David Goldston, the former staff director of the House Science and Technology Committee, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Harvard University Center for the Environment, gave a keynote at the event. He addressed the misguided expectations that surround science and technology policy. Science Progress followed up with Goldston to talk about debates over science funding, why more is not always better, and the idea that scientists are galloping assailants of bad ideas. This interview has been edited.

Jonathan Pfeiffer, Science Progress: At the conference on science policy, you explained to graduate students that our tools for doing science and technology policy are “impoverished.” What did you mean by that?

David Goldston: Well, I think there are some basic questions in science policy that we don’t really have enough information to answer. What’s the optimal size of the system? Are there problems with having a system that’s too large, that becomes unsustainable, and that can sometimes demoralize its participants? What are the best ways we can promote innovation? What are the links between K-12 education, college education, and the functioning of the economy? All of these are basic questions that underlie science policy. We answer them by a mix of faith and sketchy, incomplete understandings from policy studies, all of which could use deeper probing.

SP: Tell us more about “unsustainable” investment into research institutions. What is the scenario you are thinking of, and what are the risks you think are so significant?

Goldston: Let me start by saying that I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t put more money into R&D than we are right now. But there is a question of how large the system should grow. We have a situation now where almost every college and university wants to be a player in federal research and wants to go after that kind of prestige and become a “research university.” Yet each research dollar produces more graduate students, many of whom then expect to be supported by further research dollars, and you have this sort of Malthusian situation where you could end up with the population of researchers growing far more quickly than any reasonable projection of the federal budget to support them could. And there certainly have been periods when it has been hard for Ph.D.s to get jobs, either in academia or elsewhere.

We have this situation now with the doubling of the National Institutes of Health budget where medical faculties grew very quickly—particularly those supported by so-called soft money, meaning one hundred percent by outside grants. When those increases didn’t continue, those people were left looking for funding for their laboratories. Now, many of us would have hoped that the funding for NIH wouldn’t flatten out quite so quickly, but even with reasonable increases, it would have been hard for that many people, and for that matter, the number of new buildings the universities built, to be supported in the way that people had been predicting.

SP: Stepping back for just a moment, these debates in science policy often focus on these questions of how much federal money to provide for research and development. Do you think these debates miss the point?

Goldston: I wouldn’t say they miss the point. It is certainly the starting point of any discussion of how much money should be there. I think again, those debates are usually a question of how much money is available given other macroeconomic constraints, rather than a kind of analytical discussion of how much money we need for the research establishment. The assumption is that more is always better. That’s not a bad side to err on, but it’s not analytical.

But I think we need to move beyond just having those debates to looking more closely at what kinds of things we should emphasize for funding. What can we do to make sure that younger researchers get funding? What can we do to make sure that some of the most exciting, innovative ideas get funded? Again, are there particular areas, whether it’s energy policy, or something else, that need a special focus? All of those kinds of questions get below and beyond the mere question of the absolute totals, and we need to have those discussions as well.

SP: How can we understand the nature of these specific questions that need attention? You said that climate change is an “outlier” in these discussions—that it is a special case. What qualities characterize science and technology policy issues in general? Why is climate change an “outlier”?

Goldston: Well, when I was talking about climate change as an outlier, I wasn’t talking about the research on it. I was making a point about the way science and policy intersect. And in most issues that involve science, science is only one factor, not a determining factor. The primary questions that are being asked about a policy question are not and should not be scientific ones. Science just provides the background. That’s an important factor, but it’s not the only deciding factor.

What I said is unusual about climate change is that for a long time, the debate in Congress actually revolved around a specific science question—is anthropogenic climate change real?—and there was an actual consensus answer from the scientific community, an answer that has become even more clear over time, and the answer is yes; and the debate continued—although this is starting to change—pretty much unchanged despite that scientific consensus. What I was saying is that any of those factors is unusual: for Congress to be asking a purely scientific question and for the scientific community to have a clear answer, but for that answer not to immediately alter the contours of the debate. All of those things are unusual, and yet because climate is such an overwhelming problem and an important question, sometimes the scientific community feels or assumes that every policy question involving science has the same unfortunate characteristics of the climate debate, when actually I would argue that it’s rather unique.

SP: You also said that scientists sometimes imagine themselves as “riders of white horses waiting to be called upon to clean up Congress.” Why do you say this is a dangerous idea?

Goldston: It gets back to this science and policy question. I was referring in particular to some of the articles that have come out since the recent election of Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL). This has nothing to do with Congressman Foster, and I’m not suggesting that it wouldn’t be a good trend to have some additional scientists in Congress. The more varied the backgrounds of members of Congress the better. But if you read what the scientific community sometimes says about this, the line is, “Oh, scientists are analytical! Scientists work with facts! If they got into Congress, we’d have solutions to all of our problems.” And this is a little bit of a caricature, but unfortunately, not much of one in terms of what people say.

Most questions are not purely factual. Congress usually does have and deal with the facts at hand. But those aren’t decisive. And science is not the only training that enables one to think analytically. So the assumption that if we add 435 scientists in the House or 100 scientists in the Senate, then all of our problems would be over, is a fundamental misunderstanding of the policy world. And it’s problematic, because in addition to creating unnecessary cynicism about the policy world, it increases the tendency of both members of Congress, politicians in general, and scientists to try to frame every policy question as a science question. And that tends to drag science into debates where it doesn’t necessarily belong, and also makes it difficult to discuss the actual policy issues that are before us, because everyone wants to pretend that they are “factual” science questions instead.

