Washington Watch

Stimulating Science: One Year After the Recovery Act

A year ago, as the US economy was on the brink of meltdown, Congress and President Obama enacted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA; PL 111-5). The $787-billion economic stimulus promised a new future for America, a future that not only brought economic growth and jobs but also addressed society's most pressing issues: education, human health, infrastructure, and clean energy. The act included more than $24 billion for federal science programs, much of which was designated for research and development (R&D). These funds were intended to create or save jobs by directly supporting researchers and student fellows and spurring the manufacturing of scientific instrumentation and equipment, as well as initiating the repair and construction of research facilities. One year later, stimulus funds have been used to address a backlog of scientific needs and to usher in a new age of science. The question now, however, is: What will happen to our scientific enterprise in 2011, when the ARRA funds have been spent?

The stimulus outlined ambitious goals for federal science agencies. The National Science Foundation (NSF) aimed to support 40,000 researchers, educators, postdoctoral scholars, and students with its $3 billion of ARRA funding, including $2 billion for "high-risk, potentially transformative research proposals" that were already in hand. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) planned to create or save 50,000 jobs with its $10.4 billion in ARRA funds, half of which has already been spent. Congress directed other agencies to address deferred projects, such as research facility maintenance and management activities, that have resulted from years of stagnant or declining budgets. The Agricultural Research Service, NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the US Geological Survey, the NIH, and others will collectively spend more than $1.2 billion for federal research facility repairs and construction.

Addressing past budget shortfalls is also the goal at the NSF and NIH, where much of the stimulus funding for R&D is supporting quality research proposals that had gone unfunded because of empty agency coffers. The NSF, whose agency-wide grant proposal success rate has hovered around 22 percent for years, has already surpassed its goal to award 4000 additional grants in 2009 and 2010. Even with the bolus of cash, however, some scientists still view funding at the NIH in short supply, after dealing with a 20 percent proposal success rate for much of the past decade.

For example, researchers submitted more than 20,000 applications for about 200 to 400 NIH Challenge Grants. This high demand for grants may spell disaster in 2011 when ARRA funds have been allocated, warns Francis Collins, director of the NIH. Collins told Science: "It's likely to be a pretty tough year...not only because one has to worry about what the NIH base [budget] can be, but a large number of Challenge Grants that didn't get funded are going to come back as R01s [NIH's basic research grants]. So the number of applications is expected to be quite high."

Others are concerned about the future of the young researchers and graduate students who are supported by the stimulus. The NSF plans to fund at least 2400 new investigators and 220 professional science master's students, the NIH directed approximately $100 million to recruit up to 117 new faculty at academic institutions, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Energy's Office of Science (DoE Science) also funded research fellowships. "While this generous increase in funding is very promising, we need continued financial support not only for young investigators, but also to bolster the entire US research enterprise," said Stacy L. Gelhaus, chair of the National Postdoctoral Association Board of Directors.

For the agencies included in the America COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science) Act of 2007 (NSF, NIST, and DoE Science), prior congressional pledges offer greater hope for the future. The COMPETES Act authorized a doubling of these agencies' budgets over a 10-year period, a goal the president has committed to meet by 2016. Other science agencies, however, may once again struggle in a post-ARRA world, especially if annual appropriations are not adjusted to support investments spawned by the stimulus.

"The issue becomes not just what are we investing in, but how are we spreading out the investments," said Nadine Lymn, director of public affairs at the Ecological Society of America. "The potential pitfall is that if sustained and predictable funding doesn't come through once ARRA ends, graduate students and other young researchers will be hit hard, and advances in research needed to address critical areas such as climate change and infectious disease will once again be curtailed."

Julie Palakovich Carr (jpal...@aibs.org) is an AIBS public policy associate.

BioScience 60: 101
doi:10.1525/bio.2010.60.2.4

A Research and Education Agenda for Biology?

For some time, biologists have argued that a greater federal investment in biological research and education is required to move science forward and solve urgent societal problems. Arguably, this call has been heard, but a response has been muted by the lack of a clear articulation of need from the scientific community. However, recent efforts from within the community suggest that biologists might be attempting to define plans that will advance science and solve real-world problems.

"Plants are central to the future of scientific discovery, human well-being, and the sustainable use and preservation of the world's natural resources," says Andrea Kramer, executive director of the US Office of Botanical Gardens Conservation International. Yet, Kramer and others warn that federal agencies have failed to make investments in research and training that will drive discovery and inform decisionmaking. Kramer and colleagues recently convened academic scientists, government managers, and representatives from nongovernmental organizations. The meeting, held at the Chicago Botanic Garden, assessed the nation's botanical capacity.

"The project itself was prompted by anecdotal reports that botanical capacity was declining in many sectors," Kramer says, including education and training and research infrastructure; moreover, there is a lack of qualified candidates for government positions, and fewer academic botany departments to produce qualified scientists. "Botany departments at universities [are] being subsumed into more general or interdisciplinary departments and subsequently losing resident expertise as professors retire," warns Kramer.

The issues that prompted the botanical capacity summit are not new, and present a challenge to federal policymakers struggling to invest historically limited resources in programs that must support a range of scientific fields while solving societal problems. There is a lack of disciplinary strength—too few qualified organismal biologists—according to many participants at the Chicago conference. A growing stack of reports, however, asserts that there is a need for scientists with the skills and training to work in interdisciplinary teams. This, in short, is a recommendation in two reports released this year: Transitions and Tipping Points in Complex Environmental Systems, published by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and A New Biology for the 21st Century, published by the National Research Council (NRC).

Former NSF assistant director for biology James Collins described the Tipping Points report earlier this year: "The...focus on environmental complexity and the need to understand how our social systems integrate with the rest of Earth's systems is an important message. Research at the interface of natural and human systems forms the underpinnings for the adaptation and mitigation strategies needed for a changing planet."

Scientists cannot continue to study the components of environmental systems in isolation from each other, according to Susan Stafford, of the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota and chair of the NSF committee that authored Tipping Points.

Kramer agrees that interdisciplinary collaboration is necessary for progress, but questions what will happen if too many programs become dominated by interdisciplinary researchers. "Rather than focusing on specific disciplines that should be integrated, what is lacking is training in effective communication skills that are translatable beyond the realm of academia, as well as training in effective collaboration," argues Kramer.

The NSF and NRC reports press the need to invest in biological and environmental research. Some scientists who have read the reports find them to be refreshing. They call for interdisciplinary research and skills development, but recognize that these efforts require a strong foundation of disciplinary research. The NRC report, for example, references the importance of organismal biology and evolution for solving environmental, food, energy, and health problems.

The NRC report, which some have described as biology's call to action, or "moon shot," argues that a blend of research and new funding models should be implemented to achieve the ambitious goals proposed in the nearly 100-page document. Although the NRC neglected to place a price tag on its proposal or to outline a government engine that should be used to drive a "New Biology," the authors have been clear that a multiyear commitment and new funding—substantial resources beyond existing program budgets—are required. Some familiar with the plan speculate that an investment of $50 billion over the next 10 years is required.

Although $50 billion is significant, even in Washington, DC, a question worth asking is what the cost would be if the nation fails to build a research infrastructure that can deliver safe and nutritious food, functional ecosystem services, cleaner and sustainable energy, and quality, personalized medicine.

Robert E. Gropp (rgr...@aibs.org) is director of the AIBS Public Policy Office.

BioScience 59: 932
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.11.4

Turning the Tide on Aquatic Invaders

Ports in the United States are among the busiest in the world—ships made more than 60,000 port calls here in 2008. Along with the 2.3 billion metric tons of goods moved through these ports were untold numbers of aquatic hitchhikers, transported in ballast water and residual sediment in ballast tanks. Ballast water, loaded aboard to improve ship stability during a voyage, transports as many as 3000 to 10,000 different species, including invasive species such as zebra mussels, green crabs, algae, and plankton, as well as disease-causing bacteria and viruses. When ships reach their destinations and release this ballast water, they also release nonnative species in ports around the world. Beyond the ecological impacts of these aquatic invaders are the costs they inflict on the economy: Every year these hitchhikers are responsible for the loss of billions of dollars. Zebra mussels alone cause $1 billion in damages each year in the United States. Although the scientific community, environmentalists, policymakers, port managers, and shippers agree that the discharge of ballast water should be regulated, a consensus about which agency should be granted regulatory authority has proven elusive.

Many see the US Coast Guard (USCG) as the logical choice. As a federal agency authorized by Congress to regulate ballast water management, the USCG can enforce a national standard for domestic and foreign ships that use American ports. Indeed, since 1993, the USCG has required ocean-going vessels entering the Great Lakes to exchange their ballast water at least 200 nautical miles offshore, or to retain their ballast while in the lakes.

For the last five years, the USCG has been working to create a mandatory national program for ballast water management. In August, the agency released a draft rule that would require the exchange or treatment of ballast water for almost all ballast-carrying vessels operating in US waters. The program, which would be implemented in two phases, would require ships to meet certain performance standards for the concentrations of living organisms in their ballast water. The interim performance standard would require ships to reduce the concentration of living organisms in their ballast water by 80 percent; the final standard is potentially a thousand times more stringent.

