Three Astrophysicists (including me) Meet with Congresswoman Davis

19 October 2014 / raminskibba / Leave a comment

Last Tuesday, three weeks before the midterm election, three astrophysicists—graduate students and Ph.D. candidates Darcy Barron and Evan Grohs and I (a research scientist)—met with Representative Susan Davis (CA-53) and her staffer, Gavin Deeb. We had a twenty-minute meeting to talk about science in her district office in North Park, San Diego, which is on Adams Avenue and biking distance from my home. Darcy and I are her constituents, while Evan is a constituent of Rep. Scott Peters (CA-52), who is also a science advocate but is in a tight election race.

I enjoyed participating in the Congressional Visit Day in Washington, DC, earlier this year (and Darcy had previously participated in the program too). In March, Josh Shiode (AAS Public Policy Fellow) and I had a short meeting with Rep. Davis and one of her DC staffers. This time in her San Diego district though, we had more time to chat. As before, she was very receptive to our message for federal investment in basic research, education and public outreach in the astronomical sciences and in science in general.

The current science budget situation and constraints from the ongoing “sequestration” leaves Congress and the Executive branch with little wiggle room, but we need to make the best of a bad situation. Otherwise, the US risks dropping behind Europe, Japan, and China in astrophysics research and in educating the next generation of scientists. Most federal funding for astronomy and astrophysics comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, and the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. Rather than improving and increasing these agencies’ constrained budgets, unfortunately Congress became mired in gridlock with little time before the election, and to avoid another government shutdown, Congress members had to vote on a “continuing resolution,” which basically keeps the budget on autopilot. Unless budget negotiations become an immediate priority after the election, it seems we’ll have to wait until FY 2016 to try to improve science budgets.

Rep. Davis stressed the importance of science communication, outreach, and improving diversity of the scientific workforce, and we were all in agreement about that. Communicating science to the public well helps to remind people how awesome science is and how important our investment in it is. And in our outreach efforts, the young and diverse students we reach and hope to inspire will be the people who advance science in the future. Rep. Davis was clearly interested in these issues and supportive of our and our colleagues’ work on them.

A couple months ago, Senator J. Rockefeller (D-WV), chair of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, introduced the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2014. According to the Association of American Universities, the bill calls for “robust but sustainable funding increases for the [NSF] and National Institute of Standards and Technology” (NIST) and it “recognizes the past success and continuing importance of the NSF’s merit review process.” It also supports each agency’s efforts to improve education of future science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) professionals. But as Jeffrey Mervis of Science points out, support for COMPETES wasn’t sufficiently bipartisan and hasn’t been reauthorized.

On the other hand, perhaps there’s a better chance of Congress reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. The HEA is the major law that governs federal student aid, and it’s been reauthorized nine times since Pres. Johnson signed it into law in 1965. Considering that at least 70% of US university graduates are burdened with debt, this is clearly important. The HEA bill, introduced by Sen. Harkin (chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee), would provide some relief for students by increasing state contributions to public universities (and thereby reduce tuition fees), supporting community colleges, and expanding programs that allow high school students to earn college credits. Disagreements between Democrats and Republicans remain on this bill, and we’ll have to wait and see in what form it will be passed.

We didn’t get into all these details, but I just wanted to give you some context. We also briefly discussed the need for graduate education reform and for preparing graduate students for the difficult job markets they face. These issues aren’t addressed in the HEA, though that bill would benefit some grad students who would have decreased loan burdens.

In any case, we’ve got to continue our work and our scientific advocacy, and after the November election, we hope that Rep. Davis, Rep. Peters (or DeMaio), and other Congressional lawmakers can get back together and negotiate a better budget for basic research, education, and public outreach in the physical and social sciences.

And the science budget debates continue…

14 June 201418 July 2014 / raminskibba / 6 Comments

Senator Coburn (R-OK) doesn’t like political science. (Is that why he’s retiring from politics this year? I doubt it.) In fact, he doesn’t seem to like the social sciences in general and would prefer to eliminate their funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). His recent attempt at an amendment that would restrict political science funding was defeated, but we can’t always count on that happening, especially considering Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a few others share his views. Science budgets can fluctuate year by year, which has real consequences for scientists who depend on that funding and who have students and long-term projects that require consistent funding.

A couple months ago, I participated in the Congressional Visit Day with colleagues from the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Our goal was to talk to our Congress members about the importance of stable funding and investment in scientific research, telescopes, education, and outreach, and to encourage them to make these a priority. We focused on astronomy and astrophysics funding from the NSF and NASA, though there are other relevant agencies and departments, such as the Department of Energy. Although most Congress members and their staff seemed receptive to our message (including Coburn’s staff, who had nothing against the physical sciences), unfortunately the spending restrictions and numerous budget priorities make this a particularly complicated situation. This year’s story begins with the president’s proposed Fiscal Year 2015 budget, which leaves many agencies with sub-inflation budgets (without the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative), so how will the story end? What’s a scientist to do?

