Congressional Moves To Gut OSTP
Key legislator disses White House science office, Science
“The White House science office hasn’t been very productive under President Barack Obama, says the chairman of a key congressional research spending panel. And Representative John Culberson (R-TX) says he’d like to see it downsized. … Since becoming CJS chairman in January 2015, Culberson has used his position as a “cardinal” to advocate for his scientific priorities, starting with a multi-billion-dollar NASA mission to a jovian moon that some scientists believe may harbor life.”
Keith’s note: Funny how a member of Congress with zero science training shoves Europa missions down NASA’s throat and then complains about a congressionally-mandated position in the Executive Branch that overtly seeks to have actual scientific input – from actual scientists – so as to make informed decisions – about science.
What we have here very ‘meta”, as the kids like to say, having nothing whatsoever to do with the effectiveness of Dr. Holdren or his successors.
Indeed Science goes on to quote the Congressman “[I]n my mind there are already too many termite mounds in Washington[, D.C]. We need to shrink the size of government in any way we can”.
This is exactly what the right is trying to do across the board and they will do it any way that they can, chiefly by denigrating the efforts of every single governmental office/employee as wasteful or unnecessary.
They are not interested in science, nor HSF, nor even accomplishment other than local interests when SLS and Orion are referred to major construction projects akin to the bridge to nowhere….
“We want to make sure that any of the major construction projects, like the vitally important SLS rocket system and the Orion human flight program, have stable and predictable funding so that they are not interrupted. “
Yet upon winning, they immediately turn to culling the policies contrary to what’s good for the nation or once attacking stimulus now embracing it…ignoring the internal NASA study showing exploration could be done $60Bs cheaper
http://www.latimes.com/opin…
They are not interested in shrinking government. They are perfectly happy to blow out the budget when Republicans control the White House.
Well that’s certainly the quandary.
The ‘starve the beast’ and ‘southern strategy’ crowd has been around since the late 1970s; I have no doubt that they are sincere when complaining about the size of government.
Like the president-elect, though, they have learned that governing Colossus America requires nuance; decisions cannot be made along narrow ideologies.
Que? Nuance? Trump?
The Republican strategy is to cut taxes while “rebuilding” the military (i.e. more money to defense contractors). Therefore, all “discretionary” spending must be cut to control the growing federal budget deficit. This includes cutting any scientific research that might offend the beliefs of their donors (e.g. fossil fuel industry) and their base supporters who are “skeptical” of science.
Read between the lines on this: reducing safety net spending is a central goal of the right, a goal derived from the sensibility that people should take care of themselves and not suck at the largess of government.
It’s internally consistent.
It’s internally consistent, but not what Trump voters are expecting. The last thing you ever want to do is touch the social security, medicare, or medicaid of a Republican voter. They will tell you long and hard how they “earned it”, even when some of them didn’t.
I’m not so sure about that. Many voted for the new President-elect not realizing that cuts in medicaid are part of the repeal of the ACA.
Agreed that there is a disconnect between what many Trump voters actually want and the Republican plan to gut social programs. What Trump voters want is to cut “waste and fraud”, but not touch their benefits, because they “earned them” (even in cases where the math proves they are net takers when it comes to taxes versus benefits).
I appreciate internal consistency. It implies some amount of logical thought. But it is only as good as the initial assumptions involved. For example, I respect the internal consistency of Catholic theology, but I have fundamental disagreements about their basic assumptions. Being internally consistent is a necessary condition for rational choices, but I can not call it a sufficient condition.
Probably true of both sides of the aisle. Progressives (like me) will talk about ‘fairness’ and ‘equality’ and ‘a level playing field’, from which will naturally derived a host of governmental positions. We can point to a long history of thought starting (at least ) with Mills.
But is it sufficient when so many disagree?
People like Culbertson cringe from having to face anything consisting of “facts” that leads to an understanding of the actual physical reality that conflicts with the religious/financial/political alternate universe that richly feeds them.
The hyenas are in charge of the hen house now.
You are right, Yale, to mention religion in this context. The notion, for instance, that reducing taxes increases revenue is laughable yet remains a fundamental tenet.
Add the notion that the ‘free market’, consisting of a ‘willing buyer and willing seller’ is without reservation preferable, even in public affairs, has given us our current President-elect, a man unaccustomed to nuance.
Even so it’s also clear that government’s ham-fisted efforts to encourage a private launch industry for America has been on the whole successful.
We’ve seen this movie before:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
While I’d normally think this was a bad idea – after all, Trump will likely need a lot of help on science and technology issues, given who he’s picked to head up HHS and National Security, think of who he might put in at OSTP – perhaps the head of the CO2 Coalition or the Flat Earth Society!
For space, if there is no – or an emasculated OSTP, and a National Space Council, headed by the Vice President, space could actually wind up as a higher priority in a Trump Administration!
VP Pence will likely push a space mission to find Noah’s Ark.
