P.O. Box 1000 61 Route 9W Palisades, New York 10964 USA +(1)(914) 365-8930 (voice) +(1)(914) 365-8922 (fax) help@gcrio.org (e-mail) http://www.gcrio.org/ 1747 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Suite 200 Washington, DC 20006 USA +(1)(202) 775-6606 (voice) +(1)(202) 775-6622 (fax) help@gcrio.org (e-mail) http://www.gcrio.org/ Abstract Our Changing Planet: The FY 2000 Global Change Research Program is a report to Congress supplementing the President's FY 2000 budget, pursuant to the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The report describes the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP); outlines a perspective for global change research in the decade ahead and the changing vision for the research agenda; presents an implementation plan for the USGCRP in FY 2000, with a discussion of each of the Program Elements; outlines a FY 2000 initiative in Carbon Cycle Science; summarizes key USGCRP accomplishments in 1998; and provides a detailed view of the FY 2000 USGCRP budget, including FY 2000 program components and program highlights by agency. Achieving the goals of this program will require continued strong support for the scientific research needed to improve understanding of how human activities are affecting the global environment, and of how natural and human-induced change is affecting society. About the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology President Clinton established the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) by Executive Order 12882 at the same time that he established the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). The PCAST serves as the highest level private sector science and technology advisory group for the President and the NSTC. The Committee members are distinguished individuals appointed by the President, and are drawn from industry, education and research institutions, and other non-governmental organizations. The Assistant to the President for Science and Technology co-chairs the Committee with a private sector member selected by the President. The formal link between the PCAST and the NSTC ensures that national needs remain an overarching guide for the NSTC. The PCAST provides feedback about Federal programs and actively advises the NSTC about science and technology issues of national importance. Gene Carl Feldman, NASA, created the cover from a Mosaic satellite image "The Earth at Night" (© 1985) compiled by W.T. Sullivan, III, University of Washington, from satellite photographs made by the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program of the U.S. Air Force. Feldman converted the original black and white photograph from a Mercator Projection of the Earth into two orthographic projections. The lights depict sources of CO2 emissions: lights of cities; forest and agricultural fires; and natural gas flares. These also suggest the global importance of energy, the focus of this study. EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE OF ADVISORS ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY WASHINGTON, D.C. 20502 November 4, 1997 President William J. Clinton The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: I am pleased to transmit on behalf of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) the final report Federal Energy Research and Development for the Challenges of the 21st Century. This report, approved by PCAST, is in response to your January 14, 1997, letter to John Young requesting a review of the current national energy R&D portfolio. The report expands on the Executive Summary which we delivered to you on September 30, 1997, presenting a definitive strategy on how to ensure that the United States has a program that addresses its energy and environmental needs for the next century. PCAST endorses the report's findings that this country's economic prosperity, environmental quality, national security, and world leadership in science and technology all require improving our energy technologies, and that an enhanced national R&D effort is needed to provide these improvements. The inadequacy of current energy R&D is especially acute in relation to the challenge of responding responsibly and cost-effectively to the risk of global climatic change from society's greenhouse gas emissions, in particular, carbon dioxide from combustion of fossil fuels. PCAST recommends focusing the government's energy R&D on projects where high potential payoffs for society as a whole justify bigger R&D investments than industry would be likely to make on the basis of expected private returns and where modest government investments can effectively complement, leverage, or catalyze work in the private sector. The report recommends an increase, over a five-year period, of $1 billion in the Department of Energy's annual budget for applied energy-technology R&D. The largest shares of such an increase would go to R&D in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies, but nuclear fusion and fission would also receive increases. The composition of the R&D supported on advanced fossil-fuel technologies would change in favor of longer-term opportunities, including fuel cells and carbon-sequestration technologies, but the overall spending level for fossil-fuel technologies would stay roughly constant in real terms. The proposed total for FY 2003 would return the DOE's real level of effort in applied energy-technology R&D in that year to about where it was in FY 1991 and FY 1992. In constant President William J. Clinton Page 2 November 4, 1997 PCAST respectfully urges that you increase your efforts to communicate clearly to the public the importance of energy and energy R&D to the nation's future, and PCAST recommends that you clearly designate the Secretary of Energy as the national leader and coordinator for developing and carrying out the national energy strategy. The report also makes recommendations for improving the Department of Energy's management of its energy R&D portfolio, including the naming of a single individual with responsibility for the whole portfolio and reporting directly to the Secretary. PCAST hopes that the recommendations presented in the report will be helpful to you as you consider how the United States can best face major energy related challenges as it enters the 21st century. Of particular importance, prudence requires having in place an adequate energy R&D effort designed to expand the array of technological options to enable significant reductions in greenhouse gases at the lowest possible economic, environmental, and social cost. The energy R&D portfolio PCAST proposes will be of crucial importance in meeting that challenge. Many of the energy-technologies that will help with the problem of climate change, moreover, will also help address other energy-related challenges, including reducing dependence on imported oil, diversifying the U.S. domestic fuel- and electricity-supply systems, expanding U.S. exports of energy technologies, reducing air and water pollution, and reducing the cost, safety and security risks of nuclear energy systems around the world. Sincerely, John H Gibbons President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology cc: Vice President Al Gore |