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What’s Ahead
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| Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) on a visit last week to Luke Air Force Base. Kelly is the new chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, which oversees R&D programs across the Defense Department and the military services. (Image credit – Office of Sen. Kelly) |
Hearings to Explore Issues Facing Defense R&D
On Tuesday, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees are convening three hearings focused on science and technology issues, all with witnesses panels drawn from outside the government. On the Senate side, a hearing titled, “Emerging Technologies and Their Impact on National Security,” will feature Microsoft President Brad Smith, National Defense Industrial Association President Herbert Carlisle, and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a frequent participant in innovation policy discussions. It will be the first defense R&D hearing to include participation from Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), a former naval aviator and astronaut who is the new chair of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. Meanwhile, on the House side, the newly reconfigured Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems is holding its inaugural hearing, titled, “Innovation Opportunities and Vision for the Science and Technology Enterprise.” Finally, a hearing convened by the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee will address advancements by “near-peer” nations in space and nuclear weaponry. The hearings represent the committees’ first public steps as they prepare the next iteration of the National Defense Authorization Act, Congress’ annual defense policy update.
Science Committee to Hear Case for Research Recovery Funds
On Thursday, the House Science Committee is holding a hearing to discuss the impacts of the pandemic on the U.S. research enterprise. It comes as the House prepares to vote on a pandemic response bill this week that will include $750 million for activities in the jurisdiction of the Science Committee, of which it is expected that $600 million will be for the National Science Foundation and $150 million for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Committee leaders from both parties have said they believe far more funds will ultimately be needed to address COVID-related disruptions to research and have endorsed the Research Investment to Spark the Economy (RISE) Act, which proposes that about $25 billion be allocated across science agencies. The witnesses for Thursday’s hearing are Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; Christopher Keane, vice president for research at Washington State University; Felice Levine, executive director of the American Educational Research Association; and Thomas Quaadman, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness.
Climate Hearings Continue in House
The House appropriations subcommittee responsible for the Department of Energy’s budget is holding a hearing on Thursday titled, “Strategies for Energy and Climate Innovation.” The witnesses will be Colin Cunliff from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation think tank; Rich Powell, executive director of the think tank ClearPath; Robin Millican, director of the Breakthrough Energy investment group; and Shobita Parthasarathy, professor of science, technology, and public policy at the University of Michigan. Also on Thursday, the House Agriculture Committee is examining the impact of climate change on the agriculture and forestry sectors and the House Financial Services Committee is discussing ways corporate boards and investors can be responsive to climate concerns. The meetings follow earlier climate change hearings convened by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Study to Assess Risks of Nuclear War and Terrorism
The National Academies is launching a study on Friday that will examine current and potential methods for assessing the risks of nuclear terrorism and nuclear war. The study will also examine the assumptions about nuclear risks that currently underpin U.S. planning. The Department of Defense is sponsoring the study, as mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. The study committee is co-chaired by William Ostendorff, a former deputy head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Elisabeth Paté-Cornell, an expert on systems risk analysis at Stanford University. The NDAA for Fiscal Year 2021, enacted early this year, mandates a separate National Academies study on the “environmental effects of nuclear war,” which will be sponsored by NNSA.
NSF Board to Spotlight ‘Missing Millions’ in STEM Workforce
The National Science Board, which oversees the National Science Foundation, is holding its quarterly meeting this week, which will focus on strategies to increase the diversity of the STEM workforce. On Wednesday, there will be a panel discussion on roadblocks to retaining graduate students in STEM, part of a series focused on advancing the priorities of the board’s Vision 2030 strategic roadmap, and NSF staff will describe their efforts to reach the “missing millions” from underrepresented groups who are absent from the U.S. STEM workforce. NSF staff will also provide updates on the agency’s new Racial Equity Task Force and anti-harassment policy. Following the discussion, the board will vote on two resolutions aiming to increase the fairness of the merit review process, one seeking to address unconscious biases among grant proposal reviewers and the second to enhance the ability of committee of visitors panels to advise NSF divisions on how to better apply the agency’s “broader impacts” review criterion. The next day, board leaders will participate in a meeting of NSF’s advisory committee on equal opportunities in STEM and a panel discussion with scientists at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Congressional Optics and Photonics Caucus Launches
On Wednesday, the newly formed Optics and Photonics Caucus is hosting a public launch event featuring its co-chairs, Reps. Joe Morelle (D-NY) and Brian Mast (R-FL) and Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Steve Daines (R-MT). The caucus’ goal is to educate members of Congress on the contributions of light-based research and technologies to the economy, national security, health care, and science. The discussion will be moderated by Ed White, cjkimhair of the National Photonics Initiative, a coalition of science and industry groups seeking to increase federal funding for photonics research. (NPI was co-founded by SPIE and The Optical Society, an AIP Member Society.)