Thank God somebody is “shoving missions like this down NASA’s throat” since this is obviously what it takes to make NASA finally implement a mission to what is the scientific most interesting body in our solar system…i just don’t understand why NASA refuses to go there and sticks with dry and boring Mars
Mr Meyer – please do some research, the likelihood of finding life or other interesting things is not greater on Europa than on many other worlds. One difference is that we can get a larger, more capable vehicle to many planets (and moons) much easier than getting to Europa. Venus in particular has many advantages – solar power panels work well in orbit around Venus. The Venerian climate is hostile to life as we know it but could support a different life form.
Speaking as a Texan, Rep Culberson must have read some science fiction book years ago that mentioned Europa and he is now fixated on that world. He has no qualifications to select a destination and we should ignore his thoughts on that subject (as well as most other subjects).
I’m afraid that isn’t what I hear from scientists at every planetary science conference with astrobiology sessions. While there is some discussion of other forms of life, the bulk of the discussion is about something vaguely Earth-like, with liquid water as a requirement for habitability. That puts Europa and Enceladus at top of the list, followed by Mars, and Venus near the bottom.
On the other hand, I have real doubts about ever getting to that liquid water in Europa.
fcrary – Yes planets such as Venus will not host life that is like we find on Earth but it has potential for life and is far easier to explore. The fact that we could use solar panels for an orbiter makes a big difference as one example.
Life that is different from ours would give us a lot of valuable information. A biologist who studies only air breathing creatures will miss a lot by not looking at fish.
I can think of much better reasons for a Venus mission. And I’m not going to defend the focus on searching for Earth-like life over opening the field to anything. But that isn’t the point. You implied Europa wasn’t an interesting, astrobiological target and that people who thought so (Rep. Culberson) were just obsessed with ideas from old, science fiction stories. That’s not the case; Europa as a possible habitat for life is very mainstream planetary science.
fcrary – If you read my original statement closely you will see that I do not imply that Europa wasn’t an interesting target. Perhaps you read too much into what I said.
Now I did say, and this is implicitly obvious, that there is at least one destination that lends itself to exploration far more than a Jovian or Saturnian or any moon of a gas giant. Venus, for example, is far closer and has the advantage of abundant solar power. It also has a very interesting chemistry. Moons of gas giants will have environments of radiation, communications are more difficult, etc. Mercury and Mars both appear to not support any life that we could communicate with so they are not as interesting. But the gas giants have lots of moons, the obsession with Europa (to the exclusion of other moons, seems odd to me.
NASA proposed the JIMO mission and would be happy to send a probe to Europa. Just not on a multibillion-dollar SLS when an Atlas could carry it.
This might be mission ‘wish fulfilment’ creep – JIMO would have been capable but not a lander.
Is there actual funding for a Europa lander as part of the currently planned mission?
Is that a serious question? 🙂
No. There is funding to study a lander, but it would be a separate mission not an add-on to Europa Multiple Flyby. I’m expecting sticker shock once the lander study is complete.
And instead of a multibillion dollar SLS, JIMO would have used a multibillion dollar nuclear reactor and ion propulsion system. Actually, I believe the estimate was over ten billion. Of course, that was mostly developing the technology, and, once developed that technology would then have been available for future applications.
Exactly. America hasn’t put a reactor in orbit since the Sixties. Reactors provide a vast increase in energy with much lower risk than RTGs. As long as we are limited to solar cells and (if Pu-238 production is ever restarted) RTGs we will be able to accomplish little beyond Mars.
More energy, yes. There are real limits on the specific power (power per kilo) of a RTG. But I’d have trouble calling a reactor “lower risk.” No moving parts and no possibility of going supercritical sounds pretty low risk to me.
The “the scientific most interesting body in our solar system” by far is Earth, which not only has an interesting stew of liquid, solid and gaseous water but also has other chemicals and minerals and many multicellular life forms that all interact in fascinating ways.
Science seems to be the most widely misunderstood word in politics.
Ever since Nixon eliminated the position of Presidential science advisor and the Reagan administration eliminated the Office of Technology Assessment, it’s been pretty clear that post-Eisenhower Republicans don’t want to be confused by fact-based advice on issues of national importance.
It was Republican Gerald Ford who, with Congress, recreated the Science Advisor position and OSTP. And the Reagan Administration (1981-1988) had nothing to do with OTA closing. That was a decision of the new Republican Congress in 1995 to reduce the *legislative branch*’s bureaucracy. And they did trim Congressional staffs, and focused resources on GAO (investigations of executive branch performance), CBO (bipartisan economic analysis independent of White House bias) and the Library of Congress and its Congressional Research Service. So they were cutting their own spending, not just the executive branch’s.
The problem now is that we will soon have a Republican administration and Congress that are actively against science, because the truth does not serve their political goals. So they slash legitimate science and squander our tax dollars enriching their districts.
No, that is not an objective description of today. I have pointed out that Sunman was making a non-fact-based ideological attack on Republicans. His data was in error, therefore his conclusions were in error.
