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What’s Ahead
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| John Podesta, center, pictured with President Obama and Vice President Biden in 2014. (Image credit – Pete Souza / The White House) |
John Podesta to Oversee New Energy Initiatives, McCarthy Leaving
Changes are coming to the top levels of President Biden’s climate policy team in the wake of the Inflation Reduction Act, which has set in motion the most ambitious push the U.S. has ever made in clean energy. This week, experienced political hand John Podesta is joining the White House as senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, giving him responsibility for ensuring the programs created by the new law are implemented effectively and equitably. Podesta previously served as chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and coordinated climate policy for President Barack Obama, and he is founder of the Center for American Progress think tank. Alongside Podesta’s arrival, Biden announced last week that National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy is departing the White House on Sept. 16 and will be replaced by her deputy Ali Zaidi. Zaidi was the White House Office of Management and Budget’s associate director for natural resources, energy, and science under Obama, and before joining the Biden administration he was working as a top energy policy aide to the governor of New York. Stay up to date on comings and goings in the Biden administration with FYI’s Federal Science Leadership Tracker.
Congress Starting Fall Legislative Season
Congress is returning to work this week following a historically productive August, during which it passed both the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act. This fall, legislative action will revolve around more run-of-the-mill business ahead of the November election. As usual, lawmakers are not expected to complete appropriations for the new fiscal year before it begins on Oct. 1, and they are already preparing a stopgap spending bill to keep the government funded into mid-December. The White House is asking Congress to attach funding to the stopgap for Ukraine aid, pandemic measures, natural disaster recovery, and other near-term needs. Work will also continue this month on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The House passed its version in July, but unlike last year the Senate will probably try to finish its counterpart version before the two chambers agree to a finalized version.
In other business, the nomination of Arati Prabhakar to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is awaiting a Senate floor vote after narrowly clearing committee in July. In addition, the authorization for the multi-agency Small Business Innovation Research program is lapsing at the end of the month. Rather than simply pass an extension, some lawmakers are pressing for changes such as adding research security measures and preventing companies from winning a disproportionate number of awards. Some critics argue certain prolific participants function as “SBIR mills,” relying on grant funds from the program to sustain their operations rather than generating revenue from technology commercialization. Also lapsing is the Federal Communications Commission’s authority to auction radio spectrum bands. Lawmakers are leaning toward passing a short-term extension to buy time for a more comprehensive reauthorization that would, among other provisions, reinforce consideration of priorities such as scientific uses of spectrum in the allocation process. Extensions of either activity could be attached to a stopgap funding bill or the NDAA.
Academies Weighs In on Ligado Spectrum Reallocation Feud
The National Academies is releasing a report on Friday that examines the risk that the Global Positioning System could be disrupted by a radio network the company Ligado plans to launch later this month. The Federal Communications Commission authorized the network in 2020 despite objections from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which represents federal spectrum users. In response, Congress used its annual defense policy update to increase pressure on Ligado to avoid causing interference as well as to have a National Academies panel examine the matter. Since then, Congress has continued to push FCC and NTIA to improve their coordination practices, and last month a group of senators led by Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Jack Reed (D-RI) and Ranking Member Jim Inhofe (R-OK) urged the commission to “stay and reconsider” its Ligado decision. Ligado insists that mitigation measures required by FCC will be sufficient to protect the GPS network.
PCAST Aims to Shape CHIPS Act Implementation
The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology is meeting Wednesday to vote on a report that offers recommendations for implementing semiconductor R&D initiatives funded by the CHIPS and Science Act. The PCAST members leading the report, Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su and NVIDIA Chief Scientist Bill Dally, previewed it at the council’s last meeting, saying it will propose setting up regional innovation centers and pursuing “grand challenges,” such as constructing the first “zettascale” supercomputer. On Sept. 21, PCAST plans to hold a public meeting with officials from the Commerce Department, which has primary responsibility for stewarding the $50 billion CHIPS for America Fund created by the act. The department has just released a strategy document that states its efforts will be delegated to two new offices in the National Institute of Standards and Technology. NIST also released a report last week identifying metrology R&D needed to promote semiconductor innovation and published a summary of stakeholder recommendations on how to structure the CHIPS Act programs.
