Page 13 - Acoustics Today Spring 2011

groups and coalitions play an important role in building the bridge between these disparate worlds. They help to educate policy makers about the scientific enterprise, and about the scientific and technical elements of a given issue. They also help to educate the scientific community about how policy is made, and how scientists can effectively communicate their relevant scientific findings and ideas to policy makers. To a much lesser, or perhaps just a much more selective extent, industry also plays a role in bringing science and technology issues to the attention of lawmakers.
Second, the scientific community must carry out an effec- tive and persistent campaign of science advocacy. Actually you must develop many campaigns, for science funding, science policies, and the role of science in broader societal challenges. If you want science at the table, you have to march up to the Hill and make your case. And then you must recruit others, especially the private sector, to join you in making the case to Congress. A few business sectors have become increasingly visible on research funding and science education issues in the last few years. But overall, private sector lobbying on these issues still pales in comparison to the time and money spent lobbying on tax, visa, and regulatory policies. It is also impor- tant to reach out to your Representatives and their staff back in your home districts, where they have more time to spend with constituents and where there is a better opportunity to estab- lish lasting relationships.
By now you have noticed that I am simultaneously dis- cussing two somewhat distinct topics: policy for science and science for policy. Or, more specifically, advocacy for policies and budgets that directly affect the scientific enterprise itself; and advocacy for the inclusion of scientific data and under- standing in decision making on the full range of policies affecting health, environment, energy, national security, and other major issues before our country and the world. If there is one key point I hope to make, it is that on both fronts, sci- entists have to speak to be heard. I hope the following two examples will convince you of just how important it is for the scientific community to actively participate in the policy- making process.
A few months after I started as an American Institute of Physics (AIP) fellow on the Science Committee, I was hand- ed the nuclear Research and Development (R&D) portfolio. I knew nothing about the nuclear fuel cycle, and practically overnight I became the Committee’s, and one of the House’s leading experts on it. I say that not to sing my own praises but once again to underscore the fact that for such highly technical topics, the overwhelming majority of Members and staff simply lack the tools to really dig deep and under- stand them. I had a physics background (my own disserta- tion topic of cavitation was not particularly helpful), which was necessary if not sufficient for understanding the nuclear fuel cycle. It also didn’t hurt that I spent two years as a post- doc in a radiation oncology lab. Still, I had a lot to learn. At one point, I taped a periodic table of elements to my office wall so I could keep straight in my head the different con- stituent elements of spent nuclear fuel. I also read as many nuclear fuel cycle primers as I could get my hands on and asked a lot of questions of the experts when I had the oppor-
tunity to meet with them.
It was just at that time that the Bush Administration
announced the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP. In short, the Department of Energy (DOE) was proposing to move expeditiously to a regime of fuel reprocessing and recy- cling. After all, the French and Japanese were way ahead of us, according to their argument, and it was in our economic and national security interest to take the lead once again. Actually, DOE rolled out many versions of GNEP over the next 20 or so months until the Democrats took over Congress and effectively killed it. But the gist was always the same, and if anything, each iteration moved further away from any kind of scientific and for that matter, economic or political reality. Congressional testimony, expert panel reviews, and editorials in major newspapers and trade press by and large supported this skeptical view of GNEP by the end.
My subcommittee chair at that time, who was a strong advocate for a nuclear renaissance, had oversight responsibil- ities for DOE’s nuclear R&D programs. In other words, our subcommittee had oversight over all of the R&D components of GNEP. DOE’s plan, as I and many experts saw it, was to skip over most of the basic scientific and technological chal- lenges in reprocessing and recycling, and jump clear ahead to large-scale demonstrations of separations technology already demonstrated in other countries. And yet, if you looked at the illustrations and description of the fuel cycle on the agency’s glossy power point presentations, someone without the technical understanding might easily believe that what DOE was planning to do was much more technologically advanced than the Japanese or French had already demon- strated. DOE’s story was quite compelling to most of the pro- nuclear Members of my committee, including my own sub- committee chair.
There were additional political, or at least parochial, fac- tors at play. Funding for GNEP meant funding for a few of DOE’s National Labs, including Labs in the districts of more than one of our committee members, Republican and Democrat. So, not surprisingly, the scientists and engineers at those Labs were advocating for GNEP to my committee. Some of those scientists and engineers later quietly admitted that they had significant reservations about DOE’s plans, but at the time, they saw an opportunity for increased research funding and they understandably pursued it. At the same time, the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair in the House, and the Senator who wore both the authorizing and appropriating hats in the Senate, were also very pro-nuclear. One was generally sympathetic to, and the other a passionate champion of DOE’s GNEP plans. Major companies hoping for an opportunity to secure big govern- ment contracts were also lobbying for GNEP. Despite the sig- nificant flaws in its plans, DOE had almost everything aligned in its favor.
Almost everything, that is, except for the broader scien- tific community outside the National Labs, and those of us in Washington who were helping to serve as a bridge between the scientists and the policy makers. I know there were many people who played a role here, most of them much greater experts than me, so I don’t mean to overstate my own role. If
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