October 2008 Archives

With just days to go before the election, Republican vice-presidential pick Governor Sarah Palin gave what the McCain campaign billed as her second policy speech. Palin talked about energy to a small crowd at Xunlight corporation, a solar energy startup company in Toledo, Ohio. The speech made the New York Times editorial page on Friday. The newspaper observed that Palin’s speech began with great promise by reminding the audience that the recent drop in oil should not lull the country into complacency. But the editorial expressed disappointment that the speech ended in the same old place, emphasizing Senator John McCain’s call for increased offshore oil drilling and his commitment of $2 billion a year for clean coal R&D.

A few days earlier, Palin, attempting to ridicule congressional earmarks, had cited research that involves fruit flies as being a particularly egregious example of wasteful earmark spending. Palin apparently was unaware of the role that drosophila has played in the science of genetics.

Budget crunch for NASA?

Speaking in Florida on 29 October, McCain added NASA to the list of agencies that would be exempted from his vaunted across-the-board spending freeze. In earlier speeches, McCain had failed to include NASA along with defense, veterans, social security, and health as exceptions to his proposed freeze. This is the third shift in McCain’s stance on whether NASA would be funded at the levels proposed in President Bush’s plan to send astronauts to the Moon and Mars, nor did McCain clarify whether NASA would still receive the 22–27% of its budget that is made up of congressional earmarks.

Electronic voting

But with Sen. Barack Obama consolidating his lead in the polls, attention began turning to the voting process itself. Many election watchers are predicting a record turnout on 4 November, and some observers have concerns that the technologies in use won’t be up for the job, or worse, could be manipulated one way or the other.

Most of the worry concerns the all-electronic systems, which gained popularity in the wake of the “hanging chads” that plagued Florida’s paper ballots in the 2000 presidential election. Many states — including Florida—adopted touch-screen voting systems that, while promising to eliminate any chance of a Florida-style dispute, lacked a paper trail that would permit an accurate recount in the event of a software glitch or voting machine crash. Those fears proved valid last month in Finland, where 232 votes, or 2% of total votes cast on a fully electronic voting system, were lost.

In West Virginia, one election official demonstrated how touch-screen voting could record votes for the wrong candidate if the machines are not correctly calibrated. Three early voters in the state complained that their votes for Obama had been flipped to McCain instead. Three Tennessee voters reported that their McCain votes had been flipped to Obama.

Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania lawsuit demands that paper ballots be provided in any precinct where half the touch-screen machines fail on election day. The complaint asserts that as many as 20% of electronic voting machines fail on election day, although that figure would include glitches or hang-ups that don’t necessarily result in votes being lost.

A number of states, including Florida, California, and Maryland, that had gone to touch screens after the 2000 debacle have since replaced them with paper ballots that are tallied by optical scanners.

Research into electronic voting technologies is still limited, despite a September 2004 workshop at the American Association for the Advancement of Science that recommended increased funding to develop verifiable electronic voting systems after the 2000 presidential election fiasco, when it took weeks to declare a winner. The high turnout for the 2008 presidential election may go some way to reduce the likelihood that the winner will be declared through a lawsuit.

David Kramer

As the presidential campaign entered the final 10 days before the end of the election, both candidates have been repeating their main stump points related to science and education, either in speeches or through surrogates in organized debate forums.

Despite this repetition, there were some breaking developments. On 17 October, John McCain, like Barack Obama, promised an additional $2 billion over five years for the space shuttle replacement program called Constellation that would take astronauts to the Moon and Mars. “My friends, we just saw the Chinese. We saw them in space,” McCain told an afternoon rally of about 2,000 people in Melbourne, Florida. “We’ve got competition. We’ve got to stay ahead. We will be the first nation to Mars.” However, in the same speech, he told the crowd that he would freeze funding for the federal budget at 2008 levels.

The Obama campaign pounced on McCain’s plan to freeze the federal budget by pointing out to Floridians what the impact would be on NASA’s budget: fewer jobs in the region. In a radio ad and conference call with reporters, Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) said McCain "wants to freeze NASA spending at last year's level ...So layoffs would loom larger, and NASA would continue to be starved of funds for future exploration."