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In Case You Missed It
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| Image credit – DOE |
Academies Study Offers Pathway to Fusion Pilot Plant
A National Academies report released last week outlines the investments required for fusion energy to potentially contribute to the decarbonization of the electric power sector over the coming decades. It recommends that the Department of Energy help convene national teams drawn from the public and private sectors to develop conceptual designs for pilot plants capable of generating net electricity, with the aim of completing one such plant between 2035 and 2040. The report also details technical and economic challenges that would need to be resolved regardless of the plasma confinement concept employed, while focusing on those using deuterium-tritium fuel. Based on the current structure of the electricity market, it suggests that the pilot plant and a follow-on “first-of-a-kind” reactor would each have to cost less than about $6 billion to build in order for fusion to gain a foothold in the power industry. The report states that the framework it presents is more aggressive and carries higher risks than a 2019 National Academies study that also endorsed the pursuit of a pilot plant.
Biden Administration Overturning Trump-Era Climate Guidelines
The U.S. Geological Survey has rescinded an unreleased interim policy adopted during the Trump administration that, according to reports, would have limited the agency’s ability to consider projections of climate change impacts extending beyond the 2040s. In an article published in December, then-USGS Director Jim Reilly argued that the agency should emphasize the uncertainty of projections when considering climate change. In rescinding the policy, the acting director of USGS cites an internal finding that proper scientific review procedures had been circumvented in advancing it. Separately, the White House Council on Environmental Quality is rescinding a Trump-era proposal that would have allowed federal agencies to forgo analyzing the effects of policy changes on greenhouse gas emissions if they deemed the quantification of such effects to be impracticable or “overly speculative.” In the near future, the Biden administration is expected to restore the government’s social cost of carbon estimate to at least the level of about $50 dollars per ton set by the Obama administration. The figure, which the Trump administration set at far lower numbers, is used to calculate the impacts of carbon emissions under different policies. The Biden administration’s move is an interim measure until it can develop an updated figure.
Senate Commerce Committee Reconfigures Science Panels
Last week, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee announced the lead members of its subcommittees and revealed it has restructured those with jurisdiction over science agencies. Newly elected Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), a former petrogeologist and Colorado governor, will chair the new Space and Science Subcommittee, which oversees NASA, the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), also newly elected, will serve as ranking member. Last Congress, NASA was overseen by a subcommittee led by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), who will now be the respective ranking member and chair of a subcommittee focused on aviation policy. The former Subcommittee on Science, Oceans, Fisheries, and Weather has been reconfigured as the Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries, Climate Change, and Manufacturing, which will oversee the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and be chaired by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) as ranking member.
Senate Names New Leads for Defense R&D Policy
The Senate Armed Services Committee announced the rosters of its subcommittees last week, including new leaders for the panels that oversee defense R&D and nuclear weapons programs. Newly elected Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) will chair the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, replacing Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) as its top Democrat, with Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) returning as the top Republican. The subcommittee oversees most defense-related R&D, except for programs related to nuclear, space, and missile defense systems, which are handled by the Strategic Forces Subcommittee. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) will now chair that panel, replacing Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) as its top Democrat, with Sen. Deb Fisher (R-NE) returning as its top Republican.
Democrats Introduce Biden Immigration Bill
On Feb. 18, Democrats in the House and Senate introduced the U.S. Citizenship Act, which embodies President Biden’s proposals for overhauling immigration policy. Among the provisions focused on employment-based immigration, foreign students who receive doctoral degrees in certain STEM fields from a U.S. institution would be exempted from numerical caps on visas. The eligible fields, defined using Department of Education classifications, are physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, statistics, computer and information sciences, accounting, and tax advice, and additional fields could be added at the discretion of the Department of Homeland Security. The bill would also confer “dual intent” status to F-1 visa holders, meaning students would be exempted from having to demonstrate they do not intend to remain in the U.S. after graduation. In addition, the bill would eliminate the country-level caps on employment-based visas and institute a maximum wait period of 10 years, reducing the large backlog currently faced by immigrants from large countries, particularly India. To promote regional economic development, the bill would authorize a pilot program permitting the annual admission of up to 10,000 additional immigrants deemed essential to development strategies of particular cities and counties, provided that no domestic workers could fill the associated jobs. For the nonimmigrant H-1B visa category used by high-skilled workers, the bill would grant work authorization to the spouses of H-1B holders and enable the government to prioritize H-1B allocations to employers that offer the highest wages. A section-by-section summary of the bill is available here. The Biden administration has indicated it is willing to pursue more piecemeal legislation in the absence of support for the full package.
