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What’s Ahead
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| Image credit – House Appropriations Committee |
House Science Spending Bills Coming Together
The House Appropriations Committee is wrapping up work this week on its versions of the 12 bills that will fund federal agencies for fiscal year 2023. The committee will advance bills covering NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Departments of Energy and Commerce on Tuesday, and the bills for the U.S. Geological Survey and National Institutes of Health on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. The committee’s proposed topline budgets generally align with President Biden’s request for large boosts to science agencies, with some exceptions. It would provide about half the requested increases for NSF and DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy but considerably more than the amounts requested for the DOE Office of Science, DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, and early-stage Department of Defense R&D programs. The committee makes detailed program-level proposals through reports accompanying the legislation, and it has just released the reports for DOE and NSF, NASA, and the Commerce Department.
The bills also earmark funds for university research and facility upgrade projects proposed by individual members of Congress, most of which are attached to the budget for the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The largest NIST earmark is $20 million for an upgrade to the research reactor at the University of Missouri. Research-related earmarks are also included in the budgets for DOD and DOE. Congress restored earmarks during the fiscal year 2022 budget cycle after a decade-long moratorium and ultimately included more than 300 related to STEM education or research in its finalized spending legislation.
Top Democrats Pushing to Finish COMPETES Compromise
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) are pushing to quickly finish negotiations on a compromise between the House’s America COMPETES Act and the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act. After a meeting last week with their Republican counterparts, they stated, “On behalf of House and Senate Democrats, we expressed our belief that there is no reason that we should not pass this bill through Congress in July. Democrats have already made accommodations in the name of reaching an agreement, which we are optimistic can happen soon.” Semiconductor industry executives are also urging Congress to act quickly, warning that without the financial incentives the bill is expected to fund, they may choose to invest first in other countries that have already moved to set up subsidy programs. Republican leaders did not issue their own statement after the meeting. Congress will be on recess next week for the July 4 holiday and will then have only a few weeks to complete business ahead of the traditional month-long August recess. When lawmakers return to Washington, D.C., this fall, their attention may be diverted by other business as the November election approaches.
Particle Physics ‘Decadal Study’ Kicks Off
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| A chart presented at the latest meeting of the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel showing the cascade of exercises that will guide future planning for high energy physics at the Department of Energy and National Science Foundation. (Image credit – DOE) |
On Wednesday, the National Academies is launching a decadal study for the field of elementary particle physics that aims to inform decisions about “funding, workforce, and research directions” over the next ten years, including through identification of potential “societal benefits.” The study is chaired by Caltech experimental particle physicist Maria Spiropulu and University of Chicago theoretical cosmologist Michael Turner and it updates a previous study completed in 2006. In contrast to the Academies’ decadal studies for NASA, which recommend specific projects, federal decisions on major high energy physics facilities and experiments will be more directly influenced by a separate effort commencing later this year called the P5 (Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel). The P5 will build on the American Physical Society’s “Snowmass” process, which is currently gathering input from the research community and will culminate with a meeting in Seattle next month. This week’s meeting of the Academies study committee is taking place behind closed doors and its first open session will be held in conjunction with the Snowmass meeting. The Academies study and the P5 process are both expected to conclude about a year from now.
NIST Hosts Satellite Brightness Mitigation Conference
On Tuesday, the National Institute of Standards and Technology will convene a virtual conference on best practices for reducing light pollution from satellite constellations and its effects on astronomical observations. Possible mitigation strategies that will be discussed include coating technologies, shades that block reflections, and using satellite position data to inform telescope pointing and the subtraction of satellite streaks from images. Astronomers raised fresh concerns about interference from the company SpaceX’s broadband internet megaconstellation at an American Astronomical Society conference earlier this month, noting its latest satellites are more reflective than its previous ones. Recognizing there is a balance to be found between the benefits of satellite applications and the challenges of mitigation, AAS Public Policy Fellow Julie Davis remarked, “We are not against the internet, we just want it to not be super-reflective.” At the NIST conference, Davis will moderate a session on the recently established IAU Centre for the Protection of the Dark and Quiet Sky from Satellite Constellation Interference.