McCain had one opportunity to try to limit the damage when he visited Ormond Beach, Florida, on Thursday. Instead, the candidate glossed over NASA in his spending freeze, stating that only programs such as "defense, veterans care, social security and health care" would be exempt from the freeze. McCain reinitiated his pledge to "veto every single pork barrel earmark." Congress added earmarks worth $2.1 billion to NASA’s 2009 budget last week, including an extra flight of the space shuttle to deliver AMS-2 to the International Space Station, a project that would keep hundreds, if not thousands, of NASA-related jobs in the region for another two to three years.

Obama’s Florida policy director Ian Bassin was quick to respond, “It seems Senator McCain isn’t committed to exempting NASA from his proposed spending freeze. After talking about space for all of 53 seconds in Melbourne last week, now he’s returned to the area and neglected to mention space at all, going so far as to reinstitute his spending freeze pledge without a NASA exception. It’s no wonder Florida Today [in a June editorial] called McCain 'downright schizophrenic' about space," he said. "Barack Obama has pledged an additional $2 billion to reduce the spaceflight gap and save Florida jobs and was recently praised for his 'leadership' on space issues by NASA administrator Michael Griffin. That's the change Florida's Space Coast needs."

Obama also released a statement after India launched its first unmanned spacecraft. “We are reminded just how urgently the United States must revitalize its space program if we are to remain the undisputed leader in space, science, and technology,” the statement said. “My comprehensive plan to revitalize the space program and close the gap between the Space Shuttle's retirement and its next-generation replacement includes $2 billion more for NASA - but more money alone is not enough. We must not only retain our space workforce so that we don't let other countries surpass our technical capabilities; we must train new scientists and engineers for the next generation.... It's time for a space program that inspires our children again. As President, I will lead our space program boldly into the 21st Century - so when my daughters, and all our children, look up to the skies, they see Americans leading the way into the deepest reaches of our solar system.”

Advice for the 44th president

Science magazine looked at 10 scientific issues that it hopes the next president will make informed decisions on. The topics include regulating CO², revitalizing polar research in light of melting polar icecaps, rationalizing NASA planetary missions to exploit upcoming flyby opportunities, devising a more comprehensive strategy for nanotechnology, improving US reliability in international scientific collaborations, and deciding whether to develop a new nuclear warhead as the workforce at the nuclear weapons labs is streamlined.

Both candidates have a strong record in the Senate, says Popular Science magazine, in supporting science and scientific integrity. “Ultimately, the question isn’t which candidate will fund more research, but what research will they fund?” states the magazine.

Earlier this week, the Center for Science, Technology and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota held a conference on innovation which forms the basis of the bipartisan America COMPETES Act. The act calls for the doubling of the science budget among other items. The COMPETES funding “is a train wreck,” said Russell Lefevre, president of the IEEE, at the conference. The act passed Congress but was not funded at the requested levels, he said, and it is unlikely to be so with the current stress on the US budget. The budget deficit for 2009 could be over a trillion dollars, said Kei Koizumi, who runs the American Association for the Advancement of Science budget office. This could be the fifth year in a row that overall federal R&D funding declined in real terms.

Computerworld recently asked nine high-tech luminaries to offer their advice to the next US president. “In difficult times, when multiple near-term priorities draw heavily on limited resources, it is all too easy to curtail research investments and associated technology development,” says former DARPA manager Robert Kahn. “This would likely shortchange our future generations. The next president should firmly resist that possibility,” he adds.

Climate change for goverment policies?

Both McCain and Obama agree that the Bush administration’s policies on global warming are far too weak. The candidates differ, however, on how to combat it. New York Times reporter Andrew C. Revkin interviews a number of environmentalists and energy analysts to see what they think of the candidates’ plans, while Rich Kassel, in the Gotham Gazette, emphasizes NASA scientist James Hansen’s warning to both candidates that time to combat climate change is running out.

