ESA Policy News April 1: House, Senate pass FY 2016 budgets, Obama orders federal agencies to cut carbon emissions, NSF releases public access policy

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by Policy Analyst Terence Houston. Read the full Policy News here. 

BUDGET: HOUSE AND SENATE FY 2016 BUDGET PROPOSALS ADVANCE IN CONGRESS

In late March, the House and Senate Budget Committees released their respective budgets for Fiscal Year 2016 that begins Sept. 30. The House passed its FY 2016 budget (H.Con.Res. 27) March 25 by a vote of 228–199. All Democrats opposed the House budget as did 17 Republicans. The Senate budget (S.Con.Res. 11) passed its budget March 27 by a vote of 52–46, also along largely partisan lines. Sens. Rand Paul (R-TX) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) joined all Democrats in voting against the Senate budget.

In contrast to the president’s annual proposed budget, House and Senate budgets do not outline spending levels for specific federal agencies and programs. The budgets are nonbinding resolutions that set general polices intended to provide direction to House and Senate appropriators. Leaders of the House and Senate Budget Committees hope to reconcile their budgets by mid-April. As concurrent resolutions simply express the intent of Congress, they are not sent to the president.

With Republicans in control of both chambers, the House and Senate FY 2016 budgets are fairly similar. Unlike the president’s FY 2016 proposed budget, the House and Senate FY 2016 budgets would seek to balance the budget in ten years. This deficit reduction would be achieved largely through repealing the Affordable Care Act and cuts to Medicaid, Pell grants and the Supplemental Assistance Nutrition Program that provides food stamps. The president’s proposal would not balance the budget in ten years, but would keep the deficit from substantially increasing.

The House and Senate budgets also differ from the president’s proposal because they adhere to the annual automatic sequestration cuts for all federal discretionary spending set by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (P.L. 112–25). Both budgets would provide defense discretionary spending with $523 billion and non-defense discretionary with $493 billion in FY 2016.

Given that Congressional Democrats and the White House object to many of the policy prescriptions included in the two budgets, it is unlikely that the final FY 2016 appropriations bills will be signed into law without some concessions to Democrats on discretionary spending levels.

Click here for additional information on the House budget.

Click here for additional information on the Senate budget.

Click here for a White House analysis comparing the congressional budgets with the president’s proposal.

WHITE HOUSE: PRESIDENT ORDERS REDUCTION IN FEDERAL AGENCY EMISSIONS

On March 19, President Obama signed an executive order requiring federal agencies to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) output by 40 percent by 2025 compared with 2008 levels.

The CO2 reductions would come from improved energy efficiency from the government’s 360,000 federal buildings and 650,000 fleet vehicles. The government would set a goal to draw 25 percent of its power from clean energy sources by 2025 and cut fleet emissions per vehicle by 30 percent in the same timeframe compared with 2014 levels.

The US State Department formally submitted its 2025 emissions reduction target to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on March 31.

Click here for additional information on the executive order.

Click here to view the State Department submission to the UNFCCC.

NSF: PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH WILL BE PUBLICLY AVAILABLE WITHIN 12 MONTHS

On March 18, the National Science Foundation (NSF) released a policy requiring grantees to make their peer-reviewed research papers freely available within 12 months of publication. The requirement goes into effect for proposals submitted or due in January 2016.

Initially, NSF plans to use the Department of Energy’s PAGES (Public Access Gateway for Energy and Science) system as its designated repository and will require NSF-funded authors to upload a copy of their journal articles or juried conference paper. The NSF repository will contain abstracts, authors, the journal issue, and other metadata intended to preserve publications long-term in a “dark archive.”  For public access, the NSF repository will provide a link to the full-text paper on the publisher’s website.  If the publisher’s website is not available, the repository will have a PDF version available.

The new policy will be announced as a change NSF’s Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide in the Federal Register this month and is open for public comment.

Click here for additional information on the NSF plan.

EPA: SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES EXPRESS CONCERN WITH “SECRET SCIENCE” BILL

The Ecological Society of America was among 35 scientific societies and academic institutions to send a letter to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) expressing concern with the Secret Science Reform Act of 2015. The letter contends that key components of the bill, such as a requirement prohibiting the agency from using research that is not transparent or reproducible, could have unintended detrimental consequences.

“With respect to reproducibility of research, some scientific research, especially in areas of public health, involves longitudinal studies that are so large and of great duration that they could not realistically be reproduced,” the letter notes. “Rather, these studies are replicated utilizing statistical modeling. The same may be true for scientific data from a one-time event (e.g., Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill) where the data are gathered in real time. We could foresee a situation in which the EPA would be constrained from making a proposal or even disseminating public information in a timely fashion.”

Click here to view the full letter.

BLM: HYDRAULIC FRACTURING RULE ADDRESSES WELL INFRASTRUCTURE, GROUNDWATER

On March 20, the Bureau of Land Management released a final rule intended to support safe and responsible hydraulic fracturing for 750 million acres of federal and Native American lands.

The rule requires companies to disclose the chemicals injected during the hydraulic fracturing process, commonly known as “fracking.” It also requires companies to verify the integrity of cement barriers to ensure fracking fluids do not leak into groundwater systems. The rule also stipulates use of above-ground tanks to store fluids that return to the surface in an effort to reduce risks to surrounding ecosystems.

Click here for additional information.