March 2009 Archives

More appointments from the Obama administration and some proposed changes to structure of some international science-related organizations highlight this week in politics.

IAEA council fails to agree on new chief

After two days of stalemate, the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors failed to agree on two candidates nominated to replace Mohamed ElBaradei as IAEA director general on Friday, causing the posting to be reopened to new candidates.

"The slate is wiped clean," said the board's chairwoman, Algerian Ambassador Taous Feroukhi, at a press conference after the meeting. The 35-member board must reach a two-thirds majority vote to appoint a candidate, and neither Yukiya Amano of Japan nor Abdul Minty of South Africa reached the required number.

Amano's candidacy was backed by the US and European Union member states, who were interested in strengthening the IAEA's mandate on security and nonproliferation. Minty had support among nonaligned developing countries, who favored more emphasis on promoting civil nuclear technology. The IAEA's 146 member states now have four weeks in which to submit new nominations for director general.

Obama applies pressure to shake up NATO

Earlier this week Obama met NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to discuss strengthening NATO's involvement in Afghanistan, to encourage stronger links with Russia, and to talk about future US plans for expanding NATO's role. On March 20, after a 42 year-gap, France put in a formal request to re-join NATO. Both moves come at a time that NATO's structure and mission is adapting to changing world conditions.

Although NATO is generally seen as a military-defense-based organization, NATO does fund a number of collaborative science ventures between NATO and non-allied partners such as Russia. More than 20,000 scientists annually attend NATO-funded workshops, conduct research, or take advantage of training opportunities in a given year under the NATO Science for Peace and Security Program. Funding for the program has declined over the last ten years as NATO's role in conflict resolution expanded; but with an increased interest in strengthening the stability of countries around NATO borders, the program appears to be gaining a new urgency.

Energy efficiency czar nominated, EPA deputy nominee withdraws

The Obama administration's plan to heavily invest in renewable energy took another step forward on Friday when former CEO and Clinton administration environmental official Cathy Zoi was nominated as assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the Department of Energy.

Zoi, who has a BS in geology and an MS in engineering, used to run Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit organization aimed to promote awareness about global warming to the US public. Before joining the alliance in 2007, she was a director of Landis+Gyr Holdings, which focuses on developing smart metering technology to improve energy efficiency.

But not everything is going smoothly for the Obama nomination process. John Cannon, who had been nominated for the number two post at the Environmental Protection Agency, withdrew his candidacy in a statement released to the press.

"Today I am voluntarily removing my name from consideration to be Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. It has come to my attention that America's Clean Water Foundation, where I once served on the board of directors, has become the subject of scrutiny. While my service on the board of that now-dissolved organization is not the subject of the scrutiny, I believe the energy and environmental challenges facing our nation are too great to delay confirmation for this position, and I do not wish to present any distraction to the agency."

In an EPA report the agency found that the Clean Water Foundation had funneled more than $21 million of the EPA grant money to contractor Validus Services LLC, which is a subsidiary of the American Pork Producers Council.

EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said, "I'm disappointed that Jon Cannon will be unable to serve as Deputy Administrator, and I thank him for his many years of dedication to the EPA. The administration will move quickly to identify a new candidate who can help us carry out our mission to preserve environmental sustainability and create green jobs as we transition the nation to a clean energy economy."

A new candidate will have to be appointed quickly as Obama announced the creation of a major economies forum on energy and climate to meet in the third week of April.

Paul Guinnessy

"Leadership in science remains vital to America's economic prosperity, energy security, and global competitiveness," said Chu at a lunchtime press conference. "These projects not only provide critically needed short-term economic relief but also represent a strategic investment in our nation's future. They will create thousands of jobs and breathe new life into many local economies, while helping to accelerate new technology development, renew our scientific and engineering workforce, and modernize our nation's scientific infrastructure."