Van Jones, the author of The Green Collar Economy, publicly criticized McCain as the vanguard of a new movement with an environmental veneer but bad intentions. “The climate deniers got chased out of town, but in their place you’ve got the rise of the Dirty Greens,” he said in a recent interview. These are “people saying ‘I’m for solar, wind, geothermal, but I’m also for tar sands, coastal drilling.’ ”

Energy independence

New York Times reporter Jim Motavalli interviewed analysts in the auto industry to see whether the candidates’ plans to develop plug-in hybrid cars to reduce CO² emissions are realistic. As David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Michigan, tells Motavalli, the key technology to make plug-in hybrids realistic is better batteries. Charles Territo, a spokesman for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, agrees and cautions that “it took 10 years for one million hybrid electric vehicles to be sold worldwide.... A target of one million plug-ins in the U.S. by 2015 — considering there are none now — could be somewhat optimistic. But it doesn’t mean the industry isn’t going to try.”

New nuclear power plants?

The nuclear industry is also slowly seeing an uptick that could result in more high-paying jobs, particularly if McCain’s proposal to build 45 reactors by 2030 gets approval. According to US News and World Report, Shaw Group Inc. and nuclear reactor builder Westinghouse will shortly complete a facility in Louisiana. It will produce large prefabricated nuclear components that will reduce the cost of building new reactors. In a study, Louisiana State University researchers estimate that the new facility could produce about 9000 jobs over the next 15 years and potentially several billion dollars in earnings.

The latest report from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission states that 21 companies say they will seek permission to build 34 power plants over the next 10 years, but only 10 proposals actually have funding to go through the NRC process, and the first two are now not expected to come online until 2014. But as Daniel B. Botkin in the International Herald Tribune asked earlier this week, to what extent can nuclear power really help achieve US energy independence? And columnist Neil Steinberg in the Chicago Sun-Times claims McCain’s proposal has a “bold glow of deception”. Reason magazine also looks at the issue by inviting Shikha Dalmia (a senior analyst at Reason Foundation), nuclear energy journalist William Tucker, and Jerry Taylor to assess the candidates’ plans for the industry.

The last full week of campaigning starts tomorrow, and as this week has shown, science policies are still a major factor in attracting swing voters.

Paul Guinnessy

During Wednesday night’s debate, it was difficult not to sink into your chair and glaze over while listening to presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain argue yet again about their solutions to the US energy crisis. Energy, with a few nods to climate change, took up a good deal of debate time, but the discussion consisted mostly of each candidate restating his well-known positions. Both candidates realize that global warming is a serious threat to the planet, and both understand that it is caused by human activity.

That said, McCain wants 45 new nuclear power plants, more off-shore drilling, natural gas, clean coal, and solar, wind, and tidal energy. Obama will consider “safe” nuclear power and wants expanded domestic oil production, more efficient cars, and wind, solar, biodiesel, and geothermal power.

There are differences between the energy policies of the two, but compared with the narrow, oil-based energy policy of President Bush, both McCain and Obama seem almost radical.

A good discussion of how the candidates batted their energy ideas back and forth during the debate was put together by Kate Sheppard at huffingtonpost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kate-sheppard/what-the-candidates-said_b_135147.html.

Although energy was the focus of the “science” in the debate, the candidates discussed the declining state of science and math education in the US and what they would do to reverse that decline. Both acknowledged the problem, and McCain said he would boost innovation by growing “public understanding and popularity of mathematics and science by reforming mathematics and science education in schools.” Obama was more specific, talking about his incentive program to bring more teachers into the schools. He noted he would prioritize math and science teachers. A more detailed discussion of the education exchange during the debate can be found at Wired’s site: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/10/science-and-mat.html.

Perhaps one of the most interesting point–counterpoint discussions during the week wasn’t between Obama and McCain but between the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. On October 12 the New York Times ran an editorial, “Up and Down the Learning Curve,” attacking McCain’s energy plan as being focused on “drilling for more oil, mainly in previously off-limits areas of the outer continental shelf.” The editorial also said McCain’s “big idea” of more nuclear power “promises too much.” Obama was praised for evolving an energy plan that is now “coherent and farsighted.” The newspaper noted that “Mr. Obama . . . keeps moving up the learning curve on energy issues, whereas Mr. McCain seems to regress.”

Three days later the LA Times, in an editorial titled “A President with an Energy Plan,” trashed both McCain and Obama. After noting that “meeting our energy challenges will remain among the most important concerns of the next president,” the editorial says, “that’s why it’s doubly disappointing that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain has a responsible energy plan. In pandering to voters in swing states, both have backed dangerous, dirty energy sources in contradiction of their own principals.”

