April 2009 Archives

The Obama administration has increased efforts to move climate change legislation through Congress, despite setbacks earlier in the month, and is close to approving a cap-and-trade bill developed by Congress.

Two weeks ago Republicans, along with 20 Democrats, blocked attempts to put a carbon cap-and-trade system into the 2010 budget bill through a Republican-sponsored amendment, defeating the administration's plan to use a process called "reconciliation" to bypass Congress's input on climate change legislation.

An additional amendment a week later prohibited the collection of funds from any carbon-based cap-and-trade scheme by the administration, but was modified by Democrats to allow such a scheme as long as consumers received a subsidy or tax cut to reduce their energy bill.

Obama is trying to have some global warming legislation in place before the next round of UN climate talks in Copenhagen this December, to show that the US is now committed to reducing its carbon dioxide emissions, but the Republicans, with the help of "Blue Dog Democrats," are strengthening their opposition to any such schemes.

The Republicans claim that a cap-and-trade system, in which companies would have to pay for the amount of pollutants they emit in excess of the amount they are allowed or trade for more emission "credits" if they run out, could raise energy prices in the midst of a recession and that the Democrats are moving too quickly to implement legislation that would have a dramatic impact on the US economy.

House minority leader John Boehner said that such a system would "raise taxes on every American who drives a car, flips on a light switch or buys a product manufactured in the United States."

However, the figure quoted by Boehner of an additional $3100 per household is overblown by a factor of ten inaccurate, according to the researcher whose work the Republicans based their figures on.

Denialists scientific research

Pro-climate change groups have had some good news: documents related to the Global Climate Coalition (GCC)—a group of representatives of the oil, auto, and coal industries, which spent years lobbying the public and Congress (before the coalition folded in 2002) that climate change had nothing to do with humans, and helped torpedo the ratification of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol in the Senate--show that the group's scientists concluded in 1995 that "the scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO₂ on climate is well established and cannot be denied."

The scientists' conclusions were never released to the general public until the New York Times broke the story last week. New York Times reporter Andrew C. Revkin got the details from a lawyer who is involved in a lawsuit between the State of California and the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, General Motors and Chrysler.

Senator John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said the behavior of GCC "underscores the need to be wary of some of the industry studies and analyses that will come out" on climate change.

Former vice president Al Gore also attacked the GCC on Thursday in a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, stating that the group "lied to people who trusted them, in order to make money."

When Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lisa P. Jackson appeared in front of the same committee, they backed attempts by Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA) and Edward Markey (D-MA) to draft cap-and-trade legislation. Waxman, who is chair of the committee, stated his intention to push the bill through the committee in May. More experts are expected to give evidence to the committee later this week as the committee wrestles over where the $65 billion per year, raised by the cap-and-trade scheme, will go.

Paul Guinnessy

Every NASA administrator in the last 10 years has called for new blood in the organization and worried about the looming percentage of the workforce that would be eligible to retire in the next five years.

These retirees contain valuable knowledge on how to launch and prepare spacecraft that could be lost during the retirement of the space shuttle and the suspected delays to its replacement, the Ares constellation program.

In evidence presented to House Subcommittees on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service and District of Columbia earlier this week, Gregory J. Junemann, President of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers gave a report "Public Service in the 21st Century: An Examination of the State of the Federal Workforce" that touched in particular on the large scarcity of young NASA staff members compared to the early 1990s, a proportion of which left the organization, leaving it understaffed in young to middle-age management expertise for the foreseeable future.

"The consequences for NASA's long-term health are dire," said Junemann, "NASA must reverse course in President Obama's first term or key intellectual capabilities will be lost and not replaced."

"Between 1993 and 2009, despite the fact that NASA's overall budget and responsibilities increased, NASA lost 6,787 civil-servant employees under the age of 40, who were never replaced (see purple oval for missing cohort). Without a course correction, the demographic distribution will become even more skewed with the proportion of NASA employees who are 50-59 increasing to nearly half the entire civil-service workforce by the 2014."

