In this issue:
WHITE HOUSE NAMES ASME FELLOW KAREN THOLE AMONG CHAMPIONS OF CHANGE FOR GIRLS AND WOMEN IN STEM
On Friday, December 9, twelve local leaders in the effort to recruit and retain girls and women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields were honored at the White House as Champions of Change. Among them was ASME Fellow Karen A. Thole, Ph.D., P.E., professor of mechanical engineering and head of the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering at the Pennsylvania State University.
The men and women being honored, who included teachers, industry leaders, students, and non-profit leaders, have each taken great strides to reduce the barriers that drive many girls and women to turn away from high-paying, highly rewarding careers as the nation’s top innovators.
“These ‘Champions of Change’ are community heroes, helping to build the ranks of women in the nation’s STEM workforce and ensuring that America’s science and engineering enterprise is fueled by the diverse talents of all of its citizens,” said Dr. John Holdren, assistant to the president for Science and Technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “The bold work of these Champions epitomizes the president’s vision of an ‘all hands on deck’ effort by government, academia, non-profits, and industry to maintain America’s leadership in STEM fields for decades to come.”
The Champions of Change program was created as a part of President Barack Obama’s Winning the Future initiative. Each week, a different issue is highlighted and groups of Champions, ranging from educators to entrepreneurs to community activists, are recognized for the work they are doing to better their communities.
Engineering has historically had low enrollments of women and other underrepresented groups in the discipline. Dr. Thole, along with colleagues, established an Engineering Ambassadors Program that empowers female students majoring in engineering with advanced communication skills, specifically these students use the messages of the National Academy of Engineering’s Changing the Conversation report to recruit high school girls into the discipline.
“The Engineering Ambassadors are getting out the message that engineers make a difference in the world. For instance, in 2011, the Ambassadors spoke to more than 5,000 high school students, teachers and parents. The Ambassadors themselves are leaders both on campus and in their early professional engineering positions,” says Thole. Through support by the United Technologies Corporation, the program has grown to include programs at four universities that reach high school students throughout the Northeast.
Thole started her academic career in 1995 developing expertise in gas turbine engines, which power aircraft and produce energy. She works closely with industry and the U.S. Department of Energy to determine innovative ways to cool key components of these engines.
Since joining ASME in 1994, Thole has served on the Center for Education board; a member of the ASME International Gas Turbine Institute; associated editor of the Journal of Turbomachinery, and a member of the Vision 2030 committee. Currently, Dr. Thole serves as chair of the ASME Committee on Honors.
As part of the event, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and representatives from several federal agencies participated and hosted several small group discussions between the champions and other notable guests from varying sectors and communities around engaging and supporting girls and women in STEM. Also in attendance was ASME Industry Advisory Board Executive Committee member Kristen Pederson, who is the Vice President of IBM Global Business Services. These breakouts — which focused specifically on changing the stereotypes of girls in the STEM fields, mentoring, and supporting/retaining women in the STEM workforce — were followed immediately by a larger event focused on amplifying best practices learned in each area.
An archived webcast of the White House event will soon be available at: www.whitehouse.gov/live.
To read the National Academy of Engineering Changing the Conversation report, please visit: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12187
Melissa Carl handles public policy-related science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education issues for ASME. She can be reached at:
carlm@asme.org
HEARING FOR ASME FELLOW MAJUMDAR HELD IN SENATE ENERGY
Flanked by Department of Energy (DOE) staff, ASME Fellow Arun Majumdar breezed through a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing regarding his nomination by President Obama for Under Secretary of Energy last week.
On both sides of the aisle, Majumdar was praised for the work he has done in the two years since he was confirmed to become the first Director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program. When Kathy Zoi left the DOE earlier this year, Dr. Majumdar became acting Under Secretary, holding both jobs since that time. Both Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Ranking Member Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) indicated that they would support his confirmation.
Prior to joining ARPA-E, Dr. Majumdar was the Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Environment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. His highly distinguished research career includes the science and engineering of energy conversion, transport, and storage ranging from molecular and nanoscale level to large energy systems.
At Berkeley Labs and UC Berkeley, Dr. Majumdar helped shape several strategic initiatives in the areas of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy storage. He also testified before Congress on how to reduce energy consumption in buildings. Dr. Majumdar has also served on the advisory committee of the National Science Foundation's engineering directorate, was a member of the advisory council to the materials sciences and engineering division of the Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Sciences, and was an advisor on nanotechnology to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Additionally, Dr. Majumdar served as the founding chair of the ASME Nanotechnology Institute.