The LA Times editorial, coming from a newspaper in a state that is trying hard on its own to limit carbon emissions, is as detailed as it is harsh. It can be found at http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-energy15-2008oct15,0,5415355.story.

Still more can be found on the election and climate issues in a piece at NewScientist.com titled “US Elections: Candidates Feel the Heat on Climate Issues.” That story, by Fred Pearce, puts the LA Times editorial in more context by including a good discussion of what California is trying to do to curb carbon emissions. See http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg20026774.700&print=true.

Scientific American published a story by Steve McGookin, “The Big To-Do List—Scientific Challenges Facing the Next President,” that goes into the possible impact of the ongoing financial crisis on science policy.

In that regard, TheHill.com published an important story quoting a McCain aide saying that McCain would exempt funding for scientific research from his promised across-the-board federal spending freeze. The policy adviser, Ike Brannon, says in typical Washington speak that McCain’s budget includes “a specific carve-out for spending on science.” That likely won’t include a new sky projector for Chicago’s Adler Planetarium (see last week’s entry). The Hill article can be found at http://www.thehill.com/business--lobby/science-funding-wont-be-frozen--under-mccain-plan-adviser-says-2008-10-14.html.

Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein wrote an interesting piece entitled “Scientists View Both Obama, McCain as Supportive” that, while general in nature, provides a good summary of the candidates’ science proposals and how they are both dramatic improvements over the current White House occupant’s policies. “Both presidential candidates . . . offer policies farther from the president than they are from each other,” Borenstein notes. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hOdoQqjvyAZimWI1YUV7NLjjuo-QD93R42SG0

Jim Dawson

As the worldwide financial crisis accelerated, the presidential candidates focused on saving what is left of the US economy. The nearest reference to science matters in the 7 October debate came from John McCain who, following in the footsteps of the late Democratic Senator William Proxmire, criticized Obama for the Democrat’s attempt to earmark “$3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?”

The “overhead projector” is actually the instrument that re-creates the night sky in the Adler Planetarium. “To clarify,” Adler officials said in a press release about McCain’s statement, “the Adler Planetarium requested federal support – which was not funded – to replace the projector in its historic Sky Theater, the first planetarium theater in the Western Hemisphere. The current projector, a Zeiss Mark VI, is 40 years old and is no longer supported by the manufacturer.

“Science literacy is an urgent issue in the United States,” Adler officials said. “To remain competitive and ensure national security, it is vital that we educate and inspire the next generation of explorers to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math. Senator McCain’s statements about the [planetarium’s] request for federal support do not accurately reflect the museum’s legislative history or relationship with Senator Obama.”

More about the “Adler incident” can be found at the Cosmic Log, a website maintained by Alan Boyle, who covers science for MSNBC.

Grizzly politics

In the first debate, McCain had ridiculed a bear DNA study that is being sponsored by the US Geological Survey as a comparatively inexpensive way to gather data on bear population dynamics and sizes. The study is of grizzly bears in northwest Montana and, it has found, through DNA tests of tufts of hair and other traces left by the bears in the rugged terrain, that the grizzly population is doing well.

Is nuclear waste too hot to handle?

Obama and McCain both reiterated their support for an expansion of nuclear power at the debate. While Obama’s support for new nukes has been conditioned upon a resolution of the nuclear waste disposal issue, he did not mention that caveat at the debate.

Science calls the candidates

The market meltdown coincided with (and overshadowed) the announcement of this year’s Nobel Prizes. But Martin Chalfie, a biology professor at Columbia University who shared this year’s chemistry Nobel, immediately rushed to add his name to the list of 61 Nobel laureates who had endorsed Obama in September.

The American Institute of Physics (parent of Physics Today) and the American Physical Society were two of more than 70 scientific, business, and higher education organizations calling on the next president to support a comprehensive, multi-agency, basic research energy strategy.

And to add a little international perspective to how the collapse of the global economy is affecting science, paleontologist Richard Leakey warned that the worldwide credit crisis will be “just devastating” to scientific research as endowments lose income and companies cut their donations to science.

“With the investment portfolios being hit as hard as they’ve been hit in the last few weeks, particularly the last few days, I would have thought there would be a very dramatic reduction in available funds for research in all sorts of countries,” Leakey said in a report carried by the Associated Press.

