<DOC>
[109th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:99903.wais]
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF GEOSS: A REVIEW OF THE ALL-HAZARDS WARNING SYSTEM
AND ITS BENEFITS TO PUBLIC HEALTH, ENERGY, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
OVERSIGHT AND INVESTIGATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 9, 2005
__________
Serial No. 109-2
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Energy and Commerce
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
house
__________
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE
JOE BARTON, Texas, Chairman
RALPH M. HALL, Texas JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan
MICHAEL BILIRAKIS, Florida Ranking Member
Vice Chairman HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
FRED UPTON, Michigan EDWARD J. MARKEY, Massachusetts
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
NATHAN DEAL, Georgia FRANK PALLONE, Jr., New Jersey
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
CHARLIE NORWOOD, Georgia BART GORDON, Tennessee
BARBARA CUBIN, Wyoming BOBBY L. RUSH, Illinois
JOHN SHIMKUS, Illinois ANNA G. ESHOO, California
HEATHER WILSON, New Mexico BART STUPAK, Michigan
JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING, ALBERT R. WYNN, Maryland
Mississippi, Vice Chairman GENE GREEN, Texas
VITO FOSSELLA, New York TED STRICKLAND, Ohio
ROY BLUNT, Missouri DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
STEVE BUYER, Indiana LOIS CAPPS, California
GEORGE RADANOVICH, California MIKE DOYLE, Pennsylvania
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire TOM ALLEN, Maine
JOSEPH R. PITTS, Pennsylvania JIM DAVIS, Florida
MARY BONO, California JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GREG WALDEN, Oregon HILDA L. SOLIS, California
LEE TERRY, Nebraska CHARLES A. GONZALEZ, Texas
MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey JAY INSLEE, Washington
MIKE ROGERS, Michigan TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
SUE MYRICK, North Carolina
JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma
TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee
Bud Albright, Staff Director
James D. Barnette, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
Reid P.F. Stuntz, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
______
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
ED WHITFIELD, Kentucky, Chairman
CLIFF STEARNS, Florida BART STUPAK, Michigan
CHARLES W. ``CHIP'' PICKERING, Ranking Member
Mississippi DIANA DeGETTE, Colorado
CHARLES F. BASS, New Hampshire JAN SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
GREG WALDEN, Oregon JAY INSLEE, Washington
MIKE FERGUSON, New Jersey TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee JOHN D. DINGELL, Michigan,
JOE BARTON, Texas, (Ex Officio)
(Ex Officio)
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
__________
Page
Testimony of:
Colleton, Nancy, Co-Founder, Alliance for Earth Observations. 35
Dearry, Allen, Associate Director, Division of Research
Coordination, Planning, and Translation, National Institute
of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of
Health..................................................... 61
Foley, Gary, Director, National Exposure Research Laboratory,
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency....................... 65
Glass, Gregory E., Professor, Molecular Microbiology and
Immunology, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns
Hopkins University......................................... 41
Hood, Carroll A., Geoss Chief Architect, Raytheon............ 44
Hooke, William H., Director, Policy Program, American
Meteorological Society..................................... 50
Lautenbacher, Vice Adm. Conrad C., Jr., Undersecretary of
Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator,
U.S. Department of Commerce................................ 10
Patrinos, Aristides, Associate Director for Biological and
Environmental Research, U.S. Department of Energy.......... 68
Additional material submitted for the record:
Colleton, Nancy, Co-Founder, Alliance for Earth Observations,
response for the record.................................... 85
Hood, Carroll A., Geoss Chief Architect, Raytheon, response
for the record............................................. 94
Hooke, William H., Director, Policy Program, American
Meteorological Society, letter dated April 13, 2005,
enclosing response for the record.......................... 98
Lautenbacher, Vice Adm. Conrad C., Jr., Undersecretary of
Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and NOAA Administrator,
U.S. Department of Commerce, response for the record....... 76
(iii)
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF GEOSS: A REVIEW OF THE ALL-HAZARDS WARNING SYSTEM
AND ITS BENEFITS TO PUBLIC HEALTH, ENERGY, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2005
House of Representatives,
Committee on Energy and Commerce,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:54 p.m., in
room 2123 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ed
Whitfield (chairman) presiding.
Members present: Representatives Whitfield, Bass, Burgess,
Blackburn, Barton (ex officio), DeGette, Schakowsky, and
Inslee.
Staff present: Mark Paoletta, chief counsel; Casey Hemard,
majority counsel; Peter Spencer, professional staff; Michael J.
Abraham, legislative clerk; Edith Holleman, minority counsel;
Voncille Hines, research analyst; and Turney Hall, clerk.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time, I will call the hearing to
order, and I would apologize to those of you who have been
waiting, but we had a vote on the floor, so it looks like we
are about 15 or 20 minutes late, but I can assure you that we
will hopefully not be delayed much longer. And I certainly want
to thank the witnesses this morning.
And at this time, I will take 5 minutes for my opening
statement to get the hearing started.
First of all, good afternoon.
On December 26, 2004, the world witnessed a disaster in
South Asia that, in minutes--in a matter of minutes, destroyed
villages and close--and left close to 300,000 people dead or
missing. The Indian Ocean tsunami was staggering in its
devastation.
While there is no way to stop a tsunami, warning areas in
the path of a tsunami are possible and provide the best
opportunity to save lives. Tsunami warning systems assemble and
integrate data from satellites, buoys, and gauges to determine
where a tsunami could hit.
The United States, in fact, uses such a system. It is part
of the Pacific Tsunami Warning System that provides warnings on
tsunamis to most countries in the Pacific Ocean. South Asia,
sadly, did not have the benefit of such a warning system.
Given the technological capabilities of the 21st century,
we should be able to harness our data-gathering abilities and
do more to warn people the world over about impending dangers,
both for tsunamis and other destructive events.
I have called this hearing today, because the United States
has just entered into an agreement with 59 countries and other
international organizations to develop over the next decade
just such a system. The system, or rather system of systems,
will allow for an unprecedented amount of data sharing that
could bring real benefits to our lives.
The Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS as
it is commonly called, is an effort by participating countries,
including countries from South Asia, to create an all-hazards
warning system. Just as we have tools to determine where
tsunamis could hit, we have tools to forecast weather and
monitor air pollution, wind currents, air temperature, and
ocean currents. These tools include satellites, seismographs,
gauges, and buoys. GEOSS would link our U.S. technology to that
of the other participating nations, creating an integrated
system that would give us access to data from around the earth.
Out of this effort, proponents tell us we not only will
enhance and expand our ability to predict and warn of tsunamis,
but also be able to make informed decisions in anticipation of
a variety of other threats to life, health, property, and the
economy around the world and here at home.
Today, we will hear from witnesses about GEOSS and what it
does, what is involved and necessary to make it work, the U.S.
role, and the range of benefits that we may see when it is
operational. Witnesses will also speak to three specific areas
that may benefit from the system: public health, energy, and
the environment.
First this afternoon, we will hear from Admiral Conrad
Lautenbacher. Admiral Lautenbacher currently serves as 1 of 4
co-chairs of the Group on Earth Observations, and plays a
critical role in seeing that the 10-year plan for GEOSS is
implemented. He has been involved with organizing this
integrated system from the outset.
Since the United States must integrate its own assets and
make them interoperable to successfully link up with the other
regions of the world, I will look forward to hearing from
Admiral Lautenbacher about the standards we need to develop to
make our information sharing more effective and more efficient.
Of course, as the Administrator of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, he can also explain how the United
States is prepared to address the risk of tsunamis along all of
our coasts.
We will hear, also, from Dr. Allen Dearry from the National
Institute of Environmental Health. He will discuss how GEOSS
will advance the cause of public health. Scientists, for
example, hope 1 day to use satellite data to trace an illness-
causing bacteria, fabrio cholera, in plankton before it hits
coastlines so that regions can get medicine and rehydration
materials to affected populations. The World Health
Organization receives reports of approximately 185,000 cases of
cholera in 2001, so this would aid a great deal of people.
We will also hear from Dr. Greg Glass who can offer insight
on the potential of forecasting diseases like malaria and West
Nile Virus. Malaria causes more than 300 million episodes of
acute illness and 1 million deaths annually, according to the
World Health Organization.
Dr. Ari Patrinos from the Department of Energy will explain
how GEOSS will enable us to better manage and monitor our
energy resources. One study has shown that if we could more
accurately predict the temperature by 1 degree Fahrenheit, we
would save more than $1 billion annually. Armed with better
information, utility companies could anticipate their needs and
purchase electricity in more financially advantageous ways.
These savings could, in turn, be handed down to the customer.
Dr. Gary Foley of the Environmental Protection Agency will
talk about the potential benefits to our air and water quality.
EPA is already engaging a data-sharing partnership within the
United States. They are adding to the quality of life. Dr.
Foley will describe how partnering with other agencies has
enabled EPA to get better air quality data to the State of New
York so that the State can inform its citizens when the air
quality may be harmful to their health.
We will also hear from several witnesses who will provide
outside perspectives on this system. Nancy Colleton heads the
Alliance for Earth Observation, a group bringing industry and
academia together to provide their input to the process.
Carroll Hood is formerly of NASA and now works on Raytheon
Corporation's efforts in the development of GEOSS. Mr. Hood
will testimony about some of the architectural aspects of this
system. The American Meteorological Society recently issued a
report that outlined challenges facing implementation of the
U.S. portion. Dr. William Hooke of the Society will be able to
discuss what needs to be done for this important endeavor to
reach its full potential.
GEOSS is far reaching in its scope and has the promise to
improve our lives. EPA's website outlines some of the potential
benefits to each State. Using my Home State of Kentucky as an
example, earth observations can help Kentucky track plant
diseases and invasive species, such as blue mold, by satellite
and predict where it will go based on our knowledge of the
climate, soil, and the mold itself. This will certainly be
helpful to farmers and those involved in agricultural.
From benefiting loss of life to improving our quality of
life on a daily basis, the information derived from this new
system can benefit us all.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about these
opportunities and all that they will yield.
Let me welcome our witnesses.
And I now recognize the ranking member for the purpose of
making an opening statement.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Ed Whitfield follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ed Whitfield, Chairman, Subcommittee on
Oversight and Investigations
Good afternoon. On December 26, 2004, the world witnessed a
disaster in South Asia that left close to 300,000 people dead or
missing. Parents lost children, other children were made orphans, and
villages were destroyed in a matter of minutes. The Indian Ocean
tsunami was staggering in its devastation.
While there is no way to stop a tsunami, warning areas in the path
of a tsunami is possible, and provides the best opportunity to save
lives. Tsunami warning systems assemble and integrate data from
satellites, buoys and gauges to determine where a tsunami could hit.
The United States, in fact, uses such a system. It is part of the
Pacific Tsunami Warning System that provides warnings on tsunamis to
most countries in the Pacific Ocean. South Asia, sadly, did not have
the benefit of such a warning system.
Given the technological capabilities of the 21st Century, we should
be able to harness our data-gathering abilities and do more to warn
people the world over about impending dangers, both for tsunamis and
other destructive events. I have called this hearing today because the
United States has just entered into an agreement with 59 countries and
other international organizations to develop over the next decade just
such a system. The system--or, rather, system of systems--will allow
for an unprecedented amount of data sharing that can bring real
benefits to our lives.
The Global Earth Observation System of Systems, or GEOSS as it is
commonly called, is an effort by participating countries--including
countries from South Asia--to create an all-hazards warning system.
Just as we have tools to determine where tsunamis could hit, we have
tools to forecast weather and monitor air pollution, wind currents, air
temperature, and ocean currents. These tools include satellites,
seismographs, gauges, and buoys. GEOSS would link our U.S. technology
to that of the other participating nations, creating an integrated
system that would give us access to data from around the earth.
Out of this effort, proponents tells us, we not only will enhance
and expand our ability to predict and warn of tsunamis, but also be
able to make informed decisions in anticipation of a variety of other
threats to life, health, property, and the economy around the world and
here at home.
Today we will hear from witnesses about GEOSS, what it does, what
is involved and necessary to make it work, the U.S. role, and the range
of benefits that we may see when it is operational. Witnesses will also
speak to three specific areas that may benefit from the system: public
health, energy and the environment.
First, this afternoon, we will hear from Admiral Conrad
Lautenbacher. Admiral Lautenbacher currently serves as one of four co-
chairs of the Group on Earth Observations and plays a critical role in
seeing that the 10-year plan for GEOSS is implemented. He has been
involved with organizing this integrated system from the outset. Given
that the United States must integrate its own assets and make them
interoperable to successfully link up with other regions of the world,
I look forward to hearing from Admiral Lautenbacher about the standards
we need to develop to make our information sharing more effective and
more efficient. Of course, as the Administrator of the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration, he can also explain how the United
States is prepared to address the risk of tsunamis along all our
coasts.
We will hear from Dr. Allen Dearry, from the National Institute of
Environmental Health. He will discuss how GEOSS will advance the cause
of public health. Scientists, for example, hope one day to use
satellite data to trace an illness-causing bacteria vibrio cholerae in
plankton before it hits coastlines, so that regions can get medicine
and rehydration materials to affected populations. The World Health
Organization received reports of approximately 185,000 cases of cholera
in 2001, so this could aid a lot of people. We will also hear from Dr.
Greg Glass who can offer insight on the potential of forecasting
diseases like malaria and West Nile Virus. Malaria causes more than 300
million episodes of acute illness and one million deaths annually,
according to the WHO.
Dr. Ari Petrinos from the Department of Energy will explain how
GEOSS will enable us to better manage and monitor our energy resources.
One study has shown that if we could more accurately predict the
temperature by one degree Fahrenheit, we could save more than $1
billion annually. Armed with better information, utility companies
could anticipate their needs and purchase electricity in a more
financially advantageous way. These savings could in turn be handed
down to the customer.
Dr. Gary Foley of the Environmental Protection Agency will talk
about the potential benefits to our air and water quality. EPA is
already engaging in data-sharing partnerships within the United States
that are adding to quality of life. Dr. Foley can describe how
partnering with other agencies has enabled EPA to get better air
quality data to the State of New York so that the state can inform its
citizens when air quality may be harmful to their health.
We will also hear from several witnesses who will provide outside
perspectives on GEOSS. Nancy Colleton heads the Alliance for Earth
Observation, a group bringing industry and academia together to provide
their input to the GEOSS process. Carroll Hood is formerly of NASA and
now works on Raytheon Corporation's efforts in the development of
GEOSS. Mr. Hood will testify about some of the architectural aspects of
this system.
The American Meteorological Society recently issued a report that
outlined challenges facing implementation of the U.S. portion of GEOSS.
Dr. William Hooke of the Society will be able to discuss what needs to
be done for this important endeavor to reach its full potential.
GEOSS is far-reaching in its scope and has the promise to improve
our lives. EPA's Website outlines some of the potential benefits of
GEOSS to each state. Using my home state of Kentucky as an example,
earth observations can help Kentucky track plant disease and invasive
species, such as tobacco blue mold by satellite and predict where it
will go, based on our knowledge of the climate, soil, and the mold
itself. This information would be of great benefit to farmers. From
preventing loss of life to improving our quality of life on a daily
basis, the information derived from GEOSS can benefit us all. I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses about these opportunities and all
that they will yield.
Let me welcome our witnesses. And I now recognize the Ranking
Member for the purposes of making an opening statement.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
And on my behalf and on behalf of Mr. Stupak, let me
welcome you as chairman. We look forward to working with you on
this subcommittee in the 109th Congress.
The concept of an integrated global system of the earth
observations collected by a large number of countries that
would be free and available for use by government, scientists,
universities, industry, environmentalists, and individuals to
better predict and understand the workings of our world is
truly an exciting one.
In the area of climate change, being able to follow changes
in air emissions, deforestation, temperature and water level
changes on a global basis would be invaluable as we confront
global warming.
More complete and long-term weather observations would help
electric utilities more economically purchase power, allow
farmers to more effectively plan the use of irrigation and
fertilizer for better crop yields, and assist countries in
planning for droughts and floods. Being able to track the
moisture and temperature factors the affect the life cycle of
mosquitoes would be invaluable in preventing a number of
diseases, including malaria and the West Nile virus.