Since we can agree that investing in science is critically important, we should follow the process in which these budgets are put together and negotiated. To do so though, we need to look into how the proverbial sausage is made—and it’s really more of a dubious hot dog than a gourmet bratwurst. The budget negotiation process is seemingly transparent, but to me it seems opaque in some ways and rather precarious—a good idea can get shot down and an unfortunate amendment could get stuck in the draft, for example. It’s kind of scary that the state of science in this country (and the fate of many scientists and their research programs) depends on so many unpredictable and capricious factors, though we can hope that the important issues are ironed out by the time a budget is finalized. We’re also affected by prior budget constraints, especially from the spending caps due to the Budget Control Act (which gave us the universally reviled “sequestration”).

background

I’ll give a brief description of the current state of affairs, but if you want more information, I refer you to the experts, especially Matt Hourihan (director of R&D Budget and Policy Program at AAAS) and Josh Shiode (Public Policy Fellow of AAS). And if you’re interested in seeing how our R&D funding compares to other countries, it shows total R&D (circle size) and as a function of GDP (x-axis) (the figure is taken from this).

First, we started with the Obama administration’s proposed FY 2015 budget request (PBR). At that point, the budget had to be negotiated by the House Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Appropriations Subcommittee, which included a “markup” process. The bill that emerged included increases to NASA and NSF’s budgets relative to the PBR and FY 2015 as well as smaller increases to education and human resources. The NSF budget certainly could have been worse, since there were lower funding levels in the controversial Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science, and Technology Act (FIRST Act)—previously passed by the same committee—which was strongly opposed by university and science groups. The CJS bill also included small decreases to the budgets of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) relative to the inflation rate. (More details are here.)

The budget then went to the House floor in May, and a modified budget was passed at the end of the month. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA, who was defeated in a primary election) and House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) narrowly passed an amendment that reduced funding to the NSF’s Social, Behavioral, and Economics (SBE). In another development, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ, one of the only scientists in Congress), tried to restore funding for NOAA climate research that was cut by the Appropriations Committee, but this amendment failed. (For more details about the House budget bill, look here and here.)

The Appropriations bill also included an amendment proposed by Rep. Alan Grayson’s (D-FL) that would provide protection for journalists against compulsory disclosure of their confidential sources. “That right is recognized in 49 states, but it’s not codified at the federal level,” Grayson said. The amendment passed by a vote of 225-183.

current status

The Senate Appropriations Committee produced a modified budget bill last week and a series of reports about individual agencies. This article describes the budget differences for NASA in the Senate bill vs the House bill and vs the previous year (FY 2014). Although the total NASA budget are similar in the Senate and House bills, the Senate allocates funding within the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) differently: the Senate bill includes more for exploration and less for aeronautics, space technology, and space operations. Unfortunately, both bills have decreased funding for education, though the funding levels are not as low as in the Obama Administration’s PBR.

Fortunately, both bills rejected the President’s proposal to cut the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA). The allocated funding would be enough for NASA to continue to cover its share of the operating costs. The Senate committee also provided funding for the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), which is planned to launch in the mid-2020s.

This article describes the Senate vs House budget differences for the NSF. Unfortunately, the Senate Appropriations Committee gave the NSF a lower funding level by 2.1% than the House, but it’s possible that this may change. I’ll also mention that a couple months ago the Senate confirmed France Córdova as the new director of the NSF. She said that better communicating the importance of the basic research that the NSF supports is one of her priorities. Córdova is an astrophysicist, the former president of Purdue University, and now the second women to head the agency.

Now the “minibus” (as opposed to “omnibus”) bill heads to the Senate floor this week, so the next steps depend on these 100 people:

(Note that the various budget bills are being considered separately; for example, Labor, Health and Human Services bill, which funds the Affordable Care Act, will be more controversial and likely will take more time.) We may see important changes and amendments in the near future, and I will try to keep this page updated. The differences between the House and Senate budget bills will need to be resolved, and that can be a contentious process. We hope that the Senate will be less stingy with NSF funding and that it will continue with the Appropriations Committee’s funding levels for NOAA and NIST. There was some disagreement about the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research’s work on climate research and ocean acidification, and these will have to be resolved as well. To be continued…

Climate Change Resilience and Governance: Preparing for the Effects of Global Warming

8 June 20141 December 2014 / raminskibba / 2 Comments

I just came back from Washington, DC, where I attended an AAAS meeting on Climate Change Resilience and Governance, which included speakers from local governments and federal government agencies, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), industry, and academic researchers. The meeting’s program is here. I’ll summarize the presentations and debates that I found interesting, but if there are others you’d like to hear more about, let me know. By the way, I should do this more often when I write about conferences, but the hashtag participants used is #RGR14.

First I’ll tell you what we mean by resilience and governance, then I’ll mention a couple important new developments that people talked about throughout the conference, and then I’ll tell you about some of the major issues and themes we discussed. If you don’t want to read all the details below, the major issues included these: the framing of climate change with different people; water issues, including droughts and floods; responding and recovering from disasters; and economic issues.

