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Science and Technology in Congress
February 2010

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About the Newsletter Editors

Science and Technology in Congress is a newsletter produced by the Center to provide timely, objective information to Congress on current science and technology issues.

To Subscribe: Please send an e-mail with your name and address to congress_center@aaas.org.
  • Joanne Padron Carney, Director, CSTC
  • Kasey White, Senior Program Associate


Busy Year Ahead for Science and Technology Committee

On January 19 the House Science and Technology Committee announced its priorities for the remainder of the 111th Congress—an ambitious agenda perhaps spurred in part by the impending retirement of Chairman Bart Gordon (D-TN).

Topping the list is a reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act, the 2007 bill that authorized a doubling of the budgets of the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Committee staff announced their intent to make some substantive changes to the 2007 bill in the authorization. One area of focus is adding a comprehensive authorization of DOE's Office of Science to the bill, provisions not included in 2007 because DOE's programs at the time were guided by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. A reorganization of NIST and a new title on STEM education are also potential parts of the package. The committee announced plans to move multiple pieces of legislation separately through the relevant subcommittees, placing them together into a comprehensive bill for a committee vote scheduled to take place before the Memorial Day recess.

Also high on the list is the committee's goal of reauthorizing NASA. How that bill will be affected by the changes to the space program recommended in the President's FY 2011 budget remains to be seen.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has never been individually authorized by Congress though it has been around since then-President Nixon created it by Executive Order in 1970. The committee has committed to trying to pass the NOAA Organic Act, which would legislatively establish an overarching mission for the agency.

Other issues piquing the committee's interest include the advancement of several energy technologies and a reauthorization of the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate.

-- Erin Heath and Kasey White

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Amid a Flat FY 2010 Budget, Science Sees Increases

While the Obama administration's overall R&D budget proposal for the 2011 fiscal year is essentially flat compared to the previous year, it does contain bright spots for the nation's science and technology enterprise, science adviser John P. Holdren said in a briefing at AAAS.

Overall, the budget proposal includes $147.7 billion for research and development, an increase of $343 million or just 0.2% above the 2010 level enacted by Congress. That is essentially the same amount Obama sought in 2010, when he proposed a total R&D budget of $147.6 billion.

However, basic science research, along with energy, health, and climate, are among the sectors that would receive expanded funding in the coming budget year. At the same time, the Obama administration would step away from a controversial moon-landing program and it would cut the Department of Homeland Security R&D program by 9% or $104 million.

While acknowledging that the plan required many tough decisions on R&D priorities, Holdren said Obama had "managed to preserve and expand" science and technology programs that the administration considers essential to promoting economic growth, protecting the environment, and setting the stage for a clean energy future.

The proposed 2011 budget includes a 5.6% increase overall for basic and applied research (to $61.6 billion in all) while it cuts the total development budget by 3.5% (to $81.5 billion). It proposes a substantial increase for non-defense R&D, which would rise by $3.7 billion, or 5.9% above the enacted level for 2010. Defense Department R&D, meanwhile, would be reduced 4.4% (to $77.5 billion), primarily through cuts in low-priority weapons development programs and congressional projects.

Among the highlights of the Obama budget plan:

  • The spending plan maintains the path to a doubling by 2017 of budgets for three key science agencies: the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office of Science and the National Institute of Standards and Technology laboratories.
  • The proposed increase in NSF funding to $7.4 billion – an 8% increase – will expand efforts in climate and energy research and education, networking and information technology research, and research on environmental and economic sustainability. The 2011 budget also would sustain the administration's effort to triple the number of new NSF Graduate Research Fellowships to 3000 by 2013.
  • The budget stops NASA's Constellation program, which was begun under President George W. Bush as an effort to send American astronauts back to the moon by 2020. The administration proposes to spend $6 billion over the next five years to encourage private companies to build and operate their own spacecraft to carry NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.
  • The budget for the National Institutes of Health would rise to $32.1 billion, up 3.2% from the 2010 budget approved by Congress and signed by Obama. The budget would focus on five strategic priorities: applying genomics and other high-throughput technologies; translating basic science discoveries into new and better treatments and diagnostics; using science to enable health care reform; global health; and reinvigorating and empowering the biomedical research community. (NIH also will continue to award and oversee $10.4 billion provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.)
  • The R&D budget for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration would rise by 10%, or almost $1 billion. The budget for the multi-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program would rise 21%, to $2.6 billion overall. The funding reflects the administration's concerns about climate change and the declining health of the world oceans. "This is the largest increase in NOAA's science budget in over a decade," said NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco at the briefing.
  • The budget for the new National Institute of Food and Agriculture's key competitive research program, the Agriculture Food and Research Initiative, would rise 63% to $429 million.
  • The budget proposes to spend $3.7 billion overall on science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. About $1 billion—an increase of nearly 40%, according to Holdren—would go to K-12 programs to encourage interest in those fields.

