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SUMMARY MINUTES APPROVED BY
THE NOAA SCIENCE ADVISORY BOARD WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 2000 Official Call to Order and
Review of Meeting Format Dr. Uhart officially called the fifth meeting of the NOAA Science Advisory Board (SAB) to order at 8:00 A.M. and explained the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) guidelines for the meeting. Introduction of the NOAA SAB
Chair and Board Members and Opening Statement of the Chair Dr. Beeton welcomed the board members and opened the meeting. He described the meeting agenda for the next 3 days. FY 2002 budget presentations by the Strategic Planning teams will be on Thursday and Friday. He voiced concern over crosscutting issues. Report on NOAA FY 2000 Budget
and Introduction to NOAA FY 2002 Budget Process Ms. Fruchter explained the FY2002 budget cycle. She asked the SAB to make recommendations for the FY 2002 budget. Questions and Discussion Dr. Washington asked how NOAA works on the interagency issues. Ms. Fruchter replied that NOAA coordinates through the National Science and Technology Council, the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, and individually with agencies. Dr. Len Pietrafesa asked if the plan is for a flat budget. Ms. Fruchter said that it looks as though it is actually rising. She responded that OMB gives NOAA a budget, including outyear profile. It is a flat budget, including the outyears. NOAA allows the teams a 10% growth above that. Inflation is usually included as part of negotiations. Adjustments to the base (amount) have primarily been responding to inflation. NOAA sees this as its highest priority. Guidance to the teams includes inflation numbers. Teams are also given an Operations Research and Facilities (ORF) limit (systems) and guidance for the systems accounts (satellites, computers, buildings, etc.). In the past, Procurement Acquisitions Construction (PAC) Teams have been giving their recommendations. Now each team comes forward with a fixed number of initiatives and presents these to the constituents. Each team is limited to the number of initiatives. Each team gets a different number of initiatives. They are also limited in amount per initiative and in total. However, mega-initiatives, or out-of-the-box initiatives, are encouraged. This year NOAA identified the 5 areas of the mega initiatives: Watershed Impacts of Coastal Storms, Sustainable Fisheries, Ocean System for Improved Climate and Marine Services, Ocean Exploration and Research, and Infrastructure. This is $800M increase over the 2001 base. She said NOAA won't get it all but it is a healthy starting point. NOAA has had some success with what Congress would be receptive to. The teams have this flexibility. NOAA has money added to the budget for an earmark. NOAA asks for most of the earmarks in the DOC (about half) of the total submissions. DOC takes out some and OMB takes out another half. During outyears the guidance is 5% each year. Inflation is above the guidance. Earmarks are especially a problem with the research budget. There are two NOS items. Adjustments to base (ATB) are about $75M, and considered a sort of tax on the programs. On the other hand, NWS has been successful in getting ATBs. Earmarks are problematic for NESDIS, too. PAC initiatives are also limited this year. Ms. Fruchter moved on to explain ORF targets. Policy allows for the 10% growth this year on U.S. Weather Research Program (USWRP) and aquatic nuisance species, plus a few (the 5 mega-initiatives) which are above the 10%. The Infrastructure Team has been asked to propose their initiatives. However, they must also, as oversight, to look at the other teams for an infrastructure needs. Rumors are that OMB will ask for a "limited services" budget (no new services). A new administration could add their own big initiatives (to highlight their priorities). Some initiatives may be terminated in the new budget. The House markups usually tend to be flat (same as last year's appropriation). The Senate's mark is usually higher. The House assumes NOAA will be more efficient or drop lower priority work. Research is especially hard-hit with this type of process. NOAA's budget has increased in the past, yet there is a problem with research dollars. NOS and OAR are particularly vulnerable to this. They are even looking to a possible reduction in force. We do not have champions on the hill for NOAA's research. An initiative can be stopped in many places: the Hill, OMB, and DOC. NOAA is not successful in saying NOAA research is essential to its mission. Congressional members in the Commerce, State, and Justice Committees (CSJ) are not used to thinking about science and research. There are few external champions for most research. Large, highly visible, special programs like Sea Grant and NURP are exceptions. There is, however, great support from Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). OSTP has provided some support by going to Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the climate initiative also. The question is research vs. development. Using their definitions of research, OMB does not include basic research in the NOAA budget. Questions and Discussion Mr. Douglas and Dr. Maxwell agreed that there is a lack of political, constituent support. Ms. Fruchter concurs that there are few non-feds going to the hill to support the President's budget for NOAA. Dr. Pietrafesa explained that a built-in partnership exists between with the labs and Joint Institutes. Sea Grant and NURP have university support. NOAA labs should also get this support from their Joint Institutes. Penny explained that much of the outside focus is on the operational parts of the NOAA Line Offices (especially NWS and NMFS) and not on their research. Three-quarters of the CSJ letters of support for programs are for NOAA. These, however, are not dealt with positively. Dr. Beeton asked a series of questions. How do you view the importance of the input by the SAB? What are the interactions between the Line Offices and the teams? Changes in the planning process (improvements) relevant to the science and research monies will be helpful. She replied that the teams would report to NOAA Administration what they heard from the SAB and how they addressed it. Most Line Offices meet in the winter and give guidance to their team representatives. Teams usually decide on priorities through consensus. Presentation and Discussion
