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What’s Ahead
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| DOE Under Secretary for Science and Innovation Geri Richmond testifies before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources in March. (Image credit – Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee) |
DOE Leaders to Testify as FY23 Budget Cycle Shifts Into Gear
Many congressional committees are holding hearings this week to review President Biden’s budget request for fiscal year 2023, a process that will continue through the rest of spring as the House and Senate prepare their own budget proposals for the year. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is testifying before the House Appropriations Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee on Thursday, and leaders of DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration are testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. In addition, DOE Under Secretary for Science and Innovation Geri Richmond is appearing on Wednesday at a House Science Committee hearing focused on facility construction and upgrade projects in the DOE Office of Science. Many of DOE’s requested budgets for construction projects in the office fall well short of targets proposed in the America COMPETES Act of 2022, and Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) has criticized the request as inadequate. Detailed budget documents for the Office of Science are now posted here, and documents for other DOE offices are posted here. Among other senior officials defending the budget request before Congress this week are the secretaries of commerce, interior, education, state, homeland security, and health and human services.
USGS, ARPA–E Nominees Face Senators
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is holding a hearing on Thursday to consider President Biden’s nominations of David Applegate to lead the U.S. Geological Survey and Evelyn Wang to lead the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy. A geologist, Applegate joined the staff at USGS in 2004 and has led its Natural Hazards mission area for almost ten years. He was appointed acting director of the agency at the start of the Biden administration before being formally nominated to the role last month. Wang, also nominated last month, is an expert in thermal management in energy systems and chairs the mechanical engineering department at MIT. At the start of the hearing, the committee will also vote to advance the nomination of Katy Huff to lead DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy. Previously a professor of nuclear engineering, Huff led the office on an acting basis for most of last year and found a uniformly friendly reception at her nomination hearing last month.
Science Committee Spotlighting Latest IPCC Assessment
On Thursday, the House Science Committee is holding a hearing to review the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest assessments of the physical science of climate change, climate impacts, and potential mitigation pathways. Released this month, the mitigation report concluded the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is likely out of reach unless global greenhouse gas emissions peak no later than 2025 and fall to half their current levels by 2030. Absent a strengthening of the decarbonization policies in place as of 2020, the report projects a median warming of 3.2 degrees by 2100. IPCC Vice-Chair Ko Barrett, who is a senior advisor for climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, will testify at the hearing. The other witnesses are Jeremy Harrel, chief strategy officer at energy policy think tank ClearPath; Dominque David-Chavez, a professor of Indigenous natural resource stewardship at Colorado State University; and Daniella Levine Cava, mayor of Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Physics Advisory Panels to Discuss Long-Range Plans
The National Academies Board on Physics and Astronomy is holding its spring meeting on Wednesday and Thursday, much of which is dedicated to discussion of recent decadal surveys for biological physics, astronomy and plasma science. The board will also receive a briefing on the fusion energy summit held by the White House last month, and a panel of leaders from private foundations will discuss the state of philanthropic funding for science. Separately, the advisory committee for nuclear physics programs at the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation is meeting on Thursday. The committee will discuss plans for initiating the field’s next long-range planning exercise, a process it also discussed at its previous meeting. In addition, the committee will receive a study charge related to DOE’s nuclear data program, which supports databases of nuclear properties relevant to applications in medicine, energy, defense, and science.
Meteorologists to Address Community Priorities
The American Meteorological Society’s annual Washington Forum runs Monday through Wednesday and will feature remarks from House Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), appropriations committee staff, and top officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (AMS is an AIP Member Society.) A keynote session on diversity and inclusion will feature remarks by three doctoral candidates, including a Hispanic meteorologist who recently was the target of a bigoted tweet by an AMS member who was later expelled from the society. Other sessions at the meeting include a discussion of the decadal strategy for weather research developed by NOAA’s Science Advisory Board, which is meeting separately this week. The board will hear from top NOAA officials including the agency’s acting chief scientist, Cisco Werner, who stepped into the role this month after Craig McLean retired from federal service. A third major weather research policy event this week, the annual Space Weather Workshop, will include discussion of preparations for the upcoming National Academies decadal survey for heliophysics.
Mathematician Goes on Trial in Lingering China Initiative Case
Southern Illinois University mathematics professor Mingqing Xiao is facing trial this week on charges he defrauded the National Science Foundation by failing to disclose on a grant application that he was already receiving funds from a Chinese science agency for a similar project. Prosecutors also assert he failed to disclose he was working part-time for a university in China, and that he submitted a grant application in China similar to his NSF proposal without informing the agency. NSF requires grant applicants to report all sources of “current and pending support,” a stipulation the Department of Justice has leveraged to pursue cases through its China Initiative. Xiao’s lawyer plans to argue he had no criminal intent in not disclosing his ties to China and that the government has not presented sufficient evidence of a crime. His case is one of a handful still pending following DOJ’s recent decision to reframe the initiative and delegate enforcement to science agencies in cases not involving clear national or economic security considerations. The trial will be another test of DOJ’s reliance on fraud charges in its prosecutions of academics, which has been questioned by judges in two other China Initiative cases and has so far resulted in one acquittal.