SP: Back to the question of money: What impact do lobbyists and earmarks have on science policy and federal research and development funding?

Goldston: I always thought earmarks should be limited, and I think the fact that the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health have not been earmarked is certainly one of those agencies’ strengths. That said, I think some of the earmark debate is overblown. First of all, there’s an assumption about all the money within science agencies that is earmarked, which is that if it were not earmarked, it would still go to those science agencies. And that’s really not likely to be the case.

Certainly, fewer earmarks would increase the pot of money available in general and that could benefit science, but Congress is not setting up an agency budget and saying x amount will be earmarked. Congress is looking at how many earmarks we need, which affects the overall pot of money for all the agencies, not just the science agencies. There are certain earmarks that can be helpful. Congress may have ideas both in terms of local development, and in terms of particular areas of science that agencies are not paying enough attention to that it may be worth pushing on, especially if these are programmatic—I wouldn’t call them “earmarks”—but programmatic directions. In other words, it’s “spend money on this category of research” as opposed to “spend money on this particular project at this particular campus.”

But I think science earmarks have grown and diminished as part of the overall debate on earmarks, and so that will continue to be the case. I’d say earmarks should be limited. But they are not the major factor in what’s been happening to the science budgets overall.

Lawmakers called the hearing in response to a series of investigative pieces by the AP, which “revealed how drugs—mostly the residue of medications taken by people, excreted and flushed down the toilet—have gotten into the water supplies of at least 24 major metropolitan areas, from Southern California to Northern New Jersey.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), head of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, also expressed concern that trace amounts of drugs can end up in the drinking water supply when people dispose of drugs by flushing them down toilets instead of putting them in the trash. Improper disposal of drugs is a public health concern, especially in children and pregnant women, she said. Robert Hirsch, Associate Director for Water at the U.S. Geological Survey, explained that antibiotics can also harm microbial ecosystems when they enter the soil. Long-term effects of pharmaceuticals and chemicals for both humans and ecosystems, he said, are uncertain, however.

Scientific uncertainty is a central problem for dealing with drugs in drinking water. Benjamin Grumbles, Assistant Administrator for Water at the Environmental Protection Agency, asserted that there are not enough data available to justify taking regulatory action on part of or all of a list of 140 chemicals that the Subcommittee is concerned about, including rocket fuel, gasoline additives, and pesticides. Instead, he outlined a “four-pronged” approach to addressing the problem, emphasizing that the Agency must work to improve “public understanding” of actual risks. Boxer accused the EPA of not adequately funding research that would provide answers on specific chemicals; the EPA’s lack of scientific data is its “own fault,” she charged.

Tuesday

The Science, Ethics and Policy Challenges of Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Gametes
AAAS Headquarters auditorium
4:00 p.m.

House Science and Technology Committee
Energy and Environment Subcommittee
“The Department of Energy’s FutureGen Program”
2318 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 a.m.

House Natural Resources Committee
National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee and Energy and Mineral Resources Subcommittee
“The West-wide Energy Corridor Process: State and Community Impacts”
1334 Longworth House Office Building
10:00 a.m.

Wednesday

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee
“Surface Transportation and the Global Economy”
406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 a.m.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
“Healthcare Associated Infections: A Preventable Epidemic”
2154 Rayburn House Office Building
11:00 a.m.

The Bridge at the Edge of the World
The Brookings Institution
3:00 pm

Thursday

Highly Skilled Immigrants: Opening the Doors to Prosperity
Cato Capitol Hill Briefing
430 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
“Aging Water Resource Infrastructure”
366 Dirksen Senate Office Building
2:00 p.m.

To better understand the relationship between scientific research and national defense, Science Progress spoke with security technologist and author Bruce Schneier about why secrecy makes for bad policy in science and engineering, and whether or not a new institutionalized science-security dialogue would be helpful or simply theatrical.

Jonathan Pfeiffer, Science Progress: The National Research Council is concerned that the federal government has categorized too many scientific research results after 9/11 as “sensitive but unclassified.” Can you explain what this term means and why this is a problem?

Bruce Schneier: It’s kind of a weasel term in the U.S. government and military. There are classified military information and government secrets, and there are levels of classification: confidential, secret, top secret, and code words above that. And there are special rules for dealing with that information. “Sensitive but unclassified” is a halfway house between public information and classified information. It’s not really a secret, but someone somewhere doesn’t want someone else to know, so it becomes a gray area. The rules are a lot sloppier, there’s a lot more leeway, and more and more–not only in science, but everywhere–information that used to be given to the public as a matter of course becomes “sensitive but unclassified.” It could be phone directories; it could be hours of operation for buildings; it could be locations of polling places. And a lot of scientific data, information, and knowledge–stuff that is used by the scientific community, used by businesses, used by everybody–gets stuck in this halfway house between secret and open. It’s a form of secrecy, and it’s a form of stifling information sharing. And where it affects scientists is that science thrives on information sharing. Science works because one person’s research becomes another person’s footnotes.

SP: You wrote in Beyond Fear that secrecy in science and engineering “stifles the cycle of innovation and invention that fuels the economic engine of the world’s open societies.”