The budget also proposes making the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit permanent; provides $300 million for the Department of Energy’s new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E); gives $3.1 billion to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a 3.7% increase; and $679 million for R&D at the United States Geological Survey, a 2.9% increase.

In its budget documents, the Obama administration says that NASA's Constellation program—on which more than $9 billion already has been spent to develop a crew capsule called Orion and rocket called Ares I —threatened other parts of NASA's endeavors while "failing to achieve the trajectory of a program that was sustainable, executable and ultimately successful."

The 2011 NASA R&D budget would increase by $1.7 billion—or 18.3%—above the 2010 funding level. The emphasis would be on technology development and testing to "reverse decades of under-investment in new aerospace ideas and re-engage our greatest minds," the budget document says. A new heavy-lift and propulsion R&D program will be part of the administration's effort to "re-baseline" the nation's space exploration efforts.

"Simply put, we'’re putting the 'science' back into rocket science," Holdren said. The NASA budget also calls for a steady stream of new robotic missions to scout locations for future human missions.

The proposed changes at NASA are expected to draw intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

"The space agency's budget request represents a radical departure from the bipartisan consensus achieved by Congress in successive authorizations over the past five years," said Rep. Bart Gordon (D-TN), the chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology. "This requires deliberate scrutiny. We will need to hear the administration’s rationale for such a change and assess its impact on U.S. leadership in space before Congress renders its judgment on the proposals."

A full analysis of R&D in the FY 2011 budget will be available on the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program Website and additional details on the budget briefing are available on the AAAS website.

-- Earl Lane

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House Begins Reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act

On January 20, the House Science and Technology Committee held a hearing to discuss the America COMPETES Act and its role in supporting science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education; the economy; and research and development (R&D).

At the hearing, all witnesses agreed that the American COMPETES Act provides a necessary boost for STEM education, fields that will be critical for students' success in future jobs. John Castellani, president of the Business Roundtable, added that reauthorization of America COMPETES would increase the number of STEM students and good STEM teachers.

According to Castellani, reauthorization would increase the ability of the U.S. to create new jobs and would aid the economy in both the near and long term, even in face of the recession. "Investments in research and education provide the tools for accelerated technological innovation, which drives productivity growth. Innovation leads to new products and processes – even whole new industries – thereby generating high-wage employment and a higher standard of living for all Americans," said Castellani. To reinforce the need for increased investment in R&D, Tom Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, noted that U.S. businesses in math and science fields are dropping out of the upper echelons: only four of the world's top ten businesses in math and science fields are from the U.S.

The America COMPETES Act also established Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E). At the January 20 hearing, former Governor John Engler (R-MI) and current president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, testified in support of ARPA-E. He stated that to improve manufacturing "there needs to be fundamental transformation in how we produce, distribute, and consume energy. This transformation should start with a shift in how we view and approach energy research. This is the goal of ARPA- and it presents a unique platform to integrate innovative industry, research and development, and yield results." ARPA-E was discussed in greater length at a January 27 hearing. Engler added that the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which is part of the America COMPETES Act, has also helped and will help improve U.S. manufacturing expertise and competitiveness.

Multiple witnesses testified that reauthorization of the America COMEPTES Act could better coordinate federal investment in R&D and federal-state and federal-private R&D partnerships. Additionally, witnesses felt there should be more public–private R&D partnerships.

The America COMPETES Act was passed in 2007 and authorized $33.6 billion from 2008 – 2010 in new spending for a host of research and education programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Department of Education (see August 2007 STC newsletter). If funding hit the targets authorized by the bill, NSF, the DOE Office of Science, and NIST - the main beneficiaries of the bill - would have doubled their budgets over seven years. However, as can be seen below, appropriated funding has not matched the doubling path of authorized funding.

America Competes Act Funding
(in millions)

 

2007
Actual

2008
Actual

2009
Estimated

Stimulus

2010
Budget

DOE Office of Science

$3,560

$3,807

$4,326

$0

$4,468

NSF

$4,440

$4,506

$4,833

$2,900

$5,290

NIST

$487

$498

$550

$410

$637

The House Science and Technology Committee plans to hold multiple hearings this spring to discuss the reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act and hold a committee vote on a reauthorization bill before the Memorial Day recess.

-- Phillip Chalker and Joanne Carney

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Congress Examines Energy R&D

With climate change legislation on hold for now, Congress is focusing on the role of energy R&D. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a January 21 hearing to examine initiatives that will help U.S. address climate change through energy R&D.

At the hearing Secretary of Energy Steven Chu stated that federal investment in new energy technologies help American competitiveness, create jobs, and combat climate change. The fact that most R&D projects do not yield positive returns is more than offset by the extremely high returns from some investments. Estimates for net return on public investment in R&D range from 20 – 67 percent, with some projects yielding returns of over 2,000 percent.