Dr. Majumdar is a recipient of the Institute Silver Medal, NSF Young Investigator Award, ASME Melville Medal, the Best Paper award of the ASME Heat Transfer Division of ASME, Gustus Larson Memorial Award of the ASME, and Distinguished Alumni Award from IIT-B. He is a fellow of ASME and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. He received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 1989.
ASME President Victoria A. Rockwell recently drafted a letter to Senate leadership expressing her support for Dr. Majumdar’s candidacy as Under Secretary of Energy. This letter will soon be available to read on ASME.org.
Robert Rains handles public policy-related energy issues for ASME. He can be reached at:
rainsr@asme.org
HOUSE PASSES REINS ACT AND TWO ADDITIONAL MEASURES TO OVERHAUL THE FEDERAL REGULATORY SYSTEM
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives approved three measures to overhaul the federal regulatory system.
The first bill, the Regulatory Flexibility Improvements Act of 2011 (H.R. 527), was approved by a vote of 263 to 159. It would provide help to small businesses requiring agencies to identify the costs new regulations could impose on small businesses and to write the regulations in ways that reduce those costs. It would also give small businesses more opportunities to be heard as regulations are written and force agencies to look at ways to cut the costs of regulations already on the books. The bill was sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) and had 26 cosponsors.
The second measure, the Regulatory Accountability Act (H.R. 3010), would reform the federal regulatory process. It was approved by a vote of 253 to167. The bill would place permanent restrictions on regulatory agencies and would hold agencies accountable by requiring openness and transparency in the regulatory process. The Regulatory Accountability Act would also require agencies to tailor new regulations to impose the least cost necessary to achieve policy goals set out by Congress and would require agencies to hold formal hearings to test the assumptions and evidence on which the costliest new rules are based.
H.R. 3010 was sponsored by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), Courts, Commercial and Administrative Law Subcommittee Chairman Howard Coble (R-NC), and Representative Collin Peterson (D-MN.). Senate companion legislation has also been introduced by Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Mark Pryor (D-AR).
On December 7th, the “Regulations from the Executive in Needs of Scrutiny” Act (REINS Act) was approved by a vote of 241 to 184. The measure, H.R. 10, would make substantial changes to the federal rulemaking process by:
- Requiring congressional approval of any new regulation having $100 million or more in total economic impact;
- Giving Congress 70 legislative days to vote on any new major regulation after it is finalized by a federal agency;
- Requiring that a regulation on which either the House of Senate votes “no” or on which the regulation is not voted upon and signed by the president in the 70-day timeframe be barred from enactment.
House Speaker John Boehner praised passage of the bill saying, “The REINS Act requires elected lawmakers to approve any new government regulation with a major impact on our economy before it can be imposed on families and small businesses.” To review his complete statement, please visit: http://www.speaker.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=271666
The Senate companion bill is anticipated to face more opposition than its House counterpart.
The Obama Administration recently released a Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 10 which reads in part as follows: “This radical departure from the longstanding separation of powers between the Executive and Legislative branches would delay and, in many cases, thwart implementation of statutory mandates and execution of duly enacted laws, increase business uncertainty, undermine much-needed protections of the American public, and create unnecessary confusion. There is no justification for such an unprecedented requirement. If the President were presented with H.R. 10, his senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.”
The entire Statement of Administration Policy on H.R. 10 may be read at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saphr10h_20111206.pdf
To review all the aforementioned bills, please visit the Library of Congress web site at: http://thomas.loc.gov, and search by bill number.
Paul Fakes handles public policy-related research and development (R&D) issues for ASME. He can be reached at:
fakesp@asme.org.
EPA PROPOSES CHANGES TO CAA STANDARDS FOR INDUSTRIAL BOILERS AND INCINERATORS
Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a revamped group of proposed rules intended to address toxic emissions from 201,000 of the largest boilers and incinerators nationwide, and hoping to clear up concerns from manufacturing groups over the original proposed rule.
This follows the House’s action last month passing legislation that would seek to delay the implementation of the boiler rule (Please see the October 17, 2011 Edition of Capitol Update). The House bill affects three specific EPA rules, including one entitled the "National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants from the Portland Cement Manufacturing Industry and Standards of Performance for Portland Cement Plants," also known as "Cement MACT."