Schneier: My research becomes data you use for your research. It becomes data someone else uses for their technology. It becomes stuff someone else uses for their products. And all of these feed on each other. Our society and our technology are great because of that openness. Whatever scientists and researchers do becomes fodder for this engine of more research. And when you start cutting off branches–when you start saying, “No, that’s too sensitive. Don’t make it public”– you’re stifling research, because now no one else can use that research. Then we can’t benefit from that research, and the benefits are often hidden. We don’t know which piece of research will fuel the next big advance in computers, medical devices, or transportation. So you can’t just say, “That doesn’t have application in anything except bad things, so we can make it secret.” We don’t know that.

There’s a conceit here. The counter-argument is going to be: “If we make this research into explosives public, the bad guys will find out about it.” But that’s true for everything in our society. Everything we do can be used by the good guys and the bad guys. We use cars to get around; bank robbers use cars to drive away. We use telephones; the mafia uses telephones. The reason society works is that the good uses outweigh the bad uses. Sure, you can ban telephones. Sure, you can ban automobiles. Sure, you can ban scientific research. But it doesn’t help, because the benefits of doing these things–of having these technologies, of making them open and available–greatly outweigh the disadvantages. That’s what we’re losing sight of. We’re trying to contain certain types of research because of near-term fears, but then we lose all the long-term benefits.

SP: The NRC is now recommending the full implementation of NSDD-189, Ronald Reagan’s 1985 order to keep unclassified research results open and available to the maximum possible extent. Do you have any concerns about referring, in the world of post 9/11 policymaking, to Cold War-era policies?

Schneier: Well, the devil is in the details. That is a good document if it really does say that we should make research open and available. I don’t care when it was written, if it was written twenty years, thirty years, or fifty years ago. So no, I have no concern about that. We have to read the details to make sure there are no hidden gotchas, but in general, I have no concern.

SP: Do you think we now face science and security issues that policymakers in 1985 were not able to anticipate?

Schneier: I think not. I think the rhetoric that 9/11 changed everything is overrated. The issues of science and openness are just as important now as they were then. The threats and the risks are just as big–and as small–now as they were then. The same philosophy of openness that has served our country for over two hundred years should still be in effect. So, no, I don’t see any change in worldview that would make us have to reassess scientific openness policies from twenty or thirty years ago.

SP: Some scholars of global and international studies will say that the world is a different place now, though perhaps outside the issue of security. Are you concentrating only on security when you say there should be no change in worldview?

Schneier: The world is a different place. There’s a lot more globalization. One of the things that is unanticipated is how much of the research has now moved outside the U.S.: because of secrecy concerns, because of weird laws prohibiting certain kinds of research, or because of problems with visas. A lot of really good research is now being done in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. So these policies are hurting us in ways that will take us decades to recover, because we’re losing the scientific advantage our country had.

SP: You have argued before that the value of secrecy should be judged on a case-by-case basis. However, the federal government also needs broad principles and guidelines for regulating scientific publishing. What can the government do?

Schneier: The first principle is that openness should be assumed, and that we should strive for openness wherever possible. There are areas of research that are wholly military, like minefield detection, military missile technology, or nuclear weapons technology. And it makes sense that parts of that research should be classified and should be kept secret. The stuff on the edges, like research into nuclear power, which has both commercial and military applications, should be judged on a case-by-case basis with the bias toward making things open. So it’s only a big problem if you try to classify broad swaths of research. But if you realize that the things that should be kept secret are actually very narrow, then it becomes a much easier problem.

SP: People often assume that the security and science communities are divided by their goals: It is supposed that the science community generally wants everything to be open so that collaboration can flourish, and that the security community is keen to restrict publishing and even to restrict actual research when it could make terror more effective. Is this a valid assumption?

Schneier: Yeah, that’s probably true. Most security people have a fetish for secrecy. It’s a belief that secrecy will make them safer. It’s nonsense. It makes no sense. It’s not the way to play the game. You will find that those in security, especially in national security, want to make everything secret, in the thought that it will make us safer. And science is about openness; science is all about publishing. If you do the research and you don’t publish, you might as well not bother to do the research. You haven’t increased the wealth of human knowledge if you don’t publish.

SP: How effective and constructive right now is the dialogue between the science and security communities?

Schneier: The dialogue is pretty terrible. Right now, especially in politics, security is winning. Whether it’s right or wrong, whether it makes sense or not, security wins. We’re living in a world where common sense, where balanced reasoning, where doing what’s right tends not to win over fear, over paranoia, over security. The dialogue is terrible.

SP: The NRC is exploring ways to institutionalize the dialogue, so that persons with proper security clearances can get together to discuss sensitive issues in scientific research. You argued in Beyond Fear that institutions and bureaucracies often want to appear to be doing good things for security. Is this a problem for the institutionalization of the science-security dialogue?

Schneier: “Security theater” is what I define as security that doesn’t do anything but looks good. A lot of airport security is a great example: It doesn’t actually make us safer, but it looks like we’re doing something. The fear is that when policymakers try to do things in security, they have a predilection toward security theater, because it makes them look like they’re doing something to the public, to their constituents, to whomever. So there is a natural draw toward security theater–toward security measures that make a big press splash because they look good.

The fear is that in a dialogue between scientists and the security community, both sides will be drawn toward security theater. I don’t think that’s much of a risk, or if it is, the value of the dialogue is much greater. Remember: The scientists have a different agenda. Their agenda is amassing human knowledge for progress and openness. So they will have a predilection toward openness, and not a predilection toward secrecy. So they’re going to look at security theater in the same way I do as a researcher: with derision, rather than as a way of reassuring the public that something is being done, even though it might not be effective. So I don’t think there is a big risk, and if there is, the value of an institutionalized dialogue here, I think, is enormous.