Paul Guinnessy

The Stimulus Bill and Energy: NPR's Jeff Brady looks at how the Department of Energy will spend $43 billion on new and sustainable energy programs over the next few years. More than $2.4 billion has been spent already.

Nine universities receive $45 million from an anonymous donor: Since 1 March a number of universities have received large-scale anonymous donations, conditional on the universities not investigating the donor's identity and with the same stipulation, says Michael J. Crumb of the Associated Press: "Most of the money must be used for student scholarships, and the remainder can be spent on various other items such as research, equipment, strategic goals, and operating support."

The largest gift went to Purdue University, which received $8 million. The University of Iowa received $7 million; the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of Maryland University College got $6 million each; the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs was given $5.5 million; Norfolk State University and Penn State Harrisburg received $3 million each, while the University of North Carolina at Asheville received $1.5 million.

FY 2010 budget update: The Obama administration is likely to send Congress its much-anticipated FY 2010 budget request by early next month, says AIP's Richard Jones.

UK should have its own science-based stimulus bill: Martin Rees argues in the Guardian newspaper that a robust UK economy can only be developed if innovation and research are made greater priorities. "Only by investing in science and research now can we take advantage of the massive market prospects as the world develops new, more environmentally friendly ways of making a living," says Rees.

"...our leading universities ... are major national assets. They will only stay that way if they can continue to attract and retain outstanding academics, by offering adequate funding and the opportunity to explore the most exciting research questions," he adds.

Former American Physical Society president and Princeton physicist William Brinkman has been nominated to head the Office of Science at the Department of Energy (DOE). The announcement came out of the White House on Friday.

Daniel Poneman, a lawyer and former National Security Council official, has been nominated as deputy secretary of energy in charge of the nuclear weapons complex. Poneman is the only nonscientist among the Obama administration's four deputy secretaries nominated to lead DOE.

Michael Nacht, has been nominated for assistant secretary of defense (Global Strategic Affairs) at the Department of Defense.

"I am grateful that these fine individuals have made the admirable decision to serve their country," said President Obama in a released statement. "Their expertise and dedication will be a valuable asset both to my administration and our nation as we work to bring about the real change that the American people need today."

Brinkman

William Brinkman, currently a senior research physicist in the physics department at Princeton University, is the third scientist to be appointed to a high-level position at DOE. He is a former vice president of research at Bell Laboratories and a former vice president of Sandia National Laboratories.

After achieving a PhD in physics from the University of Missouri in 1965 and a one-year fellowship to Oxford University, he joined Bell Laboratories.

In 1972, he became head of the Infrared Physics and Electronics Research Department, and in 1974 became the director of the Chemical Physics Research Laboratory. Seven years later he became director of the Physical Research Laboratory until moving to Sandia in 1984.

He returned to Bell Labs in 1987 to become executive director of the Physics Research Division, eventually rising to vice president of research nine years ago.

Brinkman is a member of the American Physical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has chaired the National Academy of Sciences Physics Survey and the NAS Solid-State Sciences Committee. Brinkman was the recipient of the 1994 George E. Pake Prize.

Poneman

Harvard and Oxford graduate Daniel Poneman has years of experience working on nuclear and defense issues. More than $10 billion per year is spent by DOE on nuclear nonproliferation, superfund cleanup sites such as Hanford, and the stockpile stewardship program.

Since 2001, Poneman has been working for the Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm based in Washington, DC. From 1993 through 1996, Poneman served as special assistant to the president and senior director for nonproliferation and export controls at the National Security Council. He joined the NSC staff in 1990 as director of Defense Policy and Arms Control, after serving as a White House Fellow in the Department of Energy.

Poneman has served on several federal commissions and advisory panels, and has authored books on nuclear energy policy.

Nacht

Michael Nacht is currently a professor of public policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He has a BS in aeronautics and astronautics from New York University and began his career working on missile aerodynamics for NASA before earning a PhD in political science at Columbia University.

