Category Archives: Politics

Politics

EU may set up body in European Space Agency

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The European Union (EU) may set up a dedicated directorate within the European Space Agency (ESA) to resolve mismatches in the way the two bodies cooperate.

The option emerged as the leading contender in a report published by the European Commission on 6 February, which scoped out several scenarios for their future relationship.

The “pillar” or “chamber” would allow EU projects to be run under EU rules but from within ESA. A second route explored in the report, based largely on results of an external study by Munich-based Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, would be to improve cooperation under the status quo, with an improved interface between the two. Other options — for example to turn ESA wholesale into an EU agency — curried little favour.

The EU currently allocates around three-quarters of its space budget to ESA, making it the agency’s largest contributor. ESA already delivers dedicated EU-funded projects such as the global satellite navigation system Galileo and the Earth observation programme Copernicus.

But the two organisations run in very different ways. While ESA is under direct control of member states, the EU reports to both member states and the European Parliament. In its industrial dealings, ESA operates under a policy of juste retour that guarantees states contracts roughly proportionate to their financial contributions, while the EU goes on the principle of best value.

Nor do the two bodies have the same membership: among ESA’s members are Norway and Switzerland, with Canada also an associate. The Commission says this membership asymmetry could become a particular concern as ESA and the EU move into more defence-related activities.

The Commission laid out the case for reforming the relationship based on these asymmetries in 2012, with member state ministers also backing a change in February last year.

Ministers will discuss the findings when the Competitiveness Council meets on 21 February, with the Commission planning to further analyse the options over the coming year. Depending on the outcome — as well as dialogue with ESA — the Commission says it could produce concrete proposals towards the end of 2014 or early 2015. ESA is expected to take a decision about the evolution of the agency during its council meeting in December.

Speaking at the sixth annual Conference on EU space policy in Brussels last month, UK science minister David Willetts outlined his government’s objection to bringing ESA into the EU structure. “This suggestion has caused a lot of distraction and delay, while our competitors outside Europe focus on growth and make progress,” he says.

The EU has plans to increase its spending on space. Between 2014 and 2020, it will spend almost €12bn on funding space activities — a doubling of investment compared to the previous financial planning period.

Hollande pledges to avoid cuts to France’s science funding

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Posted on behalf of Barbara Casassus.

PARIS – French President François Hollande today promised to spare the research and higher-education budget from savings of €50 billion (US$67 billion) that his government has pledged to find over the next three years to reign in its massive public deficit.

The government will find other ways to cut the deficit, avoid tax increases and ensure business can increase investment and create jobs, he said during a visit to the University of Strasbourg.

In a speech devoted entirely to research and higher education, Hollande also said he would maintain the controversial research tax credit (CIR) because companies appreciate it and it helps attracts foreign investment.

Reacting to the speech, Dominique Guellec, head of country studies at the Science, Technology and Industry division of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), said the CIR is a good measure, but has become far too costly.

“It has failed to boost private-sector R&D spending as intended,” Guellec told Nature. “Its cost to the country is rising from €1.5 billion in 2008 to a projected €7 billion next year. But at the same time, companies have sharply reduced R&D outlays from their own resources.”

On the cash front, Hollande also pledged €2 billion ($2.71 billion) out of the €12 billion for the second Investments for the Future programme announced in July to the so-called initiatives of excellence, which are aimed to create world-class research and higher-education clusters. Eight, including Strasbourg, were created in the first round in 2011 when conservative president Nicolas Sarkozy was still in office.

Hollande added that another €1 billion would be earmarked to help regional universities boost their cooperative research and €100 million over five years would go to systems biology.

During a round table with students, Hollande floated the idea of creating a European campus in Strasbourg and said that he would raise the issue at the next Franco-German council of ministers meeting in Paris on 19 February, according to press reports.

Obama promises action and seeks a science-funding boost

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US President Barack Obama says 2014 will be a “year of action” in which he plans to use his executive authority to enact new policies, while seeking greater cooperation from the sharply divided Congress.

“I am eager to work with all of you,” Obama told lawmakers  during his State of the Union address on 28 January. “But America does not stand still — and neither will I.”