Congress is in recess next week.

Tuesday

Human Dignity and Bioethics (.pdf)
President’s Council on Bioethics
Riggs Library, Georgetown University
10:30 a.m.

Wednesday

Shoot ‘Em Up: Debris, ASAT capabilities, and Other Implications of the Shoot Down of the USA-193 Satellite
AAAS Center for Science, Technology, and Security Policy
B354 Rayburn House Office Building
12:00 p.m.

Thursday

Neuroethics and Public Policy
with Jonah Lehrer, Martha Farah, and Jonathan Moreno
121 Cannon House Office Building
10:00 a.m.

Change Congress Project Launch (RSVP required)
with Lawrence Lessig
National Press Club, Murrow, White and Lisagor Rooms
1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

We want innovation to flourish across every area of the economy and, in particular, wherever high value added businesses can flourish and grow. We must innovate in our public services too. Innovation is as important to the delivery of healthcare and education as it is to industries such as manufacturing, retail and the creative economy.

The report argues that innovation is becoming, and should become, increasingly demand-driven and ignorant of public-private institutional walls. The report calls upon the government to recognize “new sources of innovation and, in particular, develop new instruments that drive demand for innovation as well as its supply.” Toward this end, the report outlines dozens of innovation initiatives, including some that focus on innovative citizens, urban and rural regions, and government services.

Now is an appropriate time for the U.S. government to consider its own strategy for supporting and applying the benefits of science and engineering research to meet national and international challenges.

• Richard Littlemore at Desmogblog comments on the negative mainstream media reaction to the conference.
• Kevin Grandia at Desmogblog reports that the conference received no oil industry sponsorship, but received its support from right-wing think tanks.
• Curtis Brainard at The Observatory discusses the journalist’s dilemma on how to cover the conference.
• Matthew Nisbet at Framing Science proposes a strategy for responding to the Heartland Institute: First, appeal to authority rather than science, and then loudly assert the moral, religious, economic, and public health reasons to take action.
• MarkH at denialism blog suggests that Matthew Nisbet’s strategy is a good way to move beyond the impasse that obsessions over Al Gore’s persona have caused.

Monday

Ecological Dimensions of Biofuels
Ecological Society of America
8:30 a.m.

Tuesday

Evaluating Energy Infrastructure Projects: A Case Study on the Costs and Benefits of LNG Investment
Center for Strategic and International Studies
10:00 a.m.

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation
The FY 2009 Budget Proposal to Support U.S. Basic Research
253 Russell Senate Office Building
10:00 a.m.

Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee
Condition of our Nation’s Infrastructure and Proposals for Needed Improvements
538 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:30 a.m.

House Judiciary Committee
Hearing on Net Neutrality and Free Speech on the Internet
2141 Rayburn House Office Building
2:00 p.m.

Wednesday

Improving Cybersecurity: Suggestions from Private Sector Experts
Center for Strategic and International Studies
8:30 a.m.

House Science and Technology Committee
Competitiveness and Innovation on the Committee’s 50th Anniversary, with Bill Gates
2318 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 a.m.

Thursday

Summit on America’s Energy Future
Auditorium, National Academy of Sciences Building
8:00 a.m.; continues on Friday

Oncology Drug Development: Rethinking FDA Oversight
American Enterprise Institute
8:30 a.m.; continues on Friday

The 9/11 attacks ignited fears that terrorists could enroll in U.S. universities and use the scientific and technical knowledge they acquire to attack economic, political, and cultural targets in the United States. Policymakers responded with new regulations, such as restrictions on student visas. The NRC, a private institution that focuses on government science, technology, and health policy advice, subsequently became concerned that such policy responses to 9/11 were actually a perverse liability, rather than an asset, to U.S. security and competitiveness. The new report reflects an attempt to revise these policies.

Jacques Gansler, Vice President for Research at the University of Maryland, argued during his presentation that many trade, export, and science policies in the United States currently fail to reflect the realities of a globalized world. U.S. leadership depends on global collaboration, he said. He lamented the fact that the United States is no longer the world leader in the field of quantum computing–an increasingly vital instrument for both security and competitiveness–and he described the irony that policies which purported to strengthen security actually caused the dulling of the U.S. competitive edge in quantum computing.

Drawing attention to the culture of fear which he said has largely dominated U.S. security discourse after 9/11, Gansler also described a failed Pentagon proposal to require researchers in universities to wear badges identifying them as U.S. nationals or non-nationals. “We tried that sort of thing with the Star of David, and it didn’t work,” he quipped. Finally, Gansler called for full implementation of NSDD-189, a directive introduced by Ronald Reagan (and subsequently endorsed by Condoleezza Rice). NSDD-189 requires results of scientific research to “remain unrestricted” to the maximum possible extent.

Alice Gast, President of Lehigh University, explained the report’s policy recommendations in further detail. Most important, she said, is a recommendation to create a new, high-level Science and Security Commission to be co-chaired by the National Security Adviser and the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Gast explained that successful dialogues between scientists and security experts have occurred in the past, but they have been too “reactive.” Institutionalizing the dialogue between the security and science communities, she said, would enable the federal government to efficiently organize a team of science-security policy advisers with security clearances necessary for discussing sensitive issues.

The report also expresses concern about the categorization of some scientific information as “sensitive but unclassified.” According to the NRC, widespread use of this category betrays the spirit of openness and collaboration articulated in NSDD-189, and requires researchers to spend time worrying about which of their research results can and cannot be published. Gerald Epstein, a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, reminded the audience that some security risks must be accepted, especially if they are necessary to foster technical innovation.

