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What’s Ahead
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| Kelvin Droegemeier addresses the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in his first speech as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. (Image credit - OSTP) |
Droegemeier to Deliver Keynote at AAAS Policy Forum
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is holding its annual Forum on Science and Technology Policy this week at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Kelvin Droegemeier will address the forum on Thursday, resuming the tradition of the president’s science advisor delivering remarks there after a two-year hiatus. He is likely to elaborate on his principles for promoting innovation, which he first discussed at the AAAS annual meeting in February. Among the other speakers are former Department of Energy Office of Science Director Cherry Murray, who will discuss “how to maintain a healthy science ecosystem”, and former Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity Director Jason Matheny, who will participate in a session on “China S&T and effects on U.S. research.” Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz will deliver a free evening lecture on the “Green Real Deal,” a concept he has recently proposed as a more pragmatic way to address climate change than the “Green New Deal” approach backed by several prominent Democrats.
Space Studies Board Holding Spring Meeting
The National Academies Space Studies Board is convening this week for a joint meeting with the Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board. A session Tuesday on “U.S. space organization, technology, and national security” will include presentations from White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Kelvin Droegemeier, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin. Wednesday’s sessions will focus on NASA’s science activities and will include a panel discussion on the agency’s ongoing efforts to intertwine lunar science and human exploration activities. This will be the first meeting of the Space Studies Board helmed by its new chair, UCLA planetary scientist Margaret Kivelson. (Update: Bridenstine are Griffin no longer listed as speakers on the agenda.)
Bridenstine Returns to the Hill for Budget Hearing
On Wednesday, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine is scheduled to testify before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the agency’s budget request for fiscal year 2020. The proposal is currently in flux as NASA plans to submit a supplementary request to Congress in response to Vice President Mike Pence’s directive that the agency return humans to the Moon by 2024, four years earlier than the previous target. At a House Science Committee hearing on April 2, Bridenstine had said he was hoping to submit the budget amendment by mid-month. Speaking to a SpaceNews reporter after an event Monday morning, he indicated it is still not ready.
Science Committee to Review NOAA Budget Request
The House Science Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s budget request for fiscal year 2020. Acting NOAA Administrator Neil Jacobs will testify on the proposal, which would nearly halve funding for the agency’s main research office. The cuts are certain to receive a chilly reception from Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), who criticized them as “draconian” in a letter to the House Appropriations Committee. Members may also ask about NOAA’s progress in implementing the Weather Research Forecasting and Innovation Act, which the committee played an integral role in crafting. Beneath the topline cuts, NOAA is requesting funding increases for particular programs that respond to the act, including $15 million for a new Earth Prediction Innovation Center that aims to overhaul the agency’s approach to developing weather models.
Hearings to Highlight Benefits of Nuclear Energy Leadership
There will be two congressional hearings this week focused on ways to boost the domestic nuclear power sector. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee is convening Tuesday to receive testimony on the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, a bipartisan bill that would direct the Department of Energy to undertake several advanced reactor demonstration projects and support development of a domestic supply of high-assay low-enriched uranium fuel. Idaho National Laboratory Director Mark Peters will be among the witnesses. The hearing is part of a larger push the committee is making to promote energy innovation. On Friday, the House Science Committee is holding a field hearing in Shippingport, Pennsylvania, to discuss the economic and national security benefits of nuclear energy. Shippingport was the site of the first commercial nuclear power reactor in the U.S. and is currently represented by Rep. Conor Lamb (D-PA), who chairs the Energy Subcommittee.
Manufacturing, Energy, and Oceans Bills Set for Science Committee Vote
The House Science Committee is meeting Wednesday to consider a set of bipartisan bills:
Solar Geoengineering Study Begins
A National Academies study committee tasked with developing a research agenda and governance approaches for solar geoengineering is holding its kickoff meeting on Tuesday. The committee will focus on strategies such as marine cloud brightening, stratospheric aerosol injection, and cirrus cloud modification, building on a 2015 report on solar geoengineering chaired by Marcia McNutt, who is now president of the National Academy of Sciences. In a press release announcing the study in 2018, McNutt said, “Although climate-intervention strategies are not a substitute for actions to limit emissions of greenhouse gases, some of these interventions, such as sunlight reflection, may need to be considered in the future, but first we need to study them more carefully and determine how best to govern field experiments.” The study is funded by several private foundations and the final report is expected in the first half of 2020.