Before I continue, I’d also like to point out that, thanks to the efforts of the organizers, the program was very diverse, with speakers and participants with a variety of backgrounds and coming from a variety of places. In addition, women constituted nearly two thirds of the speakers, and more than 10% of the speakers were people of color. There were even back-to-back sessions of all-women speakers. (This is much better than the physics and astrophysics conferences I usually attend; see this post for more on diversity issues in science.)

key terms and definitions

If you’re interested in my previous posts about climate change issues, including an introduction to the concept and implications of climate change, look here. I and others usually focus on climate change mitigation, since we’re working to avoid the worst of climate change and reduce its many potentially harmful effects. Nonetheless, we know that the climate is changing and our planet is warming. Even with radical and politically unlikely changes to our fossil fuel-based economic system, we still have to contend with the greenhouse gases we’ve already emitted, which will warm the planet by an average of at least 1.5 or 2 C this century, according to the recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Therefore, we need to adapt to the expected consequences. Let’s be clear though: we need to work on both mitigation and adaptation simultaneously (a point explicitly made by Susan Ruffo, of the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality).

“Resilience” is similar to “adaptation,” though it sometimes refers to efforts to restore things back to normal after a weather-event or climate-related disaster, but as some speakers pointed out, in the future we may be adapting to a new normal. “Governance” refers to actions being taken by local, national, and international governments, and it’s of course related to politics and policy. At the meeting last week, it was Laura Petes (an advisor at OSTP) who defined these terms (and see this executive order for official government definitions).

the context

The US Global Change Research Program released its third National Climate Assessment (NCA) in May. The NCA was a major five-year undertaking by hundreds of climate scientists and is both comprehensive and detailed. It’s US focused, unlike the international IPCC reports, though both make for sober reading. It includes studies of the looming climate change effects across the US (such as effects on water resources, agriculture, transportation, urban systems, rural communities, etc.) and within particular regions of the country. (The report also received considerable media attention, such as Phil Plait’s article on Slate.) The NCA’s interactive website is very useful, well organized, and worth checking out. The last of its key findings is the following:

Planning for adaptation (to address and prepare for impacts) and mitigation (to reduce future climate change, for example by cutting emissions) is becoming more widespread, but current implementation efforts are insufficient to avoid increasingly negative social, environmental, and economic consequences.

The report includes an entire chapter dedicated to adaptation, which describes examples of actions being taken by federal agencies, states, cities, NGOs, and the private sector, and outlines the next steps, including the identification of critical adaption threshold or “breakpoints” beyond which social or ecological systems are unable to adapt to climate change.

In addition, a week ago the Environmental Protection Agenca (EPA) announced new power plant carbon standards. According to Ken Kimmell of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), this is a potential game changer. As you can see in the following graph, power plants, especially coal-fired ones, dominate our carbon emissions, and these standards could reduce those emissions by half by 2030 (to less than a million metric tons of CO₂). The EPA and its administrator, Gina McCarthy, should be applauded for taking this important first step. The new standards must be combined with major efforts to ramp up renewable energy technologies and improved energy efficiency, and they will require strong leadership from the states. As argued by Vivian Thomson (professor at U. of Virginia) at the meeting, California, New York, and Washington are among the “active states” on climate change, and most of the rest of the country can do much much more.

framing

A number of speakers argued that we should be careful about how we frame these issues when interacting with different communities and different sectors of the public. For example, some people react different when they hear “global warming” versus “climate change.” Some people can be turned off by hearing either of these, but they will be receptive when they hear about energy efficiency and ways to reduce their family’s gas and electricity bills. In addition, terms like “sustainability,” “smart growth,” and “resilience” may be too vague, but “risk reduction” in a specific context can be clearer, for example.

water

I’ve written before on water policy issues in the southwest , where we’re always talking about drought, but in the east, people are worried about floods and stormwater. Water issues are perhaps the most important of those facing us, and it’s no surprise that the NCA devoted two chapters to water resources and interactions between water, energy, and land use. I should note that climate change affects the food supply as well, through agriculture, fish catch, rising food prices, and so forth.

Many speakers spoke about water issues. Susan Leal (who co-authored a book, Running Out of Water) pointed out that most people take water and wastewater for granted, but maybe the shouldn’t. We should expect water rate payments to increase in the future. Pilar Thomas, who works with the Department of Energy, spoke about the water-energy nexus and the vulnerability of energy systems. She also spoke about water law and water rights, since disputes between states, tribal communities, and the private sector about water will surely increase in the future. I asked a question about preparing for future droughts, and these speakers argued that we can gain much from reduced water usage in agriculture and the food industry; water recycling in urban areas; and maybe we should try again to have “Meatless Mondays,” since producing a pound of animal protein requires, on average, about 100 times more water than producing a pound of vegetable protein (and beef is the worst).

environmental justice

I was happy and impressed that many speakers, especially Jalonne White-Newsome (WE ACT for Environmental Justice), Michael Dorsey (member of EPA’s National Advisory Committee), and Barbara Allen (professor at Virginia Tech) discussed important issues of environmental justice, injustice, and inequality. In my opinion, we don’t talk about these issues enough, and we certainly aren’t adequately addressing them. If you’re interested in learning more about environmental justice (EJ), see my recent post about the issues involved.

