Science Policy Report

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16 November 2016

In This Issue:

Policy News

International Corner

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

Science News

Policy News

Everyone is scrambling to understand how the election of Donald J. Trump will impact the science and technology enterprise. In short, we know very little. Science, agriculture and natural resources where nearly nonexistent topics in the campaign. Having never held elective office there is also no Trump record to serve as a guide. Most decisions of funding and research priorities are determined by Congress and the political leadership of science agencies. Who will lead USDA, DOE, NOAA, NASA and NIH during a Trump administration is not yet known. The people selected to serve in key leadership roles will be key indicators of his priorities. The clearest indication of Trump’s views on federal science funding have can be found in answers to the questionnaire developed by ScienceDebate. The answers seem to recognize the importance of federal investments in research, but his responses are short on detail. The Washington Post tries to provide some insight into Trump’s science priorities from previous statements and interviews.

The voters have chosen Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States. So now it’s time for scientists to share their thoughts with the business tycoon who triumphed over both Democrat Hillary Clinton and much of the Republican party he represented in the election. There’s been almost no interaction between the science community and the campaign over the past 18 months. Most academics didn’t support Trump and never expected him to beat Clinton. Trump operatives didn’t do any outreach to the scientific establishment, and its agenda wasn’t addressed during the campaign. But now that Trump will be occupying the Oval Office for the next 4 years, researchers want him to know what they think it will take to preserve and strengthen the scientific enterprise. Read the full article.

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United States last Tuesday fell like a lightning bolt on the American environmental community. But it has left many environmentalists energized for battle—albeit against an adversary whose positions are in part still ill-defined. The most consequential battleground is likely to be over the new administration’s climate policy. During the campaign Trump promised to “cancel” the Paris Agreement on climate change and to revoke the Obama Administration’s regulations designed to reduce carbon emissions from power plants—the centerpiece of the U.S. effort to meet its commitment under the Paris Agreement. But climate is not the only issue on which Trump may depart from the Obama Administration’s environmental policy. Here are three others. Read the full article.

It’s finally over. Come January, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the new president, and dozens of freshly elected lawmakers will join the new Congress (the 115th). What will the election results mean for the leadership of the key agencies and congressional committees that shape U.S. science funding and policy? Here’s a quick guide to who is in, who is out, and who is not going anywhere. Read the full article.

With a continuing resolution (CR) holding government funding steady through December 9, the fiscal year (FY) 2017 appropriations bills were in limbo. In the weeks leading up to the election, Republican leadership had proposed finishing up the appropriations process during the lame-duck session through a series of "minibuses" bills. However, in the wake of the surprising Trump victory, Republicans are now debating whether to proceed with a final spending deal this year or punt all spending decisions until the new administration takes office. Read the full article.

In assessing the value of GMOs and antibiotics in animal agriculture, policy should “follow the science,” President Barack Obama said in an interview with Bill Maher released over the weekend. “It is important to look at the science on this stuff,” Obama said, when asked about the role of nutrition and corporate agriculture in the country’s health. It was one of the few times during his presidency that Obama was asked directly about a thorny food and agriculture issue. Read the full article.

A Scientific Advisory Panel is now set to review the EPA's cancer findings for the herbicide glyphosate, Dec. 13-16, according to a notice from the agency.  The group of independent scientists was originally expected to meet in October, but the event was delayed due to conflicts with panel members' schedules, EPA said. According to meeting documents, the EPA has found that glyphosate doesn't pose unreasonable risks when used in line with its label, a conclusion that mirrors the results of reviews by the European Food Safety Agency and New Zealand EPA but at odds with the International Agency for Research on Cancer in March 2015, labeled the chemical a probable carcinogen. While officials had said that the risk assessment for glyphosate would be ready for public comment in the spring, the later than expected review and the change in administration will likely push the release back until at least summer 2017. Read the full announcement.

International Corner

The United Nations General Assembly voted 191-0 in favor of a resolution urging the United States to end the embargo against Cuba. Rather than vote against the resolution, as it has done in years past, the United States along with Israel abstained from voting. Read the full article.