According to David Lodge, professor of biology at the University of Notre Dame, this is an "essential and long overdue step." However, Lodge says, "the Coast Guard's effectiveness measures refer to the magnitude of reductions in the concentrations of organisms in discharged ballast water, not to the outcome that is most important: the reduction in new invasions." He adds that the policy could be strengthened by "coupling it with an invasive species monitoring policy. Without meaningful surveillance for new invasions, we don't have enough information to accurately evaluate the effectiveness of ballast water policies."

Uncertainty regarding the relationship between the number of organisms released through ballast water and the potential for new invasions has led several states to create their own ballast water discharge policy for their coastal waters. Regulations in California, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington vary widely, resulting in a mosaic of rules that shippers must follow. California's are the most stringent: By 2020, no ship will be able to discharge ballast water that contains living organisms.

Adding to the confusion are regulations adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Although not yet in force, the IMO performance standard is comparable to the USCG's interim standard. Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been ordered by a district court to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to regulate the discharge of ballast water in the United States.

In response to this jurisdictional muddle, some members of Congress have called for a unified national requirement for ballast water management. In a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing, Senator Carl Levin (D–MI) testified: "I believe that we need to enact legislation that will require ballast water discharge management...as soon as possible. I support establishing a strong national ballast water technology standard for
all ships."

In 2008, the House of Representatives did just this, passing legislation that establishes strong treatment standards so that, by 2015, no ballast water discharged into US waters will contain living organisms. The Senate has yet to pass its own legislation. For some senators, it is a matter of state sovereignty—a federal regulation or law preempts a state's right to control its coasts and waters. For instance, California's regulation is almost a thousand times more stringent than the IMO standards. On the other hand, the shipping industry fears that allowing each state to set its own ballast water management regime creates too heavy a regulatory burden.

This debate is far from over. The USCG is accepting comments on its draft rule until 4 December, but a final rule could take years. The EPA is also reconsidering its stance on the issue. Meanwhile, potentially invasive species continue to arrive by the boatload.

Julie Palakovich Carr (jpal...@aibs.org) is a public policy associate with AIBS.

BioScience 59: 830
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.10.4

Stem Cells: Growth and Development...in Policy

Many scientists and patient advocates cheered earlier this summer when the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released new guidelines for human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research. The guidelines came after President Obama's March 2009 executive order lifting the restrictions on federal support for research using embryonic stem cells.

Obama's directive revoked the Bush administration's restrictions and funding ban on hESC research, which had limited scientists to using only 21 approved cell lines out of about 700 in existence. The directive also ordered the NIH to issue new guidelines for hESC research, which were released in July 2009. These new guidelines specify that NIH funding can be provided for research on hESCs derived from human embryos "that were created using in vitro fertilization for reproductive purposes [but] were no longer needed for this purpose," and were donated by individuals who were fully informed about embryo treatment and gave their voluntary, written consent to use the embryos for research. The guidelines also stipulate that there can be no financial inducements for embryo donations, and that NIH-funded research must remain separate from privately funded research. Additionally, the NIH will establish a working group of scientists and ethicists to review existing cell lines, determine their eligibility for federal funding, and post those hESCs eligible for federal funds in an online registry.

The presidential directive greatly expands the research potential in this field, but Obama noted in his remarks about the order that the "full promise of stem cell research remains unknown, and it should not be overstated." Many advocates of stem cell research agree: Much more stem cell research will take place, yet much more policy work still awaits action.

The spotlight is currently on the NIH working group. This is because until the NIH determines which cell lines are eligible for federal funding, hESC research remains on hold and, as of early September 2009, the NIH registry was still empty. Alan Smith, senior research scientist at Stemina Biomarker Discovery (a metabolomics company in Madison, Wisconsin), says that this void in the registry is a major concern for industry because it is slowing efforts to build new collaborations with other companies that are using yet-to-be-approved cell lines and to spur innovations in stem cell research. It is unclear when new stem cell lines will be entered into the registry—no timeline has been announced—but some researchers are concerned that the addition of the new lines may take years.

Other pressing policy issues remain. Some analysts have suggested that the government focus on developing a coalition among all the entities that work on stem cells, perhaps by supporting the formation of geographic innovation hubs. Such a large-scale collaboration between universities and industries could be transformative for the field of regenerative medicine. Other experts, such as Jonathan Moreno, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, believe that the next grand policy challenge will be to develop guidelines for safe human trials. The pharmaceutical company Geron was set to begin the first-ever human clinical trial of stem cell therapy on spinal cord injury patients in August. However, in the last round of animal trials, researchers found a larger-than-expected occurrence of cysts, and the US Food and Drug Administration halted the trial. Moreno argues that stem cell advocates ought to proceed to clinical trials with caution, as human trials with tragic results would cause a change in the tide of public support for stem cell research.

Proponents of stem cell research are hopeful that the Obama administration policy will allow US scientists to remain leaders in stem cell science and technology. More research should soon be eligible for federal funding, and making more lines available for research, as Smith says, will "open up the vast range of hES lines derived from genetically diverse embryos." Stem cell advocates remain hopeful that the pace of research will accelerate as scientists collaborate and eliminate some of the delays associated with past requirements for separate and dedicated stem cell research laboratories, equipment, and personnel. Many believe that once the public sees the first positive results from hESC research, much of the tension surrounding the stem cell debate will disappear, and stem cells will truly grow.

BioScience 59: 744
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.5

Debate over Science Funding Heats Up in Canada

Two years ago, the Canadian government launched a new strategy to improve the country's scientific competitiveness by, among other things, promoting partnerships with industry and improving scientific infrastructure. In June, the government trumpeted its success in Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage: Progress Report 2009. But however pleased the government may be with its progress, researchers are becoming increasingly vocal in their dissent, arguing that the government's policy is missing the mark and threatening the future of the country's scientific enterprise.

The progress report touts the country's largest-ever investment in science and technology, including $4.5 billion for infrastructure through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). So why are researchers upset? A primary concern is that the greater support for infrastructure displaces funds for the researchers who use the equipment. In Canada's Budget 2009, funding was cut by 5 percent for the country's three granting agencies: the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

John Smol, professor at Queen's University and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, says that the funds supplied by those agencies—for NSERC discovery grants, for example—offer the government the "most bang for the buck." While directed funding certainly has its place in government-funded science, funding programs that allow scientists' research to progress freely are more in line with how science actually works, he says. "Of the 10 papers I am most proud of, I don't think I anticipated a single one of them in the grant I wrote funding that work."

Since the budget cuts were announced, the outcry against the government's policies has become more vehement. Academic groups such as the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) have voiced concerns over the funding cuts, noting that "labs and research stations may be better equipped but are forced to cut back or close because they do not have sufficient funding for staff and operational costs." The editors of the CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) criticized the Canadian economic stimulus plan (Budget 2009) in an editorial: "In saying yes to deficits and stimulus, yet being lukewarm to science, the unmistakable message from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is that science is unimportant in Canada's economy." Several grassroots efforts protesting the government's policies have emerged as well, including an open letter to the government, "Don't Leave Canada Behind," which has gathered more than 2000 signatures, and "Protect Science Funding in Canada," a 3400-member Facebook group.

But not everyone thinks there is cause for complaint. In an opinion piece in the National Post, Michael Bliss, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, says that many of the community's complaints are unfounded, and scientists risk further backlash if they continue to bite the hand that feeds them. "The danger is that politicians, instead of caving in, will respond by washing their hands of Canada's science community."

The budget may not have drawn as much criticism had it not been for the inevitable comparisons with Canada's southern neighbor. During the Bush administration, Canadians prided themselves on having the more comparatively favorable environment for science. Indeed, between 2002 and 2007, the number of university professors and assistants who moved from the United States to work in Canada increased by 27 percent, reported Elizabeth Church and Daniel LeBlanc in Canada's Globe and Mail (27 January 2009). But with the election of President Barack Obama, the tables have turned. In his inaugural address, Obama vowed to "restore science to its rightful place," and he swiftly set about instituting a string of new policies favorable to science, including a massive infusion of funds to federal science agencies through the economic stimulus package.

The turnabout with regard to funding raises concerns that top Canadian researchers will leave for the United States. In an April 2009 poll commissioned by the CAUT and the Canadian Federation of Students, two-thirds of Canadians surveyed admitted apprehension about Canada's ability to attract and retain researchers, given reductions in research funding.

But Smol is unsure whether a "brain drain" should be a major concern: "Researchers are mobile people by nature," he says, and there has always been movement between the two countries. Additionally, programs such as the Canada Research Chairs and the CFI—both of which receive new funding under the 2009 budget—have been successful in recruiting talent from abroad. Rather, Smol says, the biggest problem Canadian scientists face is that "science has never been able to capture the imagination of politicians." Until that happens, the debate over Canada's science policies will most likely rage on.

Adrienne Froelich Sponberg (sponberg@aslo.org) is the director of public affairs and coeditor of the Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin for the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography.

BioScience 59: 648
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.8.5

A Rising Tide of Support for a National Climate Service

Climate change is a hot topic in the halls of Congress. News coverage has centered on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill, The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (HR 2454), which the House passed by a slim margin—219 to 212—on 26 June. The House Committee on Science and Technology has also been busy, crafting legislation to create a National Climate Service..