Currently EJ communities are not engaged in the process, argues Dr. White-Newsome, and the failure to mobilize the majority of Americans to want action on climate change is partly due to the fact that not everyone is part of the conversation. Many black, Latino, and Native American communities, as well as working class white communities, live closer to power plants, land fills, oil drilling platforms, polluting industries, etc., and are in more vulnerable areas, such as those that will be affected by rising sea levels, droughts, fires, hurricanes, and so on. Dr. Dorsey talked about the injustice of extreme weather events, such as Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, which should not be seen as “acts of God.” (He also had a way with words; at one point he referred to “persistent corporate sociopathy.”) Dr. Allen argued that we need endogenous ideas for transforming a community, such as when a community is rebuilding following a weather event, but if green technologies and buildings seem like too external to people, then they won’t “take” and will be less popular and successful.

disasters

A couple speakers, such as Sabrina McCormick (professor at George Washington U.) and Dr. Allen, talked about the benefits and perils of “disaster thinking.” It can be dangerous to think of climate change as a series of disasters; we might benefit from seeing the opportunities for improvement, such as by appealing to people’s self-interest. (For example, because of successful incentives, Germans now associate climate change and renewable energy with ways to make money.) Nonetheless, we can expect more weather events, flooding, and temperature extremes in the future. In fact, and this was new to me, heatwaves kill more people than all other weather events combined! Young children and people over 65, especially those on the top floors of poorly cooled buildings in dense urban areas, are among the most vulnerable. Simple solutions like white-painted roofs can save many lives.

“it’s the economy, stupid”

Finally, a few people, especially David Orr (author of seven books and professor at Oberlin), Kate Sheppard (reporter at Huffington Post), and Gar Alperovitz (writer and professor at U. of Maryland), talked about economic issues and policies. Dr. Orr discussed the relation between carbon emissions, climate change adaptation, and economic systems and unequal wealth distributions. He warned that, if the current political culture doesn’t change, “when times get rough, humans get nasty”—fairness goes out the window. Katrina is just an example of what’s to come. What will governments have to do when sea levels rise to get people out of harm’s way? It will help if we begin to think more like a community. We’re all in this together, but as it is now, the 7% richest people are responsible for half of carbon emissions, while the costs of climate change are being outsourced to the third world and future generations. Dr. Orr also asked a couple provocative questions: Is our capitalist system resilient and sustainable? Is democracy sustainable? (He asked this in the context of a point that Exxon-Mobil could legally burn all of their reserve fossil fuels and single handedly take us all past the tipping point.) While specific questions about responding to the next big storm are important, we should also be asking these big questions about systemic challenges, since climate change is likely the biggest crisis of our time.

Water Policy Issues, with a Focus on the US Southwest

15 April 2014 / raminskibba / 5 Comments

Water policy issues are very important, but we haven’t discussed them much on this blog yet. Much of my information here comes from Ellen Hanak and other analysts of the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), analysts from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), a recent article by Christopher Ketchum in Harper’s, a book by Robert Glennon (Unquenchable), and other sources. I’m not an expert on water policy, and any errors are my own. As usual, please let me know if you notice any errors, and I’m happy to hear any comments. I’ll focus on the southwestern US (mainly because I grew up in Colorado and now live in California), but many of these issues apply elsewhere as well. And while the Southwest is dealing with drought and water scarcity, other places, such as the UK and the Midwest US, are dealing with flooding.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, already some 1.2 billion people live in areas of physical water scarcity, while another 1.6 billion face “economic water shortage”. By 2025, almost half of the world will be living in conditions of water stress. Some analysts predict that water wars (see Vandana Shiva’s book) and conflicts will increase in the future. Considering that we need water to live, it’s not surprising that the United Nations General Assembly voted in a resolution declaring that access to clean water and sanitation is a fundamental human right.

At least conditions on Earth are not as bad as Mars, which has experienced 600 million years of drought and which probably hasn’t supported life, at least on its surface. But water scarcity is an extremely important problem that we’re probably not taking seriously enough; as Stephen Colbert put it, “if the human body is 60 percent water, why am I only two percent interested?”

The Southwest and California in particular are experiencing their worst recorded drought (for example, see the NASA satellite images below). In response, the California state legislature and Gov. Brown passed a drought relief package last month, while Sen. Feinstein and others are seeking to pass a bill in Congress to aid drought-stricken states.

Now here’s some historical and legal context. The Colorado River Compact of 1922 was negotiated by members of the upper-basin states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming) and the lower-basin states (Arizona, California, Nevada), and it was an agreement for hydraulic management of the Southwest. According to the US system of water rights, however, the person who first made “beneficial use” of a stream or river had first right to it. Under this doctrine, the earliest users of the Colorado River (California) could legally establish a monopoly over regional water supply, even though most of that water came from another state (Colorado). A major problem was that because 1922 happened to occur during an unusually wet period, people assumed that the Colorado held more water than it really did: its annual water flow as estimated to be 17-18 million acre feet, though it was later more accurately estimated at 14 million acre-feet (17 billion cubic-meters) on average. It was therefore already overallocated from the start. The lower basin (including southern CA) is now overusing its share of the Colorado River, and it’s not a sustainable situation. A court case (Arizona v. California) that was decided by the Supreme Court in 1963 affirmed that Arizona was owed 2.8 million acre feet of water annually, but under the doctrine of prior appropriation, Arizona’s rights would remain secondary to California’s.

