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What’s Ahead
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| An illustration of leaks of methane and other trace gases from a well field, detected using a laser spectrometer monitoring system funded by NIST and DOE. (Image credit – Stephanie Sizemore and Ian Coddington / NIST) |
Science Committee Showcasing Methane Monitoring Technology
On Wednesday, the House Science Committee is holding a hearing on efforts to monitor methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and the Biden administration is aiming to crack down on methane pollution, including by improving capabilities for pinpointing methane leaks from oil and gas wells and other sources. Among the hearing witnesses is Brian Anderson, director of the National Energy Technology Laboratory, which is playing a key role in the Department of Energy’s methane mitigation efforts. Also testifying are David Lyon, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund; LongPath Technologies co-founder Greg Rieker, whose company received $5 million from DOE to deploy a 700-square-mile continuous methane monitoring system in the Permian Basin in Texas; and Riley Duren, CEO of Carbon Mapper, a public-private consortium that is working to advance satellite-based emissions monitoring. At a previous Science Committee hearing, Duren urged Congress to consider creating an interagency program that would provide operational greenhouse gas monitoring and decision support services to the public and private sector.
Lab Renovation a Priority as House Defense Bill Comes Together
The House Armed Services Committee is holding meetings this week to begin drafting its version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with the subcommittee that handles most defense R&D matters meeting on Wednesday. Its retiring chair, Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI), said last month that in his view refurbishing defense labs is the “foremost” issue facing the Department of Defense’s science and technology enterprise, citing a $5.7 billion project backlog. Lab leaders have testified in recent years that they have low-priority access to military construction funds, and this year DOD is asking Congress to create a special fund to refurbish federally funded R&D centers, which are privately operated organizations that are mostly funded through government contracts. The request states the top priority is $1.5 billion in modernization projects at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where many buildings date back to its establishment in 1951. Also meeting on Wednesday is the subcommittee that handles the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and other strategic systems, such as space assets and missile-defense systems. While the subcommittees will lay groundwork for the committee’s NDAA draft, many of the most significant legislative proposals will not be introduced until the full committee meets later this month. The Senate will put together its version of the NDAA during subcommittee and full-committee meetings next week, all but one of which will be closed to the public.
Nominee for Top Weather Forecasting Job to Testify
The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee is holding a hearing on Wednesday to consider the nomination of meteorologist Michael Morgan to serve as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s assistant secretary for environmental observation and prediction. The role oversees NOAA’s terrestrial and satellite-based observation systems and the integration of observations into weather and climate forecasts. Pending his confirmation, Morgan’s responsibilities would also include the build-out of the Earth Prediction Innovation Center, a cloud-based computing platform that aims to help external researchers easily contribute improvements to NOAA’s weather models. Committee members have taken an interest in the subject, advancing legislation last year that would require NOAA to make public the code underlying certain operational Earth system models and to periodically review improvements made by external users. Morgan is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and earned his doctorate in meteorology from MIT in 1994. He has served in several leadership roles in the meteorology community, including as director of the Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Division at the National Science Foundation from 2010 to 2014.
Lunar Science Workshop to Scout Out Robot–Astronaut ‘Synergy’
On Tuesday through Thursday, NASA is convening a workshop at Kennedy Space Center that will examine new directions in lunar science enabled by the Artemis crewed exploration campaign. Former NASA Science Mission Directorate head John Grunsfeld will deliver a keynote address on prospects for developing “synergy” between robotics and human exploration. NASA’s integration of science into Artemis drew criticism from the new National Academies planetary science decadal survey, which asserts that plans for crewed missions have insufficiently incorporated science goals and that the agency’s lunar science program is not thinking enough about how astronauts can supplement robotic missions. Grunsfeld, who is a former astronaut, and NASA official Mike Hess will jointly lead workshop sessions on challenges astronauts will encounter in assembling and servicing scientific experiments, and on how astronauts and robots will cooperate in the post-2030 era of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The CLPS program contracts commercially built and operated robotic landers to convey competitively selected science and technology payloads to the lunar surface at a cadence of about two or three missions per year. The first three CLPS landers are scheduled to launch later this year and just last week NASA selected two science instrument suites that it anticipates sending to the Moon’s mysterious Gruithuisen Domes features “in the 2026 timeframe.”
‘Science of Science’ Researchers Seek Greater Practical Impact
On Wednesday, the National Academies is hosting the inaugural International Conference on the Science of Science and Innovation. The “science of science” field uses social scientific and computational methods to improve understanding of scientific research processes, institutions, and workforce development. Panel sessions will reflect on topics such as data and equipment needs, science funding models, and “innovation and inequality,” and will include researchers and leaders from government and non-government science funding institutions. The conference organizers state, “The hope is that both the producers and the consumers in the arena of science of science and innovation can directly engage through the invaluable feedback loop that can drastically increase the practical relevance and impact of science of science research.”