But, as our witnesses will tell us today, this integrated
system is not something that will be realized immediately. It
will take commitment and money, particularly from developed
countries, like the United States, to create a coordinating
structure and a technical architecture that can integrate the
many pieces of data that now exist. We will need to identify
the gaps in data and set priorities. As one of our witnesses
will testify later today, ``The level and nature of investments
made in this area in the coming few years will either sustain
or limit our ability to meet national and international needs
for effective earth observations.'' More immediate for this
country, however, is the need to integrate our own earth
observation system. An undertaking like GEOSS absolutely
requires the commitment, both financial and political of the
United States.
The American Meteorological Society reports that GEOSS will
fail unless the U.S. effectively integrates its own earth
observation systems. This has not yet been done, and the first
step toward implementation, which is to set up a permanent
interagency subcommittee, has not yet been accomplished.
I look forward to hearing from the various agency officials
on their progress toward this end.
Additionally, I am sorry to say, there does not yet appear
to be the political commitment necessary to fund these efforts.
In fact, in the 2005 omnibus spending bill, $10.6 million out
of NOAA's $24 million budget for climate observations and
services was eliminated. The cuts included funding for a new
network of 110 observation stations intended to provide a
definitive long-term climate record for the United States.
Atmospheric monitoring of carbon dioxide, which first alerted
the world to a steady rise in CO2 levels, was also cut.
Both networks were described in a recent issue of Science
Magazine as key pillars in a much touted international system
of systems for earth observation that the Bush Administration
has called essential for resolving uncertainties in the
connection between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.
If we can not protect this relatively small expenditure to
benefit our own country from the budget cutters, how are we
going to integrate our own earth observation system much less
the world's?
Admiral Lautenbacher is to be commended for his commitment
to making these systems a reality, and we hope that he is
successful. GEOSS has enormous potential. My Home State of
Colorado is the national and international center for earth
observing data collection. NIST and NOAA operate national
laboratories there. Our research universities work hand-in-hand
with NASA and other Federal agencies, and a vibrant private
sector is expanding knowledge and creating jobs every day.
By integrating our own Nation's data gathering, providing
information to countries that need it most, and benefiting from
the help of the international community's efforts, we can
ensure a safer world and a more complete understanding of it.
But there are many questions surrounding the implementation of
GEOSS.
I look forward from--to hearing from all of the panelists
who represent a wide array of stakeholders from the public and
private sector.
And Mr. Chairman, once again, I would like to applaud you
for holding the first of what I hope will be many hearings in
Congress so that we robustly exercise our constitutional
oversight role.
And I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Ms. DeGette.
And now it is my pleasure to introduce the chairman of the
Energy and Commerce Committee for his opening statement.
Chairman Barton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to commend you, as Congresswoman DeGette did, on
your virgin hearing as chairman of the Oversight and
Investigations Subcommittee. This is the first of many, and I
am sure you will do an excellent job. You are a long-time
member of Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. And my
first subcommittee chairmanship was this--where you are right
now. It is, in many ways, I think the premier subcommittee
chairmanship of this committee, and this committee has a proud
tradition of doing bipartisan oversight and investigations
going back for the last 30 to 40 years. So I will support you
in every way possible to carry on that tradition.
I want to welcome our witnesses today. This is a very
important issue to have our first oversight hearing on. The
tsunami in late December that claimed the lives of
approximately 300,000 was obviously a huge tragedy in the
world. The United States has met with other countries in the
last month or so to try to come up with a protocol on how to
integrate all of these systems. And our hearing today is to see
how we can do it here in the United States and then expand that
to the GEOSS system around the world.
I thank the Admiral for being here and the other panelists.
I won't be able to stay for the entire hearing, but I will try
to pop in and out.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, again, congratulations on your
chairmanship and good luck, and thank you for hosting this
important hearing to start the process.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Joe Barton follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Joe Barton, Chairman, Committee on Energy
and Commerce
Thank you, Chairman Whitfield for holding what promises to be a
very interesting and important hearing and is your kickoff hearing as
Chairman of this Subcommittee.
Late last year America watched as images came back from South Asia
of the deadliest tsunami the modern world has known. The toll, as awful
as it was in the beginning, grew each day until we realized that nearly
300,000 people were lost. The worst part is that thousands of lives
could have been saved if South Asia had the weather detection equipment
already in place in other parts of the world.
We can't stop a tidal wave, but it is a miracle of science that we
can see one in the making and warn people in time to flee and live.
Today, the Subcommittee will examine the Global Earth Observation
System of Systems, or GEOSS, a network that promises to transform
disaster warning systems and other types of surveillance that can
further save and improve our lives.
We now have technology that can gather and link information from
around the world in an unprecedented way. Thousands of instruments--
from satellites, to buoys, to tidal gauges--providing important data
offer tremendous resources of opportunity, yet many of them operate in
isolation. GEOSS offers the means to bring all this vital information
together. The information is out there, and GEOSS promises to give us
the capability to have useful access to it.
This observational data could produce breakthroughs that would
significantly enhance mankind's quality of life. From improving
agriculture to thwarting outbreaks of malaria and other diseases to
saving lives from natural disasters, the applications are countless.
If we could forecast drought more effectively based on the
information we receive from data sharing, we could arm farmers in the
affected regions with this information so they could make better
decisions to maximize efficiency and minimize losses.
If we could utilize this information to determine where and when
disease epidemics are likely to hit, we could get medical supplies to
the appropriate regions to combat outbreaks.
At the outset of my remarks I referenced the 2004 tsunami, but this
system could also save lives from a whole host of other disasters
including avalanches, wildfires, floods and droughts.
For all the promise, there is much work to be done. Today's hearing
will examine what remains to be implemented, what steps we are making
in the right direction, and what steps we should question. We should
know clearly the challenges before us.
Nevertheless, GEOSS offers genuine and beneficial opportunities.
And these opportunities would never have reached this point without the
commitment of the Administration, which we should applaud.
This Administration had the foresight to bring high-level ministry
officials from countries all over the world together to collaborate on
this.
On that note, I'd like to welcome Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, who
has been a driving force in this effort. He joins us this afternoon to
discuss the benefits of GEOSS and challenges we face as the 10-year
implementation plan endorsed in Brussels last month gets underway.
In the United States, there is an interagency working group on
earth observations that is implementing our own 10-year all-hazards
plan. I look forward to hearing today from agencies in this Committee's
jurisdiction that sit on the interagency group. I want to learn what
this Committee can do to ensure that information gathering and sharing
is as robust, valuable, and timely as can be to their missions.
Within the United States, the integration of our own system will
involve partnerships among our federal agencies, academia, industry,
and other non-governmental organizations. To gain a better handle on
this aspect of the project, we will hear from representatives of these
groups today. I look forward to their perspectives on this ``System of
Systems.''
Mr. Chairman, only through clear-eyed assessment will we be able to
make thoughtful decisions to ensure the promises of this system can be
achieved.
Let me again thank all the witnesses. I look forward to your
testimony. And I yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And at this time, I will recognize Ms. Schakowsky for an
opening statement.
Ms. Schakowsky. I thank you, Chairman Whitfield, for
holding today's hearing on GEOSS, the Global Earth Observation
System of Systems.
GEOSS would help connect the dots between thousands of
environmental sensors currently monitoring the earth. This is
an intriguing concept, which, if implemented, could provide the
United States and the international community with a valuable
resource to better understand our planet. And I want to join in
congratulating Admiral Lautenbacher for his forward-looking
thinking on this topic.
There are a number of questions, I am sure he would agree,
that need to be explored and answered if this is to become a
reality, and I hope that our witnesses today will address some
of these concerns and provide Congress with a better
understanding of this proposal.
The potential of this program is enormous. GEOSS would
provide timely data for local, regional, national, and
international policymakers. On the global level, we will be
able to more effectively sustain agricultural development,
determine weather patterns, monitor our fragile environment,
reduce damage from natural resources, improve public health,
and much more. I hope that the United States' major
contribution to GEOSS, the integrated earth observation system
will begin the process of protecting U.S. coastlines from the
devastation of tsunamis such as the one we recently witnessed
in the Indian Ocean amongst the nearly 300,000 dead. In that
tragedy was a constituent and family friend of mine, Ben Ables.
Enhanced environmental tracking in my Home State of
Illinois where agriculture is of vast importance, would provide
several benefits. GEOSS would create a better understanding of
soil moisture available to crops and understanding of weather-
related crop damage. GEOSS may help to protect our watersheds
with water quality monitoring and mapping of land cover
changes, which will help protect sources of water for both
agriculture and human use.
I am concerned that it will be difficult to guarantee the
consistent level of international diplomatic and financial
cooperation needed to ensure the success of this program. I
would like to know how we can guarantee full international
cooperation to make GEOSS effective. I also have not seen how a
technology platform could be developed that can be successfully
utilized by all the nations committed to this program.
Additionally, I am interested in learning more about the
potential role of the private sector in this program.
I would like to believe that the vision of GEOSS is
realizable, given its potential. We need to seriously consider
what steps must be taken to further progress toward its
realization. I am glad that all of our panelists were able to
join us today to help us determine the best role for the
Federal Government to make GEOSS a success. And I look forward
to your testimony in particular, Admiral, and I thank you,
Chairman Whitfield.
Mr. Whitfield. At this time, I will recognize Mr. Burgess
for an opening statement.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will submit a statement for the record and--so we can go
on to the witnesses.
Mr. Whitfield. Forgive me. I should say Dr. Burgess.
Mr. Burgess. Right.
Mr. Whitfield. I recognize the gentleman from New
Hampshire, Mr. Bass.
Mr. Bass. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I would
like to join my colleague from Texas, Mr. Barton, the chairman
of the committee, in congratulating you and commemorating this,
the first hearing that you are holding as the chairman of this
committee. I wouldn't characterize your attendance here as
``virgin'', however. I would call it ``veteran''. Not only are
you a veteran of this committee, but you are definitely
becoming a veteran on the use of the time clock. I noted that
it stopped at 32 seconds, and you were able to deliver a good
10-minute opening statement, and I commend you for that
creativity in your first day.
I also want to thank you for holding this hearing. This is
certainly an issue that is critical for the safety of our
citizens in--during a natural disaster, but has, as others have
mentioned, many far-reaching implications: public health,
agriculture, energy, and environmental sectors. It is also my
hope that witnesses--perhaps our first witness, will address
the possible national security applications of an all-hazards
system and the implications that it could have in dealing with
movement of poisonous gases, chemical spills, dirty bombs, and
other issues and threats to the homeland.
I do have a more detailed statement, which I would like,
with your permission, to submit for the record. And I look
forward to hearing from our witnesses.
I yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. Without objection.
Mr. Bass, thank you very much for those kind remarks.
And is there anyone else? Okay.
Well, at this time, I would like to formally welcome Vice
Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher who is the Undersecretary of
Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and the NOAA Administrator
and tell you how pleased we are that you are here this
afternoon.
Now, Admiral, you are aware that the committee is holding
an investigative hearing and when doing so, has had the
practice of taking all testimony under oath. Do you have any
objection to testifying under oath?
Vice Admiral Lautenbacher. I do not.
Mr. Whitfield. Then if you would please rise at this time.
And the Chair will advise you that under the rules of the House
and the rules of the committee, you are entitled to be advised
by counsel. Do you desire to be advised by counsel during your
testimony today?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. No, sir.
Mr. Whitfield. Then in that case, I would like to, at this
time, swear you in. Thank you. You know, when you are in your
first hearing, it is always good to have people helping you
out, and I want to thank Ms. DeGette.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you. You are now under oath, and you
may proceed with your 5-minute summary of your written
statement, Admiral.
TESTIMONY OF VICE ADM. CONRAD C. LAUTENBACHER, JR.,
UNDERSECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR OCEANS AND ATMOSPHERE AND NOAA
ADMINISTRATOR, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Thank you very much, Chairman
Whitfield, Ms. DeGette, distinguished members of the
subcommittee, and staff. Thank you very much for this
opportunity to address you this afternoon on GEOSS, the Global
Earth Observation System of Systems. I ask that my written
testimony be submitted for the record, and I will make a brief
statement.
I was most delighted with the opening statements, because
you took away everything that I would have to say about the
system, and I am extremely pleased that there is this much
interest and understanding of what we are about, so I am
grateful for that.
If I could just make a couple of comments that I think set
in context that you have also mentioned, this is an effort that
exists on a technical level, and it exists on a political
international level. And so we are working on both parts of
that, and it is very challenging. The technical part probably
is the most--is the easiest part of this, this state-of-the-art
that we have today for satellites, for information technology,
for computers, for data transmission, for building standards.
All of that is well known. You all use the Internet. You can
see today that we have an information system that works around
the world.
Our issue is to get the right kinds of earth observing
information available in such a context and such a format that
it can become even more useful to the entire world. So
technically I think we can do this.
The hard part is the international organization issue.
Earth problems know no political boundaries. We deal with air
that comes from China. It comes over California and Colorado
and comes to the East Coast. The water that goes from the Gulf
Stream ends up in Iceland, and vice versa. You know, you can
see that the systems are connected around the world, and it
requires an international collaboration.
Today, we have these elements of many--in many developed
nations that are doing a great job for each country, but we
believe if they are connected together, you can build an even
more powerful system. So this is a--today, a coalition of
volunteers, and it has grown from basically about 30 countries
who agreed to come at the United States' invitation to the
first Earth Observing Summit a year and a half ago, roughly,
and 26 or 24 international organizations because it is a win-
win situation. It is an issue where you give and you get. And
so the building--the buildup of this organization has been
phenomenal. It has almost doubled the size in the year and a
half with what I would call very little advertising. We have
gone from a summit in the United States to a summit in Japan to
now a summit in Europe hosted by the European Union and have
agreement to build a 10-year plan, as you mentioned. And that
is about--that is what we--that is the task upon which we are
embarking. It has great support from all of the developing
nations that--or developed nations today that have systems in
play. They are all in this consortium, because they see huge
benefits, and we are now getting developing nations to come
into it. So the newer members that have joined this willingly
are developing nations who see the value of it. And that
capacity building is a very important part of this effort.
You will hear more about the benefits, but there are two
key pieces to making this successful. This is the first time we
have had political interest in such an issue. It has been a
Holy Grail of scientists for many years to look at these kinds
of things and be able to wire the world and figure out what is
going on with our systems. But today, it is such an important
issue that elected leaders and policymakers from around the
world see the benefit of it. So the earth observing summits
were the first time that we had cabinet and ministerial level
people from all of the nations come together and agree, and
that is a very important milestone in this development.
The other issue is that we have turned it around from about
it as a science project to a benefit area. It is to the benefit
areas. It benefits energy. It benefits water, all of the things
that you talked about in your opening statements, agriculture.
So those are two developments that have caused this to give it
a platform to be successful. I do believe that it offers
enormous benefit for the areas that we have cited and you will
hear today in testimony. I think this is a turning point for
our ability to start to work together on global economic
development and environmental--sustainable development areas
for our--efforts for our environment.
Again, I want to acknowledge this--the work of this
committee and allowing me to speak. I also want to mention my
boss, Commerce Secretary Gutierrez, who went to Brussels and
gave the United States' speech and endorsement of this system
and took the President's blessing with him at that point.
And so with that, I want to finish my statement. Again,
thank you for allowing me this opportunity. I look forward to
answering your questions, sir.
[The prepared statement of Vice Adm. Conrad C.
Lautenbacher, Jr. follows:]
Prepared Statement of Vice Admiral Conrad Lautenbacher, Jr., (U.S.
Navy, Ret.), Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and
NOAA Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
U.S. Department of Commerce
Chairman Whitfield, Mr. Stupak, and Members of the Subcommittee, I
am very happy to be here today to speak to you about the Global Earth
Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). I have personally championed
this program both at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) and within our interagency community because I
strongly believe it has tremendous potential benefits for the United
States and the world.
GEOSS is an excellent example of science serving society. Over
time, GEOSS will provide an important scientific basis for sound policy
and decision making in every sector of our society including energy,
public health, agriculture, transportation and numerous other areas
that shape the quality of everyday life. In addition, it will enhance
our capability to address natural disasters in the United States and
throughout the world.
As you know, I have recently returned from the Third Earth
Observation Summit in Brussels, Belgium, where nearly 60 countries and
the European Commission adopted a plan that, over the next 10 years,
will revolutionize our understanding of the Earth and how it works.
Support is growing around the world for this project. In just 18
months, since the Bush Administration hosted the first-ever Earth
Observation Summit in July 2003, the number of participating countries
has nearly doubled, and interest has grown since the recent tsunami
tragedy. Nearly 40 international organizations also support the
emerging global network. In the coming months, more countries and
global organizations are expected to join the historic initiative.
