Oh! I definitely did not mean to suggest someone turned off the buoy. The way I understand it, the study was complete, so there was no need to deploy additional O-Buoys -- it had nothing to do with politics. It's sad though, because I've enjoyed looking at the data and images from these buoys over the last several years. I'm just wondering what other sources of data (buoys, satellites, etc.) might be discontinued, or cancelled during planning and development, for reasons that are political.
There was a bill introduced a couple of years ago, for instance, by an Oklahoma congressman whose name has come up recently as a potential candidate for NASA administrator. The bill required NOAA to prioritize activities related to hazardous weather prediction -- and the idea was that this would pull money away from climate research. The bill stalled in the Senate, but it's the kind of thing I expect to see in the years ahead.