Leakey, speaking at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock on Wednesday, said, “It’s more worryful for people who are losing their homes, it’s more worryful for people who are losing investments for the children’s futures, but we’re also very worried as scientists.”

David Kramer

While the vice-presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden, and the failure to pass the more than $700 billion rescue bailout of the financial sector, dominated the airwaves for the last week, some significant political developments regarding science will impact whoever runs the next administration: Research agencies discovered how much money they will have for the first part of next year; NASA received an anniversary present; the US–India nuclear technology bill passed the Senate; and energy and climate change moved to the center of the presidential debate.

In addition, PHYSICS TODAY published responses from the Obama campaign to a series of questions we asked both candidates more than three months ago. The McCain campaign refused to answer.

The PHYSICS TODAY questionnaire

Like most political campaigns, candidates are usually reluctant either to specify what they would do if elected to office or to provide the same answers to questions from different publications. The responses the Obama campaign provided to PHYSICS TODAY differ from the responses to the Science Debate 2008 questionnaire in two specific areas: the US national laboratories and international cooperation on science.

Obama also expanded his answer with PHYSICS TODAY on issues regarding nuclear energy and nuclear waste disposal at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. However, the responses on these two issues are virtually identical to the responses provided to Nature magazine and posted online on their website.

Running science in the campaign

The similarity in Obama’s response to all three publications is at the heart of the differences between the Obama and McCain campaigns. Nobel Prize winner Harold Varmus directly orchestrates a team of more than 40 researchers and educators for the Obama campaign, with an additional 30–40 other researchers providing more ad hoc advice. On the other hand, the McCain campaign’s point person on science, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, has no science background and is also the point person for other domestic policy issues, such as health, energy, and the environment. McCain has consulted scientists and policy analysts but has no formal structure for soliciting advice. Holtz-Eakin, in a rare interview with Science magazine, said that McCain relies instead on the knowledge acquired during his 26 years in Congress, including 6 years as chair of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

Along with Varmus’s science committee, the Obama campaign has at least 20 or more advisory bodies on issues such as health care and foreign policy. Former Clinton administration defense official Paul Kaminski is heading up an eight-person group on defense science that is examining work-force, training, and acquisition issues. Another group is looking specifically at science education. All the committees hold weekly teleconferences with campaign staff officials to provide feedback on the campaign and help prepare for the debates.

Although Rep. Vern Ehlers (R-MI), one of three physicists in Congress, is a strong supporter of McCain, he has also admitted that McCain hasn't sought his advice on science. Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) are involved and consult with and for the Obama campaign.

Climate change and the vice-presidential debate

Last week a new report was released that said in 2007 carbon released from burning fossil fuels and producing cement increased 2.9% over that released in 2006, to a total of 8.47 gigatons . Moreover, natural carbon sinks—such as forests and oceans, which take up a lot of CO2—took in less. The changes are at the very high end of scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and could translate into a global temperature rise of more than 8–10 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.

As Nature’s climate change website highlighted and the statements published on the PHYSICS TODAY campaign site show, although there are similarities, there are also significant differences between the candidates on climate change. This is particularly true in the case of the vice-presidential candidates, Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

In an interview earlier this week with Katie Couric, Palin was asked if she believes global warming is the result of human activity. Palin dodged the question, referring to the Alaskan "sub-cabinet" to focus on climate change in Alaska. Couric asked again. Palin responded, "You know there are, there are man's activities that can be contributed to the issues that we're dealing with now, these impacts. I'm not going to solely blame all of man's activities on changes in climate. Because the world's weather patterns are cyclical."

During the vice-presidential debate, Palin restated the views that climate change is not primarily caused by human behavior. "I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet. I don't want to argue about the causes of climate change,” said Palin. Biden, looking visibly frustrated, responded by stating the government should support development of alternative, cleaner energy. "If you don't understand the causes [of global warming], it's impossible to come up with solutions," Biden said. "I think it's man-made."

Palin also stated that she was the first governor to form a cabinet-level committee to deal with the impact of climate change. The subcommittee, however, was initially proposed by the Alaskan state legislature, not by Governor Palin, although it only became active with her support. Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick and Nevada governor Jim Gibbons both formed state committees months before Palin’s subcommittee was formed in September 2007.