Nacht served a three-year term as a member of the US Department of Defense Threat Reduction Advisory Committee, for which he chaired panels on counter terrorism and counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, reporting to the deputy secretary of defense.

Nacht also consults for Sandia National Laboratories and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on arms control issues. From 1994-1997, Nacht was assistant director for Strategic and Eurasian Affairs at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, leading its work on nuclear arms reduction negotiations with Russia and initiating nuclear arms control talks with China. He participated in five summit meetings with President Clinton - four with Russian president Boris Yeltsin and one with Chinese president Jiang Zemin.

Nacht has testified before Congress on subjects ranging from arms control to the supply and demand for scientists in the workplace.

The billions of dollars that US President Obama's stimulus bill has given to science is having an unintended effect across the Canadian border. More than 2,000 Canadian scientists
have signed an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, decrying national budget cuts in science. More than $145 million was cut from Canadian science agencies in this year's budget.

The letter contrasts the 40% increase in funds the US National Science Foundation is getting ($3 billion on top of its current $6.9 billion) "with Canada's '"stimulus budget' cutting Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council's by 5%."

"When US researchers are being actively approached for ideas to use the stimulus money to think big and to hire and retain their researchers, their Canadian counterparts are now scrambling to identify budget cuts for their Labs, while worrying about the future of their graduating students," says the letter. "These cuts are huge steps backward for Canadian Science and we ask the government to immediately develop a multi-year plan to significantlyincrease this country's R&D investment through our granting councils."

The letter also points out that the Obama administration has appointed leading and Nobel Prize–winning scientists to his cabinet and as his advisers, and sought the input of the directors of NSF and the National Institutes of Health in his budget discussions. "We need a similar approach in Canada," say the Canadian scientists, "where top research scientists and humanists can help shape directions in Ottawa for research funding."

Paul Guinnessy

In the last few days, three candidates—from Malaysia, Spain, and Slovenia—have been submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency's governing board, to replace Mohamed ElBaradei as the agency's head.

ElBaradei has to retire from the IAEA later this year, and a few weeks ago a meeting to appoint his successor ended in failure over concern that the two original candidates—Japanese ambassador Yukiya Amano and South African diplomat Abdul Samad Minty--did not have broad enough support or experience to run the agency. The deadline for submitting the names of new candidates is 27 April.

The first new candidate arose last week when Malaysia submitted Noramly Muslim, chairman of the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licensing Board and a lecturer on atomic technology at the National University of Malaysia. In the mid to late 1980s Muslim served as the IAEA deputy director general for technical cooperation.

In recent years he has been pushing the Malaysian government to develop at least two nuclear power plants to reduce its dependence on oil.

On Wednesday, Spain's representative submitted Luis Echavarri, the director general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency.

Echavarri, who was born in Spain in 1949 and has a series of master's degrees in engineering and business administration, has been with the OECD for the last 12 years. He has been connected to the nuclear industry since 1975, originally working on the Lemoniz, Sayago, and Almaraz nuclear power plants for Westinghouse Electric before moving to a more regulatory role with the Spanish government in 1985.

Slovenia's government on Thursday submitted former diplomat and international legal expert Ernest Petrič. "The government is convinced that the candidate is able to manage the agency professionally and effectively given his personal qualities, diplomatic and managerial experience, and excellent knowledge of the IAEA, as well as of problems and challenges faced by the organization," the Slovenian press agency STA quoted a government press statement as saying.

Petrič, 72, was Slovenia's ambassador to the US, Mexico, Brazil, and the United Nations. Among international organizations, he has represented Slovenia to the IAEA, the UN security council, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He was chair of the IAEA's governing board for 2006–07. Currently he is a judge on Slovenia's Constitutional Court.

The candidates join Japanese ambassador Yukiya Amano, a nonproliferation legal expert and also a former chair of the IAEA's governing board, who resubmitted his application for the position after not receiving enough votes by the member states to win the first time around.