Hot air emanating from some media talking heads might lead the casual observer to believe that Congress routinely creates new agencies; in fact, however, lawmakers rarely direct the establishment of a new federal office. Nonetheless, stakeholders ranging from scientists to local utility managers have been encouraging Congress to create a new climate forecasting function—a "National Climate Service" or "Climate Services Program," which would be housed in NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).

NOAA already houses the National Weather Service (NWS), whose mission is to provide "weather, hydrologic, and climate forecasts and warnings," but weather and climate are different. Weather is a snapshot of atmospheric conditions at a specific place and time, whereas climate is the long-term average pattern of weather for a particular region.

A National Climate Service, supporters assert, could provide decisionmakers at all levels of society with the information they need to respond to climate change. The House Science and Technology Committee recently considered HR 2407—the National Climate Service Act of 2009. The legislation would (a) advance the understanding of climate variability and change at all geographic scales; (b) provide forecasts, warnings, and information to the public on climate variability and change and its effects on the public; and (c) support the development of adaptation and response plans by government agencies, the private sector, and the public.

The legislation's sponsor is Representative Bart Gordon (D–TN), chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology. He asserts: "State and local governments, private industry and resource managers across the country recognize that weather and climate impacts influence many aspects of our lives.... Some of these changes will be positive and offer new opportunities. Others will present challenges. Without more specific information about the magnitude and direction of these changes we will be ill prepared to exploit new opportunities and to adapt to new challenges."

At a committee hearing in May, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco expressed the need for a coordinated climate program. "There is unequivocal evidence that the Earth is warming," she said. "This warming can be seen in increases in global-average surface air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, rising sea level, and changes in many other climate-related variables and impacts." Lubchenco commends the climate change research efforts of the already established US Global Change Research Program and the US Climate Change Science Program, but says "more work is needed... to understand users' needs and deliver climate-relevant information to inform decisionmaking."

In 2007, the National Academies released Evaluating Progress of the U.S. Climate Change Science Program: Methods and Preliminary Results. Lubchenco said this report "highlighted existing gaps in federal programs to provide climate change information, [and] recognized that good progress has been made to determine many aspects of climate change; however, 'progress in synthesizing research results or supporting decisionmaking and risk management has been inadequate.'"

Lubchenco is not alone in urging a greater federal investment in climate-related data synthesis, analysis, and products. Other hearing witnesses also called for an institutional structure that would work closely and collaboratively with other agencies and end users of climate data.

The only apparent concern about a new climate program is whether it should be an office separate from the NWS. Richard Hirn, general counsel and legislative director for the NWS Employees Organization, cautioned during congressional hearings that a new office would not only "duplicate the historic and current mission, programs, and services" of the NWS but also draw resources from it.

Members of the committee responded to these issues. Representatives Brian Baird (D–WA), chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, and Bob Inglis (R–SC), the ranking minority member of the subcommittee, amended HR 2407 to set up a three-year process during which the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy will "evaluate alternative structures to support a collaborative, interagency research and operational program that will achieve the goal of meeting the needs of decisionmakers."

On 3 June, by a 24–12 vote, the Committee on Science and Technology reported out HR 2407 to the full House of Representatives, where the bill awaits further action.

Robert E. Gropp (e-mail: rgr...@aibs.org) is the director of public policy at AIBS.

BioScience 59: 558
doi:10.1025/bio.2009.59.7.6

Will Congress Include Ecosystem Monitoring in Climate Legislation?

Coral bleaching, earlier leaf budding, pika range shifts—these are only a few of the documented effects of climate change on species and ecosystems. Congress is trying to pass legislation responding to climate change, yet some scientists are wondering whether policymakers understand the importance of including ecosystem monitoring in the policy response to climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and many biologists have voiced support for an ecosystem observation system to monitor climate-related changes in species' distribution and abundance, ecosystem disturbance, phenology, nutrient cycling, and other ecological data. Such environmental observations, the IPCC says, are "vital to allow for adjustments in management strategies." The Climate Change Science Program (CCSP), the interagency organization responsible for federal climate research, has identified a need to expand existing monitoring networks and to develop new capabilities for ecosystem observations. A 2009 review of the CCSP by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reported that the establishment of a climate observation system to monitor physical, biological, and social systems was a top priority for the program. Progress has been slow despite the continuing need for data.

Congress has heard this message. In the last six years, at least 20 witnesses have testified before Congress about the importance of ecosystem monitoring as a core element in climate-change science. Appearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Environment in April, conservationist Jeff Corwin, host of Animal Planet's The Corwin Experience, said: "As a biologist, I firmly believe that we should start by expanding our scientific understanding of global warming's impacts on the living world. We cannot develop and implement an effective strategy without this knowledge."

In the 110th Congress, Senator John Kerry (D–MA) introduced S. 2307, the "Global Change Research Improvement Act of 2007." Had it been enacted, S. 2307 would have required CCSP to inventory current observation systems relevant to climate change research, and to prioritize additional monitoring needs. Although the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation reported the legislation out, the congressional session ended before the Senate voted on the measure; the act was cleared from the books and did not become law.

Nonetheless, debate continues in the 111th Congress on how to respond to global climate change. Several pieces of legislation have been introduced in the House of Representatives and Senate. In late March 2009, Representative Henry Waxman (D–CA), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, released a discussion draft of "The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009," the legislation viewed as the most likely to move through the legislative process. Indeed, on 15 May a revised version of the bill was introduced in the House (H.R. 2454). In addition to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and promoting renewable energy, the bill stipulates that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Geological Survey (USGS) collaborate to establish a coordinated process for providing information on the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on natural resources.

Many of the act's ecosystem monitoring requirements, however, would fall to the states. To receive federal funding, states would have to establish programs to monitor the impacts of climate change on fish, wildlife and plant populations, ecosystems, and ecological processes. Each state's natural resources climate adaptation plan would be subject to approval by the secretaries of Interior and Commerce, although the bill does not specify the standards to which states would be held. A mosaic of state monitoring programs does raise some concerns. A 2009 NAS report cites reservations about the CCSP using climate-related data voluntarily provided by federal and state agencies, as the CCSP would not have the authority to ensure continued data collection from these agencies. Donald Boesch, a member of the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council, raised similar concerns during a 2007 Senate Commerce Committee hearing. "Many existing and planned observing systems have been cancelled, delayed, or degraded," he said.

Climate-related ecosystem monitoring efforts might also piggyback on existing ecosystem observation systems, such as the Integrated Ocean Observation System at NOAA, or the National Science Foundation's proposed National Ecological Observatory Network. Alternatively, a federal agency or program could take the lead on ecosystem monitoring. The new National Climate Change and Wildlife Service Center at the USGS may be a logical choice, although other programs in USGS or NOAA may also be appropriate.

No matter where the ecosystem monitoring efforts are eventually lodged, the need for environmental monitoring is widely accepted by the scientific community.

Julie Palakovich Carr (e-mail: jpal...@aibs.org) is an AIBS public policy associate.

BioScience 59: 470
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.6.4

Great Lakes: Sailing to the Forefront of National Water Policy?

While all eyes were on the presidential election last fall, the US Congress quickly—and rather unceremoniously—approved legislation that will shape the face of US water policy for years to come. On 3 October, then President George Bush signed into law the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact (S.J. Res. 45). Although federal passage was swift, the compact itself was nearly a decade in the making, and it represents significant progress in how the Great Lakes are managed. In turn, the compact sets the stage for the future of water policy in the United States.

Accounting for 84 percent of the surface freshwater in North America, the Laurentian Great Lakes represent one-fifth of the world's freshwater supply. Management of the lakes, with their more than 17,000 kilometers of shoreline, has always been complex. Two countries, eight US states, two Canadian provinces, 40 tribal nations, and numerous metropolitan areas, counties, and local governments in the Great Lakes basin share governance of the lakes. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that within the US federal government alone, 10 agencies administer 140 programs related to the lakes.

The recently approved compact will provide a comprehensive management framework for the Great Lakes. While the compact deals with a large number of issues—conservation and economic development among them—perhaps the diversion of Great Lakes water is the most significant. Proposals to remove or divert water from the Great Lakes have emerged periodically since the 1980s. The original proposals were to transport Great Lakes water through pipelines or other means to the "thirsty West." These proposals resulted in the Great Lakes Charter, a good faith agreement signed by states and provinces around the Great Lakes, which requires that, among other things, a governor or premier give notice and consult on removals of water averaging more than 5 million gallons per day in any 30-day period. In 1986, Congress codified a slightly modified version of the charter through the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA).

But in 1998, the holes in the charter and the WRDA provision were exposed as the Far East set its eyes on Great Lakes water. The Nova Group applied for and received a permit from the Ontario Ministry of the Environment to withdraw 160 million gallons per year of water from Lake Superior for transport and sale to Asia. The permit was legal because the amount of water was less than 5 million gallons per day, on average, over any 30-day period, and since the proposal was made to the Canadian federal government, the protections under the Great Lakes Charter and WRDA did not apply.