NSF Math and Physical Sciences Advisory Panel to Meet
The advisory committee for the National Science Foundation’s Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate is meeting on Thursday and Friday at NSF’s headquarters. The meeting includes a special joint session with NSF’s Office of Polar Programs Advisory Committee that will feature discussions of the Astro2020 decadal survey and how the IceCube neutrino observatory at the South Pole contributes to NSF’s Windows on the Universe Big Idea. Other agenda items include discussion of the National Academies’ latest decadal survey for materials research, the effect of team size on “translational vs. transformative” research, spectrum management, and the recently issued program solicitation for “Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes.”
Aspen Institute Starting Up Science and Society Program
The Aspen Institute, a nonprofit think tank, is holding a launch event Wednesday for its new Science and Society Program, which seeks to “raise awareness and inform targeted audiences about present-day challenges at the intersection of science and our national community.” The event will feature a talk by the program’s chair, Mike Lubell, on his new book on science and technology policy, which is informed by his experiences as the former director of public affairs for the American Physical Society.
Carbon Monitoring Instrument Set for Launch
NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-3) is scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Wednesday to be installed on the International Space Station. The instrument will provide higher-resolution measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide over high-carbon regions such as the Amazon rainforest than its predecessor, OCO-2, a polar-orbiting satellite. The Trump administration had twice proposed canceling the three-year mission as part of proposed budget cuts to NASA’s Earth Science Division. The cost of OCO-3 is about $100 million and is funded through the Earth Science Pathfinder Program.
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In Case You Missed It
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| NNSA Administrator Lisa Gordon Hagerty was asked about the JASON contract termination at a hearing earlier this month. NNSA has since stepped in to pick up the contract from the Department of Defense. (Image credit – House Armed Services Committee) |
NNSA Moves to Take Over JASON Contract
Last week, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration indicated its intent to take over the contract for JASON through the beginning of next year. JASON is a group of elite scientists that conducts summer studies of technical, often highly classified subjects of interest to defense and civilian agencies. The Department of Defense, which sponsored JASON since its foundation in 1960, discontinued the group’s standing contract last month. In explaining the decision to pick up the JASON contract, NNSA cited the role the group’s assessments have played in sustaining the nation’s nuclear stockpile and preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
OMB Revises Information Quality Act Requirements
The White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum to federal agencies last week updating implementation guidance for the Information Quality Act, which establishes requirements for scientific data and other information that federal agencies present to the public. The memo states agencies should revisit their procedures for identifying “influential information,” which is subject to stronger controls under the act. It also stresses that scientific information be peer reviewed and underlying data and computer code be made available where possible so as to permit reproduction of analyses by others. The memo stipulates that agencies should respond to requests for correction within 120 days and share draft responses with OMB. Previous administrations have also supported strengthening information quality standards, but critics fear the updated guidance will provide new means for bad-faith challenges to be made to the scientific basis of regulatory decisions.
Space Council Official Details Lunar Science Plans
Speaking at a symposium convened by the Universities Space Research Association on April 23, National Space Council Executive Secretary Scott Pace outlined how scientific missions will be incorporated into NASA’s campaign to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon. Pace said that while research opportunities are only one of many reasons motivating the return to the lunar surface, “we want to make sure that what science we do there is in fact driven by the community assessments and their priorities.” In the near term, he said the scientific community will play an integral role in characterizing resources such as water ice at the south pole, the planned location for a “Lunar Field Station.” He said the station would function analogously to the National Science Foundation’s McMurdo base in Antarctica, which serves a staging point for research activities across the continent, and could support research in fields ranging from astrophysics and planetary geology to materials science.