The Canadian government will within weeks issue an open call for nominations for the position of national science adviser, Minister of Science Kirsty Duncan said Thursday at an annual science policy conference here. Average Canadians, researchers, as well as institutions such as universities, will be asked to offer up candidates for the position, which Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to resurrect after being elected to office in October 2015, while vowing to usher in an era of evidence-based policy- and decision-making informed by scientific knowledge. The scientific community has been bristling over its lack of input into policy decisions since Trudeau’s predecessor, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, axed the position of national science adviser in 2008. Harper also eliminated the highly respected Health Council of Canada, a body once mandated to advise the government on efforts to achieve systemic healthcare reform. Read the full article.

Desperate to reduce the pollution that has made New Delhi’s air quality among the worst in the world, the city has banned private cars for two-week periods and campaigned to reduce its ubiquitous fireworks during holiday celebrations. But one thing India has not seriously tried could make the most difference: curtailing the fires set to rice fields by hundreds of thousands of farmers in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana, where much of the nation’s wheat and rice is grown. Although India’s environmental court, the National Green Tribunal, told the government last year to stop farmers from burning the straw left over from their rice harvests, NASA satellite images in recent weeks have shown virtually no abatement. Read the full article.

In a surprise decree issued this past weekend, Turkey's government announced the firing of more than 1000 academics at public universities. Many of those fired are learning of their fate by finding themselves on a long list of names that the government released. The government also announced that it will now directly appoint the leaders of Turkey's universities. Insiders say that the government has long held de facto control over the election of university rectors, but that the new decree simply makes the government's control of academic leadership official. Read the full article.

Research, Education, Extension Funding Opportunities

The U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research (BER), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), hereby announce their interest in receiving applications for genomics- based research that will lead to the improved use of plant biomass and feedstocks for the production of biofuels and renewable chemical feedstocks. Applications are sought for research on candidate herbaceous and woody plants with improved resistance/tolerance to disease and disease complexes, and non-food oil seed crops with improved winter cold tolerance/survivability and agronomic traits. Research to overcome these biological barriers to the low-cost, high quality, scalable and sustainable production of dedicated bioenergy biomass feedstocks using the tools of genetics and genomics are encouraged. Pre-application deadline, December 7. Read the full announcement.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is seeking regular and early career applications proposing innovative research on the prediction, prevention, control and mitigation of freshwater Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) as well as the drivers, life cycle patterns, and fate of and effects from less-common, less-studied, and emerging freshwater HAB species and toxins. This solicitation provides the opportunity for the submission of applications for projects that may involve human subjects research. In addition to regular awards, this solicitation includes the opportunity for early career awards. The purpose of the early career award is to fund research projects smaller in scope and budget by early career Principal Investigators (PIs). Deadline, January 4. Read the full announcement.

The purpose of CIG is to stimulate the development and adoption of innovative conservation approaches and technologies, while leveraging the Federal investment in environmental enhancement and protection in conjunction with agricultural production. CIG projects are expected to lead to the transfer of conservation technologies, management systems, and innovative approaches (such as market-based systems) to EQIP eligible producers, into NRCS technical manuals and guides, or to the private sector. CIG projects targeting innovative on-the-ground conservation, including pilot projects, field demonstrations, and on-farm conservation research. On-farm conservation research is defined as an investigation conducted to answer a specific conservation-related question using a statistically valid design while employing farm-scale equipment on farm fields. Specifically, a valid study design will use an appropriate number of replications and statistical analysis of results. To the extent NRCS funds research projects through CIG, the agency will only fund on-farm research projects that stimulate innovative approaches to natural resource management in conjunction with agricultural production. Deadline, January 9. Read the full announcement.

Science News

Excessive concentrations of nitrate in streams can adversely affect biological communities. To assess the effects of nutrients and many other factors that can impair stream quality, the USGS and USEPA sampled 100 small streams across parts of 11 states in the Midwest in spring and summer 2013. Scientists measured a broad range of water quality and habitat characteristics and assessed organisms living in the stream. Drought in 2012 followed by rainfall in 2013 caused nitrate to increase to some of the highest levels ever measured in some Midwest streams, according to a recent USGS report published in the September–October 2016 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality. Read the full article.