Biden did make one significant error related to arms control in the debate. At 22:04 EST, Biden asserted that John McCain opposed the comprehensive nuclear test ban and that virtually every other Republican supported it. President Clinton never submitted the test ban for formal ratification because it faced overwhelming Republican opposition in a GOP-controlled Senate.

NASA at 50

On 1 October, NASA celebrated the start of its 50th year since its founding. President Bush helped NASA get on to a more promising start by signing a $630 billion spending bill that provides NASA a waiver to buy seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft until 2016 and $20.2 billion in funding for 2009 (roughly $2.6 billion more than the Bush administration had requested).

The waiver (required because of legislation that blocks some government business with Russia because of Russia’s arms and nuclear technology deals with Iran, among other things) was heavily supported by both presidential candidates because NASA would otherwise be unable to reach the International Space Station once the space shuttle is retired in 2011.

Renewable energy, support for R&D in the bailout bill

When the Senate finally passed the banking bailout bill midweek (78 votes to 12), the bill had turned from a 3-page document to 451 pages with an additional $120 billion in tax credits and support for the middle class. Included in the supplemental were some of the following issues related to science and energy:

SEC. 117. CARBON AUDIT OF THE TAX CODE.
“(a) STUDY.—The Secretary of the Treasury shall enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to undertake a comprehensive review of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to identify the types of and specific tax provisions that have the largest effects on carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions and to estimate the magnitude of those effects.”

The addition hints that compulsory carbon trading will shortly be proposed by the next administration. The following tax credits division B--Energy improvement and Extension Act of 2008 were also included as part of the bill along with big tax breaks for oil companies:

Subtitle A–Renewable Energy Incentives
Sec. 101. Renewable energy credit.
Sec. 102. Production credit for electricity produced from marine renewables.
Sec. 103. Energy credit.
Sec. 104. Energy credit for small wind property.
Sec. 105. Energy credit for geothermal heat pump systems.
Sec. 106. Credit for residential energy efficient property.
Sec. 107. New clean renewable energy bonds.

Subtitle B—Carbon Mitigation and Coal Provisions
Sec. 111. Expansion and modification of advanced coal project investment credit.
Sec. 112. Expansion and modification of coal gasification investment credit.
Sec. 115. Tax credit for carbon dioxide sequestration.
Sec. 117. Carbon audit of the tax code.
Sec. 205. Credit for new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicles.

The three Detroit automakers General Motors, Ford Motor Co, and Chrysler also received approval for their $25 billion loan for R&D development for the next generation of fuel-efficient cars as part of the bailout bill. The House of Representatives passed their version of the bill last week. The president’s signature, which the bill is likely to receive, is the last remaining step before the automakers can apply for the money. The Department of Energy has 60 days to calculate how to award the loan from the point the bill becomes law. The loans, which could be paid back over a 30-year period, are the result of more than two years of lobbying by the Detroit three and their representatives and will save the companies $100 million to $1 billion in lending costs. They will have to build vehicles that are 25% more fuel efficient than the average models in their class not to be in default on their loans.

Paul Guinnessy

Barack Obama responds to the quadrennial PHYSICS TODAY questionnaire on science policy matters; John McCain declines invitations to participate.

As soaring energy prices hit home and US voters awaken to the sobering impacts of climate change, physical sciences issues have captured the attention of the presidential candidates like no other election in recent memory. Both nominees, Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain, have developed detailed proposals for slashing emissions of greenhouse gases and reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil. And to counter declining US technological competitiveness, both have put forth plans that include more funding for the physical sciences and the training of more US scientists and engineers.

As it has done for every presidential election since 1976, PHYSICS TODAY has sought out the views on major science and technology policy issues from the leading contenders for the White House. In late July identical questionnaires were submitted to the Obama and McCain campaigns. As this issue went to press, however, only Obama had responded to the seven-question survey, while McCain headquarters has turned down multiple invitations to participate, even after being warned that Obama's responses would be published by themselves if necessary. "Thank you once again for your interest," read the e-mail from McCain headquarters in response to our most recent invitation on 15 September. "Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate your request at this time." That same day, McCain supplied his answers to a 14-question survey on S&T policy issues that was submitted by the nonprofit group Science Debate 2008. That organization has tried unsuccessfully since last November to organize a debate between the candidates devoted entirely to science policy issues. Many of the issues addressed in that group's questionnaire, available at www.sciencedebate2008.com, will be of interest to PHYSICS TODAY readers.