Chu highlighted agency priorities: increasing production of biofuels; enhancing car batteries; improving photovoltaics; designing computers that will improve building efficiency; and creating large scale energy storage systems that will enable renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, to become base load sources. DOE hopes to focus emission reduction research to areas such as trucking where it will be difficult to reduce emissions.

Chu noted several newer programs that will help DOE to reach their energy R&D goals: Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC), Energy Innovation Hubs, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E). EFRCs support multi-year, multi-investigator scientific collaborations focused on overcoming hurdles in basic science that block transformational discoveries. Energy Innovation Hubs are collaborative efforts focused around a specific energy challenge, particularly focused on the barriers to transforming energy technologies into commercially viable materials, devices, and systems. Three DOE Energy Innovation Hubs have been created that focus on production of fuels from sunlight; energy efficient building systems design; and modeling and simulation of advanced nuclear reactors. ARPA-E funds high-risk, high-reward energy research. Among its projects are more efficient and smaller wind turbines; new carbon capture technology; and liquid metal batteries, which could offer enough storage to be used within an electricity grid.

On January 27, the House Science and Technology Committee held a hearing to examine the progress of the nacsent ARPA-E, which has been in existence less than a year. Authorized as part of the Department of Energy by America COMPETES in 2007, the program received its initial funding the 2009 stimulus bill (ARRA).

ARPA-E Director Dr. Arun Majumdar testified on the high level of interest in the program by prospective grantees. ARPA-E received more than 3700 concept papers in response to its first announcement, leading to 37 awards averaging $4 million each. Majumdar spoke of the need to translate the upstream research funded by this program into jobs for American workers. Nearly all members present echoed the importance of this challenge: ensuring that the U.S. is able to commercialize and manufacture the technologies developed through the grants.

Other witnesses testified in support of ARPA-E, with Dr. Charles Vest, president, National Academy of Engineering, stating the program is "off to a great start" and Mr. John Denniston, Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, encouraging Congress to expand the program. The Obama Administration appears to agree and the FY 2011 budget request contains $300 million for ARPA-E.

The budget request also contains $40 million in new funding to create several new Energy Frontier Research Centers as well as ongoing support for the 46 existing centers. The budget proposes a total of $107 million to support the three existing Energy Innovation Hubs and create a new hub to focus on batteries and energy storage.

-- Phillip Chalker and Kasey White

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House Foreign Affairs Tackles Export Controls

On January 15th, the House Foreign Affairs Committee kicked off the second session of the 111th Congress by holding a field hearing in Stanford, California on the impact of export controls on national security and U.S. leadership in science and technology.

The hearing provided an opportunity to hear the testimony of John L. Hennessey, president of Stanford University and co-chairman of the National Research Council's Committee on Science, Security and Prosperity, which published the report, Beyond Fortress America. That report criticized the existing export control regime as being an antiquated artifact of the Cold War and laid out recommendations for reforming the system to better assess the sharing of dual-use technologies that have both civilian and military applications.

In his testimony, Hennessey warned that U.S. leadership in science is slipping and that this Cold War approach to dual-use technologies does not accurately reflect 21st century research that relies on foreign students at U.S. universities, international collaboration, and teamwork across multiple campuses. He cited examples of research at Stanford that has been impeded by dual-use restrictions; for example, investigators working with a NASA research instrument aboard a satellite were limited to what information they could share with foreign students because satellite technologies are considered military munitions.

The other witnesses and Members of Congress all agreed that export controls should be updated to better balance national security and international competitiveness, but there was no consensus view of what constituted an appropriate balance.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) argued that the United States should err on the side of caution when dealing with nations that infringe upon human rights and have a record of attempting to steal high-tech information from our nation. He noted that students from nations such as China have been sent to study in the U.S. for the expressed purpose of stealing technological know-how.

Hennessey, on the other hand, argued that if a university is conducting basic fundamental research then that research should be open and available to all students, even if the field of research exposes students to a potential deemed export.

-- Joanne Carney

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Congress In Brief

Quick status reports to keep you up to date on recent S&T bills and hearings.

  • On January 21 Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR) introduced the Nanotechnology Safety Act (S 2942). It would authorize an FDA program to investigate the impacts and uses of nanomaterials on human health.

  • Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air and Nuclear Safety Chairman Tom Carper (D-DE) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) have introduced The Clean Air Act Amendments of 2010, legislation that would call for substantial reductions in soot-forming sulfur dioxide (SO2), smog-forming nitrogen dioxide (NOx) and mercury. EPA is also in the process of drafting regulations for these pollutants, as previous EPA efforts to regulate these emissions have been voided by the courts.