Craig Venter announced at the TED conference that he plans to develop fuels using living cells that consume carbon dioxide and generate fuels like methane gas. “The only way we think biology can have major impact–without increasing the cost of food or limiting its availability–is to start with carbon dioxide as a feedstock,” he said during his presentation. He referred to this project as the “fourth generation” of fuels, and he said he hopes to develop the technology within eighteen months.

A Federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommended unanimously on Wednesday that all children over the age of six months should be vaccinated for influenza every year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are expected to adopt the recommendation within the next two years. “I’m very excited about this,” said Dr. Carol Baker, a member of the committee and president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. “As a pediatrician, it is my responsibility to protect my patients from influenza,” she said. Critics of the recommendation emphasized possible risks of heavy metal poisoning from vaccinations. “The CDC continues to minimize the dangers of injecting mercury and aluminum into our kids,” said Rita Shreffler, executive director of the National Autism Association. The CDC claims that those risks have not been confirmed scientifically.

Monday through Friday

Washington International Renewable Energy Conference
United States Government
Washington D.C. Convention Center

Research and Innovation in Energy, Climate and the Environment
Swedish Energy Agency
House of Sweden

Monday

Improving the Mix and Strengthening Ties: An Overview of EU Energy Policy
Center for Strategic and International Studies
9:30 am

Brownbag Discussion on the Lieberman-Warner legislation with Aimee Barnes (Manager of US Regulatory Affairs for Ecosecurities)
The Center for International Environmental Law
1:00 pm

Climate Change and the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit
Brookings Institution
2:00 pm

Tuesday

Future Shock: How Environmental Change and Human Impact Are Changing the Global Map
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
10:00 am

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
EIA’s Revised Energy Outlook
366 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Combating the Twin Epidemics of HIV/AIDS and Drug Addiction
Center for Strategic and International Studies
2203 Rayburn House Office Building
12:00 pm

Freeing the Grid: Overcoming Barriers to Clean Energy Generation
Environmental and Energy Study Institute
2:00 pm

Wednesday

House Science and Technology Committee
Department of Energy Fiscal Year 2009 Research and Development Budget Proposal
2318 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 am

House Energy and Commerce Committee
Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee
Climate Change: Competitiveness Concerns and Prospects for Engaging Developing Countries
2322 Rayburn House Office Building
10:30 am

Global Epidemics: The Contribution of Work
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
3:00 pm

Social Dimensions of Climate Change
The World Bank
9:00 am

Thursday

Infusing IT into Healthcare: Implications and Promise
Center for Strategic and International Studies
342 Dirksen Senate Office Building
9:00 am

House Science and Technology Committee
The Department of Homeland Security’s Research and Development Budget Priorities for Fiscal Year 2009
2318 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 am

House Energy and Commerce Committee
Department of Energy’s Budget Fiscal Year 2008
2123 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 am

Friday

Book Launch: On Nuclear Terrorism
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
12:00 pm

Understanding the Brain Through Neuroinformatics
International Neuroinformatics Coordinating Facility; National Science Foundation
House of Sweden

New Scientist reports that other scientists are showing caution after the announcement:

“This is fascinating,” says Arnold Kriegstein, head of developmental and stem cell biology at the University of California, San Francisco. “But without more information, it’s hard to know exactly how much they have done.”

“We have got to assess whether these cells are equivalent to classical iPS cells and ES cells,” adds Evan Snyder, a stem cell biologist at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California.

Why did PrimeGen not publish their results in a journal? Forbes reports that the company is keeping the research under wraps “until the company finalizes an agreement with a corporate partner”:

PrimeGen’s Sundsmo says the company is writing up scientific papers on the method, and plans to release more details at a stem cell scientific meeting later this year. However, he released the news at the industry conference in hopes of finding a corporate partner to help produce cells in large volumes.

Humane Society spokesperson Michael Greger, M.D. said in his testimony to the hearing that the documented abuses are actually widespread in the industry. “This was not an aberration, the work of a few rogue employees,” he stated. Meat produced from sick cows, he said, is more likely to contain disease-causing E. coli, Salmonella, and other pathogens.

Referring to a USDA rule introduced in 2007, Greger said companies are taking advantage of a loophole which allows some downer cows to be butchered with the approval of on-site USDA inspectors. A number of Committee members and witnesses at the hearing agreed that the loophole creates a financial incentive to get USDA inspectors to approve downer cows. The video documentary indicated that companies have become adept at manipulating overworked inspectors. To respond to this problem, Greger asked the Committee to mandate a complete ban on the use of downer cows for food.

Greger also said that many current food safety laws and rules were written in the first half of the twentieth century when policy-makers did not have the benefits of current scientific knowledge. Because new food-borne diseases have emerged and become epidemic as recently as the 1980s, Greger recommended that the regulatory system should be revamped to account for state-of-the-art science. He also recommended more funding of epidemiological research to better understand how epidemics of food-borne illnesses emerge.

William Marler, a food safety trial lawyer for the Seattle law firm Marler Clark, also testified about regulatory inadequacies. The problem with the system of food safety regulations, said Marler, is that it depends on a “trifurcated” group of agencies. The FDA, USDA, and CDC fail to share information and “walk all over each other,” he said. The inefficacy of Federal regulations, and the illnesses caused by unsafe food, produce a high demand for civil litigation, which he called “a blunt instrument for change” that an overhauled regulatory system could render unnecessary. “It is time for businesses and consumers to simply make me irrelevant,” he said. He recommended that Congress should merge the USDA, FDA, and CDC; create a local, state, and national surveillance system; and encourage full disclosure and transparency on information pertaining to food recalls.