Although that plan was greeted by a public outcry and scuttled, the governors and premiers set about crafting more solid protections for the Great Lakes. The end result of those negotiations is the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact. According to Noah Hall, assistant professor of law at Wayne State University and executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, the compact's protections against diversion are tight: "[It] does everything possible under domestic law to guard against Great Lakes water exports." As water supplies become more limited across the nation, other water basins may look to the compact as a model for protection. Hall notes that some other interstate compacts already ban diversions out of the watershed, and he expects more to do so as water pressures and conflicts grow. Indeed, western interest in water diversion projects refuses to be quelled. In January 2009, Pat Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, suggested that floodwater from the Mississippi River be diverted to the West.

With watertight protections against large-scale export and diversion in place, Great Lakes advocates are pressing forward with other items on their legislative agenda, such as cleaning up contaminated sediments and battling invasive species. They see great opportunity with the Obama administration in place. After all, the Great Lakes states awarded all of their 141 electoral votes to the former senator from Illinois and Great Lakes Congressional Task Force member. Tim Eder, director of the Great Lakes Commission, writes that President Obama "can make solid progress in protecting the nation's most valuable freshwater resource, while investing in regional economic growth." And in fact, the Obama administration has already signaled that the Great Lakes will play a key role in the nation's water policy. Speaking at the semi-annual meeting of the Great Lakes Commission, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said, "As the Great Lakes go, so goes the national policy as to water."

Adrienne Froelich Sponberg (e-mail: sponberg@aslo.org) is the director of public affairs and coeditor of the Limnology and Oceanography Bulletin for the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography.

BioScience 59: 372
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.5.4

Grand Theories: How Far Have We Come and Where Will We Go?

President Obama's call for science to be "restored to its proper place" excites science policy advocates. Science, it appears, may play an important role in informing societal decisions and restarting the country's economic engines. Lawmakers heeded his call during the construction of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: upon passage, the act included more than $17 billion for scientific research and infrastructure, intended in part to "secure America's role as a world leader in a competitive global economy...[by] renewing America's investments in basic research and development."

But can these investments spur the innovations necessary for the country to find good alternatives to fossil fuels, help stem climate change, and lead the world in finding solutions to other catastrophic problems? It depends. Innovation comes from transformative, integrative, and often risky research, say influential reports from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Research Council (NRC), among others. The question is, then, has such transformative, integrative, and risky research become part of the culture and practice of biologists?

Over the course of most of the 20th century, biology research became increasingly reductionist and compartmentalized, with little exchange of ideas and information between the field's subdisciplines. In the 1990s, however, the growth of interdisciplinary collaborations and advances in technology led to the concept of integrative biology, an approach to studying biological systems by integrating perspectives and insights from various disciplines. As the concept caught on, more than a few departments of biology across the country renamed themselves departments of integrative biology. Despite the buzz, science commentators note, relatively few researchers employ a truly integrative approach. Marvalee Wake, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, attributes the problem to inadequate definition: "The term means different things to different scientists." To make further progress will require "changing the paradigm of graduate student training, development of shared facilities, and changing attitudes about the nature of expertise," Wake says. Nevertheless, she adds, "the general concept is taking hold as it becomes ever clearer that complex questions require not just diverse expertise, but new approaches."

In an effort to stimulate those new integrative approaches, the NRC published The Role of Theory in Advancing 21st-Century Biology: Catalyzing Transformative Research. The study points out that many principles in the theory-rich discipline of biology—such as evolution—blur disciplinary boundaries, and it encourages biologists in all subdisciplines to "examine the theoretical and conceptual framework that underlies their work and identify areas where theoretical advances would most likely lead to breakthroughs in our understanding of life." After the report's publication in 2008, the NSF launched "Advancing Theory in Biology" (ATB), an initiative to develop new theoretical approaches to "improve our understanding of fundamental biological principles that integrate phenomena across levels of biological organization."

A year into the ATB program, it is fair to ask whether the initiative has yielded any grand biological theories. Judging from the number of grant proposals, it would appear that the idea of grand biological theories has not yet fully caught on, according to Saran Twombly, an ATB program director. Sixty-eight grant proposals were received in 2008, many of them from chemists and physicists who wanted to use theories from their fields to transform biology; fewer proposals came from biologists. Many applicants apparently failed to understand that the mission was to develop grand theories from studies that cut across disparate fields of biological inquiry, not from studies across biology and other physical sciences. "We've made a generation of biologists [who] think that the answer is to collect facts, but...the power of theory is that it can tell us much more than facts can tell us," Twombly said.

The research funded by ATB is necessarily innovative and therefore risky, which may be another reason for biologists' slow response to the program. Researchers have long believed that mainstream projects—the ones promising results rather than risk—are the ones that get funded. And because funding for NSF's Biological Sciences Directorate has been stagnant, Twombly suggests, "program officers have been extremely conservative in who they fund," thereby trying to ensure the most bang per buck of funding.

The ATB program accepted its last round of applicants in February 2009, which Twombly finds "unfortunate, because it seems that momentum is finally gaining for integrative approaches to studying biology and the biological science." However, NSF officials hope that the federal stimulus package may provide resources to fund more worthy proposals, and thus help biology transform itself and the economy.

BioScience 59: 286
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.4.6

US Struggles to Clear Up Confusion Left in the Wake of Rapanos

For two decades, Michigan developer John Rapanos battled the US government over the extent of protection for wetlands and streams under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Now, more than two years after the Supreme Court issued its 4-1-4 split decision, Rapanos and the government have reached a settlement: Rapanos will pay a $150,000 civil fine and about $750,000 more to mitigate 54 acres of wetlands that were filled without authorization. While Rapanos may finally have some closure, confusion over CWA protections remains, leaving all three branches of the federal government struggling to provide clarity for CWA implementation and enforcement.

The main source of confusion? The three opinions the Supreme Court issued in the Rapanos case set forth different tests for whether a body of water is protected. Lower courts have interpreted the Rapanos decision inconsistently. Some circuit courts have cited Justice Kennedy's "significant nexus" test as the controlling law; others have employed Justice Scalia's stricter interpretation in the plurality opinion: waters must be continuously flowing and have a surface connection to navigable waters. These conflicting jurisdictional tests led the Department of Justice (DOJ) to petition the Supreme Court for a clarification of Rapanos. In arguing for the review, the DOJ warned that confusion caused by different interpretations of Rapanos will "inevitably hinder the [government's] ability to implement the Act in a uniform and workable fashion." Nevertheless, the Supreme Court denied the DOJ's request.

The Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the executive agencies tasked with enforcing the CWA, attempted to interpret the ruling through joint guidance in June 2007. Stakeholders on all sides of the argument, as well as agency officials themselves, criticized that effort. EPA's assistant administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance, Granta Nakayama, wrote to EPA's assistant administrator for water in March 2008, describing the negative impact the guidance has had on the EPA's ability to enforce the CWA. Nakayama identified the "implied presumption of nonjurisdiction" for intermittent and ephemeral tributaries—which make up 95% of stream channels in the United States—as the largest burden to the agency, since the only way around it is to conduct a time- and resource-intensive "significant nexus analysis," in keeping with Justice Kennedy's opinion. As a result of the guidance, over a 17-month period more than 500 enforcement cases were lost in court, not pursued, or lowered in priority. Given the normal caseload for these violations, Nakayama concluded that "there has been a significant impact on enforcement."

Nakayama's letter came to light as part of a joint investigation by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Findings from the investigation, released in December 2008, concluded that enforcement of the CWA has been "decimated over the past two years." In poring over more than 20,000 pages of documents provided by EPA and the Corps of Engineers, congressional committee staff members found that EPA field offices were "warning that they are no longer able to ensure the safety and health of the nation's waters." In addition to the diminution of enforcement, the guidance has resulted in a greater workload and lower morale for staff at the agencies. Representative Henry Waxman (D–CA), then chair of the oversight committee, expressed frustration with the results of the investigation: "We need vigorous enforcement to protect our nation's waters, but instead, hundreds of potential violations are being ignored."

The Corps of Engineers and the EPA issued revised guidance for permitting under the CWA two days after the Supreme Court's refusal to clarify the Rapanos decision. Stakeholders were not impressed with the new guidance, either, calling it more of the same and evidence that the legislative branch would need to step into the fray. "The confusion that stemmed from the original guidance and that will continue to hamper landowners and local officials reinforces the need to accomplish protection for the nation's waters through congressional action," said Scott Yaich, director of conservation operations for Ducks Unlimited.

Conservation groups are hoping that the Obama administration and Congress will deliver new guidance to resolve the confusion left in the wake of Rapanos. Environmental groups are pinning their hopes on the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, which has been introduced in each of the last four sessions of Congress. The legislation was the subject of several hearings in the last Congress, but it failed to progress in committee. Greenwire reports that environmental groups believe the legislation has a good chance in the 111th Congress.

Adrienne Froelich Sponberg (e-mail: sponberg@aslo.org) is the director of public affairs at the American Society of Limnology and Oceanography.

BioScience 59: 206
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.3.4

On Moral Grounds: Bioethics Training for Scientists

The philosophical exploration of ethical concerns in the life sciences—"bioethics"—has focused largely on research protocols involving research subjects in medical studies. Now, however, the application of biotechnology to environmental problems is triggering ethical questions.