Amano joined the Japanese Foreign Ministry in 1972, rising to the positions of director of the science division, and director of the nuclear energy division. He was appointed director general for arms control and scientific affairs in August 2002 and director general of the Disarmament, Nonproliferation and Science Department in August 2004. He has been one of Japan's main negotiators on a number of arms control treaties, discussing such issues as the comprehensive test ban treaty, extending the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and the verification protocols regarding the biological and chemical weapons

The governing board will vote on the candidates sometime in May.

Paul Guinnessy

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a radical overhaul of the DoD budget, which was increased by 4% but saw a $1.4 billion cut to the Missile Defense Agency. In his speech last Monday, he proposed restructuring "the program to focus on the rogue state and theater missile threat" and to stabilize the number of interceptors in Alaska at their current level. The MDA program should concentrate more on R&D and less on deployment of unrealistic weapons, he said.

Gates proposed canceling the second airborne laser (ABL) prototype aircraft. The ABL consists of a Boeing 747 modified to hold a giant chemical laser that is designed to shoot down missiles from a distance of 600 nautical miles. "We will keep the existing aircraft and shift the program to an R&D effort," said Gates. "The ABL program has significant affordability and technology problems and the program's proposed operational role is highly questionable."

The proposed missile defense cuts arrived the day before President Obama gave a speech in Prague that touched on the long-term strategic implications on the current missile defense system, which includes basing radar and missile systems in Europe amid protests from the Russians and most of the local populations.

"The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles. As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven," said Obama. "If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe will be removed."

The speech highlights pressure on Russia to engage with the US in dealing with Iran's nuclear and missile program. The subtext is that if the Iranian security issues can be addressed, then the rationale for the European-based missile defense system disappears.

Although medium- and long-range missile defense programs got cut, short-range and naval-based missile defense systems got a funding boost. Gates added "$200 million to fund conversion of six additional Aegis ships to provide ballistic missile defense capabilities," and "$700 million to field more of our most capable theater missile defense systems, specifically the terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) System and Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) programs."

Bad news for contractors

Other weapon overhauls include the F-22 fighter, the Future Combat Systems vehicles by Boeing, Lockheed's multiple-kill vehicle, Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics' DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer, the Lockheed VH-71 presidential helicopter, and Boeing's C-17 cargo plane, for all of which production was canceled. According to the Government Accountability Office most of the Pentagon's largest weapons programs are over budget to the tune of $300 billion.

Gates's goal is to try to move the US military, and in turn the military-industrial complex, away from futuristic weapons systems to equipment that troops can use in conflicts they are currently engaged in: warfare in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. That is why unmanned drones such as the Predator and Reaper get a big budget increase. The difficulty for Gates is that many of these programs are split up into different congressional districts to maximize support for these programs in Congress.

"In the coming weeks, we will hear a great deal about threats and risks and danger to our country and to our men and women in uniform, associated with different budget choices," Gates said. But, he added: "It is one thing to speak generally about the need for budget discipline and acquisition and contract reform. It is quite another to make tough choices about specific systems and defense priorities based solely on the national interest and then stick to those decisions over time."

One area of Gates' speech that was overlooked included hints that the strategic nuclear weapons programs could be overhauled in light of the " Quadrennial Defense Review, the Nuclear Posture Review, and in light of Post-START arms control negotiations." James Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, suggested at a conference at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that the State Department's arms control bureaucracy might increase, while the multibillion-dollar budgets of Los Alamos National Laboratory and other nuclear labs could shrink.

Other policy news from FYI this week

NSF gets support from representatives

Seventy-three representatives have signed a letter to House Appropriations Subcommittee chairman Alan Mollohan (D-WV) and ranking member Frank Wolf (R-VA) in support of President Obama's $7 billion budget for the National Science Foundation in FY 2010.

APS executive officer testifies before appropriators

Judy Franz, the executive officer of the American Physical Society, testified before the House Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriations Subcommittee on April 2. The subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over National Science Foundation funding, convened to receive public testimony. Franz was raising concerns over the boom- bust cycle in science funding and supporting a temporary $150 to $200 million start-up fund for new, young, nontenured science faculty members.