The money will mainly be directed to the 10 national laboratories run by DOE. The package also provides substantial support for both university- and DOE-based researchers, working on problems in fields ranging from particle and plasma physics to biofuels, solar energy, superconductivity, solid-state lighting, electricity storage, and materials science, among others.

The news came days after the Obama administration announced that current BP chief scientist Steve Koonin will serve as undersecretary of science at DOE. He would replace Ray Orbach once the position receives Senate confirmation.

Included among the approved projects are the following:

• $150 million to accelerate ongoing construction on the National Synchrotron Light Source-II at Brookhaven National Laboratory, in Upton, New York.

• $123 million for major construction, modernization, and needed decommissioning of laboratory facilities at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL); and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

• $65 million to accelerate construction of the 12-Billion Electron Volt Upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (TJNAF) in Newport News, Virginia.

• $277 million for Energy Frontier Research Centers, to be awarded on a competitive basis to universities and DOE National Laboratories across the country. These centers will accelerate the transformational basic science needed to develop plentiful and cost-effective alternative energy sources and will pursue advanced fundamental research in fields ranging from solar energy to nuclear energy systems, biofuels, geological sequestration of carbon dioxide, clean and efficient combustion, solid-state lighting, superconductivity, hydrogen research, electrical energy storage, catalysis for energy, and materials under extreme conditions.

• $90 million for other core research, providing support for graduate students, postdocs, and PhD scientists across the nation.

• $69 million to create a national scale, prototype 100-gigabit per second data network linking research centers across the nation.

• $330 million for operations and equipment at Office of Science major scientific user facilities, including ORNL's Spallation Neutron Source; the Nanoscale Science Research Centers, located at five national laboratories nationwide; the ARM Climate Research Facility; Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory; and Linac Coherent Light Source at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SNAL).

In addition, the Recovery Act funding provides $125 million for needed infrastructure improvements across nine DOE national laboratories: Ames Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, LBNL, ORNL, PNNL, SNAL, and TJNAF.

Paul Guinnessy

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Holdren, Lubchenco confirmed

Last night John Holdren was confirmed by the Senate as director of the Whitehouse Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Jane Lubchenco was confirmed as the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "Both individuals will serve this country and the taxpayers honorably; there is much work to be done and no time to waste," said Senator John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-WV), chairman of the US Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

The two positions had been held up in the Senate by an anonymous hold that was believed to have been placed by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ). Two other senators were believed to have placed holds on the positions in order to negotiate more favorable terms with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) on legislation involving the 2009 budget and trade sanctions on Cuba.

Yucca Mountain

The elimination of most of the funding for Yucca Mountain in the 2010 administration budget, due to pressure from Reid, is starting to focus attention on how to cope with the highly radioactive waste produced by power plants. In an article in US News & World Report, Kent Garber looks at the success of the nuclear waste repository in Carlsbad, New Mexico. "Since opening in 1999, it has received more than 60,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste from the country's nuclear defense facilities," he writes. The success is due to support from members of the local community, who wanted the jobs. In Nevada, however, public support for a nuclear waste repository is low.

"By abandoning Yucca Mountain, the administration is essentially walking away from $8 billion of investment and 25 years of research and study," says Garber, "although experts say that as long ago as the early 1990s, there were already serious doubts that the repository would ever be built." Instead waste will likely be stored on-site at the nuclear power plants for the foreseeable future.

UK emphasizes nuclear nonproliferation regime

How the world deals with nuclear issues is part of the challenge in dealing with global poverty, climate change, and financial instability, said UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Tuesday, 17 March, in London. He pointed out that the global targets for reducing carbon dioxide emissions cannot be achieved without a heavy investment in nuclear power.

"It is more than about security, vital as that is, it is more than about nuclear power and meeting the challenges of energy shortages and climate change, important as they are, it is about the values of this global society we are trying to build and it is about the very idea of progress itself, about the foundations upon which we build our common security and a sustainable future for our planet. In short it is about what kind of world we are and what kind of world we want to be."

