In a bipartisan letter, the leaders of the House Science Committee accused Leidos, the logistics contractor for the U.S. Antarctic Program, of presenting inaccurate information and failing to fully cooperate with a National Science Foundation investigation of pervasive sexual harassment and assault on the continent.
House Science Committee Chair Frank Lucas (R-OK) convened a hearing last week to build support for his proposal to remove the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration from the Commerce Department and make it an independent agency. Committee Democrats did not take a firm stance on the idea, seeking additional perspectives.
Reps. Frank Lucas (R-OK) and Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), the new chair and ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, have started to carve out their agendas for the 118th Congress. Working under them, there are a number of new subcommittee leaders this year, half of whom are serving their first term in Congress.
House Science Committee members called for expanding the use of commercial weather data and improving data assimilation at a recent hearing kicking off an effort to update policy for weather research.
The House Science Committee opened the 118th Congress by examining how a national science and technology strategy could help address urgent challenges posed by competition with China and by climate change.
The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Lab has performed a nuclear fusion experiment that released more energy than was applied to it. The accomplishment realizes an idea first posited six decades ago and will have applications in nuclear warhead stewardship, but using the method for practical energy generation remains a distant prospect.
The new CHIPS and Science Act includes a variety of provisions aimed at promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion within the STEM workforce through grant support and workforce research, and by instituting new requirements for data collection and ethical research conduct.
Congress is on the cusp of approving historic legislation that would provide more than $50 billion to the semiconductor sector and lay out ambitious expansion plans for a set of federal science agencies.
