Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN) is known as the fastest man in Congress for his stellar performances each year in a 5K race that pits federal officials against the members of the media who cover them. Starting in January, however, the 57-year-old lawyer expects to be leading a slower-moving pack: the House Science Committee.
Although the science committee is little known outside the research and academic communities, Gordon says that he asked to be on it as a freshman and that “it was my hope all along” to become its chair some day. As the highest-ranking Democrat on the committee since 2003, he’s all but guaranteed the job in the 110th Congress.First elected in 1984 after holding Democratic Party posts in Tennessee, Gordon has been returned 11 times, mostly by comfortable margins. He succeeded Al Gore, whose election to the Senate that year launched a national career that would take him within a hanging chad of the White House. Gordon, who still lives in his hometown of Murfreesboro, holds no such grand political ambitions, say those who have followed his career. But he still wants to make a difference. “He’s a totally local politician,” says Jeff Vincent, the Washington, D.C.-based head of federal relations for Vanderbilt University in neighboring Nashville. “I think this is really an opportunity for him to play a larger role.”
As chair of the committee’s space panel in the early 1990s, Gordon developed an interest in space-related issues that is likely to translate into closer scrutiny of the Bush Administration’s proposed moon-Mars exploration program and its impact on space science. “I think that both are underfunded,” he says, “but I think we need to know more before we can move ahead.”
His supportive but questioning attitude toward NASA mirrors the view of the outgoing chair, retiring moderate New York Republican Sherwood “Sherry” Boehlert. In fact, the two men see eye to eye on most issues before the committee–notably, additional funding for science education at the National Science Foundation (NSF), criticism of the Administration’s attempts to muzzle federal scientists on sensitive topics such as climate change, and doubling federal spending for research in the physical sciences. “I can’t think of a better relationship between a chair and a ranking [minority] member than between Bart and myself,” says Boehlert.
Even so, that bipartisanship may be put to the test in the next Congress. Gordon is eager to set up an entity within the Department of Energy (DOE) modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Although the idea comes from an acclaimed 2005 National Academies report on strengthening U.S. science that the Administration has embraced, President George W. Bush pointedly omitted any new DOE agency from the competitiveness plan he submitted to Congress earlier this year. Gordon’s desire to give NSF a bigger role in science education may also irritate the White House, which wsants the Education Department in the driver’s seat. And Gordon’s promise to hold hearings “to give scientists a chance to tell their side of the story” about whether the Bush Administration has undermined scientific integrity is sure to draw fire from Republican colleagues.
When asked how the recent shift in political make-up of the US legislature might affect what gets placed upon the current Senate and House environmental agendas, Chief of Majority Staff for the House Science Committee David Goldston answered that change may be slow and that many of us would look back on today as ‘the good old days.’ That’s right, the days of fighting over whether climate change is real are likely to pale in comparison to the days when the questions shift to, ‘Okay, what do we do now? How much do we cut? What do we sacrifice? What does the cost/benefit analysis tell us?’
How slowly? There isn’t much we can do about dead letter legislation like the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which gives large incentives for “clean coal” initiatives like IGCC and pittances for alternatives like solar and wind, and the Massachusetts vs. EPA Supreme Court case too is out of the hands of legislators. However, there is opportunity for new legislation for renewable, alternative fuel sources and the Democrat majority should prove a formidable bulwark against much of the wrongheaded environmental policy we’ve seen since 2000 (Clear Skies Initiative, Healthy Forest Initiative, relaxation of mercury emissions rules, snowmobiles in Yellowstone, and repeated attempts to drill in ANWR, to name just a scant few). Boxer says that some of her first priorities will be holding hearings on global warming to review current proposals for action and to work towards “’protecting children and families’ from toxic chemicals’, through not only a review of Superfund site safety risks, but also hopefully by working to repeal many of the recent legislation hamstringing important health and safety acts like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. Re-strengthening the EPA to pre-Bush administration levels would also go a long way towards better enforcement of existing regulations of toxic chemicals.
So is the changing of the guard in the US legislature an immediate panacea? Of course not. However, those in power control what gets placed on the agenda, so I think we all have cause to hope for change.