of Earmarks on National Marine Fisheries Research Program Ms. Dalton explained that NMFS has a bottom-up budget process. NMFS starts with the present budget and works up. Congress does it opposite. Appropriations Committee sets a limit on the number of allocations. The members decide what they do from there. CSJ is very diverse, so there is a lot of competition. CSJ does not care much for coastal programs. Many of the budget requests (letters) that CSJ gets are outside the NMFS budget. The Hill sees this as good for NMFS, but it masks a number of problems. The base budget is stagnant or even eroding. This is causing more restrictions. Earmarked amounts are almost one-half of the NMFS budget. Not all PPAs (programs, projects and accounts) and earmarks are bad, but they can only be used for the stated purpose. The new Magnuson Act has many new mandates, but earmarks sometimes were meant for only some parts of the country. Ms. Dalton described pass-throughs of extra-mural funding. This type of funding begins to get identified as part of the budget. Sometimes it is easier for a university to ask for a specific earmark than for general support of a NOAA program (e.g., global change). The budget has actually stagnated in recent years. This is at a time when demands on the agency have grown. There were 913 regulatory actions by NMFS in 1998. Each of these actions has costs associated with analyses, assessments, and certifying requirements. External assessments also impact the budget. Dr. Pietrafesa noted that overhead is not an insignificant amount. Ms. Frutcher explained that rent is part of overhead because it is paid centrally. Dr. Sissenwine explained that the fringe growth areas (e.g., salmon, right whales) are addressed pretty well, often times at the expense of research and assessment (e.g., maintaining 30-year stock assessment time series) ACTION ITEM: At the request of Dr. Beeton and Mr. Douglas, NMFS will share the results of the independent budget review at a future meeting and will include any NMFS recommendations. NOAA update to SAB recommendations concerning the establishment of three pilot SAB Working Groups to develop review processes that will be used to review various NOAA science efforts (from October 1999 meeting of the Board) Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric
Research Ms. Koch explained that there are two working group efforts in progress in OAR. OGP currently exists within the SAB. The second activity is the development of a proposal for a Working Group to review the labs and Joint Institutes in OAR/NOAA. This is in progress. ACTION ITEM: OAR will submit terms of reference (TOR), a list of potential nominees, and an outline of the OAR review process to the Board for review. Final approval of appointments to the OEP panel will be made by Dr. Beeton . Discussion and Questions Dr. Beeton explains that the idea was to have the OGP panel under SAB purview. He has the existing vitae of current member. The next step is appointing 3 new members. Ms. Koch explained the SAB has the summary information and will have the rest of the vitae in a month. Dr. Brown said the new list is very good. He has talked to the candidates and at least 3 are willing to serve. The Group is proceeding OAR looked at the SAB's 8 themes
and suggested changes. They propose changes to 4 of the themes:
Timeliness and Scale, Capacity-Building, Social Science Integration,
and Diversity. ACTION ITEM: Drs. Hanna and Gober will work with Ms. Koch and OAR on the wording of the Eight Themes. The revised themes will be provided to the Board before the next meeting, where the changes will be considered. National Environmental Satellite
Data and Information Service The proposed panel members were previously provided to the SAB as part of a letter sent to the Board. NESDIS accepted the themes; specifically in the areas they would like the SAB to look at. NESDIS has not given any formal invitations. A panel of six is ideal. NESDIS is looking for a review in September. Dr. Stephenson-Hawk has agreed to Chair the review. The Working Group will work with Dr. Stevenson-Hawk on the invitations. Ms. Glackin suggested having a non-environmentalist on the panel. Questions and Discussion Dr. Washington expressed his concern with the huge amounts of data. NESDIS should have somebody on there to cover this. Perhaps Almondson is the right person. Ms. Glackin said the NASA linkage is important. Dr. Gober asked who would consider the social integration principle. A general discussion of the make-up of the proposed panel members ensued. Dr. Brown stressed that the Board keep in mind the scope of the NESDIS review. Dr. Beeton requested the vitae for the panel members and social science members. He explained that the Board needs a larger list to choose from. Dr. Maxwell made a motion. MOTION: The SAB requests that a social scientist be added to the list of NESDIS review panel members. Dr. Alexander seconded. Dr. Beeton asked for a discussion. There was no discussion. The motion passed with a unanimous vote ACTION ITEM: NESDIS must present
