Science under a Trump-Republican Environment: Analysing Biden’s 2020 Campaign and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Many scientists expect enhanced scrutiny of their work and leaders if Republicans win the House or the Senate because control of the US Congress comes with substantial oversight power.
It isn’t unusual for the party that occupies the White House to lose seats in the mid-term elections after a president is in office. But the stakes are especially high this time around, as the country grapples with growing inflation and an energy crisis worsened by the war in Ukraine. Donald Trump and many of the candidates he has endorsed at both the state and national level continue to question the results of the 2020 election that put Biden in office, as some fear that democracy itself is also on the line. Already, some Republicans are threatening to impeach Biden if their party takes power.
With the levers of Congress under their control, Republicans would challenge the Biden administration on controversial policies and investigate any misstep, says Michael Lubell, physicist at theCity College of New York who tracks federal science policy issues. He says that many Republicans are angry with the Democrats over their investigation into the storming of the Capitol and what they considered to be interference with the Trump administration. There is no question that there will be payback. Researchers say this means that agency leaders could be called before Congress on any number of issues, ranging from the US response to the COVID-19 pandemic to the administration’s handling of new funds for clean-energy programmes.
There has never been a request for bipartisan support for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The spread of misinformation and a heightened political environment caused by the Pandemic could end up making the bipartisan environment more difficult than it currently is. Republicans have also vowed to investigate Anthony Fauci, who announced that he would retire later this year as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in connection with COVID-19’s origins and the country’s pandemic response.
This could be a challenge for the CHIPS and Science Act, which gave US$280 billion for science and technology programmes across multiple federal agencies. Republican leadership in the House urged opposition to the legislation that Congress passed in July.
Early this year, the Biden administration formally closed a Department of Justice programme known as the China Initiative, which launched in 2018 under the Trump administration to counter efforts by the Chinese government to steal secrets from US businesses and laboratories. Concerns about research security remain high on both sides of the political aisle, but the justice department ended the programme partly because of the perception that the initiative discriminated unfairly against scientists of Chinese heritage.
There are some Republicans who want to bring back the programme. If Congress becomes GOP-controlled, it would be hard to bring the legislation back as long as Biden is in charge.
Meanwhile, concerns about Chinese espionage, national security and economic competitiveness have created new space for bipartisanship among Democrats and Republicans. 24 House Republicans voted against the party leadership to support the CHIPS and Science Act because they thought it could reduce dependence on China by fostering the domestic production of semiconductors.
Similar political forces are at play in the climate and energy arena. Although Republicans have been against legislation to combat greenhouse-gas emissions, a number of them support major investments in clean energy. The upshot is that more than half a trillion dollars in clean-energy investments have been locked in with the passage of a pair of major bills over the past year.
The front against China and Russia is tied to the economic objectives of the two countries, says David Hart, who tracks energy issues at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington DC. According to Hart, that unifying factor is likely to continue in the next one even if the election goes against them.
What I Have Learned About NASA Science Since Insight, and How We Are About to Make Sense Of It: The Journey From New York to Mars
One of the most exciting times for NASA science has been over the past year. The JWST has succeeded more than anyone could have imagined. Astronomers have been dreaming about a telescope that can see stars and distant objects for almost a quarter of a century. It has been five months since the release of its first images, and there are still a few things we know about JWST.
Leading NASA’s Science Mission Directorate has been the job I’ve loved most. Nowhere is there a role that offers more exciting missions or has more potential to affect how we understand the Universe and the world we live in. It was a very difficult decision to resign. But I believe it is the best decision for the agency, for the collaborators, educators and trainees in the NASA science community, and for me.
The next generation observatory of the Earth system has begun work and NASA is halfway through launching nearly a dozen Earth-science missions focused on understanding our life-enabling planet. For several years now the US government has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Earth science at NASA, and it is currently considering increasing that by at least 2 billion dollars. NASA does not work with the US government in building weather- and space-weather-forecasting systems. We are on our way back to the Moon with the launch of the Artemis programme and looking ahead to sending people to Mars. In the first planetary defence test of its kind in September, scientists intentionally smashed the DART spacecraft into an asteroid.
As NASA’s longest continually serving associate administrator of science, I have been part of incredible missions. When Insight made its descent to the surface of Mars, I experienced seven minutes of terror, then again when the Perseverance rover did the same. And I held my breath during our extraterrestrial ‘Wright brothers’ moment, when the team made the first controlled flight in an atmosphere other than Earth’s and flew the helicopter Ingenuity on Mars.
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04475-w
Transition to Making the Most Out of My Knowledge: When I Wanna Step Into The Army of Excellence? A Reflection on a Transition Is It Time For A Change
Every leader has weaknesses, as much as I have enjoyed this. It is time for someone with fresh ideas to step in when the organization’s weaknesses weigh on it. I want to know when it was time to step aside.
I started by asking myself: was I still learning a lot? And was I still getting better? I don’t mean never making mistakes and approaching perfectity, I mean better. Getting better means enabling innovation and making the organization qualitatively and quantitatively stronger. When I could no longer answer ‘yes’ to those two questions, I knew it was time for a transition.