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In Case You Missed It
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| A view of Saturn’s moon Enceladus emitting vapor plumes into space, captured by NASA’s Cassini probe in 2009. (Image credit – NASA / JPL / SSI) |
Decadal Survey Updates Planetary Science Priorities
The National Academies released the latest decadal survey for planetary science last week, setting out guidance for NASA and, to a lesser extent, the National Science Foundation. The survey states that NASA’s highest priority for robotic exploration should be completing the flagship Mars Sample Return mission. A mission to Uranus is identified as the top priority for the following flagship and was chosen over the Solar System’s other “ice giant,” Neptune, because the mission would be easier to carry out. After the Uranus mission, the survey recommends starting work on a flagship mission that would orbit then land on Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, which emits plumes of water vapor that contain organic molecules from a subsurface ocean. The survey also makes various recommendations for medium-scale missions, including a lander to hunt for habitable conditions in Mars’ polar ice and a rover to gather about 100 kilograms of lunar material for later retrieval, as well as a series of candidate mission concepts that could be supported through NASA’s New Frontiers program. In addition, this is the first planetary science decadal survey to consider at length how researchers should approach investigations in astrobiology, what strategies should be used to defend the Earth from hazardous objects such as asteroids, and how robotic science missions can best interface with crewed missions to the Moon and elsewhere. Like the decadal survey for astronomy and astrophysics released late last year, the survey also reviews the state of the research community, highlighting the need for better demographic data and recommending steps to increase the community’s diversity.
GAO Reports on Political Interference at Research Agencies
The Government Accountability Office released the results of an investigation last week on mechanisms for federal staff to report political interference with scientific decision-making at the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and two other health agencies. The subject has become a particular concern during the COVID-19 pandemic amid allegations that political leaders have applied pressure to influence public health guidance and the evaluation of treatments. GAO finds that in the period since 2010 none of the four agencies have received any formal allegations of political interference, which it attributes to the absence of specific procedures for doing so. It states that employees told GAO through interviews and a confidential hotline that they had in fact observed incidents they felt constituted political interference but did not report them for reasons that included fear of retaliation, uncertainty about reporting procedures, and a belief that agency leaders were aware of the incidents. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis is holding a hearing on the report on Friday.
In another report released last week, GAO concludes the Trump administration’s decision to relocate two Agriculture Department research agencies from Washington, D.C., to Kansas City, Missouri, in 2019 was “not fully consistent with an evidence-based approach.” The relocation led many employees to quit and was criticized as an apparent effort to undermine the agencies’ work. At the time, Mick Mulvaney, then White House chief of staff, referred to the loss of personnel as a positive outcome as it circumvented protections that make it difficult to dismiss civil servants. The Biden administration has indicated that, to avoid further disruption, it will not seek to reverse the move.
OSTP Reviews ‘Industries of the Future’ Budgets
Last week, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a congressionally mandated report on the government’s strategy for fostering “industries of the future,” a term that was frequently used during the Trump administration. Noting the phrase has encompassed an evolving list of emerging technologies without clear criteria for inclusion, OSTP offers a working definition: “advanced industrial sectors that support innovative, inclusive, equitable, and sustainable growth; have profound connection with technology R&D and STEM workforce; require R&D investments to support growth that will lead to transformative impact; and will significantly benefit future economic prosperity and national security.” Congress tasked OSTP with offering a “detailed plan” to increase federal civil R&D spending related to industries of the future to $10 billion annually by fiscal year 2025. In response, OSTP observes that this target is already exceeded even if the definition is limited to the combined budgets for interagency initiatives in quantum information science, networking and information technology R&D, and nanotechnology. It also notes the Biden administration’s fiscal year 2022 budget request for AI and QIS was 63% more than the amount spent in fiscal year 2019, an increase that is “well above the norm for most R&D investments over this period.”
Fermilab Accelerator Upgrade Moves Into Construction Phase
The Department of Energy granted approval last week for the main phase of construction to begin on a major accelerator upgrade at Fermilab called Proton Improvement Plan II. PIP-II will increase the power of the lab’s proton accelerator complex by about 60%, enabling new capabilities such as a neutrino beam that will travel through the Earth to the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota as part of the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). PIP-II is the first accelerator to be built in the U.S. with major contributions of equipment from international partners, which are valued at about $330 million. The project has a total anticipated cost to DOE of $978 million and is expected to be completed in the late 2020s. The project director for PIP-II, Lia Merminga, was named the new director of Fermilab earlier this month.
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Events This Week
All times are Eastern Daylight Time, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement.
Monday, April 25
Tuesday, April 26
Wednesday, April 27
Thursday, April 28
Friday, April 29
Monday, May 2
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Opportunities Solar and Space Physics Decadal Seeks Panelists
The National Academies is seeking nominations for the steering committee and supporting study panels of its Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics/Heliophysics, which will include roughly 100 members in total. The survey aims to develop a “prioritized strategy of basic and applied research to advance scientific understanding of the Sun, Sun-Earth connections and the origins of space weather, the Sun’s interactions with other bodies in the solar system, and the interplanetary and the interstellar medium,” and will also assess the “health and vitality” of the profession. Nominations should be submitted by May 3.
Rep. Bill Foster Hiring Legislative Assistant
Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL), a former Fermilab physicist and current member of the House Science Committee, is seeking a legislative assistant to handle a large portfolio of science and technology issues. Candidates should have at least three years of congressional experience and ties to Illinois are a plus. Candidates should submit a resume, cover letter, and a short writing sample to IL11.Jobs@mail.house.gov with the subject line “Foster Science LA.”
DOE Hiring Director for Wind Energy Technology Office
The Department of Energy is hiring a director for its Wind Energy Technologies program within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The director will oversee the program’s portfolio of university and national laboratory R&D, manage the transfer of new technologies to industry via public-private partnerships, and serve as the office’s primary stakeholder liaison. Applications are due May 2.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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