For those interested in scientific issues, this year’s speech contained few surprises. Obama did not hint at new policy priorities, as he did in 2013 when he highlighted brain-mapping research just weeks before the White House unveiled its Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. Instead, he sounded familiar themes, beginning with a plea to Congress to increase funding for scientific research and development “so we can unleash the next great American discovery.”

Declaring that “climate change is a fact,” Obama once again touted his “all-of-the-above” energy policy, which supports the development of both renewable and fossil fuel energy sources. Two of the few new proposals in tonight’s speech included Obama’s plans to propose new regulations that would allow medium- and heavy-duty trucks to run on natural gas and other alternative fuels, and a tax credit to encourage the development of infrastructure to support such vehicles.

Obama also made a brief plea for patent reform, urging Congress to limit what he said was costly and needless litigation, following a series of reforms and recommendations released in June by the White House. The House of Representatives approved a patent-reform measure in December, with White House backing, but a similar effort in the Senate has made little progress.

The president also exhorted lawmakers to revise US immigration laws, though he offered few specifics about what that would entail. The Senate approved immigration legislation last year that would, among other things, allow thousands more foreign scientists and engineers to remain in the United States permanently, but the issue stalled in the House.

Finally, a note for US political trivia buffs. One notable face was missing from the US Capitol during Obama’s address: Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, who was chosen as this year’s “designated survivor”. He sat out the speech in an undisclosed location to ensure government continuity in case of catastrophe. (Moniz, who took office in May, is the second Energy secretary in as many years to earn the honor; his predecessor, Steven Chu, skipped Obama’s 2013 address.)

UN climate talks conclude with a whimper, and a new forest policy

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After two weeks of frustration and controversy, negotiators departed the United Nations climate talks in Warsaw on Saturday with a landmark agreement on forests and a rough roadmap to the next headline summit in Paris two years hence.

Under the agreement, countries must submit by early 2015 their commitments for action after 2020, when the current commitments expire. Left to be decided at next year’s meeting in Lima, Peru, is what kind of information those plans must include and how they will be evaluated. More immediately, the agreement sets out a mechanism for reporting climate aid from developed countries, which have committed to ramp contributions up to US$100 billion annually by 2020. Negotiators also established a new international body on ‘loss and damage’ in order to help poor countries cope with climate impacts.

But the most significant achievement was an agreement on the basic framework for reducing deforestation, which is responsible for as much as 15% of global carbon emissions. The deal creates a mechanism enabling carbon payments for countries that can document reductions in deforestation and forest degradation.

Formally launched in 2007 in Bali, Indonesia, the forestry talks initially moved quickly. Developed countries saw the opportunity to cheaply offset their emissions, while developing countries in the tropics saw an opportunity to attract money for rural development. Various countries and international institutions quickly embarked on initiatives intended to lay the groundwork for a global programme, but the talks eventually stalled over how to design and fund such a system. Long-term financing for this week’s agreement still needs to be worked out, but Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States kicked things off by collectively committing $280 million to a new BioCarbon Fund.

The agreement on forest conservation was nonetheless overshadowed by a dearth of progress in other areas. For environmental and social activists, who staged a walk-out earlier this week, Warsaw kept the negotiating process alive — but only just. “The lack of urgency shown by governments in this process has been sickening,” Samantha Smith, who heads the WWF’s Global Climate and Energy Initiative out of Oslo, Norway, said in a prepared statement. “This has placed the negotiations towards a global agreement in 2015 at risk.”

US Senate goes ‘nuclear’ on delayed nominations

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The US Senate voted today to forbid a tactic that has delayed or blocked consideration of many of President Barack Obama’s nominees, including several at key science agencies.

Under the Senate’s old rules, the tactic, known as a filibuster, raised the bar to approve a nomination from a simple majority (51 votes in the 100-member Senate) to 60 votes, a mark that is often difficult to reach. After today’s vote, approval of most nominations will require only a simple majority. The change was so controversial that passing it became known as the ‘nuclear option’. (Candidates for the Supreme Court can still be filibustered.)

The decision could allow lawmakers to quickly fill science posts that have been open for months, including the top jobs at the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Geological Survey. Filibuster threats delayed the recent confirmation of Environmental Protection Agency chief Gina McCarthy for more than four months, and of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz for roughly two months.