  • President Obama signed H.J.Res. 45 into law, raising the U.S. debt limit from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion. Attached to the resolution is the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act (PAYGO) of 2010 which enforces budget neutrality on new revenue and spending legislation with some special conditions and exceptions for current programs and legislation. PAYGO forces Congress to balance proposed spending increases or tax cuts with equal tax increases or spending cuts.

  • The House Natural Resources Committee Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee held a January 20 hearing on the re-authorization of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). A focus of the hearing was the lower authorization levels recommended for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in the Natural Hazards Risk Reduction Act of 2009 (H.R. 3820) that passed the House Science and Technology Committee last fall.

  • The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 4061) passed the House on February 4. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Lipinski (D-IL), would expand cybersecurity research programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. H.R. 4061 requires federal agencies to create a strategic cybersecurity plan and tasks the Office of Science and Technology Policy with creating a university-industry task force to find areas to collaborate. Additionally, the bill provides NSF with grant and fellowship funding for computer and network security. The bill now sits in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

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Agency Updates

  • The National Institutes of Health Human Embryonic Stem Cell Registry now lists 43 stem cell lines eligible for federally-funded experiments—more than twice those on the Bush Administration's registry.

  • President Obama announced a $250 million public-private effort to boost science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. The initiative seeks to prepare more than 10,000 new teachers over five years and provide professional development opportunities to more than 100,000. It would effectively double the campaign launched by Obama in November.

  • EPA released a new proposed rule that would reduce the allowable amount of ground-level ozone in the air from 75 to between 60 and 70 parts per billion for any eight-hour period. Ground-level ozone is a primary component of smog. The new proposal mirrors the unanimous recommendation of EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee in 2007 – a recommendation that was not followed in 2008 when new rules were released. EPA also announced that it will set a secondary, seasonal ozone limit to protect plants and trees. The proposal must undergo 60 days of public comment before becoming final.

  • The Food and Drug Administration announced that it has "some concern about the potential effects of BPA"—bisphenol-A, a chemical found in plastic bottles and food packaging—"on the brain, behavior and prostate glands of fetuses, infants and children." This is a reversal of the FDA position during the Bush Administration. The agency now plans further study of the compound's effects on humans and animals.

  • Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the creation of a 15-member Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future to provide recommendations for developing a long-term national solution to managing used nuclear fuel and nuclear waste. The commission, co-chaired by former Rep. Lee Hamilton and former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, will produce an interim report within 18 months and a final report within 24 months. As DOE has abandoned plans to use the Yucca Mountain repository, DOE officials emphasized that the commission will not attempt to find a different site for another repository but will instead focus on alternative ways to deal with nuclear waste.

  • In a 3-2 party-line vote, the Securities and Exchange Commission added risks and opportunities from climate change to the possible impacts that public companies should disclose. In an "interpretive guidance" document, the SEC notes several areas where climate change may trigger disclosure requirements, including the impact of legislation, regulation, and international accords, as well as the physical impacts of climate change.

  • President Obama announced that the federal government – the nation's largest energy consumer – will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 28% below 2008 levels by 2020. The announcement builds upon targets submitted by federal agencies in response to an October 5, 2009 Executive Order on Federal Sustainability.

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Reports and Publications

CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

NATIONAL ACADEMIES

Other

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AAAS News and Notes

AAAS Hosts Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Briefing. AAAS joined with the American Meteorological Society, American Geophysical Union, Ecological Society of America, and Pew Center on Global Climate Change to host a January 8 congressional briefing on climate change impacts and adaptation. Video and slide presentations from speakers on the nature of climate impacts within the United States and options for dealing with them are available on the AMS website.

AAAS Submits Letter to OSTP on Public Access. In response to the Office of Science and Technology Policy's (OSTP) request for information on Public Access Policies for Science and Technology Funding Agencies Across the Federal Government, AAAS submitted a letter articulating its position on public access to research articles from scholarly publishing. In the letter, AAAS states that it will "continue to experiment with different mechanisms for integrating and disseminating scientific information as the technologies of online publishing evolve. We welcome the introduction of various experimental models by other publishers in this rapidly changing environment, believing that a diversity of approaches is the best strategy for advancing science and serving the public good." AAAS also points out that direct public access to the original scientific literature should not be used as a substitute for efforts to translate important findings into terms more understandable by the general public.

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Frontiers in Science

Scientists believe they finally determined why Arctic-nesting birds, which winter in areas as distant as southern Africa and southern Argentina, travel great distances to their northern breeding grounds. Researchers placed 1,500 artificial bird nests with eggs at seven shore bird breeding grounds along a 3,000 kilometer north to south stretch of the Arctic. After two summers of collecting data, it was concluded that the further north birds nest the less likely their eggs will be eaten by predators.

McKinnon, L. "Lower Predation Risk for Migratory Birds at High Latitudes" Science 15 January 2010:Vol. 327. no. 5963, pp. 276-277

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