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Science, Health, and Related Policies

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Recent News Stories

• Fixing US STEM education is possible, but will take money
  Ars Technica -- The state of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education in the United States has seen some unflattering appraisals in recent years, and deservedly so. In early February, the House of Representatives heard testimony on undergraduate and graduate education. The message from the panel, which included experts from [Read more]
• EPA Sends 'Johnson Memo' Reconsideration on CO2 Emissions to White House
  Greenwire -- U.S. EPA sent its final reconsideration yesterday of a George W. Bush-era memorandum detailing when the government should regulate carbon dioxide emissions from industrial facilities to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review. The reconsideration comes after the Obama EPA launched a review of a [Read more]
• Obama to push White House vision for NASA in April
  Reuters -- Obama has had to defend his commitment to the space agency in the politically important U.S. state after submitting a budget to Congress that would cancel a program to return U.S. astronauts to the moon.  Obama wants to refocus NASA efforts on technologies to prepare for human missions to [Read more]
• FCC to create $4.6B broadband subsidy
  NextGov -- The Federal Communications Commission will propose creating a $4.6 billion Connect America fund to support the deployment and adoption of high-speed Internet service in low-income and rural areas as part of a 10-year overhaul of an existing telecommunications subsidy program. [Read more]
• A need for new nukes? "Modular reactors" for energy attract interest
  Scientific American -- There is no doubt that the up-front cost of conventional nuclear power plants is high compared with any alternatives. One idea is to create enclosed, small "modular reactors," like the one developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The small reactors would cost $50-million and be an enclosed reactor [Read more]
• Three States Sue EPA Over Global Warming Ruling
  FOX News -- Texas, Alabama and Virginia, all led by Republican governors, have filed petitions since December, when the EPA ruled that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide endanger human health, clearing the path for the agency to issue mandatory regulations to reduce them.  As the EPA grapples with the lawsuits, Congress [Read more]
• School’s Shake-Up Is Embraced by the President
  NY Times -- A Rhode Island school board’s decision to fire the entire faculty of a poorly performing school, and President Obama’s endorsement of the action, has stirred a storm of reaction nationwide, with teachers condemning it as an insult and conservatives hailing it as a watershed moment of school accountability. [Read more]
• The poor don't care about broadband? Of course they do
  Ars Technica -- a new study suggests that this community of broadband outsiders is rapidly disappearing from the landscape, particularly among low income Americans.  "We found no such group," concludes the Social Science Research Council, "even among respondents with profound histories of marginalization—the homeless, non-English speakers from new immigrant communities, [Read more]
• Success adds up for D.C. schools' math program
  Washington Post -- Camille Jackson's approach is part of a math curriculum that is yielding promising results for D.C. public school children. The road to mastery no longer runs strictly through rote memorization and drilling, District educators say.  They say they think the shift is paying off. December results for the [Read more]
• Government maps path to geospatial data
  Federal Computer Week -- Karen Siderelis is the geospatial information officer at the Interior Department, where she is responsible for coordinating geospatial information activities across the department’s nine bureaus. Siderelis, not surprisingly, is also is trying to help federal agencies become, as she describes it, more [Read more]
• Democrats Revolt Over Energy
  Wall Street Journal -- On Thursday, big utility operators and some state officials blasted the administration's formal announcement that it would drop plans for a federal nuclear-waste vault beneath Yucca Mountain, Nev., and instead consider what it believes are better options. On Capitol Hill, a group of Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation to block the administration [Read more]
• More bucks for advanced biofuels?