Cotton Proposes ‘Research Blockade’ Against China
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) issued a report last week that advocates for the U.S. to selectively “decouple” itself from China, including by implementing a “research blockade” that sharply restricts Chinese students and scientists from accessing the U.S. higher education system. Several of the proposals are drawn from the SECURE CAMPUS Act that Cotton first introduced last year, which would prohibit Chinese citizens from studying STEM fields at the graduate level or receiving federal research grants, and would prohibit federal grantees from employing individuals who participate in Chinese talent recruitment programs. The report also proposes to bar U.S. universities from accepting funding from Chinese entities and from operating campuses or joint research ventures in China. To reduce the disruption such moves would cause to the U.S. research system, Cotton calls for increasing training of U.S. citizens in STEM fields, such as by creating a STEM track in the ROTC program and offering financial rewards to schools that graduate the most U.S. citizens in STEM fields. He also proposes the U.S. “return to Cold War levels of investment in research” and fund “mini-moonshots” in technical fields that could shift the balance of power between the U.S. and China.
UK Launches DARPA-Inspired Research Agency
The U.K. government announced last week it is standing up an “Advanced Research and Invention Agency” that will have an £800 million ($1.1 billion) budget spread across the next four years, with full operations beginning in 2022. Modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the U.S., ARIA will be administered separately from the U.K.’s main science funder, U.K. Research and Innovation, and be granted various programmatic flexibilities. The government stated the agency will “experiment with funding models including program grants, seed grants, and prize incentives, and will have the capability to start and stop projects according to their success, redirecting funding where necessary.”
Launch of Asteroid Collision Mission Pushed Back
Following an internal review, NASA announced last week that it will not meet this summer’s scheduled launch date for the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission and will now target a secondary launch window that is open from late November 2021 through mid-February 2022. The goal of the mission, which has a total cost of about $300 million, is to collide with a 160 meter-wide asteroid called Dimorphos that is orbiting a 780 meter-wide asteroid called Didymos as they pass close to Earth, enabling studies of the collision’s dynamical effects on the two-asteroid system. The test is expected to yield data that could inform future attempts to deflect asteroids found to be on course for a devastating collision with Earth. Even with a delayed launch, DART will still arrive at the Didymos system close to its originally scheduled impact date of September 30, 2022.
Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars
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| A still image showing the Perseverance rover approaching the surface of Mars, suspended by wires from a rocket-powered descent vehicle. NASA is due to release video of the landing Monday afternoon. (Image credit – NASA / JPL-Caltech) |
NASA’s Perseverance rover completed its half-year journey to Mars on Feb. 18, touching down without incident in the Jezero crater, where it will conduct geological investigations and search for signs that life once existed there. Between 30 and 60 days from now, Perseverance will deploy the helicopter Ingenuity to the ground, opening a one month window during which it will attempt up to five solar-powered test flights. Using video equipment attached to both Perseverance and its descent stage, the mission has already captured the first-ever video of a Mars landing, which NASA is scheduled to release early Monday afternoon. President Biden praised the landing in a phone call with acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk, and in remarks to a virtually conducted European security conference, he pointed to the mission, which carries European-built components, as an example of what can be achieved through international collaboration.
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Events This Week Monday, February 22
Tuesday, February 23
Wednesday, February 24
Thursday, February 25
Friday, February 26
3:00 - 4:15 pm
Saturday, February 27
Monday, March 1
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Opportunities National Academies Hiring Science Policy Board Director
The National Academies is seeking a director for its Committee on Science, Engineering, Medicine, and Public Policy, which conducts studies on cross-cutting issues in science and technology policy. Applicants must have a doctoral degree in a relevant field or equivalent experience and at least ten years of related professional experience.
NSF Seeking Science Writer
The National Science Foundation is hiring a science writer in its Office of Legislative and Public Affairs. The position is responsible for developing written and oral communications that inform the public about research funded by NSF. Applications are due March 2.
AAAS Seeking Interns for Science Journalism Diversity Program
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is accepting applications for its Diverse Voices in Science Journalism internship. The 10-week paid summer internship is open to undergraduate students that have a “deep commitment to extending the reach of science journalism into communities where there is currently limited participation.” Interns will work in the news division of the journal Science and cover science-related events in and around Washington, D.C. Applications are due March 5.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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