Today's scientists confront this question: "Can an understanding of climatic processes associated with global warming help us understand the sociological implications of how humans relate to the natural world?" They must also deal with other such questions that are outside the traditional framework of human/medical bioethics but pertinent to the growing interdisciplinary applications of the natural sciences to the solution of environmental problems. Holmes Rolston, at Colorado State University, says buzzwords in bioethics now include "sustainability, biodiversity, global warming, and intrinsic values in nature." What are the implications of these and other topics for training scientists in contemporary ethics for research outside human health and medical programs?

In 1998, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) established the World Commission on Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST) to "formulate, on a scientific basis, ethical principles that can shed light on the various choices and impacts occasioned by new advancements in scientific and technological fields." Topics of discussion at their November 2008 conference included the ethics of climate change, science outside of medicine, and nanotechnology, as well as the ethical dimensions of the information society. COMEST has also set up the Ethics Education Programme, which is focused on training teachers in bioethics; 108 of these teaching modules have been established around the world, although none has yet been used in the United States.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), through the Fogarty International Center, offers funding opportunities for organizations and institutions to expand graduate training in bioethics in developing countries. In November 2008, Indiana University was awarded a grant to partner with Moi University in Kenya to develop parallel master's degree programs in bioethics.

Independent of international funding efforts, individual universities and education groups are providing opportunities for bioethics training. The University of Verona, Italy, offers a bioethics course for graduate students enrolled in agricultural biotechnology. The UK science syllabus dictating curriculum requirements for students ages 11 to 18 now includes a bioethics training component. UK policymakers recently established two programs—the Bioethics Education Project and the Physics and Ethics Education Project—to train teachers to teach ethics in the sciences.

Within the United States, several organizations focus on bioethics in human medicine, but fewer organizations and institutional frameworks exist to address ethical concerns outside the health sciences. The NIH and the National Science Foundation (NSF) recommend that bioethics training be a component of their research awards. The NSF has funded the University of Pennsylvania's Jackson Laboratory to provide bioethics training to high school students and college students participating in summer research programs at the laboratory.

A 2001 survey conducted by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities found that most graduate training programs in bioethics were housed in schools' medicine or philosophy departments. For example, the Alden March Bioethics Institute, which offers graduate training in bioethics, is housed within Albany Medical College in New York. Many universities offer majors and minors in bioethics, and a growing number of students are pursuing advanced degrees in bioethics, according to a study published in Nature Biotechnology. These advanced degree programs offer classes ranging from medical ethics to environmental ethics and ethical reasoning courses. Often the interests of faculty members in these programs guide the design of the curricula.

Universities are taking other steps to incorporate bioethics training in their programs. Iowa State University's graduate programs in bioinformatics and in computational biology require students to participate in the Scientific Ethics Workshop and to take at least one course in bioethics. In the workshop, students discuss scientific misconduct, ethics in research, and related topics aimed at helping them become ethically responsible scientists. The University of Chicago offers a course on ethics and public policy in the Harris School of Public Policy. Stanford University requires life science graduate students to enroll in a course on "responsible conduct of research."

Whether requiring training in bioethics will produce the desired results, however, is not yet clear. David Magnus, a Stanford University professor and associate editor of the American Journal of Bioethics, comments: "I'm not sure that courses are the best way to really address key issues,...partly because many issues that arise are specific to a field or even a research project. In addition, the data on 'misbehavior' seem to indicate that courses have only a very limited impact on people's behavior."

Natalie Dawson (e-mail: natstracks@gmail.com) is a freelance writer based in Anchorage, Alaska.

BioScience 59: 112
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.2.4

Nothing Average about Change

On 4 November 2008, a long, expensive, and unprecedented general election finally concluded. By the next morning, one would have been hard-pressed to find a field biologist even in the most remote locale who had not learned of the historically significant election result: Barack Obama had been elected the nation's 44th president. Yet the outcome of the presidential race was only part of the November news. A steadily worsening economy and significant election wins for Democratic candidates for the US House and Senate garnered headlines and refocused the nation's political and public policy priorities.

As the economy continued its downturn after the November election, historians, political analysts, and other professional and amateur Washington, DC, pundits drew parallels between the conditions facing Barack Obama and those of the Great Depression era that occupied Franklin D. Roosevelt. Clearly, the combination of geopolitical instability (i.e., wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) and an economic recession presents great challenges to President-elect Obama and to the new 111th Congress, which must work to reach compromise on significant legislative initiatives while holding together a Democratic majority that is untested and susceptible to fragmentation on some issues.

Within this context, science policy advocates are waiting to see the extent to which the Obama administration will reverse the unpopular science policies of the Bush administration, and the degree to which scientific research and workforce issues will be wrapped into policy proposals intended to stop the nation's economic hemorrhaging and stimulate economic recovery.

Although most policy analysts concede that stabilizing the economy must be a core priority for the next president and Congress, other science, environmental, and health policy advocates remain hopeful that a litany of what are now less-headline-grabbing issues will receive prompt attention.

As George Daley, a past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, told Dan Childs of ABC News, "We are hopeful that removing restrictions on funding for stem cells will be one of the first acts of the Obama presidency." David Bookbinder, a Sierra Club attorney involved with the group's legal case on global warming, said that he likes what he sees in Obama's transition team appointments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "These [appointments] are very promising signs of what the next EPA will look like," Bookbinder commented.

Applied science policy is not the only area in which policy wonks are awaiting action. As reported in the October 2008 "Washington Watch" column, a long, distinguished, bipartisan list of former presidential science advisers and senior administration officials issued a preelection report to the candidates, calling for them to restore the role and influence of the presidential science adviser. From the campaign trail, candidate Obama pledged to return the post to cabinet rank and designate the adviser's title "assistant to the president for science and technology," which is comparable to a department secretary or the national security adviser—a status and rank last held by President Clinton's science adviser Neal Lane.

"I think it's a new day for science in America," said Shawn Otto, chief executive officer of Science Debate 2008. "At last we're going to see a return to policy that's crafted on evidence."

Filling senior science posts sooner rather then later may be instrumental to solving myriad major policy issues, including economic stimulus packages, government-backed investments in industrial sectors, investments in our infrastructure, and environmental and health policy—the counsel of scientists, engineers, and mathematicians would be useful in all of these areas.

"Investments in infrastructure seem like a very good idea, and that could mean physical infrastructure," said former Clinton adviser Lane. "But it could also mean human infrastructure, scientific and technological infrastructure. You'd like someone in the White House who's thinking through all this, and a science adviser could be very helpful if he or she were on tap—even between now and Inauguration Day."

This election cycle drew the participation of the scientific community and led to the establishment of high-profile strategic organizations, such as Science Debate 2008 and Scientists and Engineers for America, that pressed for a national discussion of science policy. Moreover, there are now a significant number of scientists—at least people whose prepolitics professions were in some way grounded in science--in the halls of Congress. A rough tally by Scientists and Engineers for America found 49 members of the House and Senate with an undergraduate or graduate degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) or STEM-related field.

Arguably, the newly organized scientific community and these members of Congress are now positioned to work to ensure that this and future presidential administrations have proper mechanisms to secure timely and reliable scientific advice.

Robert Gropp (e-mail: rgr...@aibs.org) is director of the AIBS Public Policy Office.

BioScience 59: 16
doi:10.1525/bio.2009.59.1.5

The Cost of Conservation: The National Wildlife Refuge System

More than a century ago, the federal government established the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) to conserve fish, wildlife, and plants, as well as their habitats; today the NWRS manages more than 40 million hectares of federal land on 548 individual refuges. However, several reports warn that the system lacks the financial and personnel resources—including biologists—necessary for carrying out its mission effectively.

A report prepared for the NWRS by Management Systems International (MSI), an international development firm, determined that three core NWRS operations have been severely affected by declining funding: (1) law enforcement, (2) the pace of realty acquisition, and (3) biological surveys and monitoring. MSI also determined that the NWRS has failed to meet some of its own strategic goals, largely because of an 11 percent decline in real purchasing power between 2002 and 2007. A $36 million boost in funding for fiscal year 2008 partly offset the decline, but the problem is resurfacing: appropriations for FY 2009 show little promise of increased funding for refuges.

Addressing NWRS funding at a recent congressional hearing, Noah Matson, of Defenders of Wildlife, said, "The Refuge System now needs an additional $20 million each year simply to pay its staff, put gas in the trucks, and keep the lights on."

The needs of NWRS go beyond paying the electric bill. According to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), visitor and habitat management services are of unequal quality across the refuge system. At underfunded refuges, between 7 and 20 percent of habitats were in poor condition in 2007. "Insufficient resources to hire and retain full time staff and conduct management activities in visitor services has forced the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to scale back core operations," said Delegate Madeleine Bordallo (D–Guam), of the House Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, and Oceans, during a September 2008 hearing on the status of the NWRS. James Kurth, acting assistant director of the NWRS, explained to the subcommittee, "If budgets do not keep pace with increasing costs, we focus our resources on the highest priority areas."

The NWRS has prioritized by establishing a strategic workforce plan. The upshot has been a net loss of jobs—the GAO reported that permanent employee numbers for 2007 were 7.5 percent below peak levels. The reduction in staff has impaired the ability of the NWRS to meet objectives, with MSI reporting that 84 percent of refuge managers feel that they do not have enough people on board to meet their core conservation mission.