House hearings provide insight on appropriators' thinking

FYI: The AIP Bulletin of Science Policy News takes a look at the members of the House appropriations subcommittees that deal with science funding.

Technorati Profile

John Holdren has given his first few interviews. In a 30-minute interview with the Associated Press, a brief mention by Holdren of geoengineering as an option for combating climate change turned into a media circus when media outlets such as the Washington Times suggested that the Obama administration was seriously looking to implement such schemes. According to the New York Times, Holdren issued an e-mail to colleagues in the community stating the following:

"I said that the approaches that have been surfaced so far seem problematic in terms of both efficacy and side effects, but we have to look at the possibilities and understand them because if we get desperate enough it will be considered. I also made clear that this was my personal view, not Administration policy.

"Asked whether I had mentioned geo-engineering in any White House discussions, though, I said that I had. This is NOT the same thing as saying the White House is giving serious consideration to geo-engineering—which it isn't—and I am disappointed that the headline and the text of the article suggest otherwise."

Later in the week Juliet Eilperin interviewed Holdren and discovered that the Obama administration may compromise on cap-and-trade emissions. Holdren also gave an interview to Jane Kay at the San Francisco Chronicle in which Holdren emphasized again that greenhouse gas emissions have to be cut.

The most detailed interview, by Jeffrey Mervis, appeared on the Science website, in which Holdren suggests that the space shuttle's retirement is likely to be delayed a year, and that it will be an additional five years before Ares, the shuttle replacement, will be ready. Holdren also called the recent efforts by the Texas state board to undermine the teaching of evolution a "step backwards."

In a speech held in Prague, US President Barack Obama became the first president in more than 20 years to publicly state that the US should aim for a world free of nuclear weapons.

"Some argue that the spread of these weapons cannot be stopped, cannot be checked—that we are destined to live in a world where more nations and more people possess the ultimate tools of destruction," said Obama. "Such fatalism is a deadly adversary, for if we believe that the spread of nuclear weapons is inevitable, then in some way we are admitting to ourselves that the use of nuclear weapons is inevitable."

The speech confirms statements Obama made on the campaign trail when he stated, "Here's what I'll say as president: America seeks a world in which there are no nuclear weapons." Obama said that as the only nation to have used an atomic bomb in warfare, the US has a "moral responsibility" to start taking steps now.

Nearly every president since Harry S. Truman has tried to reduce the reliance on nuclear weapons in US foreign policy. Obama is not the first president to consider the idea of abolishing them altogether—President Reagan was a keen proponent and said as much in his second inaugural address in 1985, much to the chagrin of secretary of state Alexander Haig, national security adviser John Poindexter, and US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency director Kenneth Adelman. His proposals, in negotiation with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, almost came to fruition in 1986 at the Reykjavik Summit, but the talks collapsed over US refusal to stop working on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) space-based weapons system. Reagan called nuclear weapons "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization."

How possible?

The US, like all nuclear-weapons states that signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT), is supposed to be working toward the complete elimination of its NW stockpile, but few have done so. The UK claims to have reduced its NW stockpile by 25% through keeping the same number of warheads for the trident missile system as the polaris missile system it replaced. The US and Russia have reduced their number of NWs through the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties, START I and START II. Under the Bush administration, an additional set of warheads were put into storage but without the verification regimes of START. France and China have kept or slowly increased the number of warheads they have, but only South Africa, a non-signatory of the NPT, has abandoned and dismantled its entire nuclear-weapons program.

So how realistic is Obama's goal of reaching an NW-free world? The thinking among policy analysts has changed since the 1955 Russell-Einstein manifesto—calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons--was labeled optimistic and naive. Today former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former defense secretary William J. Perry, and former senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) have signed editorials and statements in major international newspapers, arguing that such a goal is realistic with the latest advances in verification techniques. A number of advisers to candidate Obama, including Perry, helped persuade the candidate to make reducing NWs a policy goal as part of his campaign.

