June 12, 2019
A dedicated, university-based team that bridges the science-policy divide
Dr. Michelle McCrackin is a biogeochemist interested in how agriculture, urbanization, energy production, and land use change have influenced nutrient cycling in watersheds, with particular interest in lake and coastal ecosystems. She is a researcher with Baltic Eye in Stockholm, Sweden. For the past five years, I have been part of a novel team, called Baltic Eye, at Stockholm University’s Baltic Sea Centre. Our team is composed of researchers, …
June 5, 2019
The Ocean: A Sink for Carbon, Heat, and Now… Wealth
Dr. David Trossman earned a BA in mathematics and a BA/MA in physics from Washington University in St. Louis, a MA in public policy from the University of Chicago, and a PhD in physical oceanography from the University of Washington-Seattle before moving on to do postdocs, work at NASA, and land at the Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences at the University of Texas-Austin, where he currently works as a …
June 3, 2019
House Spending Bills Boost Science Funding: Part 2
Before leaving for the Memorial Day recess, the House Committee on Appropriations finished consideration of the major science funding bills. We reviewed several spending bills already in part one of our budget breakdown. In this post, we’ll take a deeper dive into the spending bill that funds the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the National Science Foundation. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) …
House Spending Bills Boost Science Funding: Part 1
Before leaving for the Memorial Day recess, the House Committee on Appropriations finished consideration of the major science funding bills, including the spending bills that fund the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the Department of Energy, United States Geological Survey, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Forest Service. Over the next two posts, we’ll detail the spending and programmatic highlights for federal Earth and space science agencies. …
May 28, 2019
Students in Science Policy: Science Policy Fellowships
Note: Katie was interviewed prior to the start of the 116th Congress. Are you nearing the end of your degree and not sure what to do next? A great way to jump into the science policy world is through the AGU Congressional Science Fellowship. Every year AGU sponsors a fellow to work in the offices of either an individual member of Congress or on a committee for a one-year …
May 15, 2019
Students in Science Policy: Science Policy Internships
Every summer and fall, AGU offers paid internships in our Public Affairs department. Interns tackle a range of tasks, from attending Congressional hearings to writing blog posts like this one! Our former intern Alison Evans is currently an associate at Lewis-Burke Associates LLC, a government relations and consulting firm in Washington DC, where she works with universities and non-profit science societies to advocate on behalf of the higher education and …
May 8, 2019
Students in Science Policy: Congressional Visit Days
There are many great ways to get a feel for science policy when you’re still a student. AGU offers Congressional Visit Days (CVD) throughout the year, where participants go through a one-day training workshop before meeting with their members of Congress the following day. In collaboration with other geoscience societies, AGU hosts Geo-CVD every fall in Washington DC. Hannah Rabinowitz, a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University studying seismology, participated in …
May 2, 2019
U.S. House of Representatives to Vote on Climate Action Now Act: The State of the Paris Climate and Agreement and Climate Change Policy
This week, the House of Representatives is voting on H.R. 9, The Climate Action Now Act, which prevents the United States from withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement. The bill will also require President Trump to develop and update annually a plan for the U.S. to meet the greenhouse gas emissions requirements established under the accord. H.R. 9, which is cosponsored by 224 House Democrats and no Republicans, reflects a …
May 1, 2019
Catalyzing Change: One Scientist’s Experience During the Catalyzing Advocacy for Science and Engineering (CASE) Workshop
Meredith Richardson is a PhD Candidate in Civil Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Thanks to AGU and its initiatives for connecting science and policy, last month I had the opportunity to attend the Catalyzing Advocacy for Science and Engineering (CASE) Workshop hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington, DC. The workshop was a 3-day crash course in how Congress works. We …
March 29, 2019
Sequestration is back; and science funding is in jeopardy.
The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) required Congress to find ways to cut the deficit by capping funding for non-defense, including science, and defense programs. Congress never came to an agreement on ways to cut the deficit and therefore automatic across the board cuts for government spending, or sequestration, were invoked. Sequestration was supposed to be so bad that Congress would be forced to reach an agreement. Under the BCA, FY2020 defense …