For water use, it’s useful to distinguish between water withdrawal (from surface or ground sources) and the consumption of water already withdrawn. Consequently, as argued by Ellen Hanak at a recent PPIC event in Sacramento, we need to consider not just water supplies but also water management and (in)efficient water consumption. Although one usually thinks of water for drinking, washing, cleaning, and other residential uses, much more water is used for irrigation (agriculture), industry, and power plants; according to the UCS, power plants account for 41% of freshwater withdrawals in the US. It’s also useful to distinguish between direct and indirect water use, and I’ll get into that more below.

Water shortages, already a critical issue in the Southwest, are likely to become far worse with climate change (although the extent to which it’s due to climate change is still debated). Rivers such as the Colorado, which is primarily supplied by snowmelt and is already overallocated, are particularly vulnerable. For the past fourteen years, the Colorado River has been at its lowest level since the ninth century. According to Tim Barnett from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), with climate change, currently scheduled water deliveries from the Colorado River are unlikely to be met by mid-century. Rising air temperatures due to global warming will result in reduced snowfall: by the end of this century, California’s ski season could disappear with a 80% loss of Sierra snowpack, and Washington and Oregon would experience reduced snowfall as well. In addition, although per capita water use has been gradually decreasing, population growth in the Southwest is likely to increase urban water demand in some regions. In a high carbon emissions scenario, annual losses to agriculture, forestry, and fisheries could reach $4.3B in California alone, and the prices of fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy, and fish, will rise. There will be more competition between human water use and water needed to support fish and other wildlife, and potential solutions will involve difficult trade-offs. (The following figure from the EPA summarizes climate impacts on the hydrologic cycle.)

In the studies mentioned above by SIO scientists, the Colorado River’s average annual flow could decline by as much as 30% by 2050. As a result, without massively reducing water usage, Lake Mead has a 50% chance of declining to “dead pool” by 2036. At that level, water deliveries to millions of people in California and Arizona and to millions of acres of farmland will cease, and hydroelectric production at the dam will already have stopped. It is incredible to consider that this could happen in our lifetime, as the Colorado is the same river that carved the Grand Canyon over tens of millions of years, and it is one of the rivers on which the Ancient Puebloan depended until around 1300, when drought, decreased rainfall, and a drop in water table levels appeared to drive the people away from their civilization. (See also this article in National Geographic about ancient “megadroughts” in human history.)

The largest fraction of water consumption is due to agriculture, power plants, and industry. Considering the fact that we indirectly need water because of our need for energy, this points to the issue of the “water-energy nexus.” The average U.S. family of four directly uses 400 gallons of freshwater per day, while indirectly using 600-1800 gallons through power plant water withdrawals. We need energy for water production and distribution (and the desalination plant being constructed near San Diego will require quite a bit), and we also need water for energy-related infrastructure. Coal and nuclear power plants use large amounts of freshwater to cool the plants: for example, a typical 600-MW coal-fired plant consumes more than 2 billion gallons of water per year from nearby lakes, rivers, aquifers, or oceans. In addition, as we discussed in my previous blog post, fracking techniques for extracting shale gas require millions of gallons of water to be injected into a well, and they can contaminate groundwater as well. Fortunately, wind turbines and solar photovoltaic modules require essentially no water at all, but other renewable energies, like hydroelectric, bioenergy, and geothermal, can be water intensive. As argued by Laura Wisland, since we expect climate change to increase the frequency and severity of droughts in California, it will be important to hedge our electricity supplies with predictable, renewable resources, especially wind and solar.

What can be done? As a “silver lining” of the current situation, the ongoing drought in the Southwest provides a window for reform, and here are a few ideas. We should shift toward less water-intensive sources of energy such as wind and solar. Water should cost more: we should modernize water measurement and pricing with better estimates of water use and prices that reflect water’s economic value. We could learn from cities in dry places elsewhere (such as Australia) about how to make urban areas more water efficient, and we could have tiered water rates with higher prices for greater use. In agriculture, crops that cannot be grown without subsidies should not be grown. We need improvements to local groundwater management. Since surveys show that most Californians believe that there are environmental inequities between more and less affluent communities in the state, it’s also important to consider environmental justice issues while developing new water policy programs (see this article, for example). We need to develop more reliable funding (through state bonds or local ratepayers), especially for environmental management, flood protection, and statewide data collection and analysis. Finally, as argued in this PPIC report, water management agencies at all levels should aim to develop more coordinated, integrated approaches to management and regulatory oversight, drawing on scientific and technical analysis to support sound and balanced decisions.

My Experience with the Congressional Visit Day

1 April 2014 / raminskibba / 9 Comments

[A previous version of this first appeared as a Guest Post on the AAS Policy Blog.]

Last week, I participated in the Congressional Visit Day (CVD) with the American Astronomical Society (AAS). I was just one member in a group of eighteen AAS members—a diverse group from around the country involved in many different subspecialties of astronomical research, as well as various teaching and outreach programs. Below, is a nice photo of us is (and I’m the guy wearing a hat). Our AAS delegation was part of a larger group of scientists, engineers, and business leaders involved in a few dozen organizations participating in the CVD, which was sponsored by the Science-Engineering-Technology Work Group. Go here for a further description of our program.

