U. discloses lobbying for nominations in Department of Energy

The University reported $40,000 in lobbying-related expenses on science-related nominations, among other issues, in the fourth quarter of 2014, according to a disclosure report filed by the University with the U.S. House of Representatives.

The University expressed interest in the nominations of Franklin Orr, Jr. to the position of Under Secretary for Science and Energy and Marc Kastner for the position of Director of the Office of Science, both in the Department of Energy. President Barack Obama nominated them in November 2013, but Orr was not confirmed until December and Kastner's nomination is still pending.

The University has shown high interest in lobbying on issues that affect the funding and operations of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in the past, and the Office of Science in particular supervises high-energy research projects relevant to the laboratory.

Orr founded and directed Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy, among other faculty appointments. Kastner is a physicist on the MIT faculty.

The University is part of the Energy Sciences Coalition, also known as the ESC, which is a coalition of organizations representing scientists, engineers and mathematicians committed to advancing the research programs of the Department of Energy. Obtaining adequate research funding and hiring personnel for the Office of Science has been a major priority of the ESC.

“President Obama has said that funding for research should be a priority for our country," the ESC wrote in a letter addressed to Shaun Donovan, Director of the Office of Management and Budget on Nov. 25. "We completely agree... [W]e strongly urge you to provide robust and sustained funding for the Department of Energy Office of Science and the important research and scientific facilities it supports, and to make this funding a priority.”

The ESC also expressed interest in the nominations in a letter on the same day addressed to then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, which requested that Orr and Kastner be moved to their posts promptly by the end of the term of the 113thCongress.

The letter notes they are “two of about a dozen nominees for positions at the Department of Energy who still await confirmation.”

David Bruggeman, senior public policy analyst for the Association of Computing Machinery, has blogged about the nominations extensively.

Bruggeman said that while Orr has been confirmed for his position, Kastner’s name would have to be reentered in the 114th Congress, because his nomination was not voted on before the adjournment of the 113th Congress. Bruggeman added that the budget continues to be a concern for federal research.

“There’s been ongoing tension between the National Science Foundation and the House of Representatives between the oversight of the grants it awards,” he said.

Despite some pressure from the ESC and others for the Department of Energy's Office of Science to be a funding priority in the 2016 federal budget, David Malakoff and Jeffrey Mervis of the American Association for the Advancement of Science noted in an article in the Science Magazinethat “NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) appear to be among the winners” in a deal reached by lawmakers in December, while “research budgets at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Energy would remain flat.”

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The duties of the Under Secretary for Science and Energy, which Orr became in December, include overseeing programs like nuclear and fossil energy and the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

The Director of the Office of Science’s duties, which Kastner would assume upon confirmation, include overseeing research programs in advanced computing, basic energy sciences, biological and environmental science, fusion energy, high energy, nuclear physics and workforce development for teachers and scientists. The Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs also fall under the Office of Science.

The ESC wrote in its letter to Reid that “[i]f confirmed, both of these individuals will help to steward an important component of our federal research enterprise —the Department of Energy and its national laboratories.”

“Confirmations have been a particularly sticky issue,” Bruggeman explained. He added that confirmations are not just about science and technology and that, often, these issues are not at the top of the list of pending items.

The University has previouslyexpressed its interests in the past couple of years in fusion energy issues and higher education initiatives such as the White House College Scorecard and the President’s Plan to Make College More Affordable, and the impact of a budget sequestration on education and research in 2012. It also lobbied onintellectual property policy and tax legislation at the end of 2013 and throughout 2014.

Correction: Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article referred to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory as the Princeton Particle Physics Laboratory. The 'Prince' regrets the error.