Image: Humane Society of the United States, via flickr.com/smiteme

Tuesday

House Committee on Science and Technology; Subcommittee on Research and Science Education
“Hearing on NSF FY 2009 Budget”
2318 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 am

House Energy and Commerce Committee
“Private Sector Food Safety Accountability”
2322 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 am

House Homeland Security Committee
“Chemical Facility Security”
311 Cannon House Office Building
10:00 am

House (Select) Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee
“Food Service Industry Climate Solutions”
House Capitol Complex, room to be announced
2:00 pm

Wednesday

Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation
“A Review of NASA’s Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Request”
253 Russell Senate Office Building
2:30 pm

House Appropriations Committee; Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science
“Hearing on NSF FY 2009 Budget”
Room H-310, U.S. Capitol
9:30 am

House Energy and Commerce Committee
“Wireless/Broadband Consumer Protection”
2322 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 am

House Foreign Affairs Committee
“Climate Change and Vulnerable Societies”
Location to be announced
2:00 pm

Thursday

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
“Nuclear Plant Security”
406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Innovative Technologies for a Secure Society
House of Sweden
1:00 to 5:30 pm

House Energy and Commerce Committee
“Climate Change and Developing Countries”
2322 Rayburn House Office Building
1:00 pm
Update: The hearing has been postponed to Wednesday, March 5.

Senate Appropriations Committee
“Food Safety/Beef Recall”
192 Dirksen Senate Office Building
2:00 pm

Friday

What to Do About Climate Change
CATO Institute
B-338 Rayburn House Office Building
12:00 pm

The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 on Wednesday that medical device makers are immune from liability for injuries as long as the devices were previously approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The legal question behind the case pertained to whether or not Federal law (specifically, the Medical Device Amendments to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act) can preempt state-based lawsuits. Next Monday, the Supreme Court will hear another FDA-related case which explores further the rights of states to challenge FDA decisions.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been fairly successful over the years in predicting the most virulent flu strains and then formulating vaccines based on those predictions. This year was an exception. The current vaccine is most effective against fewer than half of the strains that are most dominant in the human population. Government researchers are presently deciding which strains next year’s vaccine should target, and they have decided, in an unusual move, to leave out two of the strains targeted by the present vaccine and replace them with two new strains next year. How well vaccine makers will adapt to the CDC decision in time to produce 100 million doses by the fall remains to be seen. The Knight Science Journalism Tracker has a full roundup of coverage.

Drawing on the work of naturalist E. O. Wilson, biologist and geographer Jared Diamond, and chemist Paul Crutzen, Sachs predicted that strategies of innovation and relationships between disparate institutions will determine whether the Earth “sustains us or begins no longer to sustain us.” He warned that global society faces both potential ecological and social catastrophes. The systems of the earth, like carbon and nitrogen cycles, and the systems of human communities, like farms and markets, are merging, he said. Human activities like agriculture have altered biogeochemical cycles so profoundly that Sachs believes they must be understood as a single system. Moreover, he reminded the audience that human decisions increasingly direct the course of a variety of evolutionary processes in the biosphere, such as species extinction and climate change.

Now, Sachs hopes that human societies will use their power wisely by demanding “targeted” innovation as a complement–and as a substitute–to evolution and accidental market-driven inventions. His primary illustration was the National Academy of Engineering’s Grand Challenges for Engineering project, which he praised for its a priori recognition of human and social needs. Rather than relying on spontaneous biological or economic processes, the project supports innovation based on need. Proper responses to global demands, he said, will require the combined resources of scientists and technical experts in governments, businesses, NGOs, and public-private partnerships. Sachs called upon leaders to learn how to draw from the best that all institutions have to offer, rather than remain confined within institutional divisions. Goal-driven, inter-institutional innovations, he said, will determine whether societies can live peacefully on a crowded and conflicted planet.

Image: flickr.com/Angela Radulescu

Congress is out of session next week.

Tuesday to Friday

Health Care Innovation Week
House of Sweden

Wednesday

Population and Climate Change: Relationships, Research, and Responses
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
12:00 pm

Thursday

Human Organs for Sale?
CATO Institute
12:00 pm

Many outlets have been following the decision. Some further coverage and responses:

• Joseph Esposito predicted that publishers with open access experience will suddenly look more attractive for acquisition by other publishers as a result of the Harvard rule (The Scientist blog).
• Stevan Harnad proposed revisions to the rule pertaining to copyright retention, the possibility of waivers, Harvard’s timetable for reviewing the success of the program, and other issues (via Open Access News).
• Mike Carroll predicted that Harvard scholars and librarians will benefit, and wondered which institutions will be wise enough to follow. For example, he said Harvard librarians will be forced to become more familiar with the scholarly work of the faculty (via Open Access News).
• T. Scott Plutchak compared the rule favorably to a similar decision at the National Institutes of Health, praising the Harvard faculty for taking the issue into their own hands, rather than waiting for their superiors to require the move (via Open Access News).
• Andy Guess weighed the merits of the option for Harvard scholars to request a waiver to the rule (via Open Access News).

