The Senate Appropriations Committee is meeting on Thursday to advance the spending legislation that funds NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Detailed proposals for the agencies will be included in an accompanying report, which the committee typically releases shortly after approving the bill. Because the committee is adhering to spending caps that President Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) negotiated in May, funding increases will be limited to its highest priorities. NASA’s Science Mission Directorate is in a particularly difficult situation because the Biden administration’s request to increase the directorate’s budget by 6% already left some activities with insufficient funding, including heliophysics, which is a personal priority for the Senate’s lead appropriator for the agency, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). Other issues to be addressed include whether the $1 billion increase provided to NSF this year through a special supplement will be retained as part of its ordinary budget, and whether funding will be provided to address deteriorating facilities at NIST. The Senate bill will ultimately have to be reconciled with the House’s counterpart bill, which has not yet been released. Keep up to date on proposals for all agencies with FYI’s newly upgraded Federal Science Budget Tracker.

The House is poised to bring its version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act up for floor debate this week and the House Rules Committee is meeting on Tuesday to decide which of the more than 1,500 proposed amendments will receive votes. Research security is emerging as an important issue in this year’s NDAA negotiations and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s innovation policy panel, is proposing an amendment that would generally prohibit the Defense Department from funding any institution of higher education that collaborates in fundamental research with an “entity of concern” or several categories of research institutions associated with the Chinese military. Various other Republican-backed amendments would restrict or scrutinize different sorts of research partnerships with China-linked entities. The Senate has also completed committee work on its version of the NDAA but has not yet scheduled floor action.

The House Science Committee is holding a hearing on Wednesday to examine opportunities for improving the prediction of weather conditions that increase the risk of and exacerbate wildfires. Committee Democrats advanced legislation during the last Congress that would have established an interagency program focused on wildfire prediction, detection, and mitigation. Republicans objected at the time to limiting the bill’s focus to the Science Committee’s jurisdiction and to being largely excluded from the drafting process. On Thursday, the committee is holding a hearing on the commercial space sector to inform legislation that is expected to cover matters such as regulatory issues, commercial remote sensing capabilities, and space situational awareness.

The Supreme Court ruled on June 29 that universities’ affirmative action policies, which use race as a factor in making admissions decisions, violate a clause of the Constitution establishing that all U.S. citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law. In the six-to-three majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court stated that universities may still consider how race has affected an applicant’s life so long as it is tied to individual experiences, such as those illuminated in personal application essays. The Association of American Universities argued the ruling upends previous decisions by the court and mistakenly implies that the admissions criteria in question reduced applicants solely to their race or ethnicity. Although the current ruling is focused on university admissions, future litigation could target other activities such as hiring practices. Various scientific societies, including AIP, reacted to the ruling by reaffirming their commitment to pursuing diversity initiatives.

The Department of Defense published a document last week that details the process it will use to assess security risks associated with applicants for fundamental research grants and to deny funding to those for whom the risks cannot be mitigated. Some parts of DOD have already instituted such procedures, but the new document establishes minimum standards for the reviews across the department. The document also includes a matrix of risk factors to inform decisions by program managers as well as a list of foreign institutions that DOD cautions researchers against engaging with, all of which are in China and Russia. It specifically names six talent recruitment programs DOD deems to be “malign” and elaborates on the criteria it will use to make the designation for additional programs. DOD explains the risk review process was established in response to a 2021 presidential memorandum and provisions in recent laws, such as the National Defense Authorization Acts for fiscal years 2019 and 2020 and the CHIPS and Science Act, which bans agencies from funding participants in malign recruitment programs.