Congressional Republicans took action to shrink the legislative branch’s bureaucracy, and chose to kill OTA versus gutting CBO or GAO. They also created Thomas, the first electronic database of legislative information, so that the American people could see what bills their Members were supporting and how they were voting, without needed to scour a local library’s copy of the congressional record.
While Congress did restrain spending, they increased NASA funding over the Clinton Administration’s request every year but one. And they opposed Clinton’s use of funds to pay Russia for work on ISS that Russia had promised to fund themselves, while slashing the budget for ISS research. Did we Republicans say Clinton was anti-science for bailing out Yuri Koptev’s “Russian Space Agency” (ha) while killing the research that ISS was being built to conduct? No, we did not.
Lamar Smith, the Chairman of the House Science Committee, is a genuinely curious and extremely intelligent science-literate Member of Congress. So was the late George Brown. You all need to stop attacking people’s motives and supposed intellectual flaws and start making FACTUAL cases against their actual points and arguments.
Here’s a radical concept: why not measure proposals (or counterattacks) based on what results they actually produce, rather than your passionately-felt beliefs in what evil must lurk in the hearts of your opponent.
Or those of us who were there and know what happened and know the facts will stop participating in discussions and will certainly not pay attention to your criticisms.
Thank you.
I am all for polite debate. Last year I personally called the office of my representative in Congress, Bill Posey, to ask about the prospects for an increase in Commercial Crew funding, since Congress had consistently cut the Administration request. I was told by his legislative assistant that NASA would have enough money to accomplish its mission if all research on climate change were eliminated.
How do you feel about this issue?
Thanks for the correction on the re-establishment of the OSTP. The OTA, however, was attacked in a 1980 book (Fat City) beloved of the Reaganites, and its disestablishment was on the list of the Reagan wing of the party until it made it into the Contract on America, post-1994. Likewise, a Democratically controlled Congress in 1976 agreed with the Ford administration and re-established the OSTP in legislation, presumably so a President couldn’t ignore it again without Congress going along.
Please stop before you murder more history. Fat City was a popular book, but it was no Mandate for Leadership (the Heritage Foundation’s bible for the first Reagan Administration). I worked for a Reaganite House member. I worked for Reagan’s OSTP. It was only the impetus to cut Congressional spending that led to OTA finally being killed. Did I support that (and I was working as a Republican staffer again in 1995)? NO. But I was there. My name is fully revealed here. Yours is not and I suspect you were not there.
Likewise, the legislation creating OSTP was not just passed by Democrats in Congress. It had lots of Republican cosponsors. The House vote was like 380 to 40. It was wholly bipartisan. And Jerry Ford, who had vetoed all sorts of legislation he didn’t like, both requested and signed this bill.
So give it a rest. Republicans are not anti-science. Richard Nixon was. End of story.
I followed your argument here (and above), applauding the plea for courteous accuracy. The last graf throw me, though. On the issue of Mr. Nixon: the EPA was created during his term. Maybe you would briefly discuss the WH involvement in the legislation, if any?
If you don’t mind my asking, James, do you support or oppose the current moves by Republicans in Congress to substantially cut support for the Office of Science and Technology Policy?
President Obama appointed a fairly ideological scientist as his Science Advisor and director of OSTP. And OSTP unfortunately picked a fight with former chairman Wolf on China cooperation.
That said, OSTP is where interagency space policy is made in this Administration. By and large I think it has been a force for good in pushing many agencies — not just NASA, but also DOD — to support commercial space.
Since I agree with much of what they have done on space, I do not want to punish them. But I don’t know enough to judge their performance on other areas of science policy.
In general I don’t think screwing with White House funding levels is appropriate, or even very effective, as a way to debate policy. But then I have the weird habit of respecting elected officials, including the Executive Office of the President, even when I didn’t vote for them.
I once worked at OSTP and have worked with its staff through many administrations. I want the President to get good scientific and technical advice, but I would prefer that space policy be made thru a stronger, more politically accountable process such as the Vice President-chaired National Space Council. Fortunately VP-elect Pence seems enthusiastic about setting it up.
Could you explain “politically accountable”? Would it be unfair to say this means placing its highest priority on supporting the political ideology of the President? How is this different from being “fairly ideological”? Do you believe Dr. Holdren distorted the objective scientific evidence in his advice to Mr. Obama?
That is not what I meant. Politically accountable means that voters can hold the person to account for their actions/decisions in office. The Vice President, albeit 99% linked to the President, can be held to account for how he runs the National Space Council because he faces one reelection, and potentially other future elections. The Science Advisor is an appointed position only accountable to the President.
People who face reelection tend to care more about public sentiment than appointees.
Call me a small-D democratic Republican.
The Vice President is chosen by the Electoral College, not the voters. This was originally implemented because of concern that the people, who were regarded as uneducated, could be swayed by populist appeals. Today the VP is essentially appointed by the President, just like the director of the OSTP.
Moreover, the VP has a lot of other interests and is usually a career politician rather than a scientist, and the OSTP concerns itself with all aspects of science and technology, rather than considering space in a vacuum, so to speak.