Monday

U.S. Smart Power in the Americas: 2009 and Beyond
Center for Strategic and International Studies
10:30 am

Science versus Anti-Science: From Washington to the Classroom
American Enterprise Institute
5:30 pm

Tuesday

America’s Energy Future: Carbon, Competition, and Kilowatts
The Brookings Institution
10:30 am

Senate Armed Services Committee
Full committee hearing on Air Force nuclear security
325 Russell Senate Office Building
9:30 am

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
“Myths and Facts about Human Growth Hormone, B 12, and Other Substances”
2154 Rayburn House Office Building
10:00 am

Wednesday

Where To Next for Air Pollution Policy?
American Enterprise Institute
9:45 am

Thursday

Senate Finance Committee
“International Aspects of a Carbon Cap and Trade Program”
215 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Wednesday

India 60: The HIV/AIDS Epidemic – Building Bridges to Health and Development
Center for Strategic and International Studies
9:00 am

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
“Energy Department Budget”
366 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
“Transportation Infrastructure Funding”
406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Health Checkup for Beijing: Pollution and the Olympics
Center for Strategic and International Studies
2226 Rayburn House Office Building
2:00 pm

Thursday

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
“Renewable Fuel Standard’s Energy Market Effects”
366 Dirksen Senate Office Building
9:30 am

Potential Energy Savings and Greenhouse Gas Reductions from Transportation
Transportation Research Board of the National Academies
Keck Center
10:15 am

There’s also the fact that the voice of science has become little more than a whimper in the White House, as Greenberg describes:

The executive branch is well equipped with scientific advisory organizations. At the very top, there’s the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, whose director serves as the president’s science adviser. There’s also the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, whose members are mainly drawn from academe and industry. Neither of these organizations is remotely close to the White House inner circle. And the president’s science adviser, John Marburger, though one of the longest-serving Bush appointees, is a barely visible presence in Washington.

The Federal government has a responsibility to support scientific and technological research, and the President must lead the way. As Tom Kalil explained in a recent Science Progress column, the current lack of Administration and Congressional support is unacceptable. “It is critical,” he argues, “that the next president make science, technology, and innovation a top priority. America’s future economic prosperity depends upon it.”

Reuters‘s coverage concentrated exclusively on fuel and tied the story to an earlier announcement by General Motors that it had partnered with bioenergy company Coskata, a developer of industrial biotechnologies that employ cellular metabolisms. The Wall Street Journal likewise briefly mentioned producing clean fuels and sequestering carbon.

The BBC focused on the same potential uses of synthetic organisms while incorporating perspectives of scientists and ethicists. Hamilton Smith, a researcher who was part of the Science study, said the research team prefers the word “synthetic” rather than “artificial.” He explained: “With synthetic life, we’re re-designing the cell chromosomes; we’re not creating a whole new artificial life system.” Drew Endy of the Department of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who was not directly involved in the research, said he is optimistic about being able to “routinely design and construct the genomes of any bacteria or single celled eukaryote” within five years. Simon Woods, a bioethicist at the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Centre at the University of Newcastle, UK, worried that scientists were acting in the complete absence of formal government regulations.

National Human Genome Research Institute director Francis Collins, as reported in Wired Science, called the new study a “methodological tour-de-force,” but cautioned that industrial applications will have to wait years while biologists learn more about what functions specific genes actually perform.

Other news reports raised questions about possible risks of synthetic biological research and even challenged Venter’s intentions.

Rick Weiss in the Washington Post framed the story as a debate between people like Venter who emphasize the benefits of the research, like biofuel production, and critics who emphasize the risks, like biological weapons and unintended environmental damage. In the same article, Harvard Medical School geneticist George Church criticized Venter for conspicuously ignoring or downplaying economic issues, such as the actual financial cost of performing the procedure, which Venter did not disclose.

The New York Times mentioned the same risks as the Post article: human pathogens and ecosystem destruction. In the Times, Jeremy Minshull, chief executive of DNA 2.0, a company that supplied some the nucleic acids used by the research team, was quoted surmising about Venter’s intention: “To some extent, it’s something that was driven by ‘I want to be the first person to do it.’” Also, Jim Thomas, a program manager at the ETC Group, a technology-focused NGO based in Canada, echoed Simon Woods by expressing concern for both the lack of regulation for synthetic biology research and Venter’s broad patent applications covering the Institute’s genetic work. The ETC Group is calling for a moratorium on synthetic biology research so stakeholders can debate its ethical, legal, and social ramifications.

Leo Hickman in Guardian Unlimited invoked Frankenstein, popular science fiction, and the fear of “playing God” to endorse the proposed ban on synthetic biology. The Creation Museum went a step further and claimed that the creation of synthetic life is simply not possible.