NIST Finalizes Technology Transfer Policy ‘Findings’
The National Institute of Standards and Technology released a report last week detailing fifteen areas in which the agency identified opportunities for improving the commercialization of federally funded research. Produced through NIST’s “Return on Investment” initiative, the report is structured around five main strategies for improving technology transfer: reforming regulatory and administrative policies, increasing private sector engagement, building a more entrepreneurial workforce within the federal government, improving intellectual property reporting tools, and benchmarking global S&T trends. One notable change between the final report and the initial draft released late last year is that the fifteen items are referred to as “findings based on input from stakeholders” rather than “intended actions.” One item that has attracted particular attention is the report’s call for clarifying the scope of the government’s authority to exercise “march-in rights” on patents. Some groups have advocated for the government to invoke such rights to control drug prices, while others have argued that such a move would discourage investments in research.
Study Finds Most US Women Physics Students Experience Harassment
Nearly three quarters of women in U.S. physics undergraduate degree programs report experiencing some form of sexual harassment, according to a study published last week in a physics education research journal. The researchers used survey responses from 471 students who attended a conference for undergraduate women in physics. The authors found that experiencing some form of sexual harassment, ranging from unwanted sexual attention to gender-based discrimination, “correlated to a negative sense of belonging and an exacerbated sense of the imposter phenomenon.” In the concluding section of the paper, they write, “Our findings of the pervasiveness of sexist gender harassment and its significant effect on sense of belonging for female undergraduate physicists should be a wakeup call for all physicists who believe that participation in science should be meritorious.”
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Events This Week Monday, April 29
Tuesday, April 30
National Academies: Space Studies Board spring meeting (continues through Thursday) Keck Center (500 5th St. NW, DC) Webcast available NASA: Technology, Innovation, and Engineering Advisory Committee meeting 8:00 am - 5:00 pm, NASA headquarters (300 E St. SW, DC) Webcast available NIST: Earthquake Hazards Reduction Advisory Committee meeting (continues Wednesday) 8:30 am - 5:00 pm MDT, Tue; 8:30 am - 2:15 pm MDT, Wed NIST Building 81 (Boulder, CO) Webcast available Commerce Department: Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee meeting 9:30 am, Herbert Hoover building (1401 Constitution Ave. NW, DC) House: “Solving the Climate Crisis: Drawing Down Carbon and Building Up the American Economy” 10:00 am, Climate Crisis Committee (2247 Rayburn Office Building) House: “No Road Map, No Destination, No Justification: The Implementation and Impacts of the Reorganization of the Interior Department” 10:00 am, Natural Resources Committee (1324 Longworth Office Building)
House: “Public Lands and our Clean Energy Future” 10:00 am, Natural Resources Committee (1334 Longworth Office Building) House: NOAA budget request hearing 10:00 am, Science Committee (2318 Rayburn Office Building) Senate: Hearing on the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act 10:00 am, Energy and Natural Resources Committee (366 Dirksen Office Building) House: DOD budget request hearing 10:00 am, Appropriations Committee (2359 Rayburn Office Building) National Academies: “Developing a Research Agenda and Research Governance Approaches for Climate Intervention Strategies that Reflect Sunlight to Cool Earth,” kickoff meeting 10:30 am - 5:30 pm, Keck Center (500 5th St. NW, DC) Webcast available House: “Climate Change, Part II: The Public Health Effects” 2:00 pm, Oversight Committee (2154 Rayburn Office Building) House: “Closing the Loop: Emerging Technologies in Plastics Recycling” 2:00 pm, Science Committee (2318 Rayburn Office Building) House: DHS S&T Directorate budget request hearing 2:00 pm, Homeland Security Committee (310 Cannon Office Building) DOE: Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee teleconference 4:00 - 6:00 pm House: Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill markup 4:00 pm, Appropriations Committee (2358-C Rayburn Office Building) Council on Undergraduate Research: Posters on the Hill 5:15 - 7:15 pm, 2068 Rayburn House Office Building CNSF: Coalition for National Science Funding Annual Hill Exhibition 5:30 - 7:30 pm, 2043 Rayburn House Office Building