The core tactics

The key elements of Obama's Prague speech were splitting the goal into short-, medium-, and long-range tasks. Obama emphasized that "a world without nuclear weapons" won't be reached soon, "perhaps not in my lifetime."

In his speech Obama announced his short term goal: "to put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same. Make no mistake: As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies—including the Czech Republic. But we will begin the work of reducing our arsenal."

Also among the short-to-medium-term tasks were the following:

• Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty;
• Renewal of NPT and START;
• New global initiative to secure all vulnerable nuclear material, which would expand on the work done in the 1990s by the Nunn-Lugar bill to secure former Soviet Union facilities;
• A revamping of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which would include new controls on the production of weapons-grade materials;
• Creation of an international fuel bank.

In addition, groups formed under the Bush administration such as the Proliferation Security Initiative, an ad hoc team of countries that intercept ships believed to be smuggling dual-use nuclear materials, would be strengthened.

Ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) may be possible once Al Franken of Minnesota is finally seated in the Senate, which would bring the Democratic majority in the Senate to 59—requiring only eight Republican votes to ratify it. Despite the US and China not ratifying the CTBT, the verification program set up in Vienna, Austria, has been successful in detecting the North Korean, Pakistan, and Indian nuclear tests, which implies the monitoring network setup to verify the treaty could detect a 0.4 kiloton-yield device (one-tenth the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima). A 2002 National Academies of Sciences report on the CTBT, chaired by current science adviser John Holdren, came to the same conclusions.

The day after Obama's speech at a conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (a Washington-based think tank), James Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, said that the proposals would be dealt with at the highest levels of government. "As a measure of the president's continuing commitment to this vital nonproliferation agenda, he has asked for Vice President Joe Biden's help to lead the administration's nonproliferation efforts," said Steinberg.

Biden will be in charge of getting the CTBT ratified (he tried to shepherd it through in 1999 under a Republican Senate) and of helping persuade China to do the same. Biden will also work on the proposed fissile material cutoff treaty, which will limit the production of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium and which has been stalled for more than a decade.

A new START treaty between Russia and the US looks more likely with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in charge although an end-of-the-year timetable looks ambitious.

But it was Obama's comments on Iran and North Korea (which pulled out of the NPT) that distinguished a new diplomatic engagement.

"Rules must be binding," said Obama. "Violations must be punished. Words must mean something. The world must stand together to prevent the spread of these weapons. Now is the time for a strong international response, and North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons. All nations must come together to build a stronger, global regime. And that's why we must stand shoulder to shoulder to pressure the North Koreans to change course."

"Iran has yet to build a nuclear weapon. My administration will seek engagement with Iran based on mutual interests and mutual respect. We believe in dialogue. But in that dialogue we will present a clear choice. We want Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations, politically and economically. We will support Iran's right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections. That's a path that the Islamic Republic can take. Or the government can choose increased isolation, international pressure, and a potential nuclear arms race in the region that will increase insecurity for all."

The international fuel bank, an idea that has been pushed by both UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei, is believed to be part of the solution to dealing with Iran's nuclear program and a way of encouraging states wishing to rely on nuclear power to do so without developing a uranium enrichment program. According to the Wall Street Journal, "A senior Obama administration official disclosed Sunday that, as part of that effort, the White House has had high-level contact in recent weeks with Kazakhstan to serve as host for such a proposed fuel bank." A few days after Obama's speech, the US announced that it was participating in talks with Iran, in a direct departure from the policies of the Bush administration.

Obama ended his speech on the following note:

"Now, I know that there are some who will question whether we can act on such a broad agenda. There are those who doubt whether true international cooperation is possible, given inevitable differences among nations. And there are those who hear talk of a world without nuclear weapons and doubt whether it's worth setting a goal that seems impossible to achieve."

"But make no mistake: We know where that road leads. When nations and peoples allow themselves to be defined by their differences, the gulf between them widens. When we fail to pursue peace, then it stays forever beyond our grasp. We know the path when we choose fear over hope. To denounce or shrug off a call for cooperation is an easy but also a cowardly thing to do. That's how wars begin. That's where human progress ends."