Notable open positions at US science agencies are listed below.

Department of Energy:

  • Undersecretary for Science, open since 18 November 2011. On 18 November, Obama nominated Franklin Orr, director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University in California, for the job.
  • Director of the Office of Science, open since 12 April. On 18 November, Obama nominated Marc Kastner, dean of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, for the job.

NASA

  • Deputy administrator, open since 6 September. No one has been nominated to fill the post.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

  • Administrator, open since 28 February. On 2 August, Obama nominated the agency’s acting administrator, former astronaut Kathryn Sullivan, to officially take the job.
  • Chief scientist. The position was eliminated by President George W. Bush, but Obama has attempted to revive it. The White House nominated Scott Doney, a geochemist at the Woods Hole Institute of Oceanography in Massachusetts, in January 2010 but withdrew its request in January 2012 in the face of a long-standing filibuster threat.

National Science Foundation

US Geological Survey

  • Director, open since 15 February. No one has been nominated to fill the post.

 

GM labeling initiative likely defeated in Washington state

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Photo by MillionsAgainstMonsanto via Flickr.

Photo by MillionsAgainstMonsanto via Flickr.

Preliminary tallies suggest Washington state voters have struck down a ballot initiative to require labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods.

The vote, held 5 November, was the latest skirmish in the ongoing controversy over GM food labeling. Many other states have similar measures in the works: the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group based in Washington DC that supports labeling, lists over 20 proposed state initiatives — most wending their way through state legislatures — to either label or limit GM foods. California voters rejected a similar proposal last year.

Though the Washington state measure, called I-522, inspired some creative campaign commercials, early vote counts indicate a likely defeat, 45% in favor to 55% opposed. Those counts are incomplete, and the state will continue to accept and tally mailed-in votes postmarked by 5 November. The ‘Yes on 522’ campaign maintains that the results are too close to call; opponents of the initiative have deemed I-522 “soundly rejected“.

 

India balks during Montreal Protocol talks

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International negotiations over a proposal to regulate hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) came up short in Bangkok this week.

Two separate proposals, one by Micronesia, Morocco and the Maldives and the second by Canada, Mexico and the United States, would expand the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer to regulate HFCs, commonly used as refrigerants and in other industrial applications. HFCs were developed as ozone-friendly alternatives to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), but they double as powerful greenhouse gases.

Environmentalists reported that the idea continued to garner support at this week’s meeting, which ended today. In particular, South Africa and the larger negotiating block of African countries endorsed a call to begin formal negotiations over the HFC amendments. But many had hoped for a more concrete decision in favour of regulating HFCs this week, given the endorsement by leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) in September. India, joined by Saudi Arabia, blocked consideration of the amendments.

With China apparently on board thanks to an agreement between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping, India shouldered most of the blame. India backpedaled after signing onto the G20 commitment, although Obama and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed on 27 September to launch negotiations over the issue.

The proposal has been in the works for several years (for prior coverage, see ‘Cutting out the chemicals’ and ‘Ozone treaty could be used for greenhouse gases’). At this week’s meeting, delegates called for a technical report on HFC alternatives and a formal workshop on the issue next year.

US government shutdown to end

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The US government is set to resume full operations today after lawmakers approved new temporary spending legislation on 16 October.

Hours before Congress finished its work, President Barack Obama said that he would sign the measure as soon as he received it — an action that would officially end the shutdown that began on 1 October, sending many government employees home and halting most activity at federal agencies.

Lawmakers agreed to fund government operations through 15 January — setting the stage, perhaps, for another budget stalemate like the one that led to the 16-day shutdown.

Now it is back to work for US government scientists, most of whom had been barred from their offices and laboratories and even their government e-mail accounts during the shutdown. “Employees should expect to return to work in the morning,” according to a message distributed by the White House shortly before midnight local time in Washington DC.

The National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and other federal agencies will also resume processing grant applications, though there is no word yet whether the shutdown will delay or cancel new awards. And US government websites are expected to come back online soon, restoring researchers’ access to key databases such as the temperature information maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center and software tools such as the Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST), which is used widely in genetic research.