As scientists and members of the AAS, we had a few primary goals. We argued first and foremost for the importance of investing in scientific research (as well as education and outreach) through funding to the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, and science in particular departments (especially the Depts. of Energy and Defense). If you’re interested, you can see our handout here. We also encouraged our Representatives to sign two “Dear Colleague” letters that are currently passing through the House: the first letter is by Rep. G. K. Butterfield (D-NC) and is asking for a 3% increase to NSF’s FY 2015 budget to $7.5 billion, and the second letter is by Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), Rep. Randy Hultgren (R-IL), and Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) and is asking the appropriators to “make strong and sustained funding for the DOE Office of Science one of your highest priorities in fiscal year 2015.”

We also told our Congress members about our personal experiences. In my case, I have been funded by NASA grants in the past and am currently funded by a NSF grant. I am applying for additional research grants, but it’s not easy when there is enough funding available only for a small fraction of submitted grant proposals. In the past, I have also benefited from projects and telescopes that were made possible by NASA and the NSF, and I plan to become involved in new telescopes and missions such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the Wide-Field InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST), and possibly the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST, the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope). Also, if a NSF grant I’ve submitted is successful (fingers crossed!), I will be able to participate more actively in public outreach programs especially in the San Diego area in addition to continuing my research.

Not only did we explain the importance of stable funding for basic research, we also talked with our legislators about how astronomy is a “gateway science” that draws people in and inspires them to learn more, become more involved, and even potentially become scientists themselves.

We talked about the importance of improving science and math literacy, which also improves US competitiveness with respect to other countries, and about how investment in science spurs innovation in industry and leads to new and sometimes unexpected developments in computing, robotics, optics, imaging, radar, you name it. Since “all politics is local,” as they say, we also emphasized that these investments in scientific research are important for strong local, as well as national, economies. As we were visiting shortly after the introduction for the President’s Budget Request (PBR) for FY 2015, we also expressed our concern that the proposed budget reduces funding for NASA’s education and outreach activities within the Science Mission Directorate by two-thirds, and would require mothballing the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) outside of the well-established senior review process.

My Congress members are Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, whose staff we met, and Representative Susan Davis (CA-53), with whom we met personally (along with a member of her staff). We had a quick photo-op too, right before she had to get back to the House chamber for a vote. I was in a group with two other astronomers who were from Oklahoma and Illinois, and we met with their respective Congress members as well. Our larger group was split into teams of three to four for the days visits, and each met with the representatives and senators of all team members.

Senators and Representatives serve on different committees and subcommittees, each with a specific jurisdiction over parts of the federal government. For example, Sen. Boxer is on the Science & Space Subcommittee of Senate’s Commerce Committee and is the chair of the Committee on Environment & Public Works. Sen. Feinstein is chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy & Water, which has jurisdiction over the Department of Energy (among many other things). The appropriations committee is responsible for writing legislation that grants federal agencies the ability to spend money, that is, they appropriate the budgets for the agencies under their jurisdiction. Rep. Davis is a member of the House Education & Workforce Committee and has done a lot of work on educational reform, promoting youth mentoring, and civic education.

I think that we received a largely positive responsive from our congressional representatives. My three Congress members were very supportive and in agreement with our message. Some of the other members we met with, while generally positive about our message, left me with the impression that they approved of our “hard sciences” but didn’t want as much funding going to social sciences, climate science, and other particular fields. It seems to me that we must get ourselves out of this highly constrained budget environment, in which discretionary programs like those funding the sciences are capped each year; we need to either find additional sources of revenue (e.g., reducing tax breaks) or make other changes to current law.

In my previous blog post, I talked about the proposed budget and the negotiations taking place in Congressional committees. We also need to consider the current political situation with the upcoming mid-term elections. Once a budget (which may be significantly different than the PBR) is passed by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees, it will be considered by the House and Senate, which are currently controlled by Republicans and Democrats (who have 53 seats plus 2 independents who caucus with them). However, it appears possible that Republicans may retake the Senate in the 114th Congress, and in that case their leadership may resist even small additions to the current budget request and may attempt to simply pass a “continuing resolution” instead.

On the same day as our CVD (26th March), Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren appeared before the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, where there were considerable disagreements among the committee members about STEM education, SOFIA, and other issues. (Note that the committee is particularly polarized and has been criticized for its excessive partisanship and industry influence.) Fortunately, on the following day, a hearing before House appropriators on the NSF budget request fared better. This is encouraging, but in any case it will be a difficult struggle to produce a good budget (that is, good for science) within a short time-scale.

The Proposed Fiscal Year 2015 Budget: Thoughts on its Implications for Science

29 March 201418 July 2014 / raminskibba / 6 Comments

I’d like to make a few comments on the proposed US federal budget for Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15, which starts in October), especially on its implications for science research and education in this country. First, I’ll acknowledge articles and blogs by Matt Hourihan (at the American Association for the Advancement for Science) and Josh Shiode (at the American Astronomical Society), which I’ve used for some of the information and figures below. I’m responsible though if I’ve misstated any facts or numbers, and as usual, any opinions I express about the current state of affairs are my own. I look forward to discussing these issues with scientists and other interested people, and as usual, you’re welcome to write or send me comments.

