I Went to a Hearing!

Firstly, for anyone paying attention who noticed a lack of updates over the last week, my apologies.  I have shirked my responsibilities for providing breaking coverage of everything Mike in DC.  However, in my defense, I haven’t done that much interesting stuff over the last week, so you’re not missing much.  (OK, that's not totally true, but I do have reasons, which I'm going to need to post on at some point...)  So, sure, assume it's been quiet.

Which is why I’m posting now, because, y’all, I went to a hearing.

What?

"What is a hearing?", you might ask.  Well, a hearing is that part of the process I wrote about previously where lawmakers discuss an issue as a committee, or as a subcommittee.  This was an oversight hearing, examining past and present progress of an ongoing project, but also played upon future funding questions that will be coming up very soon.  This hearing was open to the public, free of charge, and held in the Rayburn House Office Building.  In this case, I went to a Joint Hearing of the Subcommittees of Investigations and Oversight and Energy and Environment.  That’s two separate subcommittees under the Committee of Science, Space, and Technology.  That is, the Subcommittee of Investigations and Oversight, and the Subcommittee of Energy and Environment. 

Who?

Here are the chairman and ranking member of the I&O subcommittee:

Chairman Brown (R-GA) in pink/black tie and Ranking Member Miller (D-NC) in pink/white tie.  Nice ties.

And here’s the chairman of the E&E subcommittee:

Chairman Harris (R-MD) in yellow tie.  Hmm... needs some pink in that tie.

And here are the people who testified, from NOAA, NASA, and the GAO:

If you're a witness in this hearing, raise your hand.  Oh, okay, from the left, NOAA AD Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., NASA AA Christopher Scolese, and GAO Director David Powner

(By the way, I found these pictures after the fact.  Turns out, if I’d been sitting on the opposite side of the room, you would have seen my goofy face looking out at these folks.  So, I chose well.)

For this hearing, they were all there to talk discuss the Polar Weather Satellite Program.  (Here’s the announcement)

So this hearing was about satellites.  

Where?

The satellites, right, okay, so has anyone else noticed that our weather reports have gotten a lot better over the last few years?  Well, they have.  You can look up 10-day forecasts, and they’re pretty accurate.  And they can now predict hurricanes and major weather systems with remarkable precision.  And this is being done, to a large degree, using data provided by satellites administered by your Federal Government.  (No, I'm pretty sure you cannot get your weather without the National Weather Service, as some might think.) And there are a couple things going on:

• There are satellites sitting in geostationary orbit about 22,000 miles above the surface of the Earth.  Since they sit in geostationary orbit, they do not move relative to the position of the Earth.  Therefore, they provide an unblinking eye of what’s going on in our skies.  Pros: They never move and give a very nice image of our weather systems.  Cons: They’re really, really high and can't get as much specific weather data needed to improve model precision
• There are also polar-orbiting satellites.  These satellites circle the Earth from pole to pole and pass each point twice a day, at the same exact time relative to the sun every day.  They sit at a lower orbit – Wikipedia says around 500 miles – and can provide different information.  Pros: They provide substantial weather information along a very precise path over North America. Cons: They have a lower orbit, which has to be maintained.

So, this is about the polar-orbiting satellites.  I don’t know much about them, but it’s about time for us to get new ones.  After all, everything dies eventually.  Your TV only lasts a few years, that has much less precise sensory systems, and doesn’t have to be shot into orbit and circle the Earth subject to all the crap that things circling the Earth have to deal with.  So, every once in a while, we need a new satellite.

When?

We need these up there pretty soon.  A satellite has been in development – NPP – and is scheduled to launch very soon, but that one has apparently been beset with delays.  And also, I’m to understand, re-purposing.

See, it seems that NPP was supposed to be an experimental satellite, to test out new software and sensors.  But now it has become the satellite.  Which means that it’s going to have to do as the replacement polar-orbiting satellite. 

But there’s a problem.  There’s going to be a gap in coverage, in about five years.  Here’s what the timeline looks like:

Polar-orbiting weather satellite projected timeline.  The bit with the dashed line is bad.

That big gap around 2017 is because we won’t have another satellite ready to fly yet after NPP is decommissioned, and that’s assuming that NPP lasts as long as it’s supposed to last.

And that’s why there was a hearing.

Why?