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In Case You Missed It
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| Map depicting the 25 states and three U.S. territories eligible to participate in the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. (Image credit – NSF) |
Non-EPSCoR States Mobilize Against EPSCoR Expansion Push
A bipartisan group of 18 senators and 76 representatives announced last week they “strongly oppose” pending proposals to dramatically expand the Established Program for Competitive Research (EPSCoR), which awards projects in designated states and territories that have historically received a small fraction of federal R&D funding. In a letter, they call on the conference committee reconciling the Senate’s U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA) with the House’s America COMPETES Act to reject USICA provisions requiring that EPSCoR jurisdictions receive at least 20% of the National Science Foundation’s annual budget, and at least 20% of the funds the bill authorizes for NSF and the Department of Energy to expand work in key technology areas. The group argues this push to broaden the geographic distribution of federal R&D funding unfairly excludes institutions in non-EPSCoR states that would benefit from research capacity-building funds and also undercuts well-established institutions. “Arbitrarily walling off a sizable percentage of a science agency’s budget from a sizable majority of the country’s research institutions would fundamentally reduce the entire nation’s scientific capacity and damage the research profiles of existing institutions,” they write. The lead signatories of the letter are Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Reps. Sean Casten (D-IL) and Ken Calvert (R-CA), and all signatories represent non-EPSCoR states. Meanwhile, 39 senators and 26 representatives from EPSCoR states have previously written to the conferees expressing strong support for the provisions. One compromise approach reportedly under consideration is to make the set-aside requirement only apply to new funds allocated to NSF, not its entire budget.
Panel Pitches Low-Dose Research Campaign Exceeding $1 Billion
The National Academies released a report last week that recommends the U.S. rapidly ramp up funding for research on the health effects of low radiation doses to about $100 million per year and sustain that level for at least 10 to 15 years. The study panel concluded that funding on that scale is necessary to address research priorities such as understanding cancer and non-cancer health risks as well as developing low-cost tools for detecting cell damage. The Department of Energy’s current budget for low-dose radiation research is only about $5 million, which the panel states is inadequate to even begin a meaningful research program. Congress mandated the report to help guide DOE as it restarts the program, which the department disbanded in 2016 to free up resources for research in other areas it views as higher priorities. While the panel states DOE is “the most viable option for immediately reestablishing a low-dose radiation program,” it also suggests the National Institutes of Health may ultimately be a better steward. The panel points to DOE’s reluctance to restart the program and the distrust DOE faces among communities exposed to radiation from working at nuclear weapons facilities or living near testing sites overseen by the department and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission. The report notes some community members perceive DOE as having a conflict of interest given its role in managing exposure limits for nuclear cleanup sites and promoting the development of nuclear energy technologies, whereas an organization such as NIH is free from such perceptions.
New Scholarship to Support Black Physics Undergraduates
The American Institute of Physics announced last week it has launched a scholarship program that will provide African American students with up to $10,000 annually per student to pursue bachelor’s degrees in physics or astronomy. The scholarship aims to help double the number of African American graduates in these fields by 2030, responding to a 2020 AIP task force report that identified financial barriers as among the key factors contributing to the persistently low fraction of total physics degrees earned by African Americans. The scholarship will initially be limited to students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities or Predominantly Black Institutions and will later expand to include all degree-granting institutions in the U.S. AIP has received a $12.5 million grant from the Simons Foundation to support the scholarship as well as efforts by undergraduate departments to implement other recommendations of the task force report. AIP is implementing the scholarship through a coalition called TEAM-UP Together, for which the lead partners are the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Astronomical Society, the American Physical Society, and the Society of Physics Students.
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Events This Week
All times are Eastern Daylight Time, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement.
Monday, June 6
Tuesday, June 7
Wednesday, June 8
Thursday, June 9
Friday, June 10
Sunday, June 12
American Astronomical Society: 240th Meeting
(continues through Thursday)
Monday, June 13
Closed to the public
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Opportunities DHS Seeking Input on STEM Visa Fields
The Department of Homeland security is seeking input on fields of study that should be included or removed from its STEM Designated Degree Program List. The list is used to determine eligibility for visa extensions under the Optional Practical Training program, which allows students with degrees in certain STEM fields to work in the U.S. for a period of time after graduation. DHS added 22 new STEM fields to the list earlier this year. Comments are due August 1.
USGCRP Seeking Comments on Strategic Plan
The U.S. Global Change Research Program is requesting comments on program priorities outlined in a draft version of its next decadal strategic plan. USGCRP coordinates research across 13 federal agencies to understand the human-induced and natural processes that influence the Earth system, and Congress requires it to update its strategy every ten years. Comments are due July 15.
NSF Hiring Deputy Head for International Office
The National Science Foundation is hiring a deputy head for its Office of International Science and Engineering, which coordinates NSF’s relations with other nations and facilitates U.S. participation in international research partnerships. Applicants should have demonstrated leadership in advancing international collaboration in STEM research or education and a broad understanding of the U.S. and international research enterprise, as well as a doctoral degree in a STEM field or an equivalent combination of education and professional experience. Applications are due June 29.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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