Editor’s Note: FYI This Week will next publish on July 11th.
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In Case You Missed It
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| Arati Prabhakar pictured in 2013. (Image credit – Glenn Fawcett / DOD) |
Arati Prabhakar Nominated to Lead White House Science Office
Last week, President Biden nominated engineer Arati Prabhakar to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and announced he will appoint her as his science adviser and a member of the Cabinet pending her Senate confirmation. Prabhakar is the first woman and person of color to be nominated to lead OSTP. From 1993 to 1997, she was the first woman to direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology, leading the Clinton administration’s ultimately stymied efforts to vastly expand the agency’s services to industry through its Manufacturing Extension Partnership program and the now-defunct Advanced Technology Program. Prabhakar later led the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from 2012 to 2017, where she had worked early in her career as a program manager for microelectronics R&D. During the early 2000s, she was a partner at a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and after leaving DARPA she founded a nonprofit organization that seeks to catalyze R&D surrounding pressing societal problems. She has recently advocated for focusing the U.S. R&D “ecosystem” on a variety of problems facing the country by more broadly applying DARPA’s model of actively managing targeted grant projects.
SBIR Extension, China Restriction Among Defense Bill Amendments
The House Armed Services Committee advanced its version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act last week on a vote of 57 to 1 after adopting more than 100 amendments. Among the research policy provisions is an amendment by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) proposing a two-year extension of the multi-agency Small Business Innovation Research program, which is set to expire at the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. Although Congress routinely extends the program, this year some Republicans have argued the latest extension should come with measures to prevent the Chinese government from exploiting companies the program supports. The committee did not adopt research security measures specific to the program, though it did accept an amendment by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) that would broadly bar Department of Defense research funds from going to any entity that has contracts with Chinese or Russian academic institutions that, among other criteria, DOD deems to have a “history of improper technology transfer, intellectual property theft, or cyber or human espionage.” However, Congress may ultimately decide to handle the SBIR extension and new research security measures through the compromise version of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act and the America COMPETES Act of 2022 currently being negotiated by a conference committee.
House Passes Bill to Prescribe ARPA–H Structure
The House passed the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Health Act last week on a vote of 336 to 85, sending it to the Senate. The bill outlines responsibilities of the agency and its director, including mechanisms for setting research priorities, and would require the agency to be independent of the National Institutes of Health. The White House indicated in a statement that it “strongly supports” the bill but maintains that keeping ARPA–H within NIH would “provide for the most efficient administration of the program’s goals.” President Biden pushed to create ARPA–H to focus on research on diseases such as ALS, cancer, and Alzheimer’s, and Congress provided it with an initial appropriation of $1 billion. The House bill suggests a smaller budget for the agency, recommending it receive $500 million annually over the next five years. However, the House Appropriations Committee has ignored that provision, proposing ARPA–H receive $2.75 billion in the coming fiscal year.
NOAA Strategic Plan Prioritizes Climate Services and Equity
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released a draft five-year strategic plan last week that is organized around three main goals: building a “climate-ready nation,” accelerating the growth of an information-based “blue economy,” and embedding equity considerations across the agency’s programs. The 73-page document covers matters such as efforts to improve environmental observations and modeling, as well as to deliver better information to decision-makers and the public, with a focus on “underserved and vulnerable populations.” NOAA also outlines how its efforts to centralize climate and equity apply to its own operations, encompassing issues such as reducing the vulnerability of its facilities to climate change and strengthening its ability to build and maintain a diverse workforce. The agency is accepting public comments on the draft through July 7.