Paul Guinnessy

A week after Energy Secretary Steven Chu parceled out $1.2 billion in economic stimulus money to the Department of Energy's civilian national laboratories, newly elected senator Tom Udall (D-NM) urged Chu to find additional sources of support for the nuclear weapons labs, which did not receive any of the stimulus funds.

Udall lamented that while Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, both located in New Mexico, have long been performing considerable amounts of work for other federal agencies, the National Nuclear Security Administration pays for nearly all of the expense of maintaining the labs' workforce and facilities needed to fulfill their core missions.

"This has led to wide concern that the budget and mission constraints of the NNSA could lead to its being unable to provide the very necessary capabilities that are so critical to our nation," Udall warned.

While applauding several "strategic partnership agreements" (SPAs) that other agencies have signed with NNSA to share more of the labs' costs, Udall said much more is needed.

"In order to allow other federal agencies to benefit from the expertise and capabilities developed at the NNSA labs, I believe additional resources and commitment should be devoted to expanding the [labs'] mission in general," Udall said in calling for further SPAs. "It is quite clear that each of these labs has recognized the need to diversify their missions, and I firmly believe that we should encourage that diversification, otherwise we risk losing many of the scientists and much of the research that is so crucial and so critical for our national interests."

David Kramer

NASA's inspector general, Robert Cobb, resigned his post, nearly two years after several key House and Senate Democrats demanded that he step down. Cobb quit weeks after House Science and Technology Committee chairman Bart Gordon (TN) and oversight and investigations subcommittee chairman Brad Miller (NC) wrote to urge President Obama to fire Cobb. The lawmakers accused Cobb of abusing his authority, creating a hostile work environment in his office, and displaying a lack of independence from NASA management by his friendly social relationships with top agency officials. President Bush had ignored Gordon and Miller's 2007 request to dismiss Cobb; then NASA administrator Michael Griffin instead ordered Cobb to attend management training classes.

David Kramer

Washington's short attention span was apparent last week, as Congress moved on from economic stimulus spending and outrage over bonus payments for AIG executives to the weighty task of crafting legislation to address climate change and promote clean energy. House and Senate leaders made clear their intent to enact the country's first-ever mandatory limits on emissions of carbon dioxide through a cap-and-trade mechanism and pledged to do so this year. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee began its markup of an energy bill, leaving the more contentious provisions, including cap-and-trade, to deal with after lawmakers' return from their two-week Easter recess.

In the House, Henry Waxman (D-CA), the newly installed chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Ed Markey (D-MA), the chairman of the energy and environment subcommittee, unveiled a 648-page draft bill that includes a cap-and-trade mechanism. Hearings on that legislation also are set for after the recess, while the chairmen expect to report a bill for full House consideration by Memorial Day. Their proposal calls for a 20% cut by 2020 in CO₂ emissions from 2005 levels, compared with the 14% reduction contained in President Obama's budget released in February. The draft bill also would require that by 2025 25% of US electricity be supplied from renewable energy sources, an enormous increase from the 7% share contributed by renewable sources in 2007, according to the Energy Information Administration.

Meanwhile, more details emerged about the Obama administration's forum on energy and climate change, which Physics Today mentioned last week. The forum will consist of a series of meetings that will convene representatives from the European Union, the US, and 16 other nations that produce the lion's share of the world's greenhouse gases.

While the Obama administration claims it as its own, the forum was actually established during the Bush administration to serve as an alternative forum to the United Nation's Kyoto Protocol--which the US declined to join--for the consideration of multilateral actions in response to climate change. The White House said the forum "will facilitate a candid dialogue among key developed and developing countries, help generate the political leadership necessary to achieve a successful outcome at the UN climate change negotiations that will convene this December in Copenhagen, and advance the exploration of concrete initiatives and joint ventures that increase the supply of clean energy while cutting greenhouse gas emissions."

The preparatory session will be held 27-28 April at the US State Department. In July, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will host the leaders of the forum nations, in La Maddalena, Italy.

David Kramer