President Obama’s administration officially released its President’s Budget Request (PBR, but not the beer!) on 4th March, and the details are available on the White House’s website. The PBR is formulated by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and it soon be evaluated and revised by the Appropriations Committees in Congress. The White House’s Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) plays a role in developing the budget, but naturally there are many other considerations involved as well, such as ensuring national security, strengthening the economy, maintaining healthcare and education programs, etc. Nonetheless, from the perspective of science research and education, the budget certainly could be better.

Unfortunately, the Budget Control Act puts spending caps on support for research and development (R&D). Assuming little to no additional revenue, there is not much room in the discretionary budget above FY 2014 levels. With three-quarters of the post-sequester spending reductions still in place (see my previous blog post), many agency R&D budgets are stagnant. The $3.901 trillion budget includes $136.5 billion for R&D, which is a 0.5% increase over FY 2014 but that doesn’t account for the 1.7% inflation rate. The divisions by agency are described by the above pie chart (courtesy: AAAS) and in this article. Funding for the physical sciences largely comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF), NASA, the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science, and other agencies and departments. Total research funding (basic+applied research) has dropped 1.9% below FY 2014 levels, which is only slightly above FY 2013 post-sequester levels.

The President has also proposed additional $56B of funding through the Opportunity, Growth, and Security Initiative (OSGI), which would help the situation for many agencies, but it appears that Congress won’t have the stomach for it. As can be seen in the figure above (courtesy: Washington Post), an additional difficulty comes from differences between the revenue projections of the President and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO); the former assumes revenue increases from some reduced tax breaks for wealthy Americans, to which Congress likely won’t agree. In that case, we may be headed back toward sequestration funding levels in FY 2016.

The Association of American Universities (AAU) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS, of which I’m a member) have expressed some criticism of the proposed budget: while they acknowledge the caps on discretionary spending, they argue that basic research and education could receive higher priority. A surprising cut that was proposed was to the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), which is an aircraft telescope. The axing of SOFIA in 2015 is particularly vexing for astronomers because it occurred outside the established review process. The FY 2014 budget proposed a controversial government-wide reorganization of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education programs, and this year’s budget includes a surprising cut (by 2/3!) to the STEM education budget within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Time will tell how education programs adapt to these changes, but cuts like these potentially hurt US competitiveness relative to Europe and East Asia as well as efforts toward improving science and math literacy.

According to Jack Burns (U. of Colorado, Boulder), “by lowering overall spending on the astronomical sciences, the Administration threatens the health of our technical workforce and the education and training of the next generation of space scientists. This is hard to swallow at a time when other countries are increasing their investments in science and technology.” Similarly, in Science magazine, William Press argues that, “it appears that [nations] who spend close to 3% of their GDP on R&D are the ones that compete most successfully. The United States is in that club now. We don’t want to fall out of it.”

I’m most interested in astronomy/astrophysics, because it’s my field, but other fields are affected as well. For example, the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) only received a sub-inflationary increase (like most agencies), and the proposed budget includes a substantial cut to fusion energy research and to the US contribution to the International Fusion Experiment (ITER), though funding for energy efficiency and renewables would increase. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would also receive a cut in this budget.

Finally, as this bar graph shows, the budget prospects for nondefense discretionary spending will likely worsen in the coming years. “Mandatory spending” is controlled by different mechanisms than discretionary spending, and it includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, which are large programs, as well as food stamps, unemployment compensation, and other smaller ones. As a fraction of GDP, we can expect mandatory spending to continue increasing. On this point, I’ll first say that in my personal view, I’m wary of those who criticize these programs (or who refer to them pejoratively as “entitlements”), because such criticisms give space for extreme conservatives who would rather gut these programs and let the poor, ill, hungry, and elderly suffer on their own. Nonetheless, it appears that, the way that they are currently funded, the cost of Medicare and Medicaid programs is growing at an unsustainable rate (faster than inflation). The Affordable Care Act is helping, but it’s probably insufficient to resolve this situation, especially as more baby boomers draw on retirement and health care benefits. Long-term fiscal problems remain.

We also need to consider the current political situation in Congress. I participated in a Congressional Visit Day with the AAS this week, and I’ll soon write my next blog post about that.

The Future of Fracking in California

1 March 2014 / raminskibba / 4 Comments

I attended an interesting forum at UC San Diego on Thursday, and this post is based on that. It was titled, “The Future of Fracking in California: Energy, Environment and Economics,” and the speakers included: Taiga Takahashi, Associate in the San Diego office of Latham & Watkins; Mark Ellis, Chief of Corporate Strategy for San Diego-based Sempra Energy; and Andrew Rosenberg, Director of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists. I’ll just summarize some of the more important points people made (based on my incomplete notes), and you can decide what you think of them.

$UCS-fracking-report-Fig1$

Taiga Takahashi described the legal situation in California vis-à-vis hydraulic fracturing (fracking). Governor Jerry Brown supports “science-based fracking” that is protective of the environment. Brown also touts the economic benefits, including the creation of 2.8 million jobs (though this figure was disputed). In contrast, the CA Democratic party supports a moratorium on fracking. The bill SB 4 on well stimulation was passed in September requires the state Department of Oil, Gas & Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) to adopt regulations regarding water well testing and other tests of air and water pollution. New regulations will be developed by January 2015 while an environmental impact study will be completed six months afterward (my emphasis). Fracking restrictions are mostly similar to those in Colorado and much better than those in Pennsylvania. Takahashi argued that a “consensus approach” on fracking regulation in CA could be reached, which would include nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), the state, and industry.