Following are the questions posed by PHYSICS TODAY and the answers supplied by the Obama campaign.

PT: Both of you have set forth plans to mitigate the warming of Earth's climate that include a mandatory cap-and-trade system on carbon emissions, and both plans call for the emissions credits to be auctioned off to industry. What are the features that make your climate change plan superior to your opponent's, and why? How would your energy policy address both the rising costs of and the continuing need for fossil fuels?

Obama: I propose to implement a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. I will start reducing emissions immediately by establishing strong annual reduction targets with an intermediate goal of reducing emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. A cap-and-trade program draws on the power of the marketplace to reduce emissions in a cost-effective and flexible way. I will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. I will back this with a greatly expanded federal research and development program and an aggressive set of measures to ensure rapid deployment of new technologies. This effort is designed to ensure that the climate goals can be met on time, at the lowest possible cost, and in a way that stimulates innovation, growth of American businesses, and job creation. Specifically, I will

► Invest $150 billion over 10 years into developing and deploying new technologies for efficiency in buildings and transportation, energy storage and transmission, and new-generation technologies for renewables, advanced vehicles like plug-in hybrids, and coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration;

► Double federal clean energy research and development funding. This will support advancements in a broad range of technologies essential for meeting our emissions reduction targets;

► Reduce electricity demand in the US 15 percent from expected levels by 2020;

► Provide loan guarantees for domestic auto plants and parts manufacturers to retool facilities to build new fuel-efficient cars domestically; and Renew the Production Tax Credit for renewable electricity and create a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard that will require that 10 percent of American electricity is derived from renewable sources by 2012 and 25 percent by 2025.

PT: Despite the high cost of oil, nuclear power remains uneconomical, due largely to compliance with regulations and disposing of nuclear waste. What incentives, if any, would you offer to accelerate new nuclear power generation?

Obama: Nuclear energy can play a major role in helping us provide affordable energy and meeting climate change challenges. But it faces significant challenges in safety, management and protection of nuclear fuel and waste, nuclear proliferation, and cost. I will pursue research and development into safely storing nuclear energy. The nuclear waste disposal efforts at Yucca Mountain have been an expensive failure and should be abandoned. I will work with the industry and governors to develop a way to store nuclear waste safely while we pursue long-term solutions.

PT: Last year's America COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) Act was heralded as a rare bipartisan agreement to begin addressing the erosion of US competitiveness in many fields of science, technology, and engineering. However, most of the new funding that was authorized by the new law to increase basic research in the physical sciences failed to materialize, despite nearly universal support from Congress and the White House. If you are elected, will you make these increases a priority?

Obama: I believe that investments in research and development—in the physical sciences and other fields—have been essential for the competitiveness of the US economy and for helping us meet national goals in energy, the environment, health care, and many other areas. I co-sponsored the America COMPETES Act and successfully included multiple provisions to ensure more Americans have the opportunity to enter and advance through science and technology fields. I have been greatly disappointed that the Bush administration has failed to invest the necessary money in this important effort. Intransigence on the budget made it impossible to find the money needed to support its goals. It will plainly be impossible to meet these goals if my opponent in this election follows through on his promise to freeze domestic discretionary spending. I, however, am strongly committed to doubling basic research budgets at federal agencies that include the NSF, the Office of Science in the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Science [sic] and Technology.

PT: The Bush administration added to NASA's missions by setting it on course to return humans to the Moon by 2020. But the president did not provide substantial new funding to cover his Vision for Space Exploration; as a result, NASA's science and aeronautics programs have had to be pared back to help pay for it. If elected, what changes will you make or new funding will you provide to ease the pressure on NASA?

Obama: I believe that the United States needs a strong space program to help maintain its superiority not only in space but also here on Earth in the realms of education, science, technology, the environment, and national security. Technology developed for space missions has been applied to improve everything from computers and medical technology to baby formula and automobiles.