Wednesday, May 1
National Academies: Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate spring meeting (continues Thursday) National Academy of Sciences building (2101 Constitution Ave. NW, DC) NSF: Polar Programs Advisory Committee meeting
9:00 am - 5:00 pm, Wed; 9:00 am - 2:00 pm, Thu NSF headquarters (Alexandria, VA) House: Markup of energy, manufacturing, and ocean research bills 10:00 am, Science Committee (2318 Rayburn Office Building) Senate: Hearing on the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act 10:00 am, Environment and Public Works (406 Dirksen Office Building) PhRMA: “The Future of Science: How Women are Leading Medical Innovation,” congressional briefing 10:00 - 11:00 am, 122 Cannon House Office Building House: “DOE’s Mounting Environmental Cleanup Cost” 10:30 am, Energy and Commerce Committee (2322 Rayburn Office Building) NASA: Regulatory and Policy Advisory Committee meeting 11:00 am - 4:30 pm, NASA headquarters (300 E St. SW, DC) Webcast available Carnegie Endowment: “What the U.S.-China Tech Wars Mean For Main Street” 12:00 - 1:30 pm, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, DC) Aspen Institute: Book Talk with Michael Lubell and Launch of Science and Society Program 12:00 - 1:30 pm, Aspen Institute (2300 N St. NW, DC) Senate: NASA budget request hearing 2:30 pm, Appropriations Committee (192 Dirksen Office Building) Senate: “U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy, Programs, and Strategy” 2:30 pm, Armed Services Committee (222 Russell Office Building)
Thursday, May 2
AAAS: S&T Policy Forum (continues Friday) 8:00 am - 7:00 pm, Thu; 8:30 am - 4:30 pm, Fri AAAS headquarters (1200 New York Ave. NW, DC) NSF: Math and Physical Sciences Advisory Committee meeting (continues Friday) 8:30 am - 4:00 pm, Thu; 8:30 am - 12:30 pm, Fri NSF headquarters (Alexandria, VA) Webcast available NSF: Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Advisory Committee meeting (continues Friday) 9:00 am - 5:00 pm, Thu; 9:00 am - 12:30 pm, Fri NSF headquarters (Alexandria, VA) NASA: STEM Engagement Advisory Committee teleconference 11:00 am - 3:30 pm Heritage Foundation: “Iran Policy: Nuclear and Terrorism Issues” 12:00 - 1:30 pm DOD: U.S. Strategic Command Strategic Advisory Group meeting (continues Friday) Closed to the public AAAS: “Carey Lecture with Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz” 6:00 - 8:00 pm, AAAS headquarters (1200 New York Ave. NW, DC) Webcast available
Friday, May 3
Saturday, May 4
Monday, May 6
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Opportunities NSF Seeking Advisory Committee Members
The National Science Foundation is accepting recommendations of members for its advisory committees. NSF maintains advisory committees for each of its directorates as well as more specialized committees on astronomy and astrophysics; environmental research and education; equal opportunities in science and engineering; cyberinfrastructure; international science and engineering; and business and operations. Recommendations will be accepted on an ongoing basis.
Air Force Research Office Seeking Director
The Defense Department is hiring a director for the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The office manages the service’s portfolio of basic research, administering grants to research institutions across a broad array of disciplines. Applications are due May 9.
Optical Society Hiring Chief Scientist
The Optical Society is accepting applications for its chief scientist position. The chief scientist provides technical advice to the society’s chief executive officer and develops relationships with funding agencies, among other responsibilities. Applicants must have a degree in applied physics or engineering and 15 years of senior management experience.
Know of an upcoming science policy opportunity? Email us at fyi@aip.org.Know of an upcoming science policy event? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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