The Week of April 26, 2021 – FYI – FYI: Science Policy News

Soil Biochemist Asmeret Berhe Picked to Lead DOE Science Office

As part of a set of nominees announced last week, President Biden named Asmeret Berhe as his pick to lead the Department of Energys Office of Science. The office oversees a fleet of scientific user facilities and 10 of DOEs 17 national labs, and with a $7 billion budget, it is the federal governments largest funder of fundamental research in the physical sciences. Berhe currently is a biogeochemist at the University of California, Merced, specializing in how organic matter in the soil responds to climate change and other environmental perturbations. Originally from Eritrea in East Africa, she earned a bachelors degree from the University of Asmara in 1996 and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006, and she has been on the faculty at UC Merced since 2009. Berhes expertise accords with the Biden administrations focus on climate change, and she has been a frequent user of Pacific Northwest National Labs Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab, which is supported by the Office of Sciences Biological and Environmental Research program. She is also a proponent of increasing diversity and equity in STEM and is a key player in the ADVANCEGeo Partnership, a National Science Foundation-funded effort to combat sexual harassment and other issues affecting workplace climate in the geosciences. Biden has not yet named a nominee to be under secretary for science and energy, a position that oversees the Office of Science and DOEs applied energy R&D programs. For up-to-date information on nominations to key science positions, consult FYIs Federal Science Leadership Tracker.

President Biden also announced he is nominating oceanographer Richard Spinrad to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Spinrad is currently a professor at Oregon State University and has held several roles at NOAA over the last two decades, serving as its chief scientist and as head of the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research and National Ocean Service. While at NOAA, Spinrad co-chaired the White House committee that developed the nations first decadal ocean research strategy and worked to advance NOAAs proposal to establish a National Climate Service. Prior to joining NOAA, Spinrad served in leadership positions in research and oceanography offices within the U.S. Navy.

Several other nominations for research-related roles were also announced last week:

The National Academies announced last week that University of Florida biologist Robert Ferl and MIT materials scientist Krystyn Van Vliet will co-chair the next decadal survey on biological and physical sciences research in space. The survey will suggest priorities for NASAs program that supports research projects in spaceflight environments, such as aboard the International Space Station. Responsibility for the program was transferred from the agencys human exploration directorate to its science directorate in 2020. In addition to identifying emerging research frontiers, the survey will consider topics such as potential research campaigns, the role of commercially operated space platforms, opportunities for collaboration with international partners, and the limited lifetime of the ISS. The study is expected to be completed in 2023.

At the White Houses climate leadership summit last week, President Biden announced that by 2030 the U.S. will halve its greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels, in an effort to set higher expectations ahead of the United Nations climate conference later this year. Presidential Climate Envoy John Kerry called the goal ambitious but appropriate and achievable, saying that meeting it will require new technologies in areas such as battery storage and carbon capture systems. To that end, the White House Council of Economic Advisors released a report last week outlining actions the U.S. could take to accelerate energy innovation and encourage greater private-sector R&D investment. Senior administration officials also announced new multinational initiatives, including a forum with several other oil and gas-producing nations to develop pragmatic net-zero emission strategies, and an agreement with India to speed up clean energy deployment.

At a House Science Committee hearing last week, lawmakers discussed the prospects of creating a climate service to facilitate access to climate information from across the federal government. Environment Subcommittee Chair Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) highlighted the potential for growing inequities in access to climate and weather data if the private sector takes too large a role, saying that not all communities can hire consultants or a climate services firm to help them incorporate climate risk into their resilience planning. Pointing to two bills she has sponsored aimed at improving understanding of flood risks, she said they are just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to improving authoritative and actionable federal tools and technical assistance for climate adaptation. While Committee Ranking Member Frank Lucas (R-OK) has stressed the need for climate information in areas such as agriculture, he and Subcommittee Ranking Member Stephanie Bice (R-OK) questioned whether a dedicated service is necessary. Lucas argued the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration already serves that function and that establishing a new duplicative service only serves to create more red tape and hurdles to our budding weather industry.

