Ducks at the Reflecting Pool in Washington, DC.
Architect of the Capitol
Midterms roil science and spending committees
Members of Congress return to work today after several weeks in recess and in the wake of Democrats’ dramatic victories in the midterm elections. The lame-duck Congress has until Dec. 11 to pass funding legislation or face a government shutdown.
House Science Committee Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) announced
she will seek to chair the committee in the next Congress. If selected, she said the committee will focus on stopping the Trump administration’s “politicization” of science. “We will build protections for federal science and innovation programs so Trump-era corruption cannot happen again,” she said.
Lofgren and every other Democrat on the committee running for reelection won their contest last week. In contrast, three Republican members are retiring, and James Gallagher (R-CA) lost his reelection bid. As of Monday morning, four races involving Republican members of the Science Committee remain too close to call. The one departure on the Democratic side is Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), who is leaving Congress this year and facing possible expulsion
from the Democratic caucus.
On the Senate Commerce Committee, the big question is whether Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) will prevail against Democrat Mary Peltola, who is currently leading him by a few hundred votes. Democrats and Republicans are both losing a few members on that committee to retirements.
On the funding front, one change to watch will be the effect of Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins’ (R-ME) loss to Democrat Troy Jackson. As chair, Collins holds considerable power over funding decisions and will play a major role in whatever funding process emerges ahead of the Dec. 11 deadline. Collins has previously pushed back on some of the Trump administration’s cuts to science agencies and changes to grantmaking.
White House issues space freedom proclamation
The White House released
a “Declaration of Freedom in Space” proclamation on Tuesday, reaffirming human space exploration as a national goal. The announcement came ahead of a weekend exposition
and air show at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. (The space agency opened
applications for Moon landing astronauts there, as well as announcing
new lunar lander missions and a rover mission.)
The White House’s election day proclamation underlined
the administration’s continued push for human space exploration, notably Moon landings. Its stated adherence to international space obligations, which would include the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, seems intended to head off any future claims
over lunar territory from China or other actors, noted
some observers. Both the US and China plan human landings on the Moon’s south pole within the next decade.
“Space is the one area that really brings people together across the electorate, across the general public, and across the Congress,” said Jack Kiraly of the Planetary Society, in a post-election briefing on space policy that discussed the proclamation. “Good to see the administration, any administration, sort of showcasing their support for the space program,” he said.
Also on our radar
- A federal judge dismissed
charges of smuggling frog embryo samples against Harvard Medical School researcher Kseniia Petrova. - A bipartisan “Congressional Office of Technology Improvement and Enhancement Act” calls
for an expert agency to advise lawmakers on new technologies and science. In 1995, Congress had defunded
a similar Office of Technology Assessment, calling its work unnecessary. - The White House cancelled
the inaugural meeting of its President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
The meeting had already been delayed
once. - Federal science agencies “are proceeding in direct contravention of Congress’s explicit instructions” by implementing a blocked OMB grant rule’s provisions, warns
a coalition of public service organizations. (Several signatories are AIP Member Societies.)
Source: www.aip.org
