WEEK OF JAN 13, 2025

What’s Ahead

Energy secretary nominee Chris Wright, left, and OMB director nominee Russell Vought.

Gage Skidmore, CC-by-SA-2.0 (left) / The White House (right)

Trump nominees face the Senate

The process of securing Senate approval for President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet picks will begin in earnest this week, with 13 nominees scheduled to face public questioning from senators. The nominee for energy secretary, Chris Wright, will appear before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday. Wright is the founder and CEO of Denver-based fracking company Liberty Energy and has been openly critical of federal efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Trump has also selected Wright to participate in a new interagency council dedicated to energy policy.

Russell Vought, the nominee to be director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, will appear before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday. Vought briefly held the same position in Trump’s first term, securing Senate confirmation in 2020 by a vote of 51 to 45. This time around, Vought may face questions about changes to the executive office of the presidency that he proposed in Project 2025, a conservative policy blueprint. Vought’s chapter included several ideas related to science policy, including a “whole-of-government unwinding” of the Biden administration’s policies on climate change and overhauling the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

Other hearings scheduled for this week include the nominations of former North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum (R) to be secretary of the interior, former Army officer and television commentator Pete Hegseth to be secretary of defense, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) to be secretary of state, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem (R) to be secretary of homeland security, and former Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-TX) to be CIA director. Meanwhile, Trump has begun to announce his nominees for deputy positions across agencies, including energy lawyer James Danly to the number two position in DOE.

White House issues anti-harassment guidelines for research agencies

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy published guidelines last week for research agencies to reduce sex-based and sexual harassment involving grant recipients. The 40-page report was published in response to the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which tasked OSTP with coordinating anti-harassment policies across research agencies. The recommendations include a call for all research agencies to provide greater clarity regarding harassment reporting, including mandating that institutions notify the relevant funding agency of harassment incidents, providing clearer instructions for individuals to file civil rights complaints, and establishing reporting procedures whereby individuals can share information without filing a formal complaint.

The report suggests that several legislative changes are needed to fully implement the recommendations across agencies, such as directing agencies to develop a common definition of harassment that can be applied to all extramural awardees, increasing funding for staff to process harassment reports, and instructing agencies to develop funding opportunities that support research into effective harassment prevention and reduction methods. The guidelines come almost one year after OSTP published an inventory of federal harassment policies that identified inconsistencies across agencies. Members of the House Science Committee have criticized OSTP for not meeting the deadlines in law to complete the inventory and guidelines.

JPL staff devastated by LA fires

Though the campus of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab remains undamaged by the Los Angeles wildfires, more than 150 staff had lost their homes as of last Friday, according to lab director Laurie Leshin. JPL and nearby Caltech have created a disaster relief fund to support affected staff and students. JPL remains closed after being evacuated last week, and all non-essential staff are set to telework at least through Friday. As of publication, the Eaton Fire, which poses the primary threat to JPL, is 33% contained, according to CAL FIRE. Other colleges and universities throughout the LA area, including UCLA, have suspended operations or moved to remote work and learning over the past week. Firefighters have made progress on containing the major fires in and around LA, but heavy winds are forecast to threaten that progress.

AAS and AMS conferences underway

The American Meteorological Society and the American Astronomical Society are holding major conferences this week in New Orleans and National Harbor, Maryland, respectively. The theme of this year’s AMS conference centers around supporting a thriving planet amid changing environments and extreme weather events, with discussions focused at local, regional, and global levels. The conference will feature several agency updates from NOAA, DOE, and NASA, as well as a cross-agency update this Thursday on the state of AI in environmental sciences, weather forecasting, and climate monitoring. The AAS meeting includes many sessions related to science policy, including a session on policy priorities for astronomical sciences in 2025, a discussion of efforts to reduce optical and radio interference from satellite constellations, and a year-five update on work to implement recommendations from AIP’s National Task Force to Elevate African American Representation in Undergraduate Physics and Astronomy, known as TEAM-UP. (AAS and AMS are AIP Member Societies.)

PCAST looks toward future of S&T in final meeting

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology will deliver a farewell letter to the president this week summarizing the group’s work and highlighting future opportunities in S&T, which they discussed in a meeting last week. The council touched on uses of AI in scientific discovery, a growing need for emission-free energy sources, and interest in community engagement and citizen science. The group also discussed the importance of ideas for longer-term efforts, like moonshots in climate change or space exploration. PCAST also voted to approve a report on federal support for research in social and behavioral science. Other recent reports from PCAST cover groundwater security and networking and information technology R&D.

Also on our radar

The Biden administration released an interim final rule today that tightens restrictions on the export of advanced computer chips and adds new export controls on the “weights” used in certain private AI models. The wide scope of the rule has received criticism from NVIDIA and the Semiconductor Industry Association.
DHS added clarifying language to the rules for O-1 “extraordinary ability” visas last week, including new examples of evidence that can be used by people working in critical and emerging technologies to demonstrate their achievements.
NASA’s Mars Sample Return program is exploring two possible mission architectures in a bid to cut costs: one using a sky crane and the other working with private companies to send a new lander. The agency expects to settle on the final design in the second half of 2026.
NASA announced a reshuffling of leaders across its science divisions last week, including new interim directors for astrophysics and planetary science. The agency also said it will conduct a competition for a permanent planetary science division director, who would start in spring 2026.
The University of Michigan announced last week it will end its 20-year partnership with Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China following a report by the House CCP Committee that raised national security concerns.
A new contract for graduate students, postdocs, and postbaccalaureates at NIH went into effect last week, negotiated by a union representing scientists at the agency. The agreement guarantees paid parental leave, boosts pay if congressional appropriations are sufficient, and establishes 40 hours per week as a baseline expectation for work schedules, among other provisions.