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In Case You Missed It
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| McMurdo Station in Antarctica. A new NSF-commissioned report on sexual assault and harassment at Antarctic research sites notes that some interviewees regard the station as the most perilous place on the continent in that respect. “I was thoroughly warned before ever spending time in McMurdo,” one is quoted as saying. (Image credit – Peter Rejcek / Antarctic Photo Library) |
Report Finds Sexual Assault, Harassment Pervasive in Antarctica
The National Science Foundation released a report last week presenting testimony from researchers and contractor personnel that sexual assault and harassment are common at the Antarctic research facilities the agency supports. The 274-page report was commissioned by the NSF-led U.S. Antarctic Program in April 2021 and it was delivered this June. It reports that, among women who participated in focus groups for the study, 59% had personally been subject to or witnessed sexual assault or harassment, and 95% knew someone who had experienced it. Participants are quoted describing routine unwelcome behavior, as well as incidents of stalking and violence that had occurred across NSF’s Antarctic bases, field sites, and research vessels. While the great majority of complaints involved victims who are women, there were reports of men being subjected to harassment and groping as well. Respondents to a survey generally reported training around the issue was poor in quality and that they had low levels of trust that supervisors, human resources personnel, or NSF would address problems. One study participant is quoted as expressing hope the report would prompt action, remarking, “We’ve kind of been screaming for change for a long time … and it kind of feels like a lot of times [the attitude is] ‘if you don’t like it just don’t work here.’ But it’s our community and it’s our livelihood and it means so much to us that I would like to see it change.”
Winners Picked for $1 Billion Industry Cluster Competition
On Sept. 2, the Commerce Department announced the 21 winners of the Build Back Better Regional Challenge, a competition to receive shares of a total of $1 billion in pandemic recovery funds that will go toward developing industry clusters across the U.S. The awardee groups are spread across 24 states and will each receive amounts spanning from $25 million to $65 million for initiatives to build capabilities in advanced manufacturing, artificial intelligence, clean energy, robotics, biotechnology, and aerospace, among other areas. President Biden spoke at the announcement event, saying one aim is to provide job opportunities for people “in the places where they live and where they’ve worked their entire careers so they don’t have to leave.” The program is the first in a series of new federal initiatives to promote regional technology development that also includes the National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines program and a regional technology hub program authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act.
OSTP Releases Disclosure Template for Grant Applications
In a step toward standardizing requirements for what scientists must disclose when applying for federal grants, on Aug. 31 the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy announced an interagency panel has finished drafting model application forms and a table summarizing the reporting requirements. The materials are now open for public comment until Nov. 1. While scientists have long been required to detail their institutional affiliations and sources of research support when applying for federal funds, federal agencies have increasingly used such disclosures to identify potential threats to research security or integrity, such as overcommitments of researcher time that could compromise the proposed projects. The model forms were developed in response to National Security Presidential Memorandum-33, which sets minimum standards for research security policies across the government.
NASA Investigating Fueling Problems After Second Artemis Scrub
NASA called off its second attempt to launch its Artemis I mission on Sept. 3 after a leak developed while piping liquid hydrogen fuel into the Space Launch System rocket, which is flying for the first time ever. The leak was larger and less manageable than one that occurred during the rocket’s first launch attempt on Aug. 29. That attempt was scrubbed due to an anomalous temperature reading that NASA now believes is traceable to a faulty sensor in one of the rocket’s engines. Due to the time required to address the new problem and the closing of the mission’s current launch window, another attempt will not be possible for some weeks. NASA plans to provide additional information as soon as it finishes weighing its immediate options. Artemis I is an uncrewed test mission for NASA’s campaign to land astronauts on the Moon for the first time since the 1970s and ultimately to establish a sustained human presence there.