I would like to acknowledge the active involvement of Commerce
Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez, who led the U.S. Delegation to Earth
Observation Summit III in his first international travel as Secretary.
development of the global earth observation system of systems (geoss)
Nearly three years ago, I had the pleasure of addressing the World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) event on the Global
Information for Sustainable Development (GISD) project. After my
presentation, I heard about the different applications for the data and
information provided by the GISD, and the international collaboration
taking place to make scientifically sound public policy decisions.
As you may know, at this event the participating countries decided
to foster strengthened cooperation and coordination among global
observing systems and research programs for integrated global
observations. In the following year, the G8 ministers at Evian also
issued a Science and Technology Action Plan calling on the nations of
the G8 to strengthen cooperation on global observations.
Earth Observation Summit I
Heeding that call, in July 2003, the United States hosted 34
countries and 20 international organizations at the first-ever Earth
Observation Summit in Washington, D.C. This meeting marked an important
first step in bringing the nations of the world together for the
purpose of establishing a comprehensive Earth observation system. The
heads of national delegations participating in the summit adopted a
declaration that announced their commitment to developing a
comprehensive, coordinated Earth observation system built on existing
systems.
This declaration reaffirmed the need for Earth systems data and
information for sound decision-making, set forth principles for long-
term cooperation, and committed participants to improving Earth
observation systems and scientific support in developing countries. It
also established the ad hoc Group on Earth Observations (GEO), which
was tasked with preparing a ten-year implementation plan for a
comprehensive, coordinated Earth observation system. I have been
privileged to co-chair GEO, along with representatives from the
European Commission, South Africa and Japan.
One of the defining characteristics of GEO is that membership is
open to any country that expresses an interest and designates a point
of contact. Participating countries are not bound by geographic
characteristics, population, or wealth--only by a desire to be a part
of the future. This philosophy has led to the growth and expansion of
GEO. A growing number of international organizations with observations
and/or an Earth science focus are also participating in GEO.
At this first summit, there was a sense of cooperation and
goodwill, which is critical when working with such a large and diverse
group of international partners. As an excellent example of the
goodwill present in the room, Canada's Environment Minister, David
Anderson, announced the commitment of his nation to make its climate
data-- dating back to 1840--freely available to all nations.
Earth Observation Summit II
Earth Observation Summit II in Tokyo in April 2004 welcomed 44
ministers and heads of national delegations, along with 26
international organizations. The convening of the Tokyo summit
delivered on the charge from the initial Washington meeting to have a
Framework for the 10-Year Plan agreed to by the spring of 2004.
In preparation for this summit the GEO held a series of four
meetings and worked diligently to develop this Framework. Specifically,
at GEO 1, in Washington, we approved the Terms of Reference and
established five working subgroups to address the Architecture, Data
Utilization, User Requirements & Outreach, Capacity Building and
International Cooperation components of the Plan. At GEO 2, in
Baveno, we received initial reports from those subgroups, and reached
consensus on a societal benefit/user focus for the Plan. We also began
discussing an international cooperation mechanism for post-GEO
implementation of the Plan. At GEO 3, in Cape Town, the Framework
document and accompanying Communique were fully negotiated and prepared
for distribution to countries for comments and clearance. And finally
at GEO 4, in Tokyo, we held final discussions on the negotiated text of
the Framework and Communique to be presented to ministers at the second
summit, and received the first reports of the Implementation Plan Task
Team. The group discussed a governance structure for a successor
mechanism to GEO, and decided to hold a special session last summer to
come to agreement on that issue.
The Framework for the GEOSS, which emerged from this summit,
focuses on the benefits of a global system, noting current key areas of
observations and pointing out the shortcomings of our existing systems.
The Framework also offers a picture of what GEOSS will look like.
GEOSS will be:
Comprehensive, by including observations and products gathered from
all components required to serve the needs of participating
members;
Coordinated, in terms of leveraging resources of individual
contributing members to accomplish this system, whose total
capacity is greater than the sum of its parts; and
Sustained, by the collective and individual will and capacity of
participating members.
The Framework declares that the GEOSS will be a distributed system
of systems, addressing data utilization challenges, as well as
facilitating current and new capacity building efforts. Specific
outcomes of an operational GEOSS are identified in the Framework
including enabling global, multi-system information capabilities for:
Weather Forecasting
Disaster Reduction
Oceans
Climate
Human Health and Well-being
Ecosystems/Biodiversity
Agriculture
Water
Energy
Earth Observation Summit III
In preparation for the final summit, GEO convened two critical
meetings. At GEO 5, in Ottawa, we continued the forward progress, with
delegates negotiating the 10-Year Implementation Plan. Although
governance issues proved to be challenging, once again the strong will
to see this initiative through prevailed. At GEO 6, in Brussels, final
negotiations were held, and transition issues were discussed in
anticipation of the third summit, and the establishment of the new GEO.
At the third Earth Observation Summit, recently hosted by the
European Commission in Brussels, participants endorsed the 10-Year
Implementation Plan as the basis for further development of the GEOSS.
By adopting this implementation plan for the GEOSS, we have
accomplished the first phase of realizing our goal of developing a
comprehensive, integrated and sustained Earth observation system. In
addition, the summit participants agreed to establish an
intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO), and to take steps
necessary to implement GEOSS in accordance with the 10-Year
Implementation Plan. This new Group on Earth Observations replaces the
ad hoc GEO, which officially ended with the completion of its task to
develop the 10-Year Plan.
The governments of all UN member states are encouraged to
participate in GEO. In addition, the governing bodies of the UN
Specialized Agencies and Programs, as well as other relevant
international and regional organizations, are invited to endorse the
implementation of GEOSS and assist GEO in its work.
Summit participants also directed GEO to consult with the sponsors
of the component systems of GEOSS to request progress reports on
implementation as well as affirmation of their intention to provide the
support necessary to execute the GEOSS 10-Year Implementation Plan.
The participants resolved to meet before the end of 2007 to
evaluate our progress and provide further guidance towards the
successful implementation of GEOSS. They also resolved to conduct a
mid-term assessment of GEO by 2010.
environmental, societal and economic benefits of a comprehensive earth
observation system
We have generated a great deal of political will in support of
GEOSS and it is imperative to this process that we maintain it.
Highlighting the human dimension and the benefits to society from a
comprehensive system has been and will continue to be the key. Here are
a few examples:
Agriculture
A comprehensive system of Earth observations will supply critical
information, allowing us to predict and plan for droughts and other
phenomena affecting our agricultural outputs. Estimates of costs
associated with drought in the United States range from $6 to $8
billion annually. However, if we knew years in advance that these
patterns would be occurring, we could take the necessary precautions to
mitigate the impacts.
Understanding the El Nino/La Nina patterns have allowed us to save
millions of dollars in the United States alone. Crop planting
decisions, seed selection, and fertilizer application can be adjusted
to reduce vulnerability to abnormal weather conditions. It also may be
possible to adjust storage of crop inventories in anticipation of
changed yields due to El Nino. Worldwide benefits to agriculture due to
El Nino forecasts are at least $450 to $550 million per year.
Health
The health of our citizens will also benefit from an integrated
system of observations that will be used for novel applications such as
disease tracking and prediction. While still in their infancy, these
projects have already begun.
Malaria killed more than one million people last year, primarily in
the developing world. Weather patterns--temperature, soil moisture and
rainfall patterns--often set the stage for optimal conditions for the
spread of diseases like malaria. Earlier this year, the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the University of
Alabama-Huntsville announced a program for using satellite-based
monitoring to alert at-risk communities when the conditions are right
for malaria outbreaks. By utilizing information such as soil-type and
recurring standing puddles, as well as satellite-based information,
such as temperature and rainfall, a computer simulation may be used to
estimate the risk of disease outbreak. The combination of satellite and
land observations gives us a glimpse of the power of a truly integrated
and comprehensive observation system. While malaria no longer plagues
our citizens in this country, understanding the environmental factors
that contribute to similarly spread diseases could help us predict, and
possibly control or prevent their occurrence.
Another exciting new health-based initiative was announced last
year in the U.S. Northeast. NOAA and our colleagues from other
government agencies, academia, and the international science community
announced plans to conduct the largest ever air quality study in New
England this summer. Data is collected by a variety of methods such as
ground-based sensors measuring ozone, ships and aircraft monitoring the
flow and transformation of air pollution, and satellites collecting
data on climate and atmospheric changes. These data are very important
for making policy and business decisions at the local level, but what
if we could make global air quality forecasts in the same way we
currently make weather forecasts? The real benefit comes by integrating
this data with similar information collected all over the globe. Air
quality monitoring systems will provide real-time information, as well
as accurate forecasts days in advance.
Energy--Resource Management
Utility companies typically use weather forecasts to determine the
mix of coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, natural gas and oil plants
that will be used to meet consumer needs. In June 2001, USA Today
reported that annual costs of electricity could decrease by an
estimated $1 billion if we could improve the accuracy of weather
forecasts by one degree Fahrenheit. This difference in just one degree
of accuracy could impact the decision a utility company will make in
determining whether to buy electricity from the wholesale market or
fire-up an expensive natural gas facility to meet increased demand.
Likewise, more accurate 5-day forecasts for hurricanes can save the
offshore oil and gas industry significant amounts of money by notifying
them when and if a facility must go offline for a storm. Not only is
this a direct benefit to the company operating the platform, it's an
indirect benefit that extends to the entire globe, preventing a ripple
in the world energy market that can take weeks or months to recover
from.
A February 15, 2005 report issued by the U.S. Minerals Management
Service (MMS) on oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico clearly
demonstrates the disruptive effect of extreme weather. MMS states that
the cumulative shut-in oil production for the period between September
11, 2004 and February 14, 2005 (which includes the height of the 2004
hurricane season) was 43.8 million barrels, which is equivalent to 7.2%
of the average yearly production of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, which is
approximately 605 million barrels. Cumulative shut-in gas production
during the same period was 172.3 billion cubic feet, which is
equivalent to 3.9% of the average yearly production of gas in the Gulf
of Mexico, which is approximately 4.45 trillion cubic feet.
From an energy exploration perspective, Earth observations are also
playing innovative roles. New techniques allow us to get a better
picture of what is beneath the sea floor. By the introduction of three-
dimensional seismic data, we can better understand whether an area has
potential for energy resources. Using this ``seismic cube'' to
interpret geophysical, geological, petrophysical and paleontological
data, geoscientists can collaborate more efficiently and develop more
accurate analyses. Better pictures and evaluations result in cost-
savings and the prevention of wasteful drilling and mining. Directed
drilling and mining efforts would reduce strain on the oceanic
environment and ecosystems.
geoss and the united states plan: principles and governance
At Earth Observation Summit III, Secretary Gutierrez presented the
Strategic Plan for the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System as the
U.S. contribution to GEOSS. This strategic plan was prepared by the
U.S. Interagency Working Group on Earth Observations, which is made up
of 15 federal agencies and 3 White House offices, and reports to the
National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Environment and
Natural Resources. The U.S. effort involves a wide variety of federal
agencies that are both providers and users of Earth observations and
information.
The U.S. Strategic Plan identifies the same nine societal benefit
areas outlined in the implementation plan for GEOSS, and outlines a
core set of principles for the U.S. system:
The U.S. effort will be multi-disciplinary. It will take into
consideration the interaction among multiple science
disciplines, including physical, life and social sciences.
The U.S. effort will be interagency. It will build upon existing
systems and strategies to develop a framework for identifying
gaps and priorities.
The U.S. effort will link across all levels of government. The
stakeholder capacity to use assessment and decision support
tools for decision-making will be supported through education,
training, research, and outreach. Building domestic user
capacity is a key consideration.
The U.S. effort will be international. Environmental observations and
science are international in scope and international
cooperation is imperative both to the U.S. and global plans.
The U.S. effort will encourage broad participation. Many entities
(public, private, and international) acquire and use Earth
observations. The scope of the integrated Earth observation
system will encompass the needs of these entities including the
commercial Earth observation data providers, value-added
intermediaries, and commercial users.
The U.S. Strategic Plan also recommends a governance structure. A
standing Earth Observation Subcommittee will be established within the
National Science and Technology Council's Committee on Environment and
Natural Resources. This Subcommittee will have responsibility for
periodic assessment of the multi-year U.S. plan, as well as annual
reports to the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on
progress.
Consistent with the President's Management Agenda, federal research
and development investments for an integrated and sustained system of
Earth observations will be managed as a portfolio of interconnected
interagency activities, taking into account the quality, relevance and
performance of each project. Working with the external stakeholder
community (consistent with the Federal Advisory Committee Act), this
strategy will not only address planning, management and prospective
assessment, but will also seek retrospective assessment of whether
investments have been well directed, efficient and productive.
The agencies, through the Earth Observation Subcommittee, will
recommend priorities for investment for near-term, mid-term and long-
term activities. In addition, the Subcommittee will, over time,
assemble its own benchmarks and metrics as tools to assess the U.S.
Strategic Plan's relevance, quality and performance across societal
benefits areas. The Subcommittee will continue to formulate U.S.
positions and inputs into the Global Earth Observation System of
Systems, taking into account the full range of U.S. policies and
interests.
challenges ahead
The Third Earth Observation Summit was a milestone in our effort to
establish a comprehensive global system of systems, and could not have
occurred without the high-level political commitment of all of the
participating nations. For years, our science and technical communities
have discussed and understood that we must link our individual
observation systems in order to understand Earth's complex processes.
As we move forward with implementing the strategic plan, we have many
important tasks in front of us. The technology available is not our
challenge because we can and already have made our machines and
computers talk to each other. The real challenge has been overcoming
the political boundaries that our Earth systems do not recognize. That
is what is unique about this initiative.
While progress in Earth observations will come in part from new
capabilities and information, it is imperative that existing
capabilities be maintained and improved. Without the simple maintenance
or enhancement of existing systems--for example, stream flow gauges for
water monitoring and continuity of weather and climate data sets --
progress will be spotty at best.
Another critical issue is the maintenance of observational records
at all levels to allow scientists to evaluate the effects of change in,
for example, air quality and/or drinking water quality.
In addition, the U.S. Strategic Plan stresses that in order to
assess the efficacy of existing systems and identify gaps and future
needs, we first must understand who the critical users are--in the
context of society as a whole--and identify their needs. In the context
of the nine societal benefits areas, these groups are:
End users, which includes the general public, the commercial sector
and authorities with responsibility, for example, for managing
the distribution and quality assurance of resources.
Scientists, managers, and policy makers in advisory, service and
regulatory agencies who need to make informed decisions on
predictions of future conditions, respond to environmental
changes and disasters in real time, develop accurate
assessments and simulation tools to support decision-making,
and run operational forecast and modeling centers.
Research scientists whose research is directed toward improving our
understanding of the physical, chemical, biological, and
ecological relationships that define our Earth system.
The most immediate challenge ahead, however, will be in the
development of a plan to manage and communicate Earth observation data.
New observation systems will lead to a 100-fold increase in Earth
observation data. Our individual agencies' current data management
systems are already challenged to process current data streams.
Domestically, our interagency effort is currently examining
technological solutions that will maximize our ability to manage data,
including methods for standardizing vocabularies across agencies and
developing browsing and visualization systems. By agreeing to standards
and protocols among our agencies, we will achieve interoperability of
our individual systems, enabling users to effectively locate data and
information relevant to their needs.
The GEO members also recognize data management as a necessary
component in the international context. The 10-Year Implementation Plan
adopted in Brussels noted that GEOSS ``will facilitate, within 2 years,
the development and availability of shared data, metadata, and products
commonly required across diverse societal benefit areas.''
As was tragically evident in the Indian Ocean region in December,
having the information is simply not enough. We need systems in place
to manage this information and deliver it to our citizens in an
accessible and useable format.
conclusion
Over the next decade, I believe we will look back at this period
and recognize what an enormous turning point it represents in the
scientific understanding of our planet. The goal of the United States,
and every country participating in GEOSS, is to ensure that this
understanding leads to improved operational capabilities that will be
put to work for the benefit of people throughout the world and the
economies they depend on.
Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, Admiral Lautenbacher, thank you very
much for those comments. And for this round of questions, I
think, one person on this panel, we will allow everyone 10
minutes on their questions. And I would make this comment, that
obviously this system has been in the planning stages for some
time, and there has been a lot of discussion about it. But with
the tsunami that recently hit Southeast Asia, there has been a
lot of focus on the tsunamis. And before I formally ask some
questions, I would like to show a TV clip from--many of you may
have seen the program on the Discovery Channel, and we have
about a 2-minute clip here that I would like to show.
[Video.]
Well, that gives us a little feeling of what it could be
like. We wanted to get you all in the right mood before we
started talking about this. But as you could see, this mega-
tsunami in the Atlantic could be triggered by a volcanic
eruption in the Canary Islands resulting in massive destruction
on the East Coast of the United States under that theory. So
Admiral, what steps are being taken today to protect the
Atlantic region?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We have worked--immediately after
this tragedy occurred, we have put together a plan, which is
now being funded in the supplemental as well as the fiscal year
2006 budget of about $37 million, $24 million of which go to
NOAA and the other $13 million to the USGS to put together a
comprehensive warning--tsunami warning system for not only the
Pacific, where we have the system, as you have mentioned, but
the Atlantic as well. If we gain success in our budget
deliberations, we would be able to get that system in place
within the next 2 years.
In the meantime, we are taking steps to hook up to our
current system, the tide gauges and seismometers that already
exist in the area that protects the southern part of the United
States and the Caribbean, so we are not waiting to put into
place the full system. We are bringing online assets that are
there today in terms of tide gauges and seismometers to give us
a preliminary warning capability for the East Coast.
Mr. Whitfield. And would you explain in a little bit more
detail how information from GEOSS would warn us of such an
event? What--how would that actually occur?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Let me--this is an interesting
comment, the fact that this enormous tragedy occurred, and I
am--my heart is going out to all of the people that were
involved in this, so I am not trying to make any hay out of
this, so to speak. But it has brought home the value of a GEOSS
or a global earth observing system, because what we are talking
about here is one piece of one of the nine benefit areas that a
GEOSS can provide for us. So we are talking about, actually, a
very little piece of it, and this is something that could save
90,000 lives just like that with a relatively small investment.
So the way it would work is to have--it is--it has to be an
end-to-end system, so you have to, first of all, go and look
and see where hazard areas are, which is what we do in the
United States. And we do mapping of hazards. We run models. We
try to find out where the vulnerable parts of the country are.
Obviously the Pacific is where we have concentrated, because
that is the Ring of Fire, as they say. Then you have to have
the proper kinds of technology for warning. We have put--the
newest technology is called DART or dart buoys. They are open-
ocean monitoring buoys that monitor the formation of the
tsunami hopefully right after the fact has occurred, right
after the potential earthquake has occurred. We have tide
gauges along the coasts. Seismometers give us the original
warning, so we could even tell whether there has been something
in the ocean area. So you look at the seismic traces. You look
at the reactions of the buoys and tide gauges along the ocean
at a central warning center, and then put out broadcast
information to all the nations and to us, to our States and our
weather forecast offices. Now that information has to be--get--
has to go to the emergency managers in the cities and coastal
areas that are affected, and they then have to take the actions
to mitigate and to prevent further disaster.
We have a program called a tsunami ready program that we
support, and it allows certification of coastal areas. We also
have a storm ready program for inland tornadoes, but in other
words, it is a program that teaches the emergency managers in
this--the towns and regional areas how to deal with the
situation. We just had our first--we had 15 that were--15
communities in the United States declare tsunami ready. We need
to have a lot more, but we just got a new one this week,
Lincoln City, Oregon, Mr. Gehman requested we certified and did
all of the work. So it is an end-to-end process that requires
dissemination of the warning and an understanding by people in
coastal areas on how to deal with it.
Mr. Whitfield. I hear the term, when we talk about this
global warning system, interoperable, and I know that our
system has to work with the systems of other countries, but
interoperable, would you expand on exactly what that means to
you?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Well, it has to be interoperable in
a sense that we have to have interfaces that allow the data to
be exchanged, so as--there--for instance, we have different
satellites in orbit today, but--and they are run by different
countries, but we have standards that bring the data down to a
central place and allow it to be distributed through a global
telecommunications system that the WMO, the World
Meteorological Organization, sponsors. So the ablate to be able
to get the data in a standard format is the critical piece, and
the building of the instruments and the operation of the
instruments is a national or an international organization
prerogative, but in the end, it has to come to a standard
interface.
Mr. Whitfield. But what--from your perspective, we do have
adequate science and technology. And I think somewhere where
the major problem may be the public policy part of this or the
political part, would you agree with that?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, sir. There are two major
issues. One is what I would call the business models that every
nation has for data. Some countries sell data. In other words,
they don't--the United States has more of a split between
public good and private industry. So we have a certain set of
data that we provide for public good, because we believe that
is the right way to go. We need open information, and the
decisions on which you base economic--the future of our economy
should be open to the public for scrutiny, so there are a
certain set of data that is free.
In other countries, that is not true. They have less data
available for free so that you must pay for it, or at least
internally pay for it within the government.
The other issue is that there are national security
concerns from nations that are worried about trading data that
might--they think might be sensitive to their own internal
needs, and we have to work through that and assure them that we
are looking for the kind of data that helps everyone. We are
not trying to pry into their military secrets.
Mr. Whitfield. Now I understand that Europe is one of the
areas that charges for information. Will GEOSS have--will we
have to pay for information from the Europeans or----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We would hope that we do not have
to pay for information from the Europeans. Now what we have
today, in effect, in fact, a hazard system is the way in. When
we work in the weather area, we are able to exchange data on--
for weather systems on a large level, because it is information
that helps us prevent disasters or to mitigate against
disasters and warn people. And at the political level, just
about every nation in the world today agrees that that is the
kind of data that they ought to provide free for the world. So
we need to expand those types of relationships.
Mr. Whitfield. Okay. Admiral, my time is expired, so at
this time, I will turn the questioning over to Mrs. DeGette.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
And before I start, Admiral, I would like to say that Mr.
Stupak is very sorry he couldn't be here today. He just had
back surgery so----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I am sorry.
Ms. DeGette. [continuing] he is resting this week, but he
will be back in the saddle, we hope, next week.
I wanted to talk to you a little bit about an issue I
raised in my opening statement, and first of all, to thank you
for your personal dedication in establishing the system. I
think it is really going to be important, not just for
tsunamis, but for predicting climate change and weather all
around the world, wouldn't you agree?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I agree, absolutely.
Ms. DeGette. Now I have been told recently that it would
cost, worldwide, about $5 billion to $6 billion a year just for
meteorological observations. And my question is what would you
anticipate the cost of supporting--of both establishing and
then supporting a global system that will bring all of the data
together, the kind of system we are talking about with GEOSS?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I think that the speculation on
what a full system would be is--we are not at a stage where I
can say it is $5 billion, $10 billion, $20 billion. But what I
want everyone to recognize is that we already, today, invest
billions of dollars in the developing nations for the systems
that are in place. And so the first thing to do is to harvest
the synergy that we can gain from connecting our satellites to
Russia's, to India's, to--and we are doing that.
Ms. DeGette. Right.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. In satellites we are much further
along than we are on ground data. But--and then to take an
inventory of where the gaps are and to look at how we are going
to approach the funding of them, but as you have----
Ms. DeGette. But let--I mean, you are exactly right. Most
of those systems are in place and we shouldn't replicate them.
We need to coordinate. How much is that going to cost? Do you
have some sense?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I don't have a sense for--let me--I
don't have a number that I can give you, but let me--I am going
to--if you would want to press on this, first of all, the
satellite--we have today satellite--complete satellite coverage
at the equator. So we have geostationary satellites all around
the world, and we have an organization that coordinates that.
Ms. DeGette. Right.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. So that is pretty good.
Ms. DeGette. Yes.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Okay. So what we--all we need to do
there is to continue to invest in those satellites, as we do
today.
Ms. DeGette. Okay.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. So I ask for your support of my
question.
Ms. DeGette. You just basically don't know how much this is
going to cost.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We don't. This could go--this is a
system which will be--will go on for years and be developed
over years.
Ms. DeGette. Sure. So--but----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. There are very minor enhancements.
Like the tsunami system. We are asking Congress to fund a
tsunami system, which will be our part of a worldwide warning
system.
Ms. DeGette. Right. But----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We are asking for the next
generation of instruments to put on, which will help us turn a
geostationary satellite into a true environmental satellite. So
there are incremental pieces there.
Ms. DeGette. Exactly. Exactly. And I guess the reason I am
concerned is because in the President's recent budget
submission for 2006, there are deep and many cuts to NOAA. And
a lot of the data-gathering programs that you are talking about
within NOAA that are gathering data right now see heavily
reduced funding, and that is like the oceanic and atmospheric
research, the national environmental satellite data and
information service, the national weather service. And so my
question is, if we are already having cuts in our existing
information gathering systems, and you are not really, really
sure how much it is going to cost, at least at each stage, do
we really have the national ability to commit to such a grand
scheme like GEOSS financially?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Well, first of all, I don't think--
and I would be happy to go through the budget, you won't see
cuts in the President's budget to observing issues. You will
see elimination of some of the member interests that were added
at the end of the last year. And there have been cuts in
observing from the Hill, I am sorry to say, but we continue to
ask for those, like the climate reference network that you have
mentioned.
Ms. DeGette. Right. But----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We--that is a top priority. I come
back again for the fourth year asking for help with the climate
reference network, so I agree with what you have said. It is an
important piece.
Ms. DeGette. But see, like, in 2005, your agency's budget
request was $24 million and $10 million of it was removed in--
or for climate reference. That is right. For climate reference.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Right.
Ms. DeGette. And almost half of it was removed in the
omnibus bill. So I mean, I assume you felt like you needed the
$24 million.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, ma'am. I came over and
supported that, and I continue to support it. I asked members.
I was told that there was no prejudice on the cut, and so we
rearranged money to cover the continuation of the climate
reference network, because it is an important priority for the
President. So we----
Ms. DeGette. But you, in fact----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. [continuing] want to do this. So
I--there is no----
Ms. DeGette. Well, I know, and I really commend you for
wanting to do it. I want to do it, too. The question is can you
really do it, and can you expand it the way you need to, given
the cuts that you are seeing year in and year out from
Congress? And I mean, you are under oath, so you have to answer
truthfully and straightforward.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I am answering--as I always do, I
have always been straightforward.
Ms. DeGette. I know.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. The--obviously I don't like cuts in
the program. I am passionate about this program. I am
passionate about what NOAA does. And I come over here, and
every year I support it, and I support it within the
administration. So no, I don't like to see reductions to my
budget. I am--but I am very grateful to the additions that
Congress has made. Congress has added to many of these
programs, so I am appreciative to many of the members that
support what is going on. I do think we are on a--the right
trajectory to be able to do this. I really believe that there
are enough resources and the ramp and the understanding. You
don't want to put too many resources into it. You want to fund
when things are ready to go and provide the proper match of
funding with technological capability, but I think we are on a
ramp that can support this.
Ms. DeGette. What is your proposed 2006 budget for the
climate observation program?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We--in this area, we have requested
all of the money that was cut last year, and we have added
another $19 million or so for climate.
Ms. DeGette. So what is the total, Admiral?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I don't know what the total is for
the--for that----
Ms. DeGette. All right. Mr. Chairman, if we could have
him----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. It is at least the $10 million and
then the $19 million----
Ms. DeGette. 43 million?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. It is--the $10 million you have
talked about, we have asked for that back. That is in our
budget. And I have added to our roughly $200 million climate
observing budget another $19 million that the President is
supporting. So we have added money to that area.
Ms. DeGette. Okay. And you really feel like it is essential
that you had that to both do what you need to do collecting
data----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, I do.
Ms. DeGette. [continuing] and also expand to GEOSS?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, I do.
Ms. DeGette. Another concern I have is, and we were just
sitting here talking about it, when we have these grand schemes
or when we have an emergency like the recent tsunami, Congress
is really quick to appropriate money for these exciting new
programs. And the concern I have got is down the line, if we
have a new NOAA administrator, maybe their commitment to GEOSS
wouldn't be as much as yours, maybe a new administration or a
different Congress. I am wondering what will make the U.S. keep
its commitment to GEOSS, and one thing I was thinking about,
you were talking about, in response to the chairman's question,
the tsunami monitoring system that we have in the Pacific. As I
understand, three of the buoys aren't working because we don't
have the money to maintain them right now. So the question is
what will we do in the future to be able to maintain this
exciting system and expand it?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. The--on the buoys, we have been--we
have repaired one buoy, so two of them are not working, but
they are not being--they can't be repaired because of the
weather. They are--they sit off the Allusion Islands. We need
calm weather, and as soon as it gets there, we think probably
the 1st of April or so we will be able to go out.
So that isn't a money issue.
Ms. DeGette. Oh, okay.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Our issue was expanding it. We
would not be able to expand it without the help--we were
trying--we were going to go along at two buoys a year for the
next 10 years to try to get a full system in place. We have
asked in our supplemental to be able to do that at an
accelerated pace and get them in within 2 years.
Ms. DeGette. So how are we going to be able to have some
kind of a firm commitment to the GEOSS system in the future?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Well, first of all, I think it will
outlast me. I am not the only person that is talking about
this. If you were--if you had--you would have been very pleased
to listen to the statements in Brussels, the Iranians, the--
every European nation got up and gave a speech at the
ministerial level of how valuable and important this was. So
there are many, many nations that are signed up to this. There
are four co-chairs of this group, the South Africans
Representing Developing Nations. They are all very passionate.
You could have--bring any of them in and sit them in this
chair, and just the fact that you all think this is such a good
idea, I think it will long outlast me in terms of a commitment
to do this.
Ms. DeGette. Well--and I hope you are right. According to a
lot of recommendations, there were recommendations for two
areas of action. One was to establish an organization
structure, and the second one was to establish a permanent
earth observation subcommittee charter for the temporary
interagency working group. I am wondering what the status of
that--the second part of that is, because it would seem to me
that would institutionalize GEOSS if we had that permanent
subcommittee.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We will have that within a few
weeks. I mean, we are working on that right now. This is--we
have a strategic plan for our GEOSS produced by the 15
agencies, and I have agreement from the White House to set up a
permanent committee, and so we are working out the details of
how to do that. So I am optimistic that we will be able to
institutionalize this very quickly.
Ms. DeGette. All right. Thank you very much.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. All right. Thank you.
Mr. Whitfield. This--at this time, we will recognize the
chairman for his questions.
Chairman Barton. And I won't take 10 minutes, but I am
watching in my office. I have it on TV, and I saw that Mr. Bass
stole my line about creative use of the clock. I thought that
was pretty cute. The first hearing, you just stopped the clock
so you don't go over.
Admiral, I am--my question is more of a practical nature.
We are all for what you are trying to do, but this--I assume
you were a part of the group that went to Brussels, is that
correct?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, I was.
Chairman Barton. Okay. These 59 other nations that were so
passionate about this, are they willing to put money to finance
the construction and operation of the system, and if so, how
much?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Well, they do already. These are
the nations, at least the 30 or so that are invested heavily.
And they are there with the assumption that we are that they
are going to continue their investments and work together to
improve the structure of the system. So I believe they are
there. They have agreed to fund the organization.
Chairman Barton. But what are we talking about? How much is
the U.S. contribution and in the perfect world, if we
contributed what they wanted us to, and they contributed what
we thought they should, in order of magnitude, what are we
talking about?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Well, I have to go back to what
current budgets are to tell you that, because that is--I mean,
nobody has put a figure down on the--nobody has signed up and
said, ``We, the United States, are committing another $2
billion or $1 million,'' whatever it is. No one has done that.
This is an organization that is bringing their assets to the
table to try to work together----
Chairman Barton. Well, just--you know, this is just kind of
a general oversight hearing. I am not asking you to sign a
blood oath that this is what it is going to cost, but
generally, how much would it cost to do everything you guys
wanted to do that met in Brussels? And what share of that would
the U.S. pay and what share would the rest of the world pay?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We are not far--that far enough
along to answer that question. I can tell you what was----
Chairman Barton. You don't even have a general ballpark?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I can tell you what we spend today,
and I can tell you what incremental systems will cost. The
tsunami warning system for the United States share is the $37
million that we are asking for in the supplemental in the
fiscal year 2006 budget. The increases to our satellite
capability, which will allow us to do full environmental
observing, is an increase to our budget of about $50 million.
But that is a normal procurement ramp that we would have asked
for anyway, because it benefits the United States. It doesn't--
it is a section that provides direct value to us. Obviously, it
will provide value to the world if we can connect it with other
systems.
