House Science Marks Up COMPETES Reauthorization

Posted on April 22, 2015April 23, 2015

Today, the full House Science Committee marked up HR 1806, the America COMPETES Reauthorization bill, which the House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith introduced late last week. Thirty four amendments were offered for consideration over the five hour mark up, and these amendments largely fell along party lines. Several controversial amendments passed, while amendements to restore certain directorate’s funding or amend climate change provisions.

Highlights of some amendments considered include:

An amendment offered by Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) to amend the bill and add “human activity impacts climate change” to the DOE Science mission.
An amendment offered by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) to officially authorize the Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC) program, which passed.
An amendment offered by Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) to direct and broaden DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences. which passed.
An amendment offered by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici to have a report on STEAM education, which failed.

The amended bill was passed out of committee by a vote of 19-16, which was a party line vote. The next step for the bill is consideration by the full House. While there has been no definite timeline stated by House leadership as to consideration of HR 1806, it is expected to be considered soon.

The Office of Federal Relations will continue to monitor the bill and its progress.

New ARPA-E Director Confirmed by US Senate

Posted on December 17, 2014December 30, 2014

Dr. Ellen Williams, the new Director of ARPA-E, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate last week and sworn in earlier today by U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Prior to joining ARPA-E, Dr. Williams served as a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Energy and previously served as the Chief Scientist for BP. She is currently on a leave of absence from the University of Maryland where she has served as a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Physics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology since 2000.

Dr. Williams has served as a Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland since 1991. She founded the University of Maryland Materials Research Science and Engineering Center and served as its Director from 1996 through 2009. In 2005, she was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences; two years earlier, she was selected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

To learn more about Dr. Williams, visit the ARPA-E website to view her full bio.

Dr. Franklin Orr Sworn in as Under Secretary for Science & Energy

Posted on December 17, 2014December 17, 2014

Dr. Franklin (Lynn) M. Orr was sworn in as the Under Secretary for Science and Energy on December 17, 2014.

As the Under Secretary, Dr. Orr is the principal advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on clean energy technologies and science and energy research initiatives. Dr. Orr is the inaugural Under Secretary for the office, which was created by Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz to closely integrate DOE’s basic science, applied research, technology development, and deployment efforts. As Under Secretary, he oversees DOE’s offices of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Fossil Energy, Indian Energy Policy and Programs, Nuclear Energy, and Science. In total, these programs steward the majority of DOE’s National Laboratories (13 of 17).

Prior to joining the Department of Energy, Dr. Orr was the Keleen and Carlton Beal Professor Emeritus in the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University. He joined Stanford in 1985. He served as the founding director of the Precourt Institute for Energy at Stanford University from 2009 to 2013. He was the founding director of the Stanford Global Climate and Energy Project from 2002 to 2008, and he served as Dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford from 1994 to 2002. He was head of the miscible flooding section at the New Mexico Petroleum Recovery Research Center, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology from 1978 to 1985, a research engineer at the Shell Development Company Bellaire Research Center from 1976 to 1978, and assistant to the director, Office of Federal Activities, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 1970 to 1972. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. from Stanford University, both in Chemical Engineering.

Dr. Orr is also a member of the National Academy of Engineering. He served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute from 1987 to 2014, and was a member of the Board of Trustees of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from 1999 to 2008, for which he has also chaired the Science Advisory Panel for the Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering from 1988 to 2014. He served as a member of the 2008/09 National Research Council Committee on America’s Energy Future.