In a letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken on June 27, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and nine other House Republicans urged that the U.S. not renew the science and technology agreement (STA) it first signed with China in 1979 and which is set to expire on Aug. 27. Sending the letter in his role as chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, Gallagher argued the Chinese government “will continue to look for opportunities to exploit partnerships organized under the STA to advance its military objectives to the greatest extent possible and, in some cases, to attempt to undermine American sovereignty.” The Biden administration has not indicated whether it will seek to renew the agreement, though Reuters has reported that the matter is being debated. Although the administration is currently stepping up diplomatic outreach to China, it is also severely restricting the export of advanced computer chips to the country and fostering international partnerships that are partly aimed at counterbalancing Chinese influence in science and technology.

Over the last month, the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, and National Institute of Standards and Technology have released plans for complying with a 2022 White House policy that requires scientific papers resulting from federally funded research to be freely available upon publication, sunsetting the current one-year embargo period by 2025. The plans also lay out new guidelines on public access to research data and describe procedures for disseminating research products through agency public access repositories. All three agencies plan to release additional guidance on the use of unique persistent identifiers for authors, organizations, and research results, which they expect to implement by 2027. NIST is soliciting feedback on its plan through Aug. 14.

Just before the July 4 holiday weekend, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released a report that identifies key research questions associated with assessing the risks and benefits of solar geoengineering, or artificially limiting the amount of solar radiation that reaches the Earth’s surface. Congress mandated the report in its fiscal year 2022 appropriations legislation, a point the OSTP press release accompanying the report emphasizes, noting the Biden administration has “no plans underway to establish a comprehensive research program focused on solar radiation modification.” The report cautions that any potential research program “must encompass the societal as well as the scientific dimensions of solar radiation modification.” It also notes that research on the subject has been “ad hoc and fragmented” and recommends that any future federal research program should be coordinated through the U.S. Global Change Research Program and include collaboration with international partners.

The European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope launched on July 1 from Cape Canaveral in Florida and is now on its way to the Earth’s second Lagrange point, a gravitationally stable location in space from which it will make a detailed three-dimensional map of about one-third of the sky. The resulting trove of data will enable newly detailed studies of the action of dark matter and dark energy, which are poorly understood phenomena that play a major role in the behavior of the cosmos. ESA approved the mission in 2012 as part of its “Cosmic Vision” program, anticipating it would launch in 2020 and cost about €1 billion, including contributions from other agencies. NASA was responsible for supplying infrared detectors, which suffered from flaws that contributed to Euclid’s launch delay. Last year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine derailed plans to use a Soyuz rocket as the mission’s launch vehicle, but switching to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket minimized the effects of the setback. According to ESA, the mission’s current cost estimate is about €1.4 billion.

The New York Times reported last week that Lewis Branscomb, long a prominent player in U.S. science policy, died on May 31 at the age of 96. Branscomb received a doctorate in physics from Harvard University in 1949 and joined the National Bureau of Standards in 1951, working as a researcher in atomic and molecular physics. In 1962, he co-founded the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics, a collaborative endeavor of NBS and the University of Colorado Boulder now known simply as JILA. During the 1960s, he was a member of the JASON science advisory group and the President’s Science Advisory Committee, and in 1969 President Richard Nixon selected him to be NBS director. Moving to IBM in 1972, Branscomb was the company’s chief scientist until 1986 and emerged in this period as an advocate for an active national technology policy. Chairing the National Science Board from 1980 to 1984, he supported National Science Foundation Director Edward Knapp and others in charting a new agency emphasis on engineering research that was vigorously carried out by Knapp’s successor, Erich Bloch, another IBM executive. Branscomb served as president of the American Physical Society for 1979, encouraging physicists to engage in policy and social issues, and finished his career at Harvard, where from 1986 to 1996 he led the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government.

All times are Eastern Daylight Time, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement.