  Washington Post -- What is a "subsidy" to an industry that truly needs and deserves it? An "incentive." That's what would-be makers of cellulosic ethanol are seeking in a letter sent Wednesday to the chairmen and ranking Republicans of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees. As it happens, the letter - signed [Read more]
• $100 Million in Stimulus Funds for Green Tech
  New York Times -- The Department of Energy announced this week that $100 million in stimulus funds would be distributed to help accelerate innovation in green technology. “The idea is to get a whole ecosystem of innovative technologies,” said Arun Majumdar, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy, which is managing the [Read more]
• Bipartisan Senate group seeks long-term offshore wind credits
  The Hill -- Four senators are pushing legislation that would ensure long-term tax credits for the fledgling offshore wind industry.  Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) introduced a bill Wednesday to extend production and investment tax credits for coastal projects until 2020.  There are currently no U.S. [Read more]
• Coal-State Dems Unveil Bills Stalling EPA Emission Curbs
  Greenwire -- Four influential coal-state Democrats introduced companion bills in the House and Senate today that would block U.S. EPA from implementing any climate-related stationary source rules for two years, a timeout of sorts that they think gives Congress time to pass legislation dealing with the issue. Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia [Read more]
• Jump-starting nuclear energy
  LA Times  (Opinion) -- President Obama's announcement that the federal government would guarantee loans for two advanced-design nuclear plants in Georgia was good news.  The commitment jump-starts the U.S. nuclear energy industry at a time when we have begun to understand that nuclear energy has a substantial role to play in combating climate change and [Read more]
• High-tech will help spur economic recovery
  Politico (Opinion) -- During the past decade, new platforms and technologies — such as virtualization, WiFi, cloud computing, mobility and social networks — have spurred new levels of efficiency, collaboration and cost savings. They created the likes of Google, My­Space, Facebook and Twitter. A recent Democratic Leadership Council study found that investment and recovery go [Read more]
• Green tech seeks its 'Netscape moment'
  CNET -- The ARPA-E Summit, a conference designed to showcase potential breakthrough clean-energy technologies, started on Monday, attracting some 1,700 investors, entrepreneurs, and policymakers all vying to reinvent the energy infrastructure to be cleaner and more efficient.  Given the makeup of the group, the mood is optimistic that new technologies can shake up even the [Read more]
• Is ARPA-E Enough to Keep the U.S. on the Cutting-Edge of a Clean Energy Revolution?
  Scientific American -- A host of speakers regarded ARPA–E's effort as an Apollo project, a Manhattan project, and Mike Splinter, CEO of Applied Materials, even called for ARPA–E to be part of a potential Marshall Plan for energy—a road map to a future of clean power, complete with the Hoover Dam of solar, or the [Read more]
• Jackson: Effort to stop EPA 'step backward' for science if successful
  The Hill -- EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson blasted an effort in Congress to block the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases.  She said the effort would be an “enormous step backward for science” if successful.  Jackson defended EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare. That "endangerment" finding requires [Read more]
• NASA Chief Bolden Seeks 'Plan B' for the Space Agency
  Wall Street Jounal -- NASA chief Charles Bolden has asked senior managers to draw up an alternate plan for the space agency after members of Congress indicated they wanted to reject a White House proposal to hire private companies to ferry U.S. astronauts into orbit and beyond. In an internal National Aeronautics and Space Administration [Read more]
• Four Democratic senators aim to halt stimulus wind project
  Washington Post -- A group of Democratic senators called Wednesday for the government to halt a federal stimulus program aimed at building wind farms and other clean-energy projects, arguing that too much of the money spent so far has gone to create jobs overseas.  The Obama administration and wind-energy advocates strongly disputed the criticism by [Read more]
• Texas-based refiners pledge to fund fight against California's global warming law
  LA Times -- Two Texas-based refinery giants have pledged as much as $2 million to fund signature gathering for a ballot initiative to suspend California's landmark global warming law, according to Sacramento sources.  The companies, Valero Energy Corp. and Tesoro Corp., own refineries in California that would be forced under the law to slash emissions [Read more]
• EPA Makes Polluters Pay Less
  Wall Street Journal -- The Environmental Protection Agency is riling many businesses with proposals to regulate greenhouse gases for the first time, but data suggest it has been slow out of the gate under President Barack Obama in enforcing existing regulations on traditional pollutants. In fiscal 2009, the EPA's enforcement office required polluters to spend [Read more]
• Space Coast lobbyists run into economic reality
  Orlando Sentinel -- With just four space shuttle missions left and 23,000 job losses looming when the orbiters stop flying, Gov. Charlie Crist and aerospace-industry leaders are making a big push to help the state's struggling space sector in this year's legislative session.  But Florida's dismal economic realities are threatening to derail the effort.  In [Read more]