the Board with the vitae for the NESDIS science review panel
members. The list should be longer than the current list and
include a social scientist. Capt. Lillestolen reiterated that an SAB member does not have to be on every panel. NOS can invite a member to participate and they may or may not volunteer. A broad discussion ensued on the level of effort by the SAB and its members. Questions and Discussion Dr. Gober said that many social scientists have technical expertise. They should be included. Dr. Brown suggests that the SAB needs to do some scoping because we don't know how may of these reviews there will be. The SAB should design some sort of input function, a process. NOS should decide which reviews should involve SAB. Even if there is not an SAB member on the panel, it still comes through the full Board. However, he is worried that the SAB will become a bottleneck. ACTION ITEM: Mr. Douglas and Drs. Alexander, Rice, and Washington will draft a set of options as to how the full Board and individual members can get involved in the formal evaluation of NOAA Science through review panels. NOAA response to SAB request
to establish an Ocean and Coastal Information Dissemination Service A work group should be charged with coming up with an implementation plan. This work group should consist of individuals in instructional design and technology that are aware of users needs. The work group should review outside reports. The group needs to build on existing systems and create a web-based infrastructure that will allow access for scientists, policy makers and the public. There are many domain names that have not yet been claimed that can lead to easy access. NOAA may come back to the Board with a pilot. However, the project needs to be sustainable. There must be a commitment of resources, not necessarily a new building, but a commitment to the idea. Questions and Discussion Mr. Douglas suggests that her recommendations are right on target. People outside of government or from non-science disciplines should help in the design of the system. Dr. Pietrafesa explained that the university community has been remiss in posting their data sets. We need to take advantage of highly distributed digital libraries (capacity building). Dr. Rice concurred and added that it needs to be marketable in the budge process. Dr. Beeton spoke for the Board and expressed gratitude for Dr. Baker's quick response to the Board's motion to establish an Ocean and Coastal information dissemination service from the previous meeting. Presentation and SAB discussion
of the "Census of Marine Life" Questions and Discussion Dr. Hanna asked why the emphasis on the deep sea. Dr. Sissenwine explained that the emphasis from the steering committee still must emerge. It is not a substitute for the operational stock assessments that are already ongoing (in NMFS). Mr. Douglas asked how this would help management decisions if you were only going to look at distribution and abundance. Will there be involvement of managers in formulating the science questions? Are there social scientists that will help formulate the questions that will help it sell? Dr. Sissenwine replied that there would be some collaboration once the science agenda becomes firm. There are many in his lab but he has not engaged them yet. The input is the indirect technological innovations that will come out of the program that will help NMFS. There will be direct input to international treaties and policy decisions. Status of draft report to
NOAA Administrator and Secretary of Commerce The 4/4/00 draft was distributed to the board. Dr. Beeton suggested the Board look it over and it will be discussed at a later time during the meeting. The drafting committee may use all, or none, of the list of 10 issues submitted by the line offices. SAB Sub-Committee and Issue
Group Reports ACTION ITEM: The Sub-Committee requests a report from NOAA on the status of the coastal monitoring program to include: who is doing what; what are the coastal science centers and do they overlap with existing labs or centers; and what is NOAA's role. The Sub-Committee thanked Dr. Baker for taking action on the Board's request for a coastal and ocean information dissemination service and tasking Ms. Davidson to take an initial look at a dissemination system. Mr. Douglas enters the following motion: MOTION: The Science Advisory Board thanks Dr. Baker for taking action on the Board's request to establish an ocean and coastal information dissemination service and asking Ms. Davidson to take an initial look at a dissemination system. The Sub-Committee recommends that the Board convene a cross-NOAA task force to design and implement a user-friendly data and products data center, pursuant to Ms. Davidson's suggestion and that NOAA provide the necessary resources to make it happen. Dr. Alexander seconded the motion. Discussion of the motion began with Dr. Maxwell asking if Ms. Davidson is far enough along for this motion. Mr. Douglas said that she has a start. The next step is for a task force to design and implement the system, and NOAA should direct all of the offices to participate. The motion was unanimously approved. Mr. Douglas presented the idea of another partnership meeting, a NSULGC-NOAA workshop to discuss support for how NOAA science and research could be promoted, both in the science and general public communities. Mr. Douglas presented the motion MOTION: The Subcommittee on Coastal Science suggests that another NSULGC-NOAA partnership workshop be convened to identify what other steps can be taken to improve scientific and public support, and eventually, political support, for NOAA research and science and to follow up on the efforts of the last workshop. Dr. Maxwell seconded the motion. There was no discussion. The motion passed with a unanimous vote. SAB Sub-Committee and Issue
