy. Last week Bill Proenza, the director of the National Hurricane Center, a part of the National Weather Service, vented to the Miami Herald that NOAA’s campaign was wasting taxpayer money that could be invested in equipment desperately needed to help forecast storms. Proenza also expressed fears that NOAA plans to dilute the National Weather Service’s meager budget for its own purposes. “It’s getting to the point where I cannot tolerate this,” Proenza told the Herald. “What’s happening is scary.” His predecessor, Max Mayfield, also recently spoke to the Herald, saying that when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and forecasters were practically living at the National Hurricane Center, he was ordered to remove the National Weather Service insignia from the computer-generated maps being broadcast around the world and replace it with that of the NOAA. Mayfield refused. A year later he resigned.

Meanwhile, just days after Proenza’s declaration, David Johnson, director of the National Weather Service, decided to call it quits. John Jones, Johnson’s deputy director, also figured it was time to retire.

Craig Fugate, the director of emergency management for Florida, has already opined that NOAA’s top administrators are trying to capitalize on the National Weather Service’s reputation: “It’s all about petty jealousies. People don’t know who NOAA is — they think he’s the guy who built the ark,” he told the Herald. “So, if I’m NOAA, particularly the administrators, and no one will play with me, I want to get the popular kid and rename him with my name.”

It’s also about pride — something the National Weather Service’s forecasters deserve to have. Were NOAA’s top administrators awake for hours on end as hurricane after hurricane plowed into the United States?

Bottom line is, we need the National Weather Service’s dedicated employees and we need them to have the equipment to do their job. Only $300 million of NOAA’s $4 billion budget is dedicated to hurricane forecasting and research. The National Weather Service’s QuikSCAT satellite, which is used to predict hurricanes and other storms, may soon blink out of existence. And how do NOAA administrators react to this? They cut $700,000 from hurricane research and plan to do fewer “hurricane hunter” flights during a season that forecasters predict will be an active one.

But do we really need NOAA? There are at least five other divisions within NOAA: Satellites and Information, Fisheries, Ocean Service, Research and the Office of Marine & Aviation Operations. Why not transfer Fisheries to Wildlife and Game and the Ocean Service to the Environmental Protection Agency? The rest could be transferred to the National Weather Service and give the agency the technological backing it needs and deserves.

Such a reshuffling would create a lean and mean agency unburdened with a top-heavy leadership. Aside from Conrad C. Lautenbacher, a retired rear admiral, there are three other officials who are either ex-military or veteran administrators leading the NOAA.

Better yet, Lautenbacher could simply back off his quest to make the National Weather Service bow to NOAA’s leadership. His current public relations campaign is doing nothing to improve his subordinates’ appreciation of his leadership; rather it is reducing morale and encouraging forecasters to retire.

Most Americans, given a choice on who should be happy — Lautenbacher and his administrators or hard-working forecasters who warn about hurricanes, tornadoes and other hazardous conditions — would pick the forecasters. But it isn’t up to us. It’s up to our elected president of the United States. So far, our illustrious president’s top priority seems to be protecting his friends and political allies. Lautenbacher, a political appointee of President George W. Bush who has been criticized even by Republicans for being slow to produce environmental reports, is likely among President Bush’s comrades. And his tone that the environment isn’t as screwed-up as many forecasters point out is rhetoric preferred by many a neo-con.

Still, President Bush could break from his usual pattern of protecting his allies. Maybe he will see that Floridians are uneasy about NOAA’s priorities, realize it could help the Democrats win more clout in the Sunshine State and tell Lautenbacher to chill.

Otherwise, we can all enjoy the 200th faux anniversary of NOAA, and we look forward to seeing Lautenbacher’s face when the next series of storm systems ravages the coast.

 Comments? E-mail letters@miamisunpost.com.