Debra Saunders at the San Francisco Chronicle has this very perceptive essay on U.S. climate policy and politics in yesterday’s edition. An excerpt:

“WHEN SEN. JOHN Edwards addressed The Chronicle editorial board in February before the Democratic primaries, I asked him if he would ask the Senate to ratify the Kyoto global warming treaty. “Yes,” the presidential candidate answered. Then, he added, he believed Sen. John Kerry shared his position. Wrong. The next day, when presidential candidate Kerry talked to The Chronicle editorial board, he said that he would not ask the Senate to ratify Kyoto. Now the Democratic Party has dropped support for Kyoto (a plank in the 2000 party platform) from the initial draft of the national platform for 2004… While Europeans generally see President Clinton as supporting Kyoto — after all, his administration signed the pact — Clinton never sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification, hence it was never official U.S. policy. More important, when Clinton left office in 2001, emissions were 14 percent higher than 1990 levels. Clearly Clinton was never serious about meeting the Kyoto goals. Clinton, no fool, knew how compliance with Kyoto would damage the U.S. economy. Emissions have fallen during the Bush years to 11.5 percent higher than 1990 levels…”

Read the whole essay.

Thanks to David Appell for the link.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) released a report on Wednesday titled Annual European Community greenhouse gas inventory 1990-2002 and inventory report 2004 which contains some interesting data on GHG emissions in Europe. The EEA provided an overview of its findings in its press release announcing the report:

“The fall in 2002 took total EU15 emissions to 2.9% below their level in the base year used for calculations – 1990 in most cases. This represents an improvement on 2001, when emissions were only 2.1% lower than in the base year. But it still leaves the EU with a long way to go to meet its commitment, under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, to bring emissions in the period 2008-2012 to 8% below their base year level. Assuming the 8% reduction between the base year and 2008-2012 were to follow a linear path, emissions should have fallen 4.8% by 2002. On this basis, only four countries are on track to comply with the national targets that all pre-2004 member states have accepted under an agreement to ensure that the EU as a whole fulfils its Kyoto commitment. The four are France, Germany, Sweden and the UK (see annex for details). On the same basis, the other 11 pre-2004 member states are heading towards overshooting their emission targets, some by a substantial margin. This is the case particularly for Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Austria, Italy, Denmark and Greece. Spain faces a greater challenge to meet its target than any other member state. Its emissions in 2002 were 39.4% above their base year level – well over double the 15% increase it is allowed between the base year and 2008-2012 under the EU agreement.”

If you’d like to do some comparing, here are the U.S. estimates, and the U.S. Energy Information Agency press release is here.

It is data like this that led me earlier this year to write:

“Much has been made about the apparent differences between the United States and Europe on the issue of climate change. A close look reveals that from a practical standpoint these differences, while real and significant, may be more symbolic than substantive… The point here is not simply that Europe is struggling to meet its Kyoto commitments or that the United States is a profligate emitter of greenhouse gases, but that under the current approach to climate policy the stated intentions of policy makers and the general populace do not appear to make a large difference in policy outcomes with respect to in actual greenhouse gas emissions. In short, with very few exceptions industrialized countries that have signed on to Kyoto have seen their emissions increase and so too have countries that have turned down Kyoto.”

Reference: Pielke, Jr., R.A., 2004: L’Apocalisse Prossima Ventura (Italian Version). Darwin, May, 52-59. (Also available in English.)

Here on Prometheus we discussed prizes as space policy a while back (here and here).

Yesterday the House Science Committee held a hearing on the topic. Read the press release here and the witness testimony can be found here Particularly thoughtful testimony was provided by Molly Macauley of Resources for the Future. And a cautionary note was provided by Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the Congressional Budget Office. Even so, my guess is that we’ll see prizes as space policy in the not-too-distant future. If so, it’ll be a policy experiment worth watching.