NASA / CERN: “Summit on Accelerating the Adoption of Open Science”
(continues through Friday)

National Academies: “Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics: Ground and Space Working Group Meeting”
(continues Tuesday)

National Academies: “Understanding and Addressing Misinformation about Science,” meeting four
(continues Tuesday)

National Academies: “Roundtable on Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Education”
(continues Tuesday)

NASA: Small Bodies Assessment Group meeting
(continues through Thursday)

National Academies: Army Science and Technology Roundtable
(continues through Thursday)

National Academies: Climate Crossroads Summit
(continues Wednesday)

Senate: “Superbugs: The Impact of Antimicrobial Resistance on Modern Medicine”
10:00 am, Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee

House: “Investigating the Proximal Origin of a Cover Up”
10:00 am, Oversight Committee

Washington Post: “Future of Work: The Impact of AI”
2:00 pm

House: “Enhancing Fire Weather Prediction and Coordination”
10:00 am, Science Committee

Senate: Meeting to consider four FCC nominees
10:00 am, Commerce Committee

House: “Oversight of the FBI”
10:00 am, Judiciary Committee

CSIS: “Competing for the Future of Cloud Computing”
1:30 - 2:30 pm

House: Meeting to consider small business innovation legislation
2:30 pm, Small Business Committee

Senate: Hearing to consider nominees for director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center and the National Security Agency
2:30 pm, Intelligence Committee

House: “Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property – Part II: Copyright”
3:00 pm, Judiciary Committee

House: “Continuing U.S. Leadership in Commercial Space at Home and Abroad”
10:00 am, Science Committee

House: Closed hearing to consider the FY24 Intelligence Authorization Act
10:00 am, Intelligence Committee

House: “The State Department’s Climate Agenda: A Budget Overview by the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate”
10:00 am, Foreign Affairs Committee

House: “Exposing the Dangers of the Influence of Foreign Adversaries on College Campuses”
10:15 am, Education Committee

Senate: Full committee meeting to advance the FY24 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Act
11:00 am, Appropriations Committee

House: “Risky Business: Growing Peril for American Companies in China”
7:00 pm, China Select Committee

No events.

AAAS: “How Can Public Access Advance Equity and Learning?”
11:30 am

National Academies: “The Current Status and Future Direction of High Magnetic Field Science in the United States, Phase II”
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.

The Office of Personnel Management has launched a STEM Jobs portal that highlights open positions across the federal government. The office has also launched portals dedicated to national security, technology, and early-career positions.

The American Physical Society is hiring an ethics manager to spearhead its development of ethical standards and policies for APS activities and to monitor compliance. Candidates must have at least a bachelor’s degree in law, ethics, business, or a related field, as well as at least five years of relevant professional experience.

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research is hiring a legislative specialist to engage with Congress on behalf of the Earth system science research community. Candidates must have a bachelor’s degree and two to five years of experience working in a congressional office or in a government relations role. Applications are due July 14.

Know of an opportunity for scientists to engage in science policy? Email us at fyi@aip.org.

News and views currently in circulation. Links do not imply endorsement.

White House: Statement from President Joe Biden on completing the destruction of the US’ chemical weapons stockpile
OSTP: G20 Research Ministerial Meeting recap
White House: Readout of listening session with union leaders on advancing responsible AI innovation
White House: Action plan to bolster America’s biotechnology workforce
New York Times: John Kerry to visit China to restart climate negotiations
Roll Call: Spending bill targets Kerry’s office, global climate spending
OSTP: Advancing a circular economy to meet our climate, energy, and economic goals (perspective by Sally Benson, et al.)
Union of Concerned Scientists: For the first time ever, the White House adopts a model scientific integrity policy

Roll Call: House GOP may move stopgap spending bill as soon as this month
Weather Geeks: Enshrining NOAA into law (audio interview with Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK))
Wired: The US Senate wants to rein in AI. Good luck with that
The Hill: The Senate doesn’t need to start from scratch on AI legislation (perspective by Janet Haven and Sorelle Friedler)
Senate Health Committee: Bipartisan draft bill released to reauthorize the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act