As president, I will establish a robust and balanced civilian space program. In achieving this vision, I will reach out to include international partners and to engage the private sector to amplify NASA's reach. I believe that a revitalized NASA can help America maintain its innovation edge and contribute to American economic growth.

I will reestablish the National Aeronautics and Space Council, which will coordinate civilian, military, commercial, and national security space activities and report to the president. This council will oversee a comprehensive and integrated strategy and policy dealing with all aspects of the government's space-related programs, including those being managed by NASA, the Department of Defense, the National Reconnaissance Office, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Transportation, and other federal agencies. It will solicit public participation, engage the international community, and work toward a 21st-century vision of space that constantly pushes the envelope on new technologies as it pursues a balanced national portfolio that expands our reach into the heavens and improves life here on Earth.

Human spaceflight is important to America's political, economic, technological, and scientific leadership. I will support renewed human exploration beyond low Earth orbit. I endorse the goal of sending human missions to the Moon by 2020, as a precursor in an orderly progression to missions to more distant destinations, including Mars.

PT: The budgets of the Department of Energy's three nuclear weapons laboratories have, in the words of one top official, "been in free-fall" during recent years, with a Congress that is increasingly unwilling to provide funding for their core nuclear deterrent mission. Hundreds of staff have been laid off, taken early retirement, or simply left. Morale is reported to be very low, and the recruitment of fresh young talent is increasingly difficult. In a post–cold war world, what roles do you see for those labs? Should they be consolidated to achieve budget savings?

Obama: The Department of Energy's weapons laboratories have played a key role in national security and many other areas and will continue to do so. I will build on my record in the US Senate to strengthen international agreements that will make it possible to greatly reduce nuclear weapons. This does not mean that we should in any way reduce our efforts to ensure the safety and reliability of our existing nuclear stockpile. The national laboratories are essential for this mission and for many other critical missions in national security, homeland security, nonproliferation, nuclear power, computational sciences, life sciences, environmental technologies, and other fields. The national laboratories are a critical national science and technology resource and I will ensure that these resources are supported and focused on the science and technology missions most critical to our country in the 21st century.

PT: The US continues to produce too few young engineers and scientists to meet the country's growing technological needs. Report after report concludes that the country's public education system is failing to adequately prepare children in mathematics and science. Given the highly fragmented US education system, what can be done at the national level to elevate the mathematics and science literacy of the K–12 student population?

Obama: I will make an unprecedented commitment to science and America's future by making STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics] education a priority. I have already demonstrated this commitment by introducing legislation to support a strong STEM workforce and STEM literacy for all Americans. With Congressman and physicist Rush Holt, I helped establish a STEM Scholarship Base to prepare more students for STEM careers, creating a Web portal with the financial aid opportunities available in science and technology. This will help first-generation college students who may otherwise receive limited guidance in how to finance a degree in science or technology after high school.

I also introduced legislation that improves the coordination of the numerous programs at federal agencies to support teachers and improve science education. The legislation will also increase coherence among federal STEM education efforts by including mechanisms to facilitate cooperation among states regarding development of rigorous common standards and implementation of effective practices.

My new administration will build on this with a comprehensive education plan that will transform the teaching profession. Through Teacher Service Scholarships, a Teacher Residency Program, and development of a career ladder, I will attract thousands of mathematics and science degree graduates to the teaching profession. But this is not enough. I will also encourage the development of innovative instructional materials and technologies and work to ensure that assessments measure the skills and content needed for success in the future. And to ensure we will continue to improve, I will support research on the challenge of implementing quality STEM education practices and helping them spread and endure so that we can maintain our ability to innovate and compete in a global economy.

PT: The US has a spotty record at best when it comes to international scientific cooperation. The latest embarrassment is the ITER fusion reactor, on which DOE was forced to renege on the $150 million installment it had pledged to make this year toward its $1 billion total contribution to the project. What steps would your administration take to ensure that the nation lives up to its international scientific obligations?

Obama: Many pressing research challenges can best be addressed through international collaboration. I will work hard to ensure that we leverage federal research dollars by engaging international partners in projects, including technologies like carbon capture and sequestration. I will also encourage research collaboration in areas where multinational investments are essential, such as medical research on malaria and other diseases. These programs will be fully funded as a part of my strong commitment to double basic research budgets.