Chairman Barton. Well, that is $87 million incrementally,
if I--$37 and $50. What are they--what does the rest of the
world put up?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Actually, GMES is--that is the
European contribution. It is about $700 million, and they are
in the process of--they put money into that several hundred
million already. So they are actually ahead of us in adding
increments to their----
Chairman Barton. And so they have a system that is--a
satellite system that is operating?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. They have a satellite--they do have
a satellite system that is operating. They are going to invest
in future fully environmental satellite monitoring. They call
it GMES, Global Monitory for Environment and Security. And it
is one of their--Galileo is their other top program. Those are
the--they have two space programs that they are funding, and
GMES is more than space. It is the kind of--it is the European
contribution, as I have mentioned, the U.S. contributions--the
European is more than just space. And that is a $700 million or
$800 million effort that they are embarking on and support.
Chairman Barton. But to do this right, we are going to have
to have these stations in the Indian Ocean and different parts
of the Pacific, so is India and Thailand and, I guess, Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia, are they all part of this group, and if so,
how much are they putting in?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. India and Thailand are part of--are
one--are some of the 60 nations that were at the--and they are
interested in dealing with it. The Indians have agreed to $26
million for tsunamis and they, you know--millions of dollars,
tens of millions of dollars have been offered to support it. I
have people that are just leaving Paris now after a meeting of
the IOC, which is where this work will be done, the
Intergovernmental Oceanographic Council, working on a design
for a system and the kinds--to answer the kind of question you
are asking me, how much will this nation put in and how much
will this nation, how much--for specifics. And that is kind of
a first deliverable of what we are talking about.
Chairman Barton. Well, I don't want to--I am--I have got to
run to a radio interview. I am all for this. I think you are to
be commended and the administration is to be commended for
pushing it. What I don't want to see is us putting this system
in place and the U.S. taxpayer end up paying a huge
disproportionate share, like we normally do when we get
involved in these international projects, so that--my role is
going to be to serve as a watchdog for the U.S. taxpayer. We
want to do good deeds, and we want to do them sooner than
later, but we want--to the extent that the rest of the world
can pay, we want those that can to participate and help to pay
for it.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
Ms. Schakowsky is recognized for 10 minutes.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to take some exception, first of all, to this
notion that when it comes to international things that the
United States usually pays a disproportionate share. I mean, if
we look in terms of international aid and compare that to other
countries as a proportion of our budget, it is not really true.
But specifically on this, I wanted to ask you whether or
not this strategic plan for the U.S., so this is our piece of
it. And would that have to, in your view, precede moving ahead
with the global efforts? I mean, is this what we need to do
before we can get started and fully participate in GEOSS?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I would say no. We need to do this.
There is no question about doing this, but we are already
engaged in the world today, and have been for many, many
years----
Ms. Schakowsky. Right.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. [continuing] without ever having
done this. So we are better off to do this now for sure,
because it will help us internally do a better job and be more
efficient in providing for economic and environmental
sustainability. So I would say we definitely need to do this.
We can do it in concert with the world.
Ms. Schakowsky. Well, let--here is my concern. It--there
are certain things in there that we need to do just for us.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes.
Ms. Schakowsky. And then in addition, in order to implement
an international system, there would be additional costs. So I
wanted to ask you about, in the appendix to the strategy plan,
there is a discussion of near-term opportunities. And the first
is for ``comprehensive and integrated data management and
communications to integrate the wide range of earth
observations across agencies and disciplines.'' And it states
that the data management is ``a necessary first step to achieve
the synergistic benefits'' from the U.S. system and the data
and products must be made readily available and accessible
through data management systems. So I am asking in terms of
that first near-term opportunity, where we are in beginning
this effort.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We have in place a number of data-
sharing arrangements already within the United States that we
use. We need more, and it needs to be more comprehensive. And
we have data-sharing agreements with world organizations that
do global observing. So there are pieces in place. But we are
missing significant sections, such as our oceans and coasts. We
don't have the complete integration of data that we need from
the various observing stations that States have and
universities have and some of our own agencies. We are looking
forward to putting a budget initiative in this next budget that
will help work on that particular part of the problem. So this
is a--and this is a major concern, and when I say that it is
near-term issues, that is one of the first issues that the
permanent committee that we talked about is going to take on.
Ms. Schakowsky. When you say ``in the next budget'', are
you saying in the one we are considering now that there will be
funding for that?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I am doing fiscal year 2007 as we
speak here.
Ms. Schakowsky. Oh, so we are talking about fiscal year
2007?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, ma'am.
Ms. Schakowsky. Okay. The second near-term opportunity in
this report is to improve observations for disaster warnings
for events such as earthquakes and tsunamis, landslides and
volcanoes. The plan states that ``systematic widespread
coverage'' of observations is needed but is unmet. And it
points out that existing systems are not being maintained or
modernized, which is apparently what is happening with NOAA's
climate observation systems. And we also don't have an
operational radar satellite system, as Japan and Canada are
getting ready to launch. The strategy plan states that such a
system could ``truly help in a real time manner, reduce
hazards, help mitigate disasters, and realize goals of saving
lives and reducing damage, all laudable and important goals.
What is the outlook for getting this kind of investment from
this Congress?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Well, it has been good. In the last
2 years, one of the major problems we have had are our water
level measuring systems that we have around the country. They
were at--somewhere around 60 percent effectiveness. We obtained
funding from the President and from Congress to get that up
toward about--up to 85 percent, and I just--we got money from
last Congress that will get it up to full--that system up to
its full level. So they are--we have been able, with this
effort going and the interest of many members and staff members
to be able to start to back-fill what I would call our
inadequate funding of sustaining systems that we need to make
the proper kinds of warnings for disasters.
Ms. Schakowsky. Yes. The operational radar satellite
systems, such as Japan and Canada, where are we on that?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, I--that is an interesting
issue. I believe that that is something that can--that we ought
to look at internationally to deal with. For instance, we, for
many years, were able to use the Canadian data
straightforwardly, and there was no need for the United States
and Canada to have a different satellite. The one satellite had
the kind of coverage and provided the kind of parameters we
needed. There now is a different business model that is out
there, so we are going to have to deal with the fact that we
don't have a piece or an interest in the follow on to the
Canadian satellite. So I look to GEO to be able to deal with
making--negotiating so that we can work on these very issues
and be more efficient, not have everybody put up a radar
satellite. I don't think everybody--my personal opinion is not
everybody should put up a radar satellite. You need a couple of
them, and we should have an international agreement in some way
to be able to use this data as people need it for economic
benefit.
Ms. Schakowsky. So you are saying part of the value of this
international system is that we could end duplicative efforts
and share----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Absolutely.
Ms. Schakowsky. [continuing] information.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Absolutely.
Ms. Schakowsky. You had mentioned in your opening statement
that you thought the technology was actually the easy part and
that the political or other kinds of problems--what are the
obstacles, the more difficult obstacles that you see in
specific?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I will go back to the two that I
mentioned. I think the fact is that each country does have a
different business model, which means that it has to be--the
scientists can't take it on. It has to be taken on at a
political level, a high enough level to be able to say we are
going to change the way we operate and we are going to fund it
from the central government or we are going to do something
else to get funding to be able to enter the systems----
Ms. Schakowsky. But when you talk about business model, are
you talking about funding source or----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, I am sorry. I used a civilian
term, but I am talking about how they--many--for instance, many
weather services in other countries charge other parts of the
government----
Ms. Schakowsky. Selling the data.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. [continuing] for the data so that
it looks, on the books, as they are free. Of course they are
not. We know that it is not free. They are being subsidized by
the rest of their government. So that is why I call it a
business model kind of a thing----
Ms. Schakowsky. I see.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. [continuing] because a lot of
weather data, while it is useful in private sector quite
heavily, it is a very important piece of government, and you
need it to run--in almost any kind of government, you need
weather data. So in my view, we are all paying for weather
data, but other nations have a different way of putting it on
the books. And that has to be worked out.
And the other issue is the issue of real time availability
of the data. Many nations are very sensitive to getting the
information directly, and if we are going to have a tsunami
warning system that works, we have to do it the way we do it in
the United States. We have to have instantaneous, real time
data from--reporting through satellites and hard wires and
Internet directly to regional centers, because that is how you
get--gain time in being able to find out what is happening
physically on the earth. Where is this wave going? And where is
it hitting now? You have got to have that real time
information, and many nations are hesitant to sign up to real
time data gathering, because they think it would--may be, you
know, disadvantageous to their national security.
Ms. Schakowsky. Thank you. I appreciate it, Admiral.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, ma'am.
Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Bass is recognized for 10 minutes.
Mr. Bass. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Admiral Lautenbacher, if there were a huge sloughing off of
mud on the continental shelf on the East Coast, which could
create an enormous tidal wave, how long would it take to reach
the East Coast?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. You are talking about the----
Mr. Bass. Not that one. That is a volcanic----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. [continuing] example in the----
Mr. Bass. [continuing] issue. But one of the threats to the
eastern United States is the possibility that a--there would be
a landslide, if you will, on the continental shelf and that
would create a reduction in the height of the water and then it
would come back up again.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Right.
Mr. Bass. It is about--I don't know. I am--I have never
been there before, but it is just a few--maybe 50 or 30 miles
off shore.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes. In a case where you have that
kind of short warning time, the first place it hits would have
very little warning, because a landslide normally would not----
Mr. Bass. A few seconds?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. No, minutes. We are talking 5 or 10
minuets.
Mr. Bass. Do we have any kind of warning system in place
today that would give the people of, let us say, New York or
Boston or Cape Cod or Long Island, a 5 or 10-minute warning if
this were to happen?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. At the exact place where it
happened, no, but up and down the coast a little bit, yes,
because we have tide gauges in place that are being monitored
real time and you can provide warnings.
Mr. Bass. So let us say the--this event occurs and it takes
30 seconds for it to happen, let us say, I don't know how long
a mud slide lasts underwater, and it happens at high noon, when
would we find out in Boston about it?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. That--I am not sure. I could--
would--you know, I am not sure.
Mr. Bass. All right.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Speaking off the top of my head
doesn't have any value.
Mr. Bass. Is there a system in place right now to identify
the problem and communicate? What I am getting at is when you--
who certified these tsunami safe cities and why are they
tsunami safe?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. They are tsunami safe because they
go through a checklist that has been worked up over years of
experience by the National Weather Service in terms of getting
information out. Now we have--when you start with the
information NOAA weather radio, that is one direct way to get
it to citizens that alarms you in your home et cetera----
Mr. Bass. Sure.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. [continuing] that can go out in
about 7 minutes from the time you certify you have some
information. Okay. And that comes out from our weather forecast
offices. So you have got to get the information to the weather
forecast office. And we have money to take it down to 2
minutes. So we are looking in the next 2 years to get it
automated so that information will get out after 2 minutes from
the weather service to the public. Then you have the--then
there needs to be the emergency managers take over and do
something. So normally 10 to 15 minutes is considered the
minimum time to do anything, given----
Mr. Bass. Well, how long do you think it would take a tidal
wave to reach the shore if it originated 30 miles off shore?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I would say 10 minutes or so.
Mr. Bass. It takes that long?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. It takes--yes, it does. It takes
time for it to--it is going to slow down. If it is on the
shelf, it is going to go slowly. It is not the 500 miles an
hour. The speed depends on the depth of the water. As the depth
gets smaller, the speed gets slower.
Mr. Bass. So under the present situation, if we had such an
event, there--are there--how soon after its occurrence would
you know that it had happened?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. As soon as it reached the first
nearest tide gauge. And we have a fairly robust system of tide
gauges along the East Coast.
Mr. Bass. The tide gauges would show an immediate drop or
rise in----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Drop.
Mr. Bass. [continuing] the height of the water and that
buoy is programmed to relay that information immediately?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Not today. Not today. We--as I have
mentioned earlier, we are trying to start to hook up tide
gauges on the East Coast. We wouldn't be doing Boston first. I
understand it is important where you are, but we would be doing
the ones in the--towards the Caribbean where we have the active
seismic plates and work our way up the coast. They are on real
time. The question is you have to have some kind of a command
center that is watching it----
Mr. Bass. So the tide buoys today are----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. There are no alarms on them today.
There are no alarms on them.
Mr. Bass. So the tide buoys that are out there today are
not designed to be any type of warning at all?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. They are not designed for tsunami
warning, that is correct.
Mr. Bass. Or any type of warning?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. That is not true, because they are
warning--they do warn of issues for entering port. We have port
systems that are tied to the tide gauges that go into computers
that let pilots bring ships in and out. So they are--that is a
real time system that they go to a computer, can call up, stand
there on the bridge of their ship and say, ``Uh, oh. There is a
big wind. There is a big current. There is an extra high tide.
There is something going on. I am not going into port.'' So we
do have warning systems for that kind of idea----
Mr. Bass. When these buoys are all hooked up----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. And those are gauges that are
sitting----
Mr. Bass. Gauges rather in a----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, they are gauges.
Mr. Bass. Oh, they are gauges?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. These are tide gauges, not buoys
necessarily. They are tide gauges that are in the water,
sometimes very close to land, sometimes a little further out in
the----
Mr. Bass. How much further out? They are--if they are a
gauge, they are not a buoy. They are attached to the bottom, so
it must be pretty shallow where they are.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. They are. They are----
Mr. Bass. Are they really right on the shore?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. They are usually in places where
you can get accurate readings: sheltered or in shallow water.
So I mean, no more than a mile off the coast, but normally
close to the coast.
Mr. Bass. So the first warning you would get would be when
it was within a mile of the coast?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. At that very spot, but the point
is, that wave also travels up and down the coast, and it takes
a while for it to get there. If you got that warning, you would
be able to clear beaches up and down the coast for miles and
save lots of people who might normally be drowned by a wave.
Mr. Bass. I would suspect that you would get a warning
pretty fast when it hit the beach without, you know, 10 seconds
after it happened. That is the way the message would get
communicated up and down the coast. I guess my question is--
further question, after the--you have started linking all of
these things together, what will you have that you don't have
today?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Well, on the tsunami warning
system, you don't have anything on the East Coast or the
Caribbean at all. You have no centralized monitoring station or
an infrastructure for communication broadcasts or panelists to
figure out what is going on and a network of prepared emergency
managers to deal with the situation. After it is all hooked up,
we hope that that is what we have, an end-to-end system that
allows there to be a maximum saving of lives and protection of
property up and down the coast.
Mr. Bass. Is the more long-term forecasting mechanism,
drought and so forth, is that a buoy system or a satellite
system or what?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Long-term forecasting of drought is
going to depend heavily on instrumentation of the ocean. We
have to measure the cycles in the ocean. The most familiar one
that people know is El Nino.
Mr. Bass. Sure.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. You hear of El Nino. That is only
one cycle. We don't have enough systems in place to be able to
talk about and measure the other cycles and how they are all
connected. If we could do that, we would be able to predict
drought conditions much further in advance and, as far as I am
concerned, for maybe a decade or so.
Mr. Bass. All right. I am interested in briefly your
discussing how kinds of restructuring would be required in
order to get all of these Federal agencies to work with one
another under IEOS.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I--it is premature to talk about
restructuring, but we would--this is my view anyway. We would
put together some kind of a centralized office in which we can,
first of all, take an inventory of everything that is going on
so Congress can look at it and we can look at it to make sure
there are no duplications, make sure we have got holes that we
can work on. So there, first of all, is this setting up of some
kind of a management structure to allow that integration or
coordination to happen. And that is what we are working on
right now.
Mr. Bass. Admiral, I would--let me return to the last--to
my earlier line of questioning just for one final one. We are
going to spend some money and we are going to create a new
system. It is going to be very high tech. It is going to deal
with long-term as well as short-term dangers, both in national
security, natural phenomenon, and also some very short-term
dangers. Is it possible that Americans would be lulled into
thinking that they are a lot safer than they really might be
from catastrophic natural disasters like tidal waves, tsunamis,
or earthquakes, or even terrorist attacks because this money
has been spent and the system is in place when, in reality, the
only time you are going to be--have is to get from the first
floor to the second floor, which might be helpful. But in a
situation like Cape Cod, for example, or any of the--or the
Hatteras or the--there is no where to go. Really, the warning
times are going to be very, very short. Do you agree?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. I agree. That is a danger, and part
of what we continually talk about is education. And public
education needs to be part of this. We--that is, you know, part
of our ethic inside of NOAA and part of what we are asking for
with our funding.