Staff cuts have not been equal across functions. The refuge system's Strategic Workforce Planning Report, released in June 2008, notes that between 2001 and 2006, the number of permanent employees in Wildlife and Habitat Management decreased by 4 percent (34 positions), while other divisions such as fire and law enforcement increased their workforces, reflecting current NWRS priorities. The report further states, "The reduction in Wildlife and Habitat Management is somewhat surprising as this function is a key component of carrying out work on the ground and achieving Refuge System goals."

In a program that prides itself on the motto "Wildlife first," the loss of staff biologists has slowed work, and wildlife inventory and monitoring has consequently declined. MSI reports that "only 11% of refuge managers surveyed described the current level of inventory and monitoring work as being mostly or fully sufficient." In addition, 41 percent of refuge managers state that there is less monitoring occurring now than five years ago. Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt warns, "You can't manage a refuge if you don't know what wildlife and habitat is present or how wildlife and habitat is responding to management and external threats." MSI's recommendation is simple: hire additional biologists.

The GAO notes that external threats to the integrity of the system are growing. Severe weather, climate change, invasive species, development, and habitat fragmentation are all issues that raise the cost of running the system. Kurth stated at the 2008 House committee hearing that the preliminary estimate of damages from Hurricane Ike to refuges on the Texas coast is $250 million. That is no small drop in the bucket for a system whose operations and maintenance budget for FY 2008 was $434 million. Delegate Bordallo cautions that "the Refuge System has reached a tipping point where it faces an uncertain future." Whether the new administration in the White House and a newly constituted Congress will tip the scales in favor of the NWRS remains to be seen.

Sarah A. Smiley, of the Department of Biology at the University of South Florida, is the 2008 AIBS/American Society of Mammalogists graduate student science policy fellow.

BioScience 58: 1014
doi:10.1641/B581104

The Sound of Silence at the Environmental Protection Agency

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was created on 2 December 1970 to "establish and enforce environmental protection standards, conduct environmental research, provide support to others combating environmental pollution, and assist the White House Council on Environmental Quality in developing and recommending to the President new policies for environmental protection." In its early years, the EPA made sweeping changes to improve the environment and health of the United States and its citizens. In the 1970s, the EPA, among numerous other accomplishments, banned the use of DDT, set the first national standards limiting industrial water pollution, and banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons in most aerosol cans.

Yet 38 years after the inception of the agency, its funding and morale have undergone severe declines, and its administrator has been accused of allowing partisan politics to overshadow science. Some interested observers go so far as to say that instead of the EPA advising the president, the White House is advising the EPA.

Gag orders and a decided lack of response to staff proposals for regulating emissions are at least in part behind the plummeting morale. EPA administrator Stephen L. Johnson, in particular, has come in for harsh criticism: former EPA scientist Evaggelos G. Vallianatos wrote in an editorial in Nature on 6 March: "Listing examples of alleged bad faith by Johnson, the unions [representing EPA staff] essentially refused to work with him until he cleans up his act." And in June, Robbi Farrell, head of the EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA), issued an e-mail message instructing managers to remind their employees not to speak with the agency's Office of Inspector General or the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

Nevertheless, some EPA scientists are speaking up. On 17 July, despite the Bush administration's decision not to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, the EPA released a new report, Analyses of the Effects of Global Change on Human Health and Welfare and Human Systems. The report found it "very likely" that more people will die in coming years because of climate change. It further warned of greater dangers from hurricanes, dwindling water supplies, and increased food- and waterborne diseases. Prepared under the EPA's leadership, the report was released by the US Climate Change Science Program.

"If you read between the lines, this EPA report on the health effects of climate change provides further evidence that our families and communities are seriously endangered by global warming, and that we must act now," said Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (EPW).

After the report's release, a group of EPA employees sent a letter to Administrator Johnson expressing their disapproval and disappointment over the agency's decision in July to delay federal action on greenhouse gas emissions, and over Johnson's public refusal of staff proposals for regulating emissions. Senator Boxer also publicly criticized numerous recent EPA decisions made during Johnson's tenure. In sharp contrast to the accomplishments made by the EPA to protect the health of the American people in the 1970s and 1980s, Senator Boxer said, "Mr. Johnson has consistently chosen special interests over the American people's interests in protecting health and safety. He has become a secretive and dangerous ally of polluters, and we cannot stand by and allow more damage to be done." Johnson has refused to appear before the EPW committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding White House interference with the EPA.

President Bush invoked executive privilege in June in order to withhold documents from a congressional investigation into whether Johnson was pressured by the White House to weaken a decision on greenhouse gases and smog. Johnson also claimed executive privilege when he was asked to provide testimony to the Senate EPW committee.

The EPA's problems go beyond the administration's alleged tampering in regulatory matters, note some science policy experts. The agency's budget has declined over the past six fiscal years, and so too have the budgets for the scientific research programs administered through the EPA's Office of Research and Development. The steadily diminishing budgets have not gone unnoticed by the EPA Science Advisory Board, which has repeatedly asked Administrator Johnson to revitalize ecosystem research and put more resources--financial and otherwise--into ecological research. M. Granger Morgan, chair of the Science Advisory Board, wrote to Johnson in March 2006 expressing concerns about funding declines and "systematic bias against ecosystem research," stating that ecosystem research at the EPA had "sustained a decrease of nearly 26 percent since 2004." Morgan said the board was distressed that funding has been cut and work has declined.

What does the future hold for the EPA? Regardless of the outcome of the 2008 US presidential election, it is difficult to see how the EPA can fulfill its mission to protect environmental quality and human health unless its scientists are allowed to work free of political interference, and its budgets are sufficient to support that work.

Megan Debranski Kelhart is with the AIBS Public Policy Office.

BioScience58: 924
doi:10.1641/B581005

Science Advice for the Next President

Next month, voters will choose the next president of the United States. Whether they elect Senator Obama or Senator McCain, the president's responses in coming years to national and global problems and opportunities will require access to scientific and technical expertise. Science and technology (S&T) policy organizations are thus working to provide recommendations and advice to both campaigns as they are undoubtedly already considering candidates for senior administration posts.

Many scientists believe that the current Bush administration has marginalized or ignored science. "I think many people feel that science has been politicized...especially in the areas of climate change, stem cells, and energy," said Samuel M. Rankin III, associate executive director of the American Mathematical Society. What science and public policy organizations are therefore attempting to communicate to Senators McCain and Obama is that S&T must be elevated in the next administration, and S&T knowledge must be considered—in a visible way—in the policymaking process. Some organizations want the next president to make the selection of a science adviser a high priority—indeed, to nominate their choice for Senate confirmation within months of the election.

As former Indiana representative Lee H. Hamilton said: "There is a need to strengthen the relationship between scientists and policymakers. I can't overstate the importance of strengthening the dialogue." Hamilton now directs the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. The Wilson Center is among the organizations working to provide guidance to the next president. Earlier this year, the center gave each presidential campaign Critical Upgrade: Enhanced Capacity for White House Science and Technology Policymaking, a 28-page report summarizing the reasons for a strong White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and a robust scientific advisory process.

Informed by interviews and comments from past presidential science advisers, senior White House personnel, and others involved with Democratic and Republican administrations, Critical Upgrade articulates the importance of S&T to the nation. It also reminds the next president that in fiscal year 2008, federal investments in S&T research and development were roughly $142 billion. To strategically and efficiently manage this investment, set priorities, and provide resources and policy to address our most pressing challenges, Critical Upgrade argues that the White House's S&T policymaking capacity must be enhanced. For the president to deal effectively with key issues—from energy and the environment to national security and the ability of the United States to compete and collaborate internationally—a robust S&T advisory structure through the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy is essential.

Critical Upgrade makes several important recommendations: (a) the next president should quickly appoint an assistant to the president for science and technology policy, a nationally respected leader who will serve at the cabinet level; (b) the Office of Science and Technology Policy should be funded adequately, staffed fully, and integrated closely with other policymaking bodies within the White House; and (c) robust mechanisms should be established and maintained to obtain expert and timely advice.

Rankin agrees with much of the report. "One thing that is apparent is that many former science advisers are available to share their expertise and counsel," he said.

Many science policy advocates in Washington, DC, further note the importance of quick and respected appointments to senior S&T positions. One long-time science-policy watcher reflected on President George W. Bush's commitment to S&T research and development: "This administration did not show any support for science until the second term when ACI [American Competitiveness Initiative] was introduced. I believe that this happened because of pressure from industry." Some attribute this scramble to the phlegmatic pace with which senior S&T officials were appointed during Bush's first term.

Rankin and others assert that a quick appointment of a respected science adviser could lay the groundwork for a steady and strategic federal science policy. A case study for how a strong science adviser could shape policy can be drawn from testimony Rankin gave to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee earlier this year. He said that the United States must make adequate yearly investments in research, and these investments must be stable over the long term. "Dependable increases allow for planning, infrastructure development, feasible expectations, a manageable pipeline of graduate and postdoctoral students," Rankin said. Current budgeting practices jeopardize jobs and opportunities for researchers, and have a tendency to create imbalances in the US science portfolio.

The new president will be sworn into office in January 2009. The S&T community will be watching closely to see whether rhetorical flourishes about the importance of science to public policy decisionmaking translate into a prominent place at the table for science in the next White House.