American Meteorological Society: Special statement on harassment and intimidation of broadcast meteorologists
Nature: Disinformation researchers under investigation: What’s happening and why
Science|Business: Confidence in science: How to ensure sustainable and trustworthy channels of scientific information? (report)
Washington Post: Native Americans call for reparations from ‘land-grab’ universities
Science|Business: France plans UK-inspired tax relief for early-stage investors in technology start-ups

NSF: NSF releases report on diversity trends in STEM workforce and education
Physics Today: Preliminary results from the revamping of Michigan State University’s physics graduate admissions process suggest that the changes have made the procedure fairer for all (perspective by Nicholas Young, et al.)
Symmetry: A call to cite Black women and gender minorities
Times Higher Education: ‘Holistic’ admissions may struggle to blunt Supreme Court fallout
Times Higher Education: Big data could help mitigate the affirmative action ban
Physics Today: The gap between physics bachelor’s recipients and grad school spots is growing
Nature: Postdoctoral researchers warn NIH that cost-of-living pressures are gutting the workforce
Inside Higher Ed: New study suggests the Department of Justice’s China Initiative investigations may encourage more scientists to relocate to China
Physics Today: Free textbooks and other open educational resources gain popularity

Times Higher Education: ‘Grave concern’ over NIH’s sweeping foreign research data rules
National Academies: Foreign-funded language and culture institutes at US institutions of higher education (report)
ScienceInsider: Giant NSF grants aim to revitalize underserved US regions
Stat: How ARPA-H can master the subtle art of risk-taking (perspective by Janika Schmitt, et al.)
Nature: How ‘research impact bonds’ could transform science funding (perspective by Michael Hill)
NBER: Peer review and scientific risk taking (paper by Richard Carson, et al.)
CERN Courier: Origins of the ‘five sigma’ criterion in particle physics and whether it remains a relevant marker for claiming the discovery of new physics (perspective by Louis Lyons)
ScienceInsider: Embattled physicist files patent for unprecedented ambient superconductor
Science|Business: European research integrity code updated to reflect advances in AI
Times Higher Education: Australian funder bars grant reviewers from using ChatGPT
Nature: Scientists used ChatGPT to generate an entire paper from scratch — but is it any good?

Naval Research Laboratory: NRL celebrates 100 years of service
NIST: Ray Kammer, who led NIST to the start of the 21st century, dies at 76
Lawrence Livermore National Lab: New NIF experimental platform will probe warm dense matter
CERN: Extreme detector design for a Future Circular Collider
CERN: CERN’s neutrino odyssey
CERN: New science education and outreach center will be a vibrant part of CERN life (perspective by Fabiola Gianotti)
European Spallation Source: ESS Council elects new chair and vice chair
Science|Business: Sweden launches national network to help industry access research infrastructures
Research Professional: Energy crisis and critical raw material shortages having severe impact on European research facilities, survey finds

Wall Street Journal: For Nvidia and China, an AI battle with Washington bodes ill
New York Times: Chips make it tough for the US to quit China
South China Morning Post: Chinese ‘GaN’ semiconductor technology pioneer Innoscience dragged into IP dispute in US
MIT Technology Review: The $100 billion bet that a postindustrial US city can reinvent itself as a high-tech chip hub
New York Times: AI is coming for mathematics, too
Washington Post: A billionaire-backed movement is recruiting college students to fight killer AI, which some see as the next Manhattan Project
Washington Post: Will China overtake the US on AI?
The Economist: Chicago hopes to become a world center for quantum research
Defense News: Sweden, Finland eye quantum tech leap amid call for official strategy
Roll Call: Spectrum authority lapse impinges on broadband, 5G plans

SpaceNews: Radio noise from satellite constellations could interfere with astronomers
NASA: NASA names Dr. Jane Rigby new Webb Telescope senior project scientist
Reuters: NASA sees lunar mining trial within the next decade
Nature: India shoots for the Moon with Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander
South China Morning Post: Western companies drawn to China’s lunar research station project
Space Review: What does China’s space program mean for Great Britain and the West? (perspective by Jack Sharpe, et al.)