Mr. Bass. Thank you, Admiral. I appreciate your answers.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Thank you.
Mr. Whitfield. Mr. Inslee, you are recognized for 10
minutes.
Mr. Inslee. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Admiral, first I want to thank you for your personal
commitment to this project.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Thank you.
Mr. Inslee. I very much appreciate that. I also want to
give a tip of the hat to Dr. Eddie Bernard and others out in
Seattle. They have done a fantastic job educating the community
and the tsunami. And of course, I will brag about Peril Systems
that developed the tsunami detection system that can monitor a
one-inch change of water depth in file miles of water. It is
pretty incredible technology.
But how do you see this system working in a real world
warning system context for tsunamis? Is that really part of
this plan or not, or do we need to think of that as a
secondary, associated but not integrated, system?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. This--the issue is, again, a two
level kind of a thing. This is a--the tsunami piece is a
technical piece of a system, and it would warn for tsunamis and
do that. But it also could be--and we are designing our parts
of it to be multi-purpose. So there will be more sensors on
these buoys. The next generation of buoys will have more
sensors on them and allow us to monitor for different things.
There is no reason that a tsunami warning system can't also
warn against storm surge associated with high winds and low
pressure centers that are--that cause issues off--and also
significant damage along the coast. So there is a multi-purpose
nature to these systems.
In terms of the GEO effort, that is a large-scale effort to
create agreements to be able to do this. The work will be done
by nations that put things in place and by the U.N.
organizations that already do this, like the WMO, the World
Meteorological Organization, the IOC. And where we see that
there is a hole missing, well, then we will look for an
opportunity to provide some way to do that. But GEO is an
empowering organization, something that will create oversight
over everything that goes on today in sort of an independent
way without a lot of thinking or planning.
Mr. Inslee. So I--is it fair to say that, you know, GEOSS
is going to help implement, ultimately, a worldwide tsunami
warning system, ultimately?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, it is.
Mr. Inslee. Is that a fair statement?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. That is a fair statement. It was an
agreed resolution at the Third Earth Observing Summit to
support and to empower the building and placement of a
worldwide tsunami warning system. We have got agreement on that
in a day from the 60 nations that were there at the table.
Mr. Inslee. Great.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. So that is an element that will be
part of the GEOSS.
Mr. Inslee. Well, as a State with a fault line right off
our--close to a subduction zone similar to Indonesia that had
30 to 50-foot waves on our Pacific beaches 300 years ago, we
are appreciative of that. So keep up the good work.
I want to ask you now kind of tough questions and I will
see how far you can go with it. There is sort of a--kind of an
irony here. I know in my briefing material that on that same
day that climate change treaty went into effect, so did the
beginning of the GEOSS system with the U.S. and 59 other
countries, which is wonderful. I think this is absolutely an
incredible start. Unfortunately, the juxtaposition of those two
things is kind of disheartening in that we are working with the
rest of the world on research on this, but we are not working
on the rest--with the rest of the world in actually
implementing some even modest degree of changes to reduce
global warming gas emissions. And I respect the need and desire
at least for additional climate information that GEOSS will be
wonderful in providing us, but we have an incredible wealth of
information, indicating that we are now in a period of climate
change, that humans are a significant contributor to that. It
goes from the melting tundra in Alaska where, you know,
buildings are sagging and permafrost is melting, to rising tree
lines in Mt. Rainier and Denali National Forests, to the
disappearing glaciers, we will have no glaciers in Glacier
National Park in 75 years, to changes in the forest canopy in
the Brazilian Rainforest, to changes in glacier activities all
over the world, to incredible changes in the actions of various
animal species. We are seeing fish off our coasts that haven't
been seen in 250 years in the State of Washington. We are
seeing the absolute disappearance of Gilamots off the Orkney
Islands that are now gone because the species they have been
fishing on for millenniums are gone. They have moved north
because of this. We have seen, just this week, tremendous
evidence of warming in the oceans of significant amounts, which
I have surprised a lot of people. We wondered where all of that
energy went. Now we are kind of getting a pretty good idea. It
is in the ocean.
So we have this mountain of information that has led the
rest of the world to take some actions, and we have basically
stuck our finger in the eye of the rest of the world and said
we are not going to work on this. We are just going to go off
on our way and continue to write research papers. And I have to
say, it is--and I am not holding you accountable for this. I am
expressing a frustration that, you know, here we are going to
spend some great taxpayer dollars generating great information,
but if we continue to have policies that refuse to act on such
a wide range of knowledge, you know, to what use is the
information? I mean, we have this giant elephant staring us in
the face, and yet we refuse to take any action. And I just
don't want to see GEOSS be an excuse for inaction, No. 1, so I
guess I would like you to assure that won't be the case, from
at least your perspective, personally an agency-wide. And two,
is there any suggestion that you could help us encourage this
administration to become a leader worldwide in actually taking
action to reduce the emissions of global climate gases? What
can your agency do to move the administration in that direction
or the U.S. Congress?
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. And it is a good question, and I
am--you make a great case for why we need the Global Earth
Observing System of Systems. I do take exception with some of
the characterizations of the administration's policy, but--and
I was questioned in Europe on the same line of questioning.
Mr. Inslee. I was much more polite, so----
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Yes, sir. The--and we didn't plan
it that way. The--this summit would happen on the same day the
treaty went into effect, so just to let that be known. The
administration is doing a lot. The administration recognizes--
the President has recognized that global warming is an issue
and that there are, you know, anthropogenic effects that are
going on today, and we have a program. Now the program
apparently is not acceptable to everybody, because it doesn't
have hard caps on CO<INF>2</INF>. I mean, that is kind of what
it comes down to. But I think to be fair, you have to look at
the whole program. And the program has international leadership
in at least six major consortiums that are working to solve the
problem. First of all, if you believe the problem is the
greenhouse gases, and there are some people I can bring in here
that will say it is not, but let us--we won't get into the
science arguments. It is not going to resolve by Kyoto. Kyoto
is a treaty which is just going to allow the United States. We
will be the only nation that does any cutting and everybody
else will continue to grow, including everybody in the--I guess
that is it? Am I out of time?
Mr. Inslee. You still have 2 minutes.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Okay. I still have 2 minutes.
It is going to allow nations like China and India and
developing nations, as we cut, just to increase their
emissions, which they are doing now as we go along, unchecked
under Kyoto. So it is an unfair treaty to the United States.
The Senate voted against it even before anybody acted on it.
The President got up and called it what it was. So the issue is
what should we be doing. We are looking at a program that will
reduce the greenhouse gas emissions while not killing
development. We would like to see people work on this intensity
idea. And I think it is catching on more around the world than
it has been, this idea of as you build economically, you must
slow down and eventually stop and cap your greenhouse gases.
Mr. Inslee. Right.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. And that is the 18-percent goal
that we have set that takes, you know, 70 million--the
equivalent of taking 70 million cars off the road. The issue is
that mandatory or voluntary? We are tracking it, and I assure
you if it doesn't work in the right direction, somebody will
stand up and look at different ways to do it. And then the
technology is the real issue. I mean, we are investing $5
billion in science and technology, $3 billion in technology to
create non-carbon-producing, you know, types of energy systems,
and that is being accepted very well by the very nations who
have signed up to Kyoto.
Mr. Inslee. Right. And I just want to make sure that you
understand. I am not saying Kyoto is the end-all of treaties.
It is just that we sense any lack of leadership to the next
step. And I actually talked to the President about this, and he
expressed discontent with Kyoto, and I said, ``Well, you know,
put what you have on the table.'' And we simply have not put
anything on the table except these voluntary things. Well,
voluntary things are a great way to run a bake sale, but it is
going to fall flat in the ability to deal with this global
challenge. And so that is our frustration, and I hope at some
point you can help us out.
And again, thanks for your efforts on this. Thank you.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Thank you very much, sir.
Mr. Whitfield. Admiral Lautenbacher, we want to thank you
very much for your time today and your testimony. And we had
intended to do another round of questions, but because we have
a series of votes coming up, we have two other panels, we are
going to be submitting some additional questions for you to
answer. And once again, thank you for your leadership on this
issue and the great job you did in Brussels, and we look
forward to visiting with you again soon. So you are dismissed
at this time.
Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. Chairman Whitfield, thank you very
much and the rest--and the members of the committee. I
appreciate the opportunity.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
If the second panel would please come to the table. I would
like to go on and introduce you all, and then when we come
back, we can get started immediately with your testimony.
We have, in the second panel, Nancy Colleton, who is the
co-founder of the Alliance for Earth Observations. We really
appreciate your being with us today. We have Dr. Gregory Glass
who is a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at
the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins
University. Dr. Glass, thank you for being with us. We have Mr.
Carroll Hood, the GEOSS chief architect for Raytheon
Corporation. Thank you. And we have Dr. William Hooke, who is
the Director of Policy Program at the American Meteorological
Society. And we welcome all of you. Thank you very much for
joining us this afternoon. We look forward to your testimony.
As you have heard when I was talking to Admiral
Lautenbacher, we said that we have a policy of the Oversight
and Investigations Subcommittee of swearing witnesses in, have
you testify under oath. Do any of you have any objections to
testifying under oath? Do any of you desire to have a counsel
be with you today as you testify? Okay. Then if you would
stand, I would like to swear you in now. I wanted to notify Ms.
DeGette that I am standing.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
Well, you are now under oath. And what we are going to do,
we are going to recess. We are going to have a series of three
votes, and as soon as that is over, we will be right back, and
we will start with your 5-minute testimony. So thank you very
much. We will be right back. Sorry for the inconvenience.
[Brief recess.]
Mr. Whitfield. We will reconvene the hearing at this time.
And once again, I will thank you for your patience. And we will
call on Ms. Colleton for her 5-minute statement.
TESTIMONY OF NANCY COLLETON, CO-FOUNDER, ALLIANCE FOR EARTH
OBSERVATIONS; GREGORY E. GLASS, PROFESSOR, MOLECULAR
MICROBIOLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY, BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY; CARROLL A. HOOD, GEOSS CHIEF
ARCHITECT, RAYTHEON; AND WILLIAM H. HOOKE, DIRECTOR, POLICY
PROGRAM, AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY
Ms. Colleton. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my
name is Nancy Colleton. I am the President of the Institute for
Global Environmental Strategies and also the co-founder and
Executive Director of the Alliance for Earth Observations
headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.
Ms. DeGette. Ms. Colleton, is your microphone on?
Ms. Colleton. It appears to be. Is it working now? Maybe we
could switch seats.
Mr. Whitfield. Yes, maybe you could just move over and use
this other microphone. They assured us the technology would
never fail.
Ms. Colleton. Okay. Thank you. All right. There we go.
As I said, my name is Nancy Colleton. I am the President of
the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies and also the
co-founder and Executive Director of the Alliance for Earth
Observations, which is located in Arlington, Virginia. I would
like to thank the subcommittee for inviting me to testify this
afternoon and ask that my testimony be submitted for the
record.
The institute is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization of which
the Alliance for Earth Observations is a vital initiative. The
Institute's mission is to advance knowledge of the earth system
and promote use of technology tools that help us better
understand our changing planet. We do this through education,
public outreach, research, and international cooperative
activities.
In December 2003, we, along with five proactive aerospace
companies, established the alliance, an informal confederation
of organizations. We have worked together over the last year to
facilitate broad private sector awareness and participation in
the planning for GEOSS. Our goal is to bring together the
diverse members of the earth observations community, which are
industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations, to work
in partnership with government to maximize the value of earth
observations.
I am pleased that representatives from our members are here
this afternoon. And my prepared statement includes a full list
of our membership.
The message I deliver to you today is simple. If the
American people are going to fully realize the benefits, the
social and economic benefits from a global earth observing
system in the areas of public health, energy, and environment,
then the private sector must be actively engaged in its
planning and implementation.
There are several reasons why the role of the private
sector is so critical.
First and foremost, the private sector represents an
unparalleled technical resource. I am sure that you would agree
that whether inside or outside the Federal Government, we
should enlist our best and our brightest to meet the challenges
posed by our changing planet and the global economy.
The private sector will also be a major user of GEOSS. In
the area of public health, for example, we will be able to
explore the links between environment and disease, such as
malaria and West Nile virus. In the area of environment, for
example, western Governors, like Montana's Governor Brian
Schweitzer, as well as farmers, will be able to use improved
integrated data systems to respond to the challenges related to
the 7-year drought they are currently experiencing in that
State. This quiet but volatile natural hazard threatens this
State with wildfires this spring and summer.
The energy sector, as we well know, already uses earth
observations in a variety of areas. Improved global information
products as a result of GEOSS will only increase efficiency and
provide greater savings to U.S. consumers. In addition, the
private sector will also need to ensure that their systems are
consistent with GEOSS and that their personnel are prepared to
capitalize on the opportunity that these global observation
systems will present. The private sector will also work in
partnership with the government to contribute data to GEOSS.
We believe that GEOSS must address a robust, all-media,
all-hazard warning system, and that its architecture must
encourage system interfaces using international standards, such
as the common alerting protocol.
As I said earlier, the Alliance has been working in close
cooperation with the government to provide input to the
national planning process. We applaud the effort of the
Interagency Working Group on Earth Observations and the
exceptional leadership of Vice Adm. Lautenbacher. We recommend
that the effectiveness of this working group be enhanced by the
establishment of a federally sponsored private sector earth
observation advisory council. Such a council should include
industry, academic, and non-governmental leaders representing
the many business sectors that will contribute as well as
benefit from GEOSS.
Were it not for the hard work of government worldwide, we
would not be where we are today. On the cusp of the new era in
earth observations, the Alliance is pleased to be part of this
new era and believes that the time has come for the United
States to forge new partnerships with the private sector to
create GEOSS and deliver a greater benefit from earth
observations to the American people.
Again, I thank you for this opportunity to testify before
your subcommittee today, and I am pleased to answer any
questions that you may have.
[The prepared statement of Nancy Colleton follows:]
Prepared Statement of Nancy Colleton, President, Institute for Global
Environmental Strategies and Executive Director of the Alliance for
Earth Observations
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, my name is Nancy
Colleton. I am the President of the Institute for Global Environmental
Strategies and Executive Director of the Alliance for Earth
Observations headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. I would like to
thank the House Committee on Energy and Commerce for the opportunity to
testify at this hearing.
The Institute is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization of which the
Alliance for Earth Observations is an initiative. Our efforts are
devoted to furthering knowledge of the Earth system and promoting the
value and use of the technology tools that help us better understand
our changing planet. The Institute's efforts include everything from
developing resources for K-12 science education and teacher
professional development, to facilitating international cooperative
activities in Earth science and applications. However, I am here today
to discuss the Alliance for Earth Observations--an informal
confederation of organizations--and the importance of engaging the
private sector (industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations)
in the planning for and implementation of the Global Earth Observing
System of Systems (GEOSS). As requested, I will address ``The
Implementation of GEOSS: A Review of the All-Hazards Warning System and
its Benefits to Public Health, Energy, and the Environment.''
The Alliance for Earth Observations--The Public Sector Stakeholders
If GEOSS is going to truly realize social and economic benefit in
the public health, energy, and the environmental sectors, then the
private sector must be actively engaged in its planning. Several
reasons exists for this engagement:
the private sector provides unparalleled technical expertise to help
guide the design and development of GEOSS (e.g., data creation,
exploitation);
the private sector will be a major user of the GEOSS capabilities and
therefore, must have the opportunity to determine sector-
specific requirements (e.g., agriculture, transportation);
the private sector must begin its planning and preparation to ensure
that their systems are consistent and personnel prepared to
capitalize on the opportunities that GEOSS will provide; and
the private sector could work in partnership with government to
contribute data to GEOSS.
The Alliance for Earth Observations was established to advance the
private sector's involvement in the development, use, and integration
of Earth observations and information for social and economic benefit.
Just as the ad hoc Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and US Interagency
Working Group on Earth Observations (IWGEO) were established to
coordinate intergovernmental activities, the Alliance for Earth
Observations was established to facilitate US private sector awareness
and interest in GEOSS.