Robert E. Gropp (e-mail: rgr...@aibs.org) is director of the AIBS Public Policy Office.

BioScience 58: 798
doi:10.1641/B590906

Sweating the Small Stuff: Environmental Risk and Nanotechnology

Nanoscience, or nanotechnology, is science or technology that creates functional materials from atomic particles. Once considered to be little more than science fiction, nanotechnology is now a well-established field, as evidenced by various new journals and federally funded research programs, as well as myriad new products ranging from industrial materials to cosmetics. According to the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN), more than $60 billion in nanorelated products were sold in 2007, and this number could more than double by the end of 2008. Estimates are that by 2014, more than 15 percent of all products on the global market will have some kind of nanotechnology incorporated into their manufacturing process. This technology boom raises an important question: what is being done to address the environmental risks associated with nanotechnology?

As companies, federal laboratories, and international unions call for more research funding for nanotechnology, emerging scientific investigations into the effects of nanorelated materials on the environment and human health reveal potential problems with the new, largely unregulated technology. Anthropogenically manipulated nanoparticles, the basic unit for many advancing technologies, are deemed “more chemically reactive than their ordinary-sized counterparts,” according to PEN. Scientists at the University of Florida have identified potential pathways for engineered nanoparticles that carry mercury into natural systems, and a recent review of potential environmental risks associated with emerging nanotechnologies (Journal of Environmental Monitoring 10: 291–300, 2008) pointed to the potential bioaccumulation of particles in natural systems via wastewater and runoff. In April, the Department of Defense released a memorandum to its researchers that voiced the agency’s concerns regarding nanotechnology, “especially while no current set of standards exists to fully evaluate the environment, safety and occupational health risks.” A May 2008 study published in Nature Nanotechnology examined carbon nanotubes, one of the first usable nanotechnologies, and found their structure to be similar to that of asbestos—a known carcinogen.

Federal oversight of nanotechnology is minimal. Individual cities, states, and companies within the United States have begun to regulate nanotech operations in the absence of federal oversight. Berkeley, California, now requires all nanotech companies and university laboratories to report how they are dealing with waste products from their activities. California, Massachusettes, and Wisconsin are working to establish voluntary registry programs for organizations that work with nanotechnology. DuPont has teamed with the Environmental Defense Fund to establish standards in nanotechnology that minimize environmental and human health risks. In a recent report dealing with these “bottom-up” approaches, PEN director David Rejeski stated: “In the absence of substantial and timely federal government activity in this area, industry is left without clear guidance and exposed to downstream liabilities and potential public backlash. State and local governments can fill this gap.” Many entities hope that such bottom-up approaches will spur more comprehensive federal action and, as the PEN report states, “pave the way for more effective federal oversight.”

Federal funding requests for specific research projects to analyze nanotechnology and potential environmental consequences have been sluggish and few. Moreover, some federal funds that were intended for environmental assessments of nanotechnology have been reprogrammed for other programs, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is hosting a conference in October to explore international nanotechnology issues as part of a strategic plan developed by EPA’s Office of Research and Development, National Center for Environmental Research, and the Ecological Exposure Research Division to “address potential gaps in research and international collaborations,” said Nora Savage, the lead in the EPA’s internal effort to develop a nanotech research strategy. Although the US Geological Survey (USGS) has individual research projects involving nanotechnology, it has not yet made formal requests to Congress for funding for nanotech risk-assessment research. “But there are many programs interested in these research questions,” noted Sarah Gerould, program coordinator for the USGS Contaminant Biology Program, and “unfortunately, many of these programs are seeing funding cuts. Our program has lost about half of its spending power over the last eight years.”

In response to these concerns, the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) Amendments Act (HR 5940) was introduced in the House of Representatives in May 2008. The legislation is intended to direct more funding under nanotechnology programs for environmental, health, and safety research, as well as to require regulatory agencies such as the EPA to assist in reviewing and recommending actions regarding nanotechnology. The NNI would receive $1.49 billion for additional research and development in the proposed fiscal 2009 budget, of which $76 million is directed toward environmental, health, and safety research.

Natalie G. Dawson (e-mail: ndawson@unm.edu), a freelance writer, is a doctoral student at the University of New Mexico.

BioScience 58: 690
doi:10.1641/B580805

A New Farm Bill, Research Structure at USDA

The significant challenges facing national food, fiber, and bioenergy systems call for a robust agricultural research system, whether for addressing food safety, security, and availability; thwarting disruptions to food supplies; or managing agricultural and natural resource systems. The federal framework supporting the agricultural research infrastructure was recently changed in an effort to meet those challenges.

The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (also known simply as the Farm Bill, or PL 110-234) is a more than $300 billion response to the range of issues concerning agricultural systems, including research. The new law aims to streamline and boost funding to "ensure the technological superiority of American agriculture," according to the USDA Research, Education, and Economics Task Force appointed by the secretary of agriculture in 2003 at the request of Congress.

Upon passage of the bipartisan measure, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-MN) and ranking member Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) jointly stated, "While no one got everything they wanted in this Farm Bill, we struck a balance that meets the pressing needs of working American families struggling with high food prices and that supports America's farmers and ranchers as they continue to provide a safe, abundant, homegrown supply of food and fiber while protecting our natural resources and developing new sources of renewable energy."

Ian Maw, vice president of food, agriculture, and natural resources at the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, echoed the sentiments of congressional leaders. "We view this as a real win," Maw told Science magazine.

According to Representative Peterson, the Farm Bill will "reinvigorate national investment in agricultural research by creating NIFA [National Institute of Food and Agriculture], address the growing list of needs in agricultural research, extension and education for food and agricultural sciences, and increase research for renewable fuels, feed stocks and energy efficiency."

NIFA's establishment sets in motion the recommendations of the USDA Research, Education, and Economics Task Force. After reviewing the purpose, efficiency, and effectiveness of the Agricultural Research Service, the task force called for the creation of one or more national research institutions. The mission the task force envisioned for NIFA was "to support the highest caliber of fundamental agricultural research in order to, among other things, increase the international competitiveness of American agriculture; improve food safety and food security by protecting American plants and animals from insects, diseases, and the threat of bioterrorism; enhance agricultural sustainability and improve the environment; decrease American dependence on foreign sources of petroleum by developing bio-based fuels and materials from plants; and strengthen national security by improving the agricultural productivity of subsistence farmers in developing countries to combat hunger and the political instability it produces."

The task force modeled NIFA on the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, recommending that "NIFA should accomplish its mission by awarding competitive peer-reviewed grants that support and promote the very highest caliber of fundamental agricultural research." NIFA replaces the USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service. The head of NIFA will be "a distinguished scientist" appointed by the president for a six-year term on the basis of recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, a mechanism intended to ensure that the agency serves science rather than political interests.

NIFA will house what some describe as the United States' premier agricultural research program, the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). AFRI will provide competitive grants to colleges and universities, agricultural experiment stations, and other organizations conducting research in priority areas. Authorized at $700 million per fiscal year, the AFRI budget is $200 million more than the authorization for the National Research Initiative (NRI), the extramural, competitive grants program it is replacing. However, the NRI budget currently receives only $180 million each year.

Megan Debranski Kelhart is with the AIBS Public Policy Office.

BioScience 58: 586
doi:10.1641/B580705

Shale Oil: Alternative Energy or Environmental Degradation?

In the continuing quest to diminish US dependence on foreign oil, in 2005 Congress passed the Energy Policy Act (EPAct), which calls for developing unconventional fuels. To fast-track the commercial development of oil shale and tar sands, the law directed the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS) for a leasing program, and to issue leasing regulations within two years thereafter. Last December the BLM released its draft EIS, endorsing a strategy to open roughly 1.9 million acres of public lands for development in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

Shale-oil development was last on the national energy scene after the 1970s Arab oil embargo, when the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Program burned through $8 billion of congressional subsidies and propelled western Colorado through a boom-and-bust economy before Congress shut the program down in 1985. “Despite all the attempts to develop a shale-oil industry in the US over the past 100 years, the fact remains that no proven method exists for efficiently removing the oil from the rock,” Bob Loucks, a former shale-oil project manager, attested at a Senate committee hearing last June.

The shale in the proposed lease lands holds an estimated 1.5 to 1.8 trillion barrels of oil. Roughly half of this is potentially recoverable, and calculations from a 2005 RAND Corporation report suggest that at a daily production rate of 5 million barrels—about 25 percent of today’s national consumption—the recoverable resources could last more than 400 years. “Such a level of production would yield considerable economic and national security benefits, primarily by causing world oil prices to be lower than what would be the case in the absence of oil shale development. As a result, consumers would pay tens of billions of dollars less for oil,” Jim Bartis, a coauthor of the RAND report, told the House Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources last April.

However, shale’s low energy density makes squeezing oil from it a Herculean task with draconian costs. “Per pound, it contains one-tenth the energy of crude oil, and one-sixth that of coal,” Colorado energy analyst Randy Udall explained. Using conventional methods, creating 25 gallons of oil would require digging a ton of rock from massive open-pit mines and cooking it in surface retorts to release the low-grade oil, which would be shipped out for refining. Shell Oil is in the early stages of researching another technology that would involve heating the shale underground for two to three years, until it reaches temperatures high enough to release the oil.