On February 21, 2011, the EPA established Clean Air Act emissions standards for large and small boilers and incinerators that burn solid waste and sewage sludge. The standards cover more than 200,000 boilers and incinerators that emit air pollutants, including mercury, cadmium, dioxins and particle pollution.
The final rules, published on March 21, 2011, called for an effective date of May 20, 2011 with compliance deadlines beginning three years later. That date was pushed back after the EPA reopened the comment period and extended the deadline to July 15.
According to the EPA, the boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology (MACT) rule, when implemented, will cover about 13,555 boilers and process heaters at about 1,600 major source facilities. Although this is mostly industrial facilities, it will also include “small entities,” universities, municipalities, and military installations. These rules would seek to significantly cut emissions of different air pollutants including cadmium, dioxin, furans, formaldehyde and hydrochloric acid.
Among the key changes EPA has proposed are the following:
- Boilers at large sources of air toxics emissions: The major source proposal covers approximately 14,000 boilers. EPA has proposed to provide more flexible compliance options for meeting the particle pollution and carbon monoxide limits, replace numeric emissions limits with work practice standards for certain pollutants, allow more flexibility for units burning clean gases to qualify for work practice standards and reduce some monitoring requirements.
- Boilers located at small sources of air toxics emissions: The proposal covers about 187,000 boilers located at small sources of air pollutants, including commercial buildings, universities, hospitals and hotels. However, due to how little these boilers emit, 98 percent of area source boilers would simply be required to perform maintenance and routine tune-ups to comply with these standards. Only two percent of area source boilers may need to take additional steps to comply with the rule. To increase flexibility for most of these sources, EPA has proposed to require initial compliance tune-ups after two years instead after the first year.
- Solid waste incinerators and revisions to the list of non-hazardous secondary materials: There are 95 solid waste incinerators that burn waste at a commercial or an industrial facility, including cement manufacturing facilities. EPA has proposed to adjust emissions limits for waste-burning cement kilns and for energy recovery units.
Additional detailed information on the newly proposed rules may be viewed at: http://www.epa.gov/airquality/combustion/
Robert Rains handles public policy-related environmental issues for ASME. He can be reached at:
rainsr@asme.org
MIT REPORT: WITH SPECIFIC POLICY CHANGES, U.S. GRID CAN MEET FUTURE CHALLENGES
A new report released by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) concludes that while the U.S. electric grid will face unprecedented technological challenges stemming from the growth of distributed and intermittent new energy sources as well as an expected influx of electric and hybrid vehicles that require frequent recharging over the next two decades, the grid is most likely up to the challenge if certain public policy changes are made. The report, “The Future of the Electric Grid,” was commissioned by the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) and carried out by a panel of 13 faculty members from MIT and one from Harvard University, along with 10 graduate students and an advisory panel of 19 leaders from academia, industry and government.
The report found that while the grid’s performance is adequate today, decisions made now will shape that grid over the next 20 years. The MIT report recommends a series of changes in the regulatory environment to facilitate and exploit technological innovation. Among the report’s specific recommended changes is: “To enable the grid of the future — one capable of handling intermittent renewables — the United States will need effective and enhanced federal authority over decisions on the routing of new interstate transmission lines.” This is especially needed, the report says, in cases where power is produced by solar or wind farms located far from where that power is to be used, requiring long-distance transmission lines to be built across multiple regulatory jurisdictions.
Currently, when new transmission lines cross state boundaries, each state involved — and federal agencies as well, if federal lands are crossed — can make its own decisions about permission for the siting of these lines, with no centralized authority. The MITEI report recommends that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) either be given the authority to make decisions in such cases, or be designated as the “backstop” authority in cases where there are disputes.
The grid would also benefit from a restructuring of the way customers pay for its costs, the study found. Payment for electric distribution, like payment for generation, is currently calculated based on usage. But most of the costs involved are fixed; they don’t depend on usage. This gives utilities incentives to resist distributed generation, such as homeowners installing rooftop solar panels, and gives consumers excessive incentives to install such systems — and thereby to shift their share of fixed network costs to their neighbors. Fixed network costs, the reports says, should be recovered primarily through customer charges that don’t depend on electricity consumption.
Another area that will require restructuring, the study concluded, is cybersecurity: The more thoroughly the grid is interconnected, and the more smart meters are added to gather data about usage patterns, the greater the risk of security breaches or cyber attacks on the system.
