Policy, Science, and Politics

Thinking of opening the US coastal waters for drilling?

Less than six months ago, the House was continuing to root out government expenditures that supposedly were oil stained and purportedly subsidies to "Big Oil". Talk about knee jerk reactions. Obviously the House has a very poor understanding of science.

Science is not always about telescoping results, science isn't always sexy and headline grabbing, science doesn't always appear relevant. Most science is grueling, boring, ceaseless, (ad nausea). Fortunately, a brilliant segment of society thrives on the quest, and provides for the maintenance and growth of a growing foundation of science by which society can build itself.

Here are two examples I have learned about over the last six months or so.

Last year the US Department of Energy had to freeze some programs because the Federal Budget was not being approved, and the President's budget request of course left certain line items zeroed out (so that Congress would have to put them back - a silly budget game played every year). The DOE Office of Science effectually had to issue stop orders to to over 200 graduate students at 19 Universities. Now, these graduate students of course were relying on that funding to, well, go to school and be trained. These dollars were not going to Big Oil, they were going to a graduate student, doing basic scientific research, working toward an advanced degree. This within months of approval of the America Competes Act which recognized the severe shortage of graduate students in the sciences, and recommended massive shift of funds to help build the future workforce (for private industry, regulatory agencies, government science laboratories, and policy advisers). Ridiculous. Hurtful to the students, the universities, and our country.

Another simple example. Stream gauges. What is a stream gauge? It is a simple device that measures the amount of water flowing in a stream or river over time. Useful in many scientific analysis from basin water analysis, rainfall, flood planning, etc. The USGS with other agency partners has been maintaining and monitoring stream gauges throughout the country for decades. Recently, scientists trying to find basic data to help characterize and predict patterns in our climate (global warming, climate change, um-geologic processes) were excited to find such complete time series data (ie regular, consistent measurements through time). Now comes budget tightening, and funding slipping away from the agencies monitoring the gauges. We will loose a valuable resource if the gauges stop being monitored or maintained. Even if funding is restored in the future, there will always be a gap - and as in Murphy's Law - something will happen in that gap, and no data will be available to help us understand what it was.

Science is a process, a delicate process that is absolutely destroyed by irregular, neurotic and inconsistent support. We advocate solid stepped increased funding for geoscience throughout the funding agencies (NSF, DOE, USGS, NOAA, etc).