At a meeting last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved bipartisan legislation aimed at better positioning the U.S. to compete with China. It includes a provision empowering the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to block universities from accepting certain foreign gifts and contracts, including ones worth more than $1 million that relate to critical technologies. Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-ID) has said the provision is his top priority, citing a desire to help prevent the Chinese government from exerting influence on universities and to address risks of intellectual property theft. A group of university associations wrote to the committee before the meeting to oppose the provision, stating it would require expensive and time-consuming reviews of a wide range of university gifts and contracts against unknown and ill-defined criteria by an agency not designed or equipped to carry out this task. They also argued that uncertainty created by what might be blocked by CFIUS reviews will be a significant disincentive for philanthropic giving, undercutting U.S. competitiveness. American Council on Education President Ted Mitchell told Bloomberg that granting such a denial authority over research projects not funded by the federal government would be unprecedented. His organization has estimated that about 700 gifts and contracts that were reported to the Department of Education in 2019 could be subject to review under the proposal. To address some of these concerns, the committee adjusted the provision to require CFIUS to consider input from science agencies. The bill now heads to the Senate floor, where it could be bundled with the Endless Frontier Act.

At a Senate hearing last week, the National Institutes of Health provided updated statistics on its investigation of scientists for policy violations such as failing to disclose substantial employment ties with foreign entities, mainly in China. NIH extramural research head Mike Lauer told the committee the agency has identified more than 500 scientists of concern to date and that more than 100 have been removed from the NIH ecosystem through a variety of ways resignations, terminations, premature retirements, internal debarments. He emphasized that the violators represent only a small fraction of NIH grantees and remarked, We remain conscious of how these [enforcement] actions could affect the morale of honest and dedicated foreign researchers, particularly in the context of a pandemic that has exacerbated acts of discrimination and harassment against Asian Americans. The vast majority of Chinese scientists working in America are committed to the cause of expanding knowledge for the betterment of humankind, and to do so in a fair and honest way. We must say this at every opportunity. Senators generally did not question NIHs investigative approach to date, though Health Committee Ranking Member Richard Burr (R-NC) expressed concern that no one entity is responsible for identifying cases in which scientists have falsified information or violated rules.

Last week, the National Academies released a report from a study evaluating the U.S. research enterprises ability to monitor and help prevent the international proliferation of nuclear weapons and fissile material. Congress mandated the study and set a short deadline for it after deeming updates the National Nuclear Security Administration submitted on the subject to be unsatisfactory. However, because of disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Academies divided the study into two phases. The new report conveys findings from the first phase, which covers work the committee was able to undertake immediately. It offers 16 recommendations, including formalizing interagency coordination of nonproliferation efforts, expanding NNSAs testbed infrastructure and nuclear nonproliferation stewardship program, and bolstering the agencys technology transition activities. The report notes such efforts would require additional funding, but defers discussion of specific amounts to the studys second phase. The studys chair to date, former Sandia National Labs Director Jill Hruby, was recently nominated by President Biden to lead NNSA.

Leaders from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the R&D arms of the three military departments updated the Senate Armed Services Committee last week on recent efforts to increase innovation capabilities. Among the programs they spotlighted were Army Futures Commands Team Ignite, the Navys NavalX, and the Air Force Research Labs Transformational Capabilities Office and Vanguard programs, all of which aim to facilitate R&D collaborations and spur technology projects that respond to pressing military needs. The witnesses also pointed to exercises such as the Armys soldier touch points and Project Convergence and the Navys Integrated Battle Problem 21, which concludes this week, as key examples of efforts to integrate the development of technology and military tactics.

Lawmakers introduced a variety of science-focused bills in recent weeks, including ones focused on the STEM workforce, research security, quantum information science, energy research, manufacturing, and weather and climate forecasting:

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The Week of April 26, 2021 - FYI - FYI: Science Policy News