A story on Yucca Mountain in today’s New York Times by Matthew Wald contains this interesting, and I think very misplaced, observation:

“Congress has made other decisions that substitute policy for science.”

What decisions are being referred to?

“In 1982, [Congress] decided that waste should be buried, and in 1987, it said waste should be buried at Yucca, one of three sites the Energy Department was then considering. There was no presumption that Yucca was best, only that it was a site on which everybody outside Nevada could agree, and was better than leaving the waste at reactor sites around the country.”

… and …

“[Congress] alone decides what high-level waste is. It is considering a bill that would redefine some waste as not being high level, so the waste could stay where it is, in old steel tanks in South Carolina, rather than being solidified for burial at Yucca.”

“Science” alone cannot answer questions about whether or not to bury nuclear waste, where to bury that waste, what waste is risky, and how to bury or store that waste. The fact is that there is not a single technical answer to such questions because the answers involve considerations of different individuals’ and groups’ values and preferences, which differ widely. “Risk” is a subjective term. Politics is the process that we use to reconcile differences in values in preferences when we need to act together.

To suggest in this instance that Congress has made “decisions that substitute policy for science” is to fundamentally mischaracterize the role of science in decision making, and the differences between policy and politics.

On such confusion see:

Pielke, Jr., R. A. 2004. Abortion, Tornadoes, and Forests: Thinking about Science, Politics and Policy, Chapter 9, pp. 153-142 in J. Bowersox and K. Arabas (eds.) Forest Futures: Science, Policy and Politics for the Next Century (Rowman and Littlefield).

Yesterday the NRC released a letter report on NASA’s options on the Hubble Space Telescope. Today, here is how the New York Times characterized the report,

“An expert panel from the National Academy of Sciences said Tuesday that the Hubble Space Telescope was too valuable to be allowed to die in orbit and that NASA should commit itself to a servicing mission to extend its life, perhaps with astronauts in a space shuttle… The committee of outside experts urged the space agency to commit itself to replacing two major instruments on the telescope, as well as upgrading its batteries and gyroscopes to extend its life.”

NASA’s decision on Hubble is interesting enough (and Shep is our local expert), and I don’t weigh in on it here, but what I’d like to focus on is the characterization of the NRC panel as “outside experts” and the role of NRC in making recommendations to government agencies.

First lets consider the issue of “outside experts.” Presumably, a fair interpretation of the phrase “outside expert” means in this context that the members of the NRC panel are outside of NASA or not subject to benefiting from the decision NASA makes on Hubble. But despite their significant influence on policy, the media (or anyone else for that matter) rarely looks at NRC panels for any actual or perceived conflicts of interest. Of course, the NRC has an internal process that looks at personal financial conflicts of interest (such as owning stock in a company that benefits from a NRC recommendation), but often members of a NRC panel are recipients of government funding for research in areas that they are making recommendations.

Lets take a look at the composition of the NRC Committee on the Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope.

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The General Accounting Office released a report today titled, “Homeland Security: Communication Protocols and Risk Communication Principles Can Assist in Refining the Advisory System.”

“In this report, we make specific recommendations to the Secretary of Homeland Security regarding documentation of communication protocols to assist DHS in better managing federal agencies’ and states’ expectations regarding the methods, timing, and content of threat information and guidance provided to these entities and to ensure that DHS follows clear and consistent policies and procedures when interacting with these entities through the Homeland Security Advisory System.”

In this instance Saturday Night Live scooped the GAO:

“Good evening. I’m Tom Ridge. Nearly six months ago, President Bush asked me to organize and lead a new federal agency, the Office of Homeland Security. Since that time, many of you have probably wondered just what this agency has been up to and what, if anything, we are doing to prevent terrorist attacks within our borders.

Tonight, I’m proud to unveil my agency’s new weapon in the War on Terror: the Homeland Security advisory system. It’s a simple five level system, which uses color codes to indicate varying levels of terrorist threat. The lowest level of threat is condition OFF-WHITE, followed by CREAM, PUTTY, BONE and finally NATURAL. It is essential that every American learns to recognize and distinguish these colors. Failure to do so could cost you your life. For those who may have questions, an excellent guide will be found on page 74 of the spring J. Crew catalogue.