The speech pointed out that Iran "has the same absolute right to a peaceful nuclear programme - civil nuclear programme - as any other country" but made equally clear that "Iran's current nuclear programme is unacceptable." Brown proposed new diplomatic engagements with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program and emphasized that the nuclear weapons states need to do more to disarm their nuclear weapon stockpiles, as they agreed to do so under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which is up for review next year. Brown called for the 2010 NPT review conference to renew and refresh the protocols at the heart of the treaty, as the likelihood that a non-state actor could acquire nuclear weapons is higher than it's been in years.

"The only way to guarantee our children and our grandchildren will be free from the threat of nuclear war is to create a world in which countries can have confidence, refuse to take up nuclear weapons in the knowledge that they will never be required," said Brown.

The prime minister announced that the UK will double its contribution to the International Atomic Energy Agency's nuclear security fund, which helps countries improve the security at nuclear power plants, and there will be more investment at the UK's atomic weapons establishment on nuclear forensics, so that if a nuclear bomb is detonated then the uranium can be tracked back to its manufacturer. Brown also asked for the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (which it declined to do in 1999) and start global negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty.

"States have national interests but capping the production of weapons usable fissile material and outlawing the testing of nuclear weapons are two powerful and achievable goals that I believe are consistent with the long term needs and interests of every state," he said.

Paul Guinnessy

Related Policy News from AIP's FYI
Senate Confirms Holdren as new OSTP Director  
NSF, Other Science Agencies Describe Intentions for Stimulus Funding  

Developments in science policy defied the continuing gloom for the economy, as federal science agencies finally received their appropriations for the fiscal year that is now nearly half gone. Following days of debate, Senate Democrats were able to cobble together enough Republican votes to pass a $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill that includes mostly non-national-security discretionary spending. Had the bill failed to pass, the agencies in all likelihood would have had to operate at last year's levels for the balance of the current year. The measure, which was quickly signed into law by President Obama, includes a 19% increase over 2008 for the basic research programs in the physical sciences at the Department of Energy, 7% more for NSF, and 8% more for NIST. Those numbers are in addition to the sizeable increases the three agencies had previously received in the economic stimulus bill.

On Monday, Obama fulfilled another campaign pledge, by signing an executive order that rescinds the tight restrictions placed by his predecessor in 2001 on federal funding for research that involves human embryonic stem cells. Obama used the opportunity to issue instructions to the heads of federal agencies to prevent politics from interfering with scientific research. With the exception of classified information and other material exempted from disclosure by the Freedom of Information Act, the presidential memorandum said, agencies should make available to the public the scientific or technological findings or conclusions considered or relied on in policy decisions.

In a speech at the signing ceremony, Obama said that supporting science "isn't just about providing resources--it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient--especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda--and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."

Prominent scientists who attended the signing were effusive in their praise for Obama. Alan Leshner, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was quoted by USA Today as saying that he had "never seen the scientific community so pleased by a presidential action," while Harold Varmus, the former director of the National Institutes of Health, told the newspaper that Bush's policy on stem cell research was "one (example) of the failure to think carefully about federal support of science and the use of science."

Obama gave the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy 120 days to recommend specific presidential actions that will guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch. As of 13 March, however, physicist John Holdren had yet to be confirmed by the Senate as OSTP director--his nomination, like that of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator-designee Jane Lubchenko, held up by a single senator on a matter having nothing to do with science policy.

Energy Secretary Steven Chu continued to make the rounds on Capitol Hill, reassuring lawmakers that the Obama administration supports nuclear power even as it plans to abandon the Yucca Mountain repository for nuclear waste. Chu has maintained that spent fuel from the nation's commercial reactors can be stored safely at the reactor sites for decades while the government tries to figure out what to do with it for the long term. He added that he hopes to get input by year-end on how to proceed, from an advisory panel whose members he will be appointing soon.