Well… there’s disagreement as to the cause of this situation.  The project used to also involve the Department of Defense, so before and during that split, there were managerial issues.  Also, there have been questions about the delays in the production of the satellites.  And the organizations themselves (NOAA and NASA) say that it was not possible to do what they were supposed to do when their budgets were always reduced by the appropriations committee.  (That’s for another day…) After all, if NOAA is supposed to develop the replacement series of satellites - JPSS - defunding them may not help get the job done faster.

But the big thing is money.  The project is expensive, more expensive than was estimated, and the question is why and whose fault.  Rep. Beneshek asked whether the cost should have scaled linearly.  That is, why did 4 satellites a decade ago cost less than 2 satellites being produced now.  And both Mr. Beneshek and Rep. Adams were very insistent on making sure that there are no longer any long-term climate sensors on the satellite.  I’m not sure why that was such a major point, but they seemed pretty insistent. 

How?

So, here’s how the hearing went down.  They swore in the witnesses, after making sure the witnesses were willing to be sworn in. (And didn't want lawyers.) Then, the chairmen of the two subcommittees and the ranking member of I&O made their opening statements, five minutes allowed each. (Footnote: Rep. Miller actually may be ranking member of the E&E subcommittee, but he's on the I&O subcommittee, so if he was the only one there, I guess he was the "ranking member", regardless.) 

 As it stood, there was a clear divide in views.  The chairmen, Republicans (because, remember, they control the House), lambasted the project for cost overruns and mismanagement.  The ranking member of the I&O subcommittee, the only Democrat evident, noted the value of the project and the fact that they’ve had to go through a lot of circumstantial issues, resulting in frequent references to the project being “snakebit.”

Then, the witnesses made their statements, again five minutes each.  The NOAA deputy administrator spoke gave a basic background on the project, discussing its importance and their hopes and concerns for the future.   The NASA associate administrator talked about the partnership and the importance, as well.  The GAO director, meanwhile, talked about his concerns about how the project was managed in the past, as well as his concerns about the quality of the satellites being developed now.  (Specifically, that NPP is an experimental satellite and may not be up to the full mission duration pushed on it.) 

Following those statements, all subcommittee members, in turn, got five minutes each to ask questions.  And that was where things got interesting.  The I&O chairman pressed the witnesses on the management of the program, but the E&E chairman really wielded the hammer.  First, he pressed the NOAA DA on whether the story she told was relevant.  (He argued it was not, and then moved on.)  Then, he asked the GAO director about “shoddy workmanship”, before returning to the NOAA DA on whether this should have gone to the private market.  Her response, that they tried and got no adequate responses, did not seem to mollify him.

My overall sense, though the whole thing seemed rather partisan, was also of some people who had done a considerable amount of research.  That their research seemed to support a particular position is important, but they were no dummies.  They all seemed very studied in the written testimony that the witnesses had pre-submitted, and were ready for battle.  I have a natural sympathy for the scientists – under the circumstances, it’s easy to understand how the project fell behind – but the questions all followed reasonable logical progressions, even if predicated on erroneous assumptions.  You have to be very prepared for these people. 

Aftermath

The hearing was adjourned when they ran out of time and the committee members had to  leave for a vote.  Several pieces of information were requested, and the window was left open for additional requests from the committee.  But ultimately, one of the biggest questions that came out was: What contingency plans does NOAA/NASA have for this project?

The timetables they presented - reproduced above - assume full funding for the coming fiscal year.  However, that is not likely to happen, and the chairman said exactly that.  Congress is likely to fund government for a while with continuing resolutions (CR), which continue the previous year’s funding until a new budget can be passed. And last year’s budget already dramatically underfunded the project.  So, if NOAA’s projections assume full-funding for this year, and the House is basically assuring them that won’t happen, what do they do?

What, indeed.  There wasn’t a good answer on this.  Alas, we may be stuck with more than just the 2+ year gap projected.  It may end up longer than that, which won’t necessarily mean the death of all of us, but may mean poorer quality weather forecasts, and poorer modeling and prediction of hurricanes, tornadoes, and blizzards. And considering the number of large-scale climatological events in the last few years, that information could really be helpful.

One thought:  I think the congresspeople were asking for a contingency in the form of things you can cut, costs you can remove, other projects you can sacrifice, or how much we need this.  But I’m wondering if perhaps the scientific contingency is to see what we can do with the data that we do have. Do other countries have polar satellites that we can borrow off of?  Can we squeeze a little more, from a modeling perspective, from the geostationary satellites? 

Shoot, we scientists are used to working with next-to-nothing. Maybe there’s a Ph.D. thesis in this.  You have five years.  Figure out how to make bricks without straw.  You might even get a publication out of it.