As soon as Firefox 2.0 was available, I downloaded it and perused the new offering of plugins. The most intriguing one thus far has been Zotero, a application that allows users to download bibliographic information and store it, much like End Note. However, in the few days that I’ve had to play with Zotero, it has already proven to be easier to use and much more useful than End Note. This could be due to my own lack of facility with End Note, but I also like the ability to add information with just a click, as opposed to creating a file in CLIO and then downloading into End Note. Finally, Zotero has much more functionality: you can create separate libraries (playlists of citations, if you will, for different projects), ability to store pdfs as well as images, links, and entire web pages, and, of course, creation of citations in any of the usual formats (MLA, AMA, etc.). Best of all? This all happens in your web browser, where you’re likely doing all of your research.
Hold the book with its back on a smooth or covered table; let the front board down, then the other, holding the leaves in one hand while you open a few leaves at the back, then a few at the front, and so on, alternately opening back and front, gently pressing open the sections till you reach the center of the volume. Do this two or three times and you will obtain the best results. Open the volume violently or carelessly in any one place and you will likely break the back and cause a start in the leaves. Never force the back of the book.
“A connoisseur many years ago, an excellent customer of mine, who thought he knew perfectly how to handle books, came into my office when I had an expensive binding just brought from the bindery ready to be sent home; he, before my eyes, took hold of the volume and tightly holding the leaves in each hand, instead of allowing them free play, violently opened it in the center and exclaimed: ‘How beautifully your bindings open!’ I almost fainted. He had broken the back of the volume and it had to be rebound.”
After I failed my econ midterm (along with the rest you) Wednesday, I met a friend for dinner downtown. We had a long conversation about the consumerism of our society, our own consumerism, and what bearing, if any, our attitudes and beliefs have had on our behavior with respect to environmental issues. I spent a lot of time last year in a milieu that deified ’style’ and ‘design’ and all that glittered, and I found it to be an exercise in the constant gratification of one’s ego. Attributes of character seemed less important than how one was shod or the level of “beauty” in one’s consumption.
An article in the New York Times on Thursday answers only part of the question, but the ethos of it resonated with me: “At the core of his philosophy is the belief that our relentless attention to renovation and reorganizing, to building and rebuilding, distracts us from the more demanding work of becoming better partners, caretakers and friends. Style, in Mr. Ho’s view, is unstudied, capricious.”
I struggle every day with both the internalized exhortations telling me to consume more and the weight of what I already own. Who am I to seek out change in the lifestyles of others when I can’t yet work it out for myself?
Thanks to the tireless networking of one Mike Carim, I am proud to invite you all to hear Chief of Majority Staff for the House Science CommitteeDavid Goldston speak on the science and policy of climate change on Thursday, November 9th.
Since his appointment in 2001, Mr. Goldston has overseen this committee with jurisdiction over much of the federal civilian
research and development budget, including programs run by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency.
Goldston has worked with Congressman Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) in Washington since 1983. Both are characterized as pro-environment Republicans and when Dr. James Hansen of NASA (and, of course, of Iowa) first spoke out about the muzzling on climate change he received from the Bush administration, Congressman Boehlert published a letter to NASA administrators asserting that “when it comes to an issue like climate change, a subject of ongoing public debate with immense ramifications, the government ought to be bending over backward to make sure that its scientists are able to discuss their work and what it means.”
Please join us for lunch on Thursday to hear Mr. Goldston speak about his experiences crafting much of the legislation that comes out on science-related topics in the House.
Who: Dr. David Goldston, Chief of Majority Staff for the House Science Committee
Thanks to everyone who brought their opinions and interests to the first SIPA Salon. The topic of the evening was the Earth Institute and while some conversations focused on Jeffrey Sachs and the usefulness (or lack thereof) of his approach to the economics of development, many conversations organically meandered to other topics, such as the implications of both green and humanitarian design as practiced by those featured in the Architecture for Humanity book Design Like You Give a Damn, how to creatively and innovatively manage in seemingly monolithic governmental agencies, and how on earth to find compelling internships for the spring semester.
I’ve heard much positive feedback from attendees and marked interest in the next salon. Please comment to this post or email me directly for suggestions for the next SIPA Salon theme, as well as any general Salon comments, such as scheduling, location, etc.