When crop engineers from around the world gathered in London in late October, their research goals were ambitious: to make rice that uses water more efficiently, cereals that need less fertilizer and uberproductive cassava powered by turbocharged photosynthesis. The 150 attendees of the Crop Engineering Consortium Workshop were awash with ideas and brimming with molecular gadgets. Thanks to advances in synthetic biology and automation, several projects boasted more than 1,000 engineered genes and other molecular tools, ready to test in a researcher’s crop of choice. But that is where they often hit a wall. Outdated methods for generating plants with customized genomes — a process called transformation — are cumbersome, unreliable and time-consuming. Read the full article.

When it comes to storing carbon, scientists have put a price tag on the value of mangroves in South Florida's Everglades -- and it's in the billions. Mangrove forests absorb carbon dioxide, and much of that carbon remains trapped in the trees' biomass. Based on a scientific cost estimate, the stored carbon is worth between U.S. $2 billion and $3.4 billion. The billion-dollar price tag reflects the cost of restoring freshwater flow to areas that need it most, preserving the Everglades' mangroves. That's a relatively small price when considering the cost to society if, rather than being stored, the carbon were released into the atmosphere, according to researchers at Florida International University (FIU). Read the full article.

USDA’s Agricultural Resource Management Survey shows that precision ag technologies were used on roughly 30 to 50% of U.S. corn and soybean acres in 2010-12. The new study, Farm Profits and Adoption of Precision Agriculture, uses national data on U.S. field crop production between 1996 and 2013 (the latest available) from the Agricultural Resource Management Survey (ARMS) of field crop producers, jointly administered by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and ERS. The data implies that larger farms are more likely to adopt these technologies. Yield mapping is used on about 40% of U.S. corn and soybean acres, GPS soil maps on about 30%, guidance on over 50 percent, and VRT on 28-34% of acres. Read the full article.

Profitability in rice production depends on factors other than yield. Numerous research has evaluated parameters influencing rice yield, but many do not offer an economic analysis on how lodging influences economic return. In the September–October 2016 issue of Agronomy Journal, researchers evaluated the economic impact of seeding rate in combination with multiple nitrogen fertilizer strategies and harvest efficiency due to lodging for the rice variety CL 151. Replicated treatments consisted of a factorial combination of three seeding rates (161, 323 and 483 seeds m–2) and 10 combinations of nitrogen (N) rates and application timings. Read the full article.

The entire globe is moving fast to stop climate change. The Paris climate agreement enters into legal force on Friday, and then shortly afterwards comes a first global meeting to start implementing it in Marrakech, Morocco. But this flurry of activity nonetheless faces a grim mathematical reality, a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme finds. In essence, while the Paris agreement sets extremely ambitious temperature goals — holding the world’s warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and striving for a 1.5 degree limit — current policies and promises alone have little chance of attaining them. Read the full article.

Nominations are open for the 2017 Borlaug CAST Communication Award, an honor that recognizes professionals actively working in the agricultural, environmental, or food sectors who are promoting agricultural science in the public policy arena. This award has become an influential component in the efforts to keep agricultural issues and programs in the public eye and in front of national and world policymakers. Application deadline, February 6. Learn more and apply here.

Low soil pH can affect herbicide persistence, decrease nutrient availability, and contribute to metal toxicity, all of which can compromise crop production. In the Northern Great Plains (NGP) of North America, surface sampling depths of 0 to 15 or 0 to 20 cm are suggested for testing soil pH. Soil acidification, however, is often most pronounced nearer to the soil surface. In a new article published in the Soil Science Society of America Journal, researchers at the USDA-ARS Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory quantified soil pH change in two long-term dryland cropping studies near Mandan, ND. Soils were sampled at multiple depths in both studies, allowing for soil pH evaluation at surface (0–7.6 cm) as well as deeper (0–15.2 and 0–30.5 cm) depths. Read the full article.

Sources: USDA; DOE SC; EPA; CAST; ScienceInsider; The Washington Post; Science Magazine; National Geographic; Bloomberg Government; Politico; NSF News; Ag Professional; Nature; The New York Times; UN.org;

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