Hearing Highlights Funding Needs of Major Physics Projects
The House Science Committee held a hearing last week to make the case for more expansively funding the Department of Energy’s flagship projects in high energy and nuclear physics. Energy Subcommittee Chair Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) pointed to their role in both addressing the “biggest unanswered questions on the most basic nature of our world” and fostering spin-off technologies. Subcommittee Ranking Member Randy Weber (R-TX) also expressed support for DOE’s major projects in fundamental science, noting their importance to securing the global standing of U.S. science. Jim Yeck, the project director for Brookhaven National Lab’s Electron-Ion Collider, testified that the collider needs more funding now to ensure its construction can ramp up in 2025, allowing personnel to transfer smoothly following the planned shutdown of its predecessor, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Fermilab Director Lia Merminga was asked about recent concerns surrounding the cost and schedule of the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility and Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment and she sought to reassure the committee the project is on track and will provide capabilities beyond those of Japan’s Hyper-Kamiokande facility, which is likely to start operations earlier. She also noted that, contrary to recent news reports, DOE has not put off building LBNF/DUNE out to its full scope, saying the plan has consistently been to complete two detectors at the project’s “Far Site” in South Dakota and then expand to the site’s capacity of four detectors at a later date.
Psyche Asteroid Mission to Miss Favored Launch Window
NASA reported on June 24 that its Psyche spacecraft will not meet its launch deadline this fall due to delays in the delivery and testing of its flight software. When first selected through NASA’s Discovery program five years ago, the mission was expected to launch in 2023 and reach the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche in 2030, but the agency soon afterward moved the launch to 2022 to take advantage of a trajectory allowing it to arrive in 2026. Now, an independent review panel will explore launch opportunities in the next two years that would move the mission’s arrival date closer to the original schedule. The review will also assess the costs of the delay and the knock-on effects for other missions in the Discovery program and NASA’s broader planetary science portfolio. Agency officials said during a press call the panel will also make a basic recommendation on whether to continue the mission at all. Psyche has already cost NASA over $700 million and its total lifecycle cost before the delay was expected to be close to $1 billion. The rocket that was to launch Psyche was also supposed to carry a separate asteroid mission called Janus, comprising two small-scale spacecraft that will now likewise require new plans.
NASA Moves Ahead With Lunar Reactor Plans
Last week, NASA announced that Lockheed Martin, Westinghouse, and a joint venture of Intuitive Machines and X-Energy will each receive 12-month contracts of about $5 million to develop preliminary designs for a 40-kilowatt-class nuclear fission reactor that could provide power on the surface of the Moon. The Department of Enegy’s Idaho National Lab is managing the contracts, which are intended to yield information that will ultimately guide development of a power system capable of lasting 10 years in a lunar environment. Congress has not yet specifically appropriated funding to NASA for a fission surface power system, instead prioritizing work on nuclear propulsion technology for spacecraft, providing $110 million annually for such efforts in recent years. The Biden administration has requested $30 million for nuclear surface power and $15 million for nuclear propulsion in fiscal year 2023.
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Events This Week
All times are Eastern Daylight Time, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement.
Monday, June 27
Tuesday, June 28
Wednesday, June 29
Thursday, June 30
Friday, July 1
No events.
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Opportunities MIT Washington Office Hiring Senior Policy Advisor
MIT is hiring a senior policy advisor to join its Washington, D.C. office, whose responsibilities will include building relationships with congressional offices and agency staff and advocating for biomedical research, among other areas. Applicants should have a bachelor’s degree and at least five years of relevant experience or a doctorate in a relevant field and at least one year experience.
SRI Hiring Innovation Policy Project Leader
SRI International’s Center for Innovation Strategy and Policy is seeking a project leader to manage client projects in areas such as science and innovation policy, program evaluation, economic analysis, technology strategy, and technology transfer and commercialization. Applicants should have at least five years of S&T policy experience and an advanced degree in public policy or a similar field.
DOE Seeks Members for Industrial Technology Advisory Panel
The Department of Energy is soliciting nominations for its Industrial Technology Innovation Advisory Committee, which it recently established to guide a new program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the industrial sector. The 16-20 member committee will include representatives from small and large companies, federal agencies, labor groups, universities, and national labs. Members will serve two year terms, which can be renewed. Nominations are due Aug. 1.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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