Mark Ellis is a representative of industry. Sempra Energy is a major natural gas utility that owns San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Gas. Ellis argued that the “shale revolution” (his term) has made gas cheap relative to oil and thereby reduced prices. Gas is used mostly for power, since many are making a switch from coal to gas, as well as in industry and residential areas. There are also opportunities for using gas in transportation, such as with compressed/liquefied natural gas (LNG). Sempra is expanding production and building pipelines from Texas and Arizona to Mexico. Ellis argued that the “shale revolution” is being or could be replicated in other places, such as the UK, Australia, Brazil, and Russia.

Andrew Rosenberg spoke about a couple recent Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) reports: “The Curious Case of Fracking: Engaging to Empower Citizens with Information” and “Toward an Evidence-Based Fracking Debate,” written by Pallavi Phartiyal, him, and others. He brought up many issues, such as the use of pipeline infrastructure vs trains and the relation between fracking, chemical plants, and oil. Importantly, fracking is a many-step process (as you can see in the figure at the top of this post), which includes water acquisition, chemical transport and mixing, well drilling and injection, a wastewater pit, onsite fuel processing and pipelines, nearby community residences and residential water wells, and waste transport and wastewater injection. The most important point he made is that we as a society must decide when particular actions are worth the risks, and to what extent those risks can be mitigated with regulations. There should be as much transparency as possible and plenty of opportunities for public comment. It’s important to close loopholes in federal environmental legislation; disclose the chemical composition, volume, and concentration of fracking fluids and wastewater; we require baseline and monitoring requirements for air water, and soil quality; make data publicly accessible; and engage citizens and address their concerns. (My views were mostly in agreement with Rosenberg’s. Full disclosure: I am an active member of UCS.)

After the speakers, there were a few comments and questions. I was surprised that this was the only time during the forum that climate change issues were raised. The issue of water usage was discussed as well, because of our ongoing drought. (In related news, Gov. Brown and the state Legislature just passed a drought relief package.) It also was clear that Sempra and other companies wouldn’t voluntarily make changes unless industry-wide regulations were applied; Ellis argued that singling out particular companies is counter-productive. It’s possible that there will be new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on water and air pollution in the future.

The fracking debates in California continue. For example, the Los Angeles City Council is taking steps toward a fracking ban, and a rally against fracking is being organized at the Capitol in Sacramento in two weeks.

Climate change: part 2 (the reckoning)

24 December 20138 June 2014 / raminskibba / 2 Comments

Now that we’ve talked about how climate change is happening and carbon emissions are increasing rapidly (in the previous post), let’s discuss what’s being done and what can be done to address this global ecological crisis. I hope this isn’t too heavy for pre-holiday fare.

In September, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, an international organization of climate scientists) released an important report. They argued that climate change is “unequivocal” and that the “dominant cause” has been human actions in pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Moreover, even if the world begins to moderate greenhouse gas emissions, warming is likely to cross the critical threshold of 2°C by the end of this century, which would have serious consequences including sea level rises, arctic ice melts, heatwaves, major changes to rainfall, and extreme weather events. If crucial steps aren’t taken, “tipping points” and thresholds will soon be reached and climatic changes will be irreversible.

It is also important to note that the most vulnerable and poorest peoples–who are not responsible for the crisis–are the most likely to be affected by climate change. Numerous islands and coastal regions are already being threatened. Developing nations are unable to cope with extreme weather (such as the recent typhoon in the Philippines), droughts, and water and food shortages. Climate change is an environmental justice issue, though ultimately it will affect us all and our future generations.

A month ago, an important climate summit, the 19^t^h “Conference of the Parties” meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 19), occurred in Warsaw. International representatives from nearly 200 countries discussed these issues and attempted to continue to negotiate for a new global climate accord by 2015. In addition, developing nations were seeking compensation for the “loss and damage” that they will almost certainly face, while rich countries (which produce most of the carbon emissions) were avoiding taking blame, making commitments, or allowing any statements in UN climate documents that could be used against them in the future. It became so bad that over 800 members of environmental groups and NGOs (including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, WWF, Oxfam, the International Trade Union Confederation, 350.org, and the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance) staged an unprecedented walkout of the talks. In the end, very little was achieved, though a deforestation agreement was made and plans were made for the following meeting next year in Peru.

How does the US fit in all this? Unfortunately, the US is among the countries avoiding making serious commitments to address climate change and rising carbon missions. President Obama finally laid out a climate action plan earlier this year, nearly 25 years after NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen testified before Congress about evidence for global warming. The plan includes a number of sound policy measures and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, especially with new EPA standards for power plants. This is a good start, but even with this, we’ll still likely reach 3°C warming. Far deeper reductions are needed (such as with a carbon “fee-and-dividend” system, which we can discuss later). Furthermore, environmental justice must be a part of the plan (see this Union of Concerned Scientists blog post), since the burden of the impacts of climate change fall disproportionately on low-income communities and communities of color.

Ramin Skibba

Science Writer and Freelance Journalist

US policy