Nominee Named for Navy R&D Role
The White House announced last week that President Biden intends to nominate Nick Guertin as assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development, and acquisition. Guertin holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in business, and he has extensive experience as both a Navy officer and civilian in managing military technology systems. He previously held administrative roles in the Navy Department during the Obama administration, and the Senate just confirmed him last December as the Defense Department’s director of operational test and evaluation, a role responsible for overseeing exercises that assess military systems. While the Senate has already confirmed Biden’s appointees for analogous R&D oversight roles in the Departments of the Army and Air Force, Biden had not until now nominated anyone for the Navy Department job.
Biden Tries Again to Fill DOE Office of Electricity Job
The White House also announced last week that Gene Rodrigues is President Biden’s nominee to lead the Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity, which manages programs that support the reliability and resilience of the U.S. electric grid. Rodrigues is a lawyer who worked for the Southern California Edison utility company for 23 years, and he is currently vice president for utilities programs at the consulting firm ICF. Biden previously nominated Massachusetts state representative and clean energy expert Maria Robinson for the role. Although she appeared to have enough support to overcome Republican opposition, Biden withdrew the nomination in June without offering a reason. Shortly thereafter, though, DOE hired her as director of its newly established Grid Deployment Office. That job does not require Senate confirmation and oversees a $17 billion multiyear budget provided by last year’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Physicist and Activist Kurt Gottfried Dead at 93
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| Kurt Gottfried on a 1966 hiking trip in California. (Image credit – J. David Jackson, courtesy of the AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives) |
Theoretical physicist Kurt Gottfried, a well-known proponent of political engagement in science, died on Aug. 25. Gottfried was born in 1929 in Vienna, Austria, and his family fled Europe a decade later, not long after their home was raided during Kristallnacht, a night of Nazi violence and vandalism against the Jewish community. He received a doctorate in physics from MIT in 1955, and in 1964 became a professor at Cornell University, where he remained for the rest of his career. Gottfried’s work focused on the burgeoning area of particle interactions and he published a well-known textbook on quantum mechanics in 1966. In the late 1960s, he joined the protest movement against the influence of the military on science during the Vietnam War. He and a group of MIT physicists, most prominently Henry Kendall, established the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1969 to advance advocacy in areas such as nuclear weapons policy and environmental protection. In the 1980s, Gottfried continued to organize around issues such as the Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative and the rights of scientists in the Soviet Union, and he was a founder of the American Physical Society’s Committee on International Freedom of Scientists. In 2004, he recruited dozens of well-known scientists to sign a petition protesting the treatment of science under President George W. Bush. That push catalyzed action during the Obama administration to reinforce scientific integrity in government, and the issue continues to be an important focus of policymakers’ attention.
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Events This Week
All times are Eastern Daylight Time, unless otherwise noted. Listings do not imply endorsement.
Monday, September 5
Labor Day holiday
Tuesday, September 6
Wednesday, September 7
Thursday, September 8
Friday, September 9
Monday, September 12
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Opportunities DOE Fusion Office Seeking New Director
The Department of Energy is seeking a director for its Office of Fusion Energy Sciences to replace James Van Dam, who is stepping down this month after more than a decade in the office. Suggestions for candidates, including self-nominations, should be sent to Office of Science Deputy Director Harriet Kung ( Harriet.Kung@science.doe.gov) by Sept. 16. Nominees will receive additional information about the position and application instructions.
User Facility Society Seeking Board Members
The Society for Science at User Research Facilities is seeking nominations for its board of directors, who will participate in policy development, outreach activities, and cross-facility initiatives. Board members will serve three-year terms beginning in November 2022. Nominations are due Sep. 15.
DOE Hiring Directors for Manufacturing and Decarbonization
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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