Now, what precisely do these threat levels indicate? Condition OFF-WHITE, the lowest level, indicates a huge risk of terrorist attack. Next highest, condition CREAM: an immense risk of terrorist attack. Condition PUTTY: an enormous risk of terrorist attack. Condition BONE: a gigantic risk of terrorist attack. And finally, the most serious, condition NATURAL: an enormous risk of terrorist attack.

Many of you probably noticed that in the preceding chart, we used the term “Enormous risk of terrorist attack” twice. This was a mistake we didn’t catch in time and we’re trying to fix it… Live, from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”

The AAAS Leadership Seminar in Science and Technology Policy is a “crash course” in science and technology (S&T) policy, designed for those who need to know how S&T policy works. It is modeled after the highly acclaimed orientation program that AAAS provides for its new S&T Policy Fellows each fall, but distills the key material into 4 days instead of two weeks. Space is limited to only 25 participants—the small group setting provides an ideal opportunity to learn about the challenges and solutions of S&T policy from the experts.

Learn more about this program here.

A fascinating dissertation is waiting to be written on the role of the National Research Council (NRC) in the policy and politics of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. NRC reports often (but not always) eschew explicit discussion of policy, and focus only on “the science.” In practice, it is just about impossible to focus only on “the science” in cases where science is related to decisions. The case of Yucca Mountain makes this abundantly clear. Here is the short story:

An editorial in yesterday’s Washington Post provided a nice summary of the situation:

“Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit complicated matters further, handing down a unanimous decision dismissing most of the objections that figured in multiple lawsuits against Yucca Mountain, save one — but it’s a big one. The court concluded that the Environmental Protection Agency acted wrongly when its regulations governing construction of the site demanded only that it guarantee its safety for 10,000 years. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences — whose views Congress has said the EPA must comply with in these matters — has declared that geological concerns should be considered for a much longer period, even up to a million years. If Yucca Mountain is to comply with the law, the entire project must be rethought or redesigned with that in mind. Alternatively, the law has to be changed.”

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Today, Andrei Illarionov, advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was quoted in the Moscow Times today as saying, “[President] Putin didn’t say he supports the Kyoto Protocol, he said he supports the Kyoto process.”

Last month I posted the following perspective on Russia and Kyoto:

“Politically, there are plenty of reasons for Russia to participate in Kyoto. By committing to participate in the Kyoto process without giving up very much at all as Russia effectively negotiated for other outcomes it desires in the international arena.

Similar incentives exist for the United States to participate, particularly now as the U.S. looks to the international community for help in Iraq. Before you dismiss this argument consider this amazing fact: if President Bush in 2001 had, instead of pulling out of the Kyoto process, simply committed the United States to participate and then did nothing else differently since that time, then the United States would be closer to meeting its Kyoto targets than EU members Ireland, Spain, Austria, Portugal, and about even with Denmark.”

What will the U.S. do on Kyoto under an administration of John Kerry or George W. Bush’s second term?

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Should political considerations play a formal role in the empanelling of federal science advisory committees?

Lets consider three possible answers to this question.

First possible response: No. Political considerations should not play a formal role in the empanelling of federal science advisory committees.

This is the perspective of The Union of Concerned Scientists whose report released this week recommends a policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”:

“… it should be forbidden to ask scientists and other experts being vetted for membership on scientific advisory committees about their political or policy positions, let alone how they have voted in past elections.” And the Bush Administration would seem to agree, with Presidential science advisor John Marburger stating: “The accusation of a litmus test that must be met before someone can serve on an advisory panel is preposterous.”

But in reality, whether or not you ask a prospective panelist about their political or policy perspectives, for several reasons such considerations cannot be avoided.

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