For more information, see Nature’s ongoing coverage of the US government shutdown and its aftermath.

Research fleet stays partly afloat

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The docks in the coastal town of Newport, Oregon, are usually bustling. Fishermen take their boats out to harvest from the bountiful Pacific Ocean, and research vessels zip back and forth beneath the arched Yaquina Bay Bridge. But these days, Newport’s harbour is pretty quiet, says Clare Reimers, an oceanographer at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

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NOAA research vessels in Newport, Oregon, in July. {credit}Alexandra Witze{/credit}

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), whose Pacific fleet is based at Newport, is now shut down, along with the rest of the US government. NOAA vessels, including the agency’s Atlantic fleet in Norfolk, Virginia, are mostly stuck at their home bases.

When the shutdown began on 1 October, some active ships were recalled to the closest port available — which was in Kodiak, Alaska, in the case of the Oscar Dyson, which lost its opportunity to pick up oceanographic research buoys in the Gulf of Alaska. NOAA’s best known research vessel, the 84-metre Ronald H. Brown, is trapped in Natal, Brazil, which it reached after completing a hydrography cruise from Iceland to Brazil.

Other research vessels are in better shape. The bulk of US academic oceanographic research is done aboard 19 ships coordinated by the University-National Oceanographic Laboratory System (UNOLS), which oversees ship scheduling among various federal agencies and university partners. UNOLS is funded through the end of December, says its executive secretary, Jon Alberts, and no scheduled cruises have been cancelled.

That includes a training cruise for early career scientists that Reimers is leading next week aboard the Endeavor, a vessel owned by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by the University of Rhode Island in Providence. Similarly, the Atlantis and Knorr run by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts are working as planned, says ship scheduler Eric Benway. The Atlantis is off the coast of California conducting sea trials for the newly renovated Alvin manned submersible.

Still, even the UNOLS fleet has run into shutdown-related problems. The Marcus Langseth, run by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory outside New York City, has a small leak in one of its shaft seals. Repairs, which must be approved by the NSF, have been delayed, so a Gulf of Mexico cruise scheduled for later this month is now on hold.

Beyond NOAA and UNOLS, the picture for the US research fleet remains mixed. The JOIDES Resolution, an NSF-funded drill ship that is facing unrelated budgetary problems of its own, happens to be between expeditions, which will not resume until 26 January 2014.  But the US Antarctic Program, which is in the process of mothballing research for the upcoming field season, faces challenges with its two icebreakers.

Eugene Domack, a cryosphere specialist at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, has planned for the past five years for a cruise aboard the icebreaker Laurence M. Gould. Last Thursday he was informed via e-mail that the cruise had been suspended. The Gould is involved in relocating staff at Palmer Station on the Antarctic Peninsula; when the government reopens, programme managers will have to decide whether to use the ship to help staff the station back up send it out for previously scheduled science.

Domack does have a second cruise lined up, aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer in March — and that, fortunately, leaves from Hobart, Tasmania. Even so, the equipment he needs may be stuck in US logistical limbo.

Nobels 2013: Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons takes Peace Prize

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The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has been awarded the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Based in The Hague, the Netherlands, the OPCW works to rid the world of chemical weapons, and is currently overseeing the destruction of Syria’s arsenal. The organization’s director-general, Ahmet Üzümcü, said today: “The decision by the Nobel Committee to bestow this year’s Peace Prize on the OPCW is a great honour for our organization. Events in Syria have been a tragic reminder that there remains much work yet to be done.”

The OPCW has a low public profile, but both it and the convention that created it, the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, are often cited as a success story in international relations.

Earlier this year, Leiv Sydnes, at the University of Bergen in Norway, wrote in Nature: “Analyses from the past five years will show that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has done an outstanding job. About 78% of the declared chemical-weapons stockpile has been destroyed, and this is expected to rise to 99% by 2017.”

But Sydnes warned that the convention that gave rise to the OPCW is in need of updating, not least with a code of conduct for chemists to force them to “reflect on the gravity of their work, increasing their levels of responsibility and awareness”.

Today though is one of celebration for an organization that, as Üzümcü says, “has shouldered an onerous but noble task — to act as the guardian of the global ban on chemical weapons”.