Like the Earth observation community itself, the Alliance
membership is diverse and includes stakeholders such as system
developers, data providers, geospatial technology firms, university-
based research institutes, and a non-governmental organization that
focuses on science applications for the conservation community. In
addition to membership, the Alliance aggressively works to establish
strategic partnerships with numerous organizations that will enable us
to reach the potential GEOSS beneficiaries. Since our effort began in
December 2003, we have engaged a wide range of groups including public
health professionals to reinsurance, energy, transportation, and
agricultural industry representatives. A listing of Alliance Members in
included in Attachment B.
As a result of our efforts to reach out to the broad private sector
community, the Alliance has been able to contribute to the national
planning for GEOSS. For example, 40 representatives from 23
organizations participated in the Industry Workshop on GEOSS
Architecture, held May 20, 2004. The workshop was conducted in
cooperation with the Industry Advisory Council. The results, lessons
learned and recommendations of this independent analysis were presented
to the IWGEO.
Another major Alliance contribution was bringing together
government and private sector leaders at the Forum on Earth
Observations. Held in September 2004, the Alliance--in partnership with
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration--hosted the Forum
and brought together 200 business, academic, and non-government
organization executives with senior government executives to
communicate plans for GEOSS. In addition, participants explored how
Earth observations are currently being used in the energy, agriculture,
public health and transportation sectors. The importance of US
leadership in global Earth observations initiatives, the need to
examine new, public-private partnerships, and the importance of the
human architecture to support GEOSS were identified and discussed at
the Forum.
Important parts of the business case supporting the needs for
observations have already emerged. In the paper ``Critical Use of
Environmental Information in Industry Operational Decisions Aids and
Scenario Building,'' Mary G. Altalo, Corporate Vice President, Science
Applications International Corporation (SAIC), an Alliance member,
states:
For the U.S. economy, of the estimated $2.2 trillion revenue
impacted annually as a result of adverse or severe weather
events, the hotel and recreation sector's share was estimated
at $147B, another $125B for agriculture, forestry, fishing;
$89B in energy resource extraction; $2.7B in public utilities;
$260B in finance and insurance; $373B in construction; $728B
retail trade; and $218B in transportation (Dutton 2001). Thus,
any advanced information that would mitigate the impact of
these disasters is of highest priority for the industries.
Therefore, it is easy to understand why weather information, which
is just one part of GEOSS, should be of such interest to the private
sector. GEOSS could provide better information from a variety of
sources to affect decision making in all sectors, including
preparedness and response to natural disasters, which must include
robust, all-hazard warning systems.
Implementation of GEOSS and the All-Hazards Warning System
You are well aware that in addition to integrating the world's
surface, airborne and space-based Earth-observing instruments, the
GEOSS effort will attempt to fill in large gaps between data points
(blind spots). GEOSS will also facilitate development of new data
processing and visualization tools, establish protocols for the sharing
of data among countries, and improve the way environmental information
is communicated in times of crisis. Potential benefits include improved
forecasts of tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural disasters, and
better management of agriculture, forests, energy and water resources,
and public health.
In addressing GEOSS implementation and the All-Hazards Warning
System, one of the key questions that needs to be asked is: Why should
an organization such as the US Government invest its time, effort, or
funds to collaborate with external organizations?
From an efficiency viewpoint the answer is ``leverage''; from an
effectiveness viewpoint, the answer is ``synergy.''
For example, to update its land use plans, a city needs current
demographic data, transportation data, land ownership data, and many
other kinds of data. Yet, much of this data is also needed by agencies
at the County, State, and Federal levels. When these kinds of data are
shared using common standards, each sharing agency leverages the
investment made by any of the others. And, they typically have synergy
as well, because the ability to correlate different sets of data
increases the value of each set.
Earth observation data is needed not only for government agencies,
but for companies evaluating prospective sites, farmers monitoring
their crops, emergency managers dealing with threat situations, citizen
groups engaged in public policy discussions, or parents checking the
daily weather. Already, these users can take advantage of relevant data
from satellite remote sensing, aerial surveys, ground-based monitoring
systems, and a wealth of socio-economic data. But, the--Earth
observation data being exploited today is a fraction of what could be
available from existing systems, from observing systems soon to be
operational, and from observing systems now in the early planning
stages.
U.S. Federal agencies involved in Earth observations have a long
tradition of sharing scientific data. Most are already deeply involved
in building the U.S. National Spatial Data Infrastructure, which goes a
long way toward realizing the vision of shared data based on agreed
standards. The--agencies are building on this base but need to go even
further in leveraging investments and realizing synergy across systems
and governments. They need to exploit collaborative opportunities early
in the design of new systems. They need to get deeper agreements on
data standards, so that different sets of data can be more easily
integrated to yield synergistic products that support a broader class
of decision-makers.
Across national boundaries, the sharing of Earth observations data
has a long record of success in the case of weather data. GEOSS
broadens this tradition of sharing. In doing so, it leverages
investments in many other multi-national observing systems and gains
synergy across other societal benefit areas such as disaster reduction.
A case in point concerns the disaster that occurred in December 2004.
On December 26, an undersea earthquake was reported by the Global
Seismographic Network, one of the systems participating in GEOSS. When
such an event occurs, warning centers should be ready to send an early
warning to pre-designated authorities in nations that might be
affected. As called for in the GEOSS plan, those nations would have
prepared hazard maps showing vulnerable areas and evacuation routes,
based on high-resolution maps.
Emergency management authorities interpret incoming alerts in their
local context. They might decide to trigger an integrated public
warning system to activate various communications media. The system
converts an alert message automatically into forms suitable for
available communication technologies. These might include voice on
radio and telephones, text captions on television, messages on highway
signs, or signals for sirens. This all-media, all-hazard public warning
technology is consistent with the GEOSS architecture that encourages
system interfaces using international standards such as the Common
Alerting Protocol (CAP).
I want to mention that the Alliance for Earth Observations endorses
the ``Challenge of Public Warning,'' as expressed by the Internet
Society. This call for collaborative action seeks to assure that
societies worldwide can implement standards-based, allmedia, all-
hazards public warning. We are joined in this by leading government
agencies such as the National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological
Survey, and the National Association of State Chief Information
Officers. The challenge is endorsed as well by advocacy groups such as
the Partnership for Public Warning, and key international organizations
such as the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, and the
International Telecommunications Union. We are also joined in this call
to action by other visionary groups representing the private sector,
including the Emergency Interoperability Consortium, the AMBER Alert
Consortium, and the ComCARE Alliance.
GEOSS should address all-hazards warning systems as a priority as
ultimately--whether a tsunami, hurricane, or wildfire--the decision-
making information resulting from GEOSS must also be broadcast as
urgently and broadly as possible through various communication media,
all of which must be compatible with GEOSS. The private sector must be
engaged in this endeavor.
Involvement of the private sector is crucial to meeting the
challenge of public warning. Involvement of the private sector is also
crucial to the success of GEOSS. As stated earlier, last year, the
Alliance for Earth Observations joined with the Industry Advisory
Council to evaluate the proposed architecture of GEOSS. We concluded
that the proposed GEOSS architecture is well aligned with current
industry practice, and with trends in systems architecture. However, we
need to assure that interaction with the private sector occurs on a
regular basis. The Alliance--for Earth Observations is eager to help
formalize such interaction.
Benefits to Public Health, Energy, and Environment
The Vision Statement presented in the Strategic Plan for the U.S.
Integrated Earth Observation System states ``Enable a healthy public,
economy, and planet through an integrated, comprehensive, and sustained
Earth observation system.'' The topics of public health, energy, and
environment are recognized as priority areas with in the plan. And the
IWGEO should be applauded for the extensive work that it has conducted
over the last 18 months. However, as we begin in examine the GEOSS
benefits to public health, energy, and environment, it must be
recognized that our existing systems were originally conceived and
developed by and for the science community are the same systems that
are intended to support operational efforts for economic benefit. This
is not to say that GEOSS should not be based on sound scientific data
and information, because it should. It is to say that providing
operational information products to benefit the public health, energy,
and environmental communities are different than providing raw data to
a research scientists and emphasize the critical link in creating
information products for these different sectors. It also reinforces
the importance of conducting sector-specific user requirement studies
as a broad consensus of the data products required by these sectors
does not exist.
We can, however, examine current efforts that provide the rationale
for new information systems to support these sectors. The article,
``The Business Case for the Global Observing System'' published in
April 2003 in Oceanography, discusses the relationship between climate
and weather and the energy industry. According to the article, climate
and weather have a direct and extensive impact on:
Oil and gas exploration, development and production operations
(accurate surveying and precise drilling)
Refining and Transport Operations (planning natural gas supply and
delivery strategies)
Renewable Energy Operations (forecasting environmental impacts on
hydropower)
Electricity Generation, Transmission, and Distribution (Energy
pricing/financing markets)
Global Management (Destabilization of economies by weather, climate,
and ocean hazards)
In regard to environmental benefits, at last week's Western
Governor's Association meeting, Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer
remarked that he and is fellow governors need better environmental
information. In this particular case, he referred to the seven-year
drought that Montana is experiencing and the critical need for an
integrated drought information system. This drought system would be
part of GEOSS and support the challenging decisions these governors
face in dealing with drought--a quiet, but highly volatile natural
hazard. As Governor Schweitzer described it, ``Our forests could
explode.'' Therefore, any decision support system that would contribute
to the planning for and responding to wildfires, deploying an already
over-subscribed National Guard, or coordinating tanker resources would
be highly beneficial for Governor Schweitzer and others.
One of the most promising and exciting areas that could benefit
from improved observations and data analysis is the area of public
health. Observation information is already being applied to determine
the connection between our environment and skin cancer, asthma, West
Nile Virus, and malaria to name a few. In Environmental Health
Indicators: Bridging the Chasm of Public Health and the Environment
(National Academies Press, 2004), it states that environmental health
professionals recommend more research of the environment to many other
disease incidences. ``This is a growing concern because, in the United
States alone, chronic disease contributes to more than half of all
deaths and illnesses at an annual cost of $325 billion. The role of the
environment in disease is further questioned because of increase in the
number of reported clusters for cancer, Parkinson's disease, multiple
sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease.'' We all know someone who has
suffered and died from one of these debilitating diseases. And, there
may not be a connection between the environment and these diseases.
However, studies such as this one provide a unique insight on the great
potential for making new discoveries or ruling out theories by
providing a technological solution to integrate different types of data
to determine if a link in fact exists. The potential value that could
be derived from further application and integration of environmental
and health data alone should urge us to embark on establishing GEOSS as
soon as possible.
To capitalize on potential benefits, The Alliance for Earth
Observations urges that a Federally-sponsored private sector Advisory
Council be established to capitalize on this opportunity. Membership in
the Council should include industry, academic, and non-governmental
experts representing the many business sectors that will benefit from
GEOSS. These sectors could include public health, energy, environment,
agriculture, finance and reinsurance, transportation, and technology
sectors. The Alliance would be pleased to assist in the development of
this Council.
Summary
Although international political backing, especially that of the
White House, has been critical to getting this project off the ground,
the time has come to make the private sector--industry, academia and
non-governmental organizations--an active partner in the design,
development and implementation of GEOSS. To realize the full potential
of Earth observations for social and economic benefit, the private
sector must be an active partner in developing future observation and
warning systems. There are certain and important technological
solutions for which businesses, colleges and universities, and non-
governmental organizations are best suited to provide.
Indeed, history has shown that government, in partnership with the
private sector, can achieve so much more than it can on its own. It was
the government that launched the first communications and weather
satellites. But it has been the private sector that, since then, has
played a critical role in developing the technology and value-added
services that have sparked today's multibillion-dollar
telecommunications and geospatial industries. A similar model based on
public and private cooperation should be followed as the world's first
global observation system takes shape.
Aerospace, telecommunications and information technology are just a
few of the industries that should play an integral role in the early
stages of this effort. The nation should harness the private sector's
best and brightest--the same people who have built the tools and
technologies that now enable us to receive weather reports and monitor
the stock market via mobile phones--and engage them in new solutions to
collect, compile, integrate and distribute key Earth-related
information.
Were it not for the hard work of governments worldwide, we would
not be where we are today--on the cusp of a new era in Earth
observations. The time has come, however, for the United States to
forge new partnerships with the private sector and reach new heights in
the monitoring and management of our planet. We believe the GEOSS can
demonstrate its early value by creating a robust all-hazards warning
system. However, a greater value of GEOSS, which has potential to
impact trillions of dollars in products and services, will only be
realized if the private sector works in close partnership with
government.
Attachment A
summary of key points
The Alliance for Earth Observations--an informal confederation of
private sector organizations--has as its mission to advance the private
sector's involvement in the development, use and integration of Earth
observations and information for social and economic benefit.
The Alliance recommends that the private sector (industry,
academia, and non-governmental organizations) be actively engaged in
the development of the Global Earth Observing System of Systems
(GEOSS).
GEOSS should address All-Hazards Warning Systems as a near-term
priority and enlist the participation of the private sector to identify
innovative solutions that might include voice on radio and telephones,
text captions on television, messages on highway signs, or signals and
sirens. This all-media, all-hazard public warning technology is
consistent with GEOSS architecture and encourages system interfaces
using international standards such as the Common Alerting Protocol
(CAP).
GEOSS benefits to the public health, energy, and environmental
sectors will only be realized if these sectors are engaged in GEOSS
planning and implementation.
Although studies have been conducted to show the rationale and
impact of observations on various business sectors such as public
health, energy, and the environment, user requirements studies should
be conducted to determine specific needs of the various sectors that
will benefit from GEOSS.
The United States should establish a private sector advisory
council to ensure that the interests and requirements of non-Federal
entities are considered in GEOSS planning and implementation.
Attachment B
alliance for earth observations membership
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation; Boeing; Center for
International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) at Columbia
University; ESRI; ITT Space Systems Division; Lockheed Martin;
NatureServe; Northrop Grumman; Raytheon; Science Applications
International Corporation (SAIC); and Scripps Institution of
Oceanography.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Ms. Colleton.
And Dr. Glass, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF GREGORY E. GLASS
Mr. Glass. I would like to thank Chairman Whitfield and the
subcommittee for the opportunity to meet today to talk about
the implementation of GEOSS as part of a public health warning
system.
As you know, my name is Gregory Glass, and I work at the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where I work on
infectious diseases, though I am here today as a public health
practitioner and a methods researcher.
The stated goal of public health is to prevent the
occurrence of emergence of diseases in human populations by
identifying the factors that are responsible for causing
diseases and developing strategies to mitigate their facts.
Public health, therefore, is distinct from modern medicine
in that its goal is prevention rather than treatment. And the
field has had a long history of successfully identifying
environmental conditions that are linked with health outcomes,
whether these are exposures to chemicals in the workplace or as
part of daily life or individual behaviors. And in some cases,
we have been quite successful in actually being able to free
populations from the risk of disease entirely.
What I believe has limited our ability to use public health
approach to deal with many of the current problems and diseases
that face us today has been our inability to extend health
information that we gather at a local scale to regional,
national, and international levels. To do this, we need to have
leading environmental indicators or conditions over a scale
that matters to citizens of this country. During the past 15 to
20 years, we have gained experience in linking diseases with
these leading environmental indicators and--that could provide
important clues to conditions that indicate impending
outbreaks. A major goal of GEOSS is to integrate and
incorporate many earth observing systems that currently exist
that would increase our knowledge, but more importantly, our
efficiency in recognizing these risks.
GEOSS provides an important component of the system that
can move public health from a descriptive and reactive practice
to a predictive and forecasting one that could truly mitigate
against disease risk for the public in much the same way that
we expect weather forecasters to provide sufficient warning of
oncoming storm events, or as we have discussed today,
development of tsunami warning systems to protect populations
along the coasts.
I would note that GEOSS alone will not generate the warning
system in public health that we really desire. A second key
component that must be incorporated is the involvement and
commitment of those members of the health community who hold
access to health data at very high spatial resolution. The
commitment of the public health community is critical, and one
of their key issues that must be resolved is that the data that
they hold is rightfully very sensitive. It will remain an
important challenge, as we move forward with GEOSS, to identify
strategies that will allow this information to be accessed and
used for the good of the community while safeguarding the
privacy of the individuals.
I do not doubt that there are many challenges that face us
in developing an environmental monitoring system to improve
public health, but I also believe the challenge is worth the
effort. We do require a vision that will merge these fields
together, and GEOSS appears to represent an approach that could
create the system that would meet these goals.