Group Reports Dr. Washington made a motion. MOTION: NESDIS provide the report "Treasures at Risk" to the SAB before it is sent out for review. Mr. Douglas seconded this motion, amending it to say as soon as possible. The motion was then opened for discussion. Ms. Glackin said that the report is the same as what the subcommittee has seen before. The motion passed with a unanimous vote. ACTION ITEM: Ms. Glackin will send the Board a memo as to the disposition and schedule of the report, including a most recent draft. Ocean Exploration and Research
Initiative Ms. Moore presented NOAA's Ocean Exploration and Research Initiative to the Board. Living and working under the sea refers to a follow-on to the Aquarius, possibly an "international inner space station." Four research strategies were presented: regional expeditions (e.g., arctic), collaborations (especially with platforms), exploring through time (undersea observatories in remote locations), and event-specific response (e.g., volcanic eruptions). Education and outreach is an important part of the initiative, 10% of the budget. The $50M budge is split between ocean frontiers, new resources, ocean acoustics, cultural heritage, education and outreach, and data management and involves all NOAA line offices except NWS. Questions and Discussion Dr. Washington asked if there would be an emphasis on EEZ or the deep ocean. Ms. Moore explained that we are talking about the deep ocean, but our coasts first. At this point there is not much collaboration with the Census of Marine Life. NOAA is the only agency sharing in the $50M, but we are leveraging partnerships with other agencies. Dr. Stephenson-Hawk asked about existing programs in NOAA and other agencies. Is this over and above or duplication? Ms. Moore explained that NOAA would not be proposing this if there were. We will ask NSF to collaborate on the science plan. The science program would evolve from a series of workshops. Dr. Washington asked about the balance with university partners. Ms. Moore explained that most of the science is by the university community. It would be a competitive program. Dr. Rice expressed concern over a delay in the Census because of some desire to coordinate or combine with the Ocean Exploration Initiative. Mr. Douglas stated that they should still be integrated, not to stop and go back to square one, but to share resources. Mr. Douglas then made the following motion. MOTION: SAB supports the Census of Marine Life and urges NOAA support and participation in this long-term initiative. The SAB urges that NOAA support for this project not be at the expense of current or future fish stock assessments; but that it should include social scientists; that it create direct links with public outreach and education; and that data be collected and managed in ways that inform future ocean resource management decisions. Dr. Pietrafesa seconded the motion. The discussion of the motion began with Dr. Alexander proposing to strike research from stock assessment. There should be no reference to ocean exploration because it is new and embryonic. Let it develop by itself for a while. Dr. Hanna agreed. Dr. Stephenson-Hawk asked what NOAA guidance was regarding the new initiatives. She added that there is a desire for integration and cooperation at the line office level. Modifications were made to the original motion and the Board agreed to the changes. Dr. Pietrafesa seconded the modified motion. There was further discussion, with Dr. Rice suggesting that "governance structures" be deleted because it would cause big problems in the international arena. Mr. Douglas and Dr. Pietrafesa agreed to the changes. After further discussion with no changes to the text, a unanimous vote was cast in favor of the motion. SAB Sub-Committee and Issue
Group Reports The following "Observations
and Recommendations of the Science Advisory Board's Sub-Committee
on Scientific Synthesis" was distributed to the SAB. The Sub-Committee recommends that NOAA convene a panel of experts to look into the integration of social science into the development of NOAA science programs and projects. It should consider a short-term social science agenda and answer 2 or 3 questions. It should also define a long-tem research agenda, say 3 to 5 years. Dr. Gober motioned for the SAB to accept the Sub-Committee's observations and recommendations. Dr. Rice seconded the motion. Discussion followed involving terminology and the organization of the panel. Recommendation C was deleted. The amended observations and recommendations passed with a unanimous vote. MOTION B. This panel of experts should
consist primarily of social scientists in the environmental field,
including representatives from inside and outside of NOAA. The
panel will be appointed by the Chair of the Science Advisory
Board upon consultation with the Board. SAB Sub-Committee and Issue
Group Reports The extended list of NOAA education projects and programs was only received two weeks ago so no comments yet. Dr. Stephenson-Hawk would like to suggest changing the issue group to a subcommittee. Members are part of other committees so it is hard to meet. Dr. Beeton described his involvement with NOAA Education Committee. He too would also like to make the Issue Group a Sub-Committee. Dr. Stephenson-Hawk made a motion. MOTION: Change the designation of the Education Issue Group to a Sub-Committee. The motion was seconded by Dr. Beeton. There was no discussion and it passed unanimously. The meeting adjourned for the day. |