Tuesday

House Energy and Commerce Committee
Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee hearing on “Public, Educational, and Governmental (PEG) Services in the Digital TV Age.”
2322 Rayburn House Office Building
1:00 pm

Biodiversity Under Threat: Implications for Pharmaceuticals
Swedish Institute, NSF, AAAS
House of Sweden
6:30 to 8:30 pm

Wednesday

Doha’s Death Knell, U.S. Agricultural Policy, and the Future of Free Trade
American Enterprise Institute
Wohlstetter Conference Center
9:00 am to 3:00 pm

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
“Examining Threats and Protections for the Polar Bear”
406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Global Space Agenda: Transforming India’s Space Program
Center for Strategic and International Studies
11:00 am

Thursday

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee
Carbon Capture and Sequestration Regulations: Full committee hearing on S.2323, the “Carbon Capture and Storage Technology Act of 2007″ and S.2144, the “Carbon Dioxide Pipeline Study Act of 2007.”
366 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
Full committee hearing on the National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission report
406 Dirksen Senate Office Building
10:00 am

Climate Change: The Next Global Security Threat
The Brookings Institution
Falk Auditorium
10:30 am to 12:00 pm

Plug-in Hybrids: The Future of Cars?
Center for American Progress
12:00 to 1:30 pm

There were 86 reported human cases of bird flu in 2007 compared to 115 in 2006, according to the World Health Organization. The result, says The New York Times, is that preparedness for a pandemic has become less urgent, but it remains as important. New data indicate that more than 700 viruses were cultured after having been submitted to the WHO from 2003 to 2007. More than 100 of those viruses were sent by researchers in Indonesia, which indicates that the country has made enormous progress in playing its part in global preparedness efforts. Ultimately, the WHO recommended that 13 of the 734 viruses should be used for vaccine development (via Effect Measure).

Last week, Drew Baden explained in Science Progress why sending humans to the Moon and to Mars could distract researchers and policymakers from using resources for more significant research about Earth and the universe. Now, investigations have revealed that NASA’s proposed Ares I manned Moon launch vehicle could shake violently during operation, and the results could be catastrophic. The possibility of design mistakes on the part of Boeing or Alliant Techsystems, the private contractors for Ares I, could challenge the continuing value of Project Constellation, NASA’s human spaceflight program (via Knight Science Journalism Tracker).

Earlier, we reported on the National Science Foundation’s latest report on the state of scientific education and research in the U.S. Subsequently, Nature has highlighted some of the report’s comparative statistics on an international scale. Israel leads the world in terms of the fraction of its gross domestic product devoted to civilian research and development. In the last two years, South Korea and Switzerland have moved ahead of the United States by the same measure, and China—though it spends only 1.34 per cent on civilian research—now ranks third in the world in total civilian research and development spending.

But comparing national statistics only gets us so far. A new report from The Climate Group, titled “Low Carbon Leader: States and Regions” (pdf), focuses on sub-national initiatives to combat climate change. The report focuses on regions like California and the Western Cape of South Africa that have led the world in their progressive responses to climate change. “Sub-national governments, many of whom have globally significant economies in their own right, can also have a globally significant impact on climate change mitigation due to their unique position of influence on citizens and national governments,” said The Climate Group CEO Steve Howard (via Gristmill).

Image: flickr.com/mirkogarufi

Nature reports that Monsanto and Syngenta have withdrawn their support for the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology. The $10 million project, which involves at least half a dozen transnational agencies including UNESCO and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, aims to produce quality forecasting of global social, environmental, and technological changes related to agriculture. The companies reportedly were disappointed that the International Assessment placed a high degree of emphasis on risks of agricultural biotechnology, rather than on its benefits.

Meanwhile, The World Bank (another institution involved in the IAASTD project) has released a new report, “Technology Diffusion in the Developing World” (pdf), which indicates rapid technological progress in the developing world, but also indicates a need for developing nations to become more receptive to foreign technology. Alan Gelb, chief economist at The World Bank, commented that “governments may need to intervene directly to encourage the rapid diffusion of technology and a domestic culture of ‘new-to-the-market’ innovation.” Presently, the report says, technical illiteracy and poor business climates stifle the “absorption” of new techniques and ideas (via SciDev.Net).

Finally, a new study led by ecological economist Richard Norgaard at the University of California, Berkeley reports that the world’s richest countries owe a debt of $1.8 trillion to developing nations due to environmental damages. “We know already that climate change is a huge injustice inflicted on the poor,” said Neil Adger at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, who was not involved in the research. “This paper is actually the first systematic quantification to produce a map of that ecological debt,” he said.

Image credit: flickr.com/moran

In front of an enthusiastic audience which included an activist wearing a polar bear costume, the hearing brought together several evocative symbols of the current debate over America’s energy future: oil drills, potential oil spills, shrinking sea ice, partisan conflicts over scientific uncertainty, and of course, polar bears. The first of two panels at the hearing included Dale Hall, Director of the Fish and Wildlife Service and Dr. Steven Amstrup, Polar Bear Team Leader at the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has delayed a decision on whether to list the polar bear as “threatened” under the 1973 Endangered Species Act. In fact, the Service risks missing an approaching statutory deadline to list the polar bear under the Act. Meanwhile, the Minerals Management Service is scheduled to sell oil drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea on February 6.

Dr. Amstrup warned the Committee that oil drilling-related accidents in the Chukchi region could threaten polar bear populations. “They groom themselves, they ingest the oil, and the results are usually fatal,” said Amstrup. Oil poisoning due to spills and melting sea ice due to rising temperatures are separate threats to polar bears—but both linked to carbon-intensive energy production.

“The decision making-process,” said Markey, “should occur in the proper sequence.” Markey is now introducing a bill which plainly prohibits the Secretary of the Interior from “selling any oil and gas lease for any tract” in the Chukchi region “until the Secretary determines whether to list the polar bear as a threatened species or an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.” The bill expands the window of opportunity for the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the polar bear, and avoid preemption by the Minerals and Management Service. The fate of the polar bear may be uncertain, but prioritizing conservation decisions before that fate is sealed would set a proper precedent for planetary stewardship.

Image credit: Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming
Left to right: John Goll, Randall Luthi, Dale Hall, Steven Amstrup