Chu inched a little closer to reinstating FutureGen, a clean-coal demonstration plant equipped with carbon capture and storage technology. The project was canceled more than a year ago by former Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, who cited soaring cost estimates. But a report issued by the Government Accountability Office said that the decision to pull the plug appeared to have been based on faulty arithmetic: DOE had confused as-spent dollars with those that are adjusted for inflation, and had therefore compared apples to oranges. DOE should have compared the original 2003 $1 billion estimate for FutureGen to the 2007 figure of $1.3 billion in constant dollars, not the $1.8 billion with no adjustment for inflation that was cited when it was canceled. Chu has said that he is favorably inclined toward FutureGen, but only if unspecified changes are made to the project, which is to be cost-shared with a consortium of electric utilities.

David Kramer

Despite passing the stimulus bill a few weeks ago and announcing extra funding to science agencies for the 2010 financial year, Congress failed to pass the 2009 federal budget yesterday. Since September the federal government has been running on a continuing resolution that pegged funding at 2008 levels and has led to layoffs at a number of national laboratories. The C.R. expires at midnight tonight.

"Senate Republicans blocked a $410 billion omnibus spending measure on Thursday night, forcing Congressional Democrats to prepare a stopgap budget resolution to keep the federal government from shutting down," writes David M. Herszenhorn in the New York Times. The Democrats needed 60 votes to pass the spending bill, but could only muster 59 as Republicans railed against earmarks by their colleagues and two senators (one Democrat and one Republican) refused to approve the bill because it includes a relaxation in travel and goods restrictions with Cuba.

As a result, the House of Representatives and the Senate passed a C.R. bill that will fund the government until Tuesday night. House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) threatened to fund the government at the 2008 level for the remainder of the 2009 fiscal year if the budget is not approved next week. Capping funding at 2008 levels would cut federal science agencies' funding by 2%-5% in real terms. In a telephone call to Senator Harry Reid's (D-NV) office, a spokesperson said the senator remains confident that the 2009 budget will pass.

Foreign travels

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is currently on an international goodwill tour, announced earlier today that the Obama administration hoped to build better relations with Russia by becoming more engaged in international arms control talks, "and by possibly changing US plans for deploying a missile defense system in Eastern Europe" writes Glenn Kessler in the Washington Post. Clinton has suggested that if Russia helps persuade Iran not to develop nuclear weapons, the US and its allies would not require a missile defense system.

Three major arms control treaties are up for discussion this year, including the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, (START) which expires at the end of the year. Negotiations between the Bush administration and Russian officials failed, but both Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov seem optimistic that an agreement can be reached to expand START to include more cuts.

Holt pushes anthrax commission

Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ has introduced legislation that would establish a congressional commission to investigate the 2001 anthrax attacks and the federal government's response and investigation.

The attacks originated from a postal box in Holt's central New Jersey congressional district, and questions remain over whether the FBI has pinpointed the correct suspect. Bruce Ivins, a Fort Detrick expert in bioterrorism, committed suicide after an 18-month surveillance operation and shortly before he was to be charged by the FBI.

Holt, along with senators Pat Leahy (D-VT), Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Charles Grassley (R-IA), has consistently raised questions about the federal investigation into the attacks.

"All of us--but especially the families of the victims of the anthrax attacks--deserve credible answers about how the attacks happened and whether the case really is closed," said Holt. "The commission, like the 9/11 Commission, would do that, and it would help American families know that the government is better prepared to protect them and their children from future bioterrorism attacks."

The commission would have to consult the National Academy of Sciences for recommendations on scientific staff to serve on the commission and would deliver a report 18 months after its establishment.

Paul Guinnessy

According to the Washington Post, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) has placed a "hold" that blocks votes on confirming the two scientists.

Menendez is using the holds as leverage to get Senate leaders' attention for a matter related to Cuba rather than questioning the nominees' credentials, says Washington Post reporter Juliet Eilperin.