NOAA: NOAA invests $60 million to create a climate-ready workforce
Commerce Department: Biden-Harris Administration announces $60 million to create a climate resilience accelerator program and support small businesses
European Commission: EU proposes comprehensive new outlook on threats of climate change and environmental degradation
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: How solar radiation management research can harm (perspective by Aaron Tang)
South China Morning Post: China starts building third icebreaker, which scientists say could send researchers to polar seabeds by 2025
Inside Climate News: Study details efforts by makers of ‘forever chemicals’ to hide their harms

Wall Street Journal: Jigar Shah, director of DOE’s loan program, is trying to hand out money for green-technology projects
Wall Street Journal: Princeton professor Jesse Jenkins is helping guide billions in climate spending
DOE: Biden-Harris administration to jumpstart clean hydrogen economy with new initiative to provide market certainty and unlock private investment
Politico: Biden’s hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust
E&E News: EU’s ‘green’ hydrogen rules may shape American industry
Physics Today: The US has practically boundless capacity to store carbon dioxide. It just needs to find a way to do it
Research Professional: Germany posts strategy for fusion power plant
New York Times: Nobel-winning creator of the lithium-ion battery, John Goodenough, dies at 100

Financial Times: Silicon Valley chiefs apply pressure to US government to open up $886 billion defense budget to start-ups
GAO: DOD benefited from financial flexibilities for R&D but could do more to maximize their use (report)
National Defense: Delivering new capabilities to warfighters at speed, scale (perspective by Heidi Shyu and Arun Seraphin)
Wall Street Journal: Chinese balloon used American tech to spy on Americans
New York Times: Decades behind initial schedule, elimination of US stockpile of lethal chemical munitions draws to a close
NNSA: NNSA administrator remarks on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
New Yorker: The campaign to nullify Oppenheimer’s security clearance revocation (perspective by Kai Bird)
New York Times: Physicists warn a new three-body problem could lead to not only global races for new armaments but also thermonuclear war
Defense News: Senators want to boost Pentagon UFO office funding, transparency

Wall Street Journal: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) won’t hold hearing on nomination of NIH director until White House lays out plan to curb high drug costs
CBS News: Billions in NIH grants could be jeopardized by appointments snafu, Republicans say
New York Times: US vaccine program now flush with cash, but short on key details of regulatory guidance
House Energy and Commerce Committee: Republicans press for transparency on lab safety measures
Washington Post: Anthony Fauci to join Georgetown faculty
ScienceInsider: NIH defunds Colombian research facility that allegedly abused monkeys
Science|Business: Commission proposes revamp to restrictive EU genetic engineering rules
ScienceInsider: WHO’s new chief scientist aims to anticipate global challenges (interview with Jeremy Farrar)

Inside Higher Education: Is there a future for US campuses in China?
Science and Public Policy: China’s use of formal science and technology agreements as a tool of diplomacy (paper by Caroline Wagner and Denis Simon)
Science|Business: The security crackdown by Canadian government is hampering research collaboration with China
Research Professional: European Commission to assess risks of Chinese companies in EU R&D
Science|Business: Spanish EU presidency to spearhead strategic direction for research and innovation policy
Science|Business: Bulgaria’s Ivanova named next EU research commissioner
Research Professional: Sector leaders worried over UK reportedly not rejoining Euratom
Nature: Sweden’s researchers outraged at decision to ax development-research funding
Research Professional: More than one-third of Ukraine’s research infrastructure reported to have been damaged or destroyed
National Academies: Eighteen Ukrainian research projects selected for long-term funding by the Polish Academy of Sciences and US National Academy of Sciences
Research Professional: Head of Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Larry Marshall, bows out
ScienceInsider: Science-free schooling for Israel’s ultra-Orthodox draws fire
Nature: Hundreds file suit targeting Mexico’s divisive science law