Argonne National Laboratory estimates that manufacturing a million barrels of shale oil daily could consume up to 370,000,000 cubic meters of water per year—from the already over-extended Colorado River system—necessitating considerable expansion of regional water-storage facilities. Likewise, electricity needs would be formidable. Production of a million barrels per day would require ten 1.2-gigawatt power plants and five new coal mines to feed them. Regional sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions would soar.

The EIS states that each project would heavily degrade up to 14,000 acres and require hundreds of miles of roads, pipelines, and transmission lines. Leases would displace all “incompatible” activities, such as recreation, mining, livestock grazing, and oil and gas drilling. Proposed lease lands encompass 170,000 acres with wilderness characteristics, 249 miles of perennial streams, and a vast array of plant and wildlife communities, including 14 threatened and endangered species.

The greenhouse gas costs also would be steep. Studies by energy analyst Adam Brandt at the University of California–Berkeley indicate that the full cycle of carbon emissions—from industrial processing to combustion of the finished product—would exceed those of conventional oil by 27 to 52 percent, depending on the technology used.

Although less lucrative deposits of tar sands have drawn little commercial interest, four corporations have obtained small-scale BLM leases for research and development of shale-oil technology, BLM spokesperson Heather Feeney said; none has begun on-site operations yet. (Shell’s research is taking place on private land; the Department of Energy has identified more than 3 million acres of private lands containing shale oil—many controlled by oil companies—where no shale-oil activities have yet begun.)

Conservation groups and local government officials—including the Western Governors’ Association—want to put the brakes on the leasing process until research and development efforts have run their course. Congressional funding for finalizing lease regulations was withheld from the 2008 omnibus spending bill, but draft regulations are under review by the White House Office of Management and Budget, Feeney said. “Unless the EPAct is amended, BLM is under very clear statutory direction to complete the program EIS and publish leasing regulations,” she said.

Noreen Parks (e-mail: nmparks@q.com) is a freelance science and environmental writer who lives on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula.

BioScience 58: 490
doi:10.1641/B580605

Big Bucks for Biosecurity Research--But Who's Doing What?

After 11 September 2001 and the anthrax attacks that followed, President Bush made it a government priority to protect human health and food systems from biological attack. Federal agencies have allocated billions of dollars to biological security programs and new research infrastructure across the governmental, academic, and private sectors. However, some government observers have questioned the leadership, coordination, and oversight of these activities, asking, "Are we more vulnerable to a biological attack today than we were in 2001?"

The responsibility to protect the welfare of people, plants, and animals is shared by various federal agencies. These include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service; the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); the Environmental Protection Agency; and the Department of Defense (DOD).

According to recent estimates from the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the federal government has spent $40 billion for civilian biodefense since 2001. In 2007, more than $5 billion was allocated to biodefense. A significant portion of these resources has been used to build high-containment biosafety laboratories (BSLs), specifically BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs, where scientists study the most deadly and highly contagious diseases, including Ebola, smallpox, and avian influenza. The NIH has spent more than $1 billion for new lab construction since 2001. The DHS is moving forward with plans to build a $451 million National Bio- and Agro-Defense Facility to research biological threats and countermeasures involving zoonotic diseases--those that may be transmitted from animals to humans--and foreign animal diseases. Construction is nearly complete on the DHS's National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland, on a National Interagency Biodefense Campus that has lab facilities operated by the CDC, NIH, US Department of Agriculture (USDA), and DOD.

The existence of the National Interagency Biodefense Campus suggests that the federal government recognizes the importance of scientific collaboration, coordination, and communication in addressing issues of biosecurity. Yet according to fiscal year 2009 DHS budget documents, "A comprehensive understanding of how biodefense initiatives are coordinated at various levels of government and the private sector does not exist."

Evidence pointing toward inadequate oversight amid expansive growth in the number of biosafety research laboratories emerged during an October 2007 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Keith Rhodes of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) testified that no one agency is responsible for tracking the rapidly growing number of high-containment labs (BSL-3 and BSL-4) in the academic, state, and private sectors. In fact, the GAO review revealed that even the number of BSL-3 labs--where work is done on biological agents such as anthrax and West Nile virus--remains unknown.

Whatever the number, it is growing, and as the number of laboratories grows, the number of individuals handling dangerous biological agents grows as well, as does the potential for accidents. Unchecked expansion of laboratories with little federal oversight is a recipe for disaster, contended Edward Hammond of the Sunshine Project, a now defunct nongovernmental watchdog organization. He warned Congress that "the most likely source of a bioterrorist event in the US is a US biodefense lab."

In light of these concerns, the NIH initiated a Trans-Federal Task Force on Optimizing Biosafety Oversight. The task force, cochaired by the Department of Health and Human Services and USDA, includes representatives from the agencies responsible for managing biosafety risks. According to Mary Groesch, senior adviser for science policy in the Office of the Director at the NIH, the group is working quickly to identify gaps in current biosafety oversight, lay out potential options for addressing these issues, and develop recommendations for department leadership. Strategies under consideration include the development of mandatory federal biosafety standards and the centralization of federal biosafety authority.

"The time is ripe for something to be done," says Gigi Kwik Gronvall, senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity. "Biosafety failures have been more evident in the media, and this area has lots of eyes on it. If recommendations from the task force are reasonable, nothing should block action from being taken."

Gronvall emphasizes that one must remember that the greatest danger is for the people working with the pathogens. Centralizing oversight and authority in one office may help get more resources dedicated to improving biosafety, she said. "It is more important that recommendations take a bottom-up approach, focusing more on the people and the lab safety officers who directly oversee the work."

Holly Menninger is with the AIBS Public Policy Office. Josh Smith, a graduate student policy fellow sponsored by the American Society of Mammalogists, contributed to this report.

BioScience 58: 390
doi:10.1641/B580504

Political Science

Whether in response to the "politicization" of science, or simply to ensure that public policy is informed by science, many scientists are mobilizing and becoming more active in the public policy arena. Whatever the reason, science is more prominent in the 2008 race for the presidency than it has been in other races. In December 2007, a grassroots group called Science Debate 2008 issued a public call for a presidential debate on science.

Supporters of Science Debate 2008 argue that science should be a central theme in the presidential election because the important scientific challenges facing the United States call for precise, unbiased scientific data to support policy decisions, and because the country needs to encourage scientific and technological innovation to stay competitive in the global marketplace. Others maintain that although presidential nominees should discuss climate change and energy policy, those issues are more political than scientific.

In an interview on 11 January with Ira Flatow on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday, Shawn Lawrence Otto, chief executive officer of Science Debate 2008, said, "Science and technology lie at the center of almost every major policy issue that we're facing, that we feel it deserves a debate of its own, especially since many of the candidates have not been able to articulate any kind of position about science policy."

Science Debate 2008 started with a petition signed by 11 Nobel laureates and a handful of university presidents, business leaders, and politicians. Since December, the number of signatories has grown to more than 150 American universities and organizations, representing more than 125 million people. Representatives Rush Holt (D-NJ) and Vernon Ehlers (R-MI), both of whom have advanced degrees in physics, agreed to cochair the science debate. National and international media have also taken note: Radio New Zealand, MSNBC, and Time magazine, to name just a few, have all reported on Science Debate 2008.

Gaining momentum, by February, Science Debate 2008 had established an online collection of video statements by scientists, politicians, and several former White House staff. Dozens of organizations, including AIBS, have endorsed the effort. Neal Lane, Rice University professor and science advisor to President Clinton, said in a video statement that "science and technology really do underpin everything that is important.... Science and technology research and development and innovation lead to a bright economy for the future, protecting the environment, producing the energy we're going to need, and protecting our families and children from disease." Oregon State University Distinguished Professor of Zoology Jane Lubchenco agrees: "Science affects so many aspects of our lives, it really is the key to much of our future."

Not everyone thinks that a presidential debate on science is a good idea. David J. Goldston, former staff director for the House Committee on Science under Chairman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and visiting lecturer at Harvard University, argues that having a science debate could have some unintended consequences. In the 7 February issue of Nature, he stated, "There is no reason to assume that a presidential debate on science matters would be instructive for the public or helpful to scientists." Goldston holds that candidates should discuss climate change and energy policy, but he questions whether these issues are primarily science issues, noting the "increasing tendency to conflate science questions...with policy questions." He also asks whether a political debate is the best venue for a discussion about the politicization of science.

Roger Pielke Jr., of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado, agrees with Goldston: "Politicians debate politics." Perhaps supporters of the science debate should focus their attention on influencing the nomination of the next presidential science adviser, or, as Goldston suggests, scientists might spend time "lobbying Capitol Hill and talking to candidates--the kind of political activity often seen as 'dirty work'--rather than leaping into the showy realm of presidential debates." Additionally, they may want to consider their next step: redirecting their fervor toward developing a list of highly qualified scientists for the position of presidential science adviser. Influencing that process may prove more advantageous than holding a science debate.

Regardless of whether there should be or will be a science debate, both sides of the argument might agree that world-renowned scientists, scientific organizations, businesses, universities, and government leaders should continue to mobilize in support of science and science policy.

BioScience 58: 296
doi:10.1641/B580404