At the moment, no agency has responsibility and authority for the entire grid. The report strongly recommends that some agency — perhaps the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — be given such responsibility and authority, but thorny issues related to authority over local distribution systems would need to be resolved.
The MITEI study also found that growth in the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on the road is likely to be slow enough, and widely distributed enough, that it shouldn’t create significant strain on the grid — although there may be a few locations where a particularly high penetration of such vehicles could require extra generating capacity.
Finally, the report recommends that utilities put more money into research and development, both to make effective use of new technologies for monitoring and controlling the grid, and on customer response to pricing policies or incentives.
A two-page abstract of the report may be reviewed at: http://web.mit.edu/mitei/research/studies/documents/electric-grid-2011/Electric_Grid_Abstract.pdf
The complete 280-page report is available at: http://web.mit.edu/mitei/research/studies/documents/electric-grid-2011/Electric_Grid_Full_Report.pdf
Robert Rains handles public policy-related energy issues for ASME. He can be reached at:
rainsr@asme.org
NGA RELEASES IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE FOR COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS
The National Governors Association (NGA) believes that successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is critical to ensuring the nation’s students have the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and the workforce. The organization recently released a report, “Realizing the Potential: How Governors Can Lead Effective Implementation of the Common Core State Standards,” to provide governors and other state policymakers with guidance to transition their school systems to the standards.
Governors’ authority over education and the tools with which they can take action vary considerably from state to state, yet the report says that all governors should consider taking the following actions to support implementing the CCSS:
- Communicate a vision for reform;
- Identify performance goals and measure progress;
- Engage key leaders from education, business and philanthropy;
- Build educator capacity;
- Lead transitions in state assessments and accountability policy;
- Support local development and acquisition of new curricula and materials; and,
- Maximize resources and share costs
.
The 36-page report may be viewed at: http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/1110CCSSIIMPLEMENTATIONGUIDE.PDF
Additional information about NGA’s education efforts can be found at: www.nga.org/cms/center/edu
Melissa Carl handles public policy-related science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education issues for ASME. She can be reached at:
carlm@asme.org
NEW REPORT WARNS THAT U.S. STUDENT SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT THREATENED BY ALARMING STATE VARIATIONS IN MEASURING LEARNING
A new report, “All Over the Map,” was released by Change the Equation (CTEq), a network of more than 100 CEOs dedicated to creating widespread literacy in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), at the National Governor Association’s STEM Summit in Durham, N.C., finds that U.S. students risk falling behind in science education due to radically inconsistent state definitions of proficiency. While teachers and parents are being told that students are meeting the standard for eighth-grade proficiency set by their state, they may actually be performing at levels substantially below their international counterparts and go on to struggle in high school, college and careers.
For the first time, researchers put state definitions of “proficiency” in eighth-grade science against a common measuring stick – the 2009 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) eighth-grade science test. NAEP is a project of the U.S. Department of Education that measures student knowledge and achievement nationally. NAEP defines “basic” as “…partial mastery of prerequisite knowledge and skills that are fundamental for proficient work at each grade,” which is insufficient for the learning that students need to put them on a path to success in college-level science.
The results are startling. For example, what one state may deem to be “proficient” may be classified as “basic” or well below grade level in another:
- Fifteen states have set the bar for “proficiency” below NAEP’s threshold for “basic” knowledge;
- Only four states have set the bar near or above NAEP’s bar for proficiency. Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi have more rigorous performance standards for students than states like Connecticut, New York and Maryland that are generally thought to have high-quality, competitive schools;
- Virginia has the lowest definition of “proficient,” followed by Tennessee, Michigan, North Carolina, Iowa, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Maryland, Texas, Oregon, South Carolina, California and Arizona. All have set their definitions for achievement below NAEP’s standard for “basic” science learning. Just four states (Louisiana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire) are at or above NAEP’s standard for proficiency.
One of CTEq’s member organizations, Intel, also recently conducted a survey to identify how to encourage more young people to choose engineering as a career. The survey offers several ideas:
- Talk about how rewarding it is to be an engineer;
- Describe it as a positive challenge, rather than as merely difficult;
- Give it a human face; and,
- Stress its benefits to society.
For additional information on the survey, please visit: http://www.changetheequation.org/blog/turning-teens-engineering
Additional suggestions on how to promote engineering careers among young students is available at this National Academy of Engineering web site: http://www.engineeringmessages.org/
Melissa Carl handles public policy-related science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education issues for ASME. She can be reached at:
carlm@asme.org
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