I thank the committee for its time, and I would be happy to
answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Gregory E. Glass follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gregory E. Glass, Professor, Bloomberg School of
Public Health, Johns Hopkins University
summary
The goal of public health is to prevent rather than treat diseases
in populations of people. This requires identifying risk factors, many
of which are related to environmental exposures. There has been a long
history of successfully identifying risk factors for both environmental
and infectious diseases that are influenced by the environment. These
studies have been used to design interventions that reduce the burden
of disease. This approach has been especially successful where
individual behaviors or occupational exposures are responsible for
disease.
However, many of our current public health problems are influenced
by conditions that are more ubiquitous and frequently more subtle in
their effects. To achieve the stated goal of health through prevention,
public health practitioners therefore need to know what, where and when
leading environmental conditions indicate that there are increased
risks for these diseases and the environmental indicators must be
monitored sufficiently frequently and over broad enough regions that
they produce meaningful results for our citizens. GEOSS represents an
important component of a public health program that is needed to make
prevention a reality. The system captures many of the key environmental
variables at appropriate spatial and temporal resolutions to implement
environmental surveillance for many of the important infectious and
environmental diseases affecting the country today. However, the data
generated from GEOSS must be appropriately integrated with health
outcome measures to create a fully functional public health warning
system.
I would like to thank the committee and the chair for this
opportunity to meet with you today concerning the implementation of
GEOSS as part of a public health warning system. My name is Gregory
Glass and I am a professor in the department of Molecular Microbiology
and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
where I work on infectious diseases, though I am here today
representing myself.
The stated goal of public health is to prevent the occurrence and
emergence of diseases in human populations by identifying the factors
responsible for causing diseases and designing strategies to mitigate
their effects through education of the public and developing
interventions to reduce people's exposures to these risk factors.
Public health, therefore, is distinct from modern medicine in that its
goal is prevention rather than treatment of diseased individuals,
though there are many areas such as the creation of vaccines and more
recent advances in bioinformatics, genomics and proteomics, where the
two fields benefit greatly from one another.
Public health has had a long history of successfully identifying
environmental conditions that are linked with health outcomes. The
association between human exposures to chemicals either in the
workplace or as part of daily life and health effects provide many
clear examples of this approach that are amenable to behavioral or
regulatory intervention. Similarly with infectious agents, such as Lyme
disease bacteria or West Nile virus, understanding the environmental
factors that favor the animal vectors of these pathogens allow us to
create rational, targeted, interventions that can improve the health of
the public.
The approach of linking of environmental conditions to human health
and then acting can be so successful that we free the population from
risk. For example, early in the last century citizens with sufficient
resources would leave Washington DC, Baltimore and Philadelphia (as
well as other Eastern cities) during the summer to escape both the heat
and the mosquito-borne plagues of the summer. Studies followed by
interventions such as environmental modification led to the control
Yellow Fever, and malaria in this country and were so successful that
we no longer think of these diseases as having occurred here.
What I believe has limited our ability to use the public health
approach to deal with many of the current diseases that are influenced
by the environment has been our inability to extend the health
information we gather at a local scale (as part of our traditional
public health data) to regional, national or international levels. To
do this we need to monitor environmental conditions repeatedly over a
geographic region that matters to the citizens of this country and
provide that information before conditions become so severe that we are
dealing with a health crisis.
During the past 15-20 years we have gained experience in linking
diseases with leading environmental indicators that can provide
important clues to conditions that indicate impending outbreaks. What
we have discovered is that in many situations it is how the environment
changes over days and weeks that provide important clues to disease
risk. A major goal of GEOSS is to integrate and incorporate many Earth
observing systems that repeatedly monitor conditions around the globe.
This is a critical aspect to any strategy that will attempt to monitor
changes in the environment. The likelihood that we can capture just the
right time and place leading up to a disease emergence with a single
environmental monitoring is slim and none. By contrast, we have found
that data acquisition strategies exemplified by Landsat allowed us to
retrospectively identify the environmental conditions that led to the
outbreak of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in the U.S. Southwest in the
early 1990's and allows us to now anticipate when conditions favor new
outbreaks.
By intending to integrate and coordinate sustained Earth
observations, GEOSS provides an important component of the system that
can move public health from a descriptive and reactive practice to a
predictive and forecasting one that could truly mitigate against
disease risks for the public in much the same we that we now expect
weather forecasters will provide us with sufficient warning from
oncoming storm events.
I would note that GEOSS, alone, will not generate a product that
will give us ``the West Nile virus forecast for the coming week''. To
function in the role of forecasting times and places of increased
disease risk it will be necessary to establish the linkage between
leading environmental conditions that predict health events and the
health events themselves. This means that the second, key component of
the system is the involvement and commitment from those members of the
health community who hold access to the health data at a very high
resolution so we can use historical information to establish the
environment-health relationships. This is a challenge for two reasons.
First, it requires the commitment from the public health community that
this is a strategy that should be pursued. Second, the personal health
information that they hold is rightly a very sensitive issue affecting
many individuals. Particularly with the tremendous power of distributed
data networks to disseminate information many health professionals
remain challenged to identify strategies that will use this information
to help the community while safeguarding the privacy of individuals.
Finally, there is a critical need to incorporate these two sets of
information in appropriate ways so that we can have the highest levels
of confidence in the interpretation of the results. Again, these
approaches are relatively straightforward but are only rarely applied
at the scale we are discussing today.
I do not doubt there are many challenges that face us in developing
an environmental monitoring system that can improve human health but I
also believe the challenge is worth the effort. We require little if
any major advances in technology or methods to make progress that will
reward our citizens. We do require a vision that will merge these
important fields together. GEOSS appears to represent an approach that
will create a system to achieve these goals.
Mr. Whitfield. Dr. Glass, thank you very much.
And Mr. Hood, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF CARROLL A. HOOD
Mr. Hood. Mr. Chairman, Ms. DeGette, my name is Carroll
Hood. I am the GEOSS Chief Architect for the Raytheon Company
out of Aurora, Colorado, but today I speak to you as the Lead
of the Information Creation Committee for the Alliance for
Earth Observations. And on behalf of all members of the
Alliance, I am grateful to have this opportunity to share my
thoughts with you. I kindly request that my full written
testimony be submitted with the record.
I am confident that your thoughtful investigation of the
potential benefits of the Global Earth Observation System of
Systems will reinforce our belief of the tremendous value that
such a system could provide to both decisionmakers and the U.S.
economy.
Today, we are talking about an all-hazard warning system,
but there is a more fundamental question that needs to be
addressed. All hazard warning is just one of a number of
applications that a global system of systems would enable. When
one observes the current hazard warning processes, as you heard
from the Admiral earlier, there is obvious room for
improvement. We can do better. But the fundamental question is
should we address this issue as a separate initiative or should
we address it within the context of a worldwide environmental
system of systems.
The answer to this question lies at the nexus of the
fundamental reason why a global environmental system of systems
is both desirable and economically beneficial. Currently, the
U.S. spends billions of dollars supporting the creation,
operation, and maintenance of environmental observing systems.
Once the data from these systems have fulfilled their primary
objective, can they be used to generate additional value for
the U.S., for our people, and our economy?
In this case, value can be defined in a number of ways. The
intelligent integration of environmental observations with data
from other sectors will enable smarter, more informed decisions
to be made that oftentimes have profound economic and societal
impacts.
In addition to this, value can also be measured as the
economic impact of spawning new and innovative value-added
products and services. In some sense, that is what GEOSS
represents. It is a development of the infrastructure required
to maximize the value of earth observations. It represents that
marginal investment would be required to enable better
decisions on key issues and to facilitate and encourage private
sector investment in related products and services.
Building a viable GEOSS will require us to recognize and
overcome some fairly difficult challenges. And these challenges
are business related, technical, and cultural. One of our key
business challenges will be creating a business model that will
accurately assess the value proposition for GEOSS and overlay
that onto the reference technical architecture.
From a technical perspective, there are a couple of key
enablers that will give GEOSS the opportunity to succeed. The
first has to do with syntactic and semantic interoperability
across discipline, domain, and GEO-political boundaries.
The second relates to developing service component
architecture that will, among other things, support and
catalyze capacity building. Fortunately, both of these areas
are addressed to some degree within the reference technical
architecture.
The last of the challenges, and perhaps the most important,
are the social and cultural issues. These are the most
important, because they represent the biggest obstacle for us
to overcome. We can technically architect a wonderfully capable
system, but if the human and social aspects are not properly
addressed, then GEOSS will fail.
So based upon this backdrop, the Alliance for Earth
Observations would like to make the following recommendations
with regard to an all-hazards warning system.
No. 1, design and build an all-hazards warning system
within the context of a larger system of systems architecture.
Develop the syntax, semantics, and services in such a way as to
fulfill the operational objective but also to enable,
facilitate, and encourage other value-added applications and
services to be developed downstream.
Two, proactively work the communication pathways to ensure
all stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute throughout
the development and operational life cycle.
And three, increment--utilize an incremental approach that
provides early opportunities to prototype key functional
requirements and demonstrate success.
In terms of the development of the U.S. IEOS, the Alliance
would like to make the following additional recommendations.
No. 1, the government should establish an IEOS program
office to serve as the formal government focused with this
activity.
No. 2, the program office should take immediate steps to
instantiate a more formal government, industrial, and academic
partnership.
No. 3, the program office should use these partnerships to
conduct near-term activities that will help clarify the
reference architecture and the overall value proposition.
And No. 4, begin to immediately determine budget
requirements for GEOSS. In the near-term, determine
opportunities to fund demonstration projects that will
illustrate and define value in the system. For the long-term
requirements, ensure the effort is right-sized based upon the
cost-benefit analysis established in the business case.
I thank you for giving me this opportunity, and I would be
happy to answer any questions you might have for me.
[The prepared statement of Carroll A. Hood follows:]
Prepared Statement of Carroll A. Hood, GEOSS Chief Architect for
Raytheon Company and Information Creation Committee Lead of The
Alliance For Earth Observations
Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, members of the Committee, my name
is Carroll Hood. I am the GEOSS Chief Architect for Raytheon Company.
Today, I speak to you as the Lead of the Information Creation Committee
of The Alliance for Earth Observations. I have been an active
participant in the arena of environmental data management for over
twenty years, both as a public servant and as a member of the private
sector. On behalf of all of the members of the Alliance, I am grateful
to have been given the opportunity to share my thoughts with you on
this topic. I am confident that your thoughtful investigation of the
potential benefits of a Global Earth Observations Systems of Systems
(GEOSS) will reinforce our belief of the tremendous value that such a
system could provide to both decision makers and the US economy.
I would like to begin by providing some context for my remarks; I
will then discus some of the challenges and possible solutions within
that context, and will conclude with some specific recommendations. I
would then be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
context
This is truly a unique time. Over fifty-five nations recently
agreed to coordinate activities to develop and operate a Global Earth
Observations System of Systems (GEOSS), collecting and sharing Earth
observations data and information to help decision makers address
important societal issues. The concept of sharing environmental
observations is not novel; this goal has been pursued, albeit within
discipline or domain stovepipes, for many years. What is unique about
this initiative is the level of political will and support that has
been vividly demonstrated over the past 18 months. Instead of a
bureaucrat several layers down in a government agency/ministry
representing his/her country, we now have ministerial level/cabinet-
level visibility and participation, decision makers at the highest
levels of government, to help bring this vision into reality. This is a
tremendous opportunity.
Today we are talking about an all-hazard warning system, but there
may be a more generic question that needs to be addressed. All-hazard
warning is just one of a plethora of applications that a global system
of systems would enable. The hurricane season of 2004 and the recent
events in the Indian Ocean have underscored the gravity of this
important issue. Human lives are at stake. When one observes the
current as-is hazard warning processes, obviously there is room for
improvement. We can do better. The fundamental question is, then,
should we address this issue as a separate initiative or should we
address it within the context of a worldwide environmental system of
systems?
The answer to this question lies at the nexus of the fundamental
reason why a global environmental system of systems is both desirable
and economically beneficial. Currently, the US spends billions of
dollars annually supporting the creation, operation, and maintenance of
environment observing systems. These systems support the operational
missions of various federal agencies, NOAA/NWS, DOT/FAA, EPA to name a
few. Once these data have fulfilled their operational objective, can
they be used to generate additional value for the US, our people, and
our economy? In this case, value can be defined in a number of ways.
The intelligent integration of environmental data with socioeconomic
data, energy data, and health data, etc. will enable smarter, more
informed decisions to be made that oftentimes can have profound
economic and/or societal impacts. The impact of long-range forecasts of
temperature and precipitation, for example, has been demonstrated and
documented in a number of application areas such as drought mitigation,
forest fire logistics planning, agricultural irrigation, transmission
of vector-borne diseases, tourism, and even disaster mitigation.
Witness the increase in the amount of warning time that the National
Weather Service provides for severe weather events. I don't think that
anyone would dispute that this improvement has saved lives. In addition
to this, value can also be the measured as the impact of spawning new
and innovative value-added products and services. Ten years ago, who
would have predicted that the ubiquitous presence of the Internet would
have spawned so many web-based applications? I live in Colorado, but
can listen to the Tar Heels play basketball on the web within a few
seconds of being live. That six-second lag is a far cry from the pre-
ESPN days of waiting for the morning paper to check the score. In much
the same way as the internet spawned the development of on-line
applications, GEOSS (i.e., coordination of the collection of
environmental observations plus improvements in our ability to easily
discover, access, and exploit environmental data and information
products) has the same potential to spawn a new wave of
environmentally-related products and services. The spectrum of
potential applications range from economic (when and where Colorado
should invest in new reservoirs) to close to home (letting soccer moms
plan their week based on more reliable five-day forecasts.) to retail
(when do I introduce the fall product line in our New England stores?)
to recreational (where can I catch the biggest fish today?) These
represent a few examples; many of the applications that could be
engendered have not even been defined yet (much the same as streaming
audio of Tar Heel radio broadcasts was not a driving requirement for
the advent of the WWW.)
In some sense, that's what the US Integrated Earth Observation
System (IEOS) (the primary US contribution to GEOSS) represents. It is
the development of the infrastructure required to maximize the value of
Earth observations data and information resources. In most cases, these
observations are already being collected! As we review our observing
architecture and match that up against our national priorities, we may
uncover observation gaps that may need to be filled. The cost of
building any new observational infrastructure would need to be weighed
against the value that such observations would generate. Thus, in
general, the IEOS represents the marginal investment that would be
required to enable better decisions on key issues and facilitate/
encourage private investment in related products and services.
``Marginal investment'' is a dangerous phrase. In a budget-constraint
environment, marginal investment may mean robbing Peter to pay Paul.
This may be fiscal reality; we understand that difficult decisions
based on national priorities must be made; however, we can only hope
that both Peter and Paul have the opportunity to articulate their
respective business cases, on a level playing field, and let the chips
fall where they may. Thus, it is incumbent upon the proponents of a US
IEOS to clearly define and articulate a viable business case for this
marginal investment. We have the responsibility to quantify, to the
best of our ability, value, in terms of both smarter decisions and
economic stimulation. To date, we have done a poor job of doing this.
challenges and solutions
Building a viable US IEOS will require us to overcome many
constraints and solve some fairly difficult challenges. These obstacles
come in many flavors: business-related, technical, and cultural. In the
previous section, I discussed one of the key business challenges.
Creating a business model for the US IEOS and overlaying it onto the
reference technical architecture will be a non-trivial task.
Fortunately, US Industry has extensive experience in this area and can
provide significant insight into the problem. Current methods of
valuation (i.e., Contingent Value Method (CVM)) need to be examined
within the context of a GEOSS-like endeavor. In a potential growth
industry, such as the one that GEOSS/US IEOS hopes to engender, CVM may
undervalue the potential benefits since many of the useful products and
services have yet to be defined or developed.
From a technical perspective, there are a couple of key enablers
that will give GEOSS the opportunity to succeed. The first has to do
with the issue of interoperability across disciplines and domains; the
second has to do with capacity building (i.e., enabling the developing
world to share in the benefits of a GEOSS.) Fortunately, both of these
areas are addressed to some degree within the reference technical
architecture.
In the world of interoperability, there are three primary
components: Syntactic interoperability, which refers to the structure
of data and information products and services; semantic
interoperability, which refers to the meaning of measurements and
observations; and transport interoperability, which has to do with
networks and data transmission. The GEOSS reference architecture
addresses the issue of syntactic interoperability though avocation of
relevant international syntax standards. The use of eXtensible Markup
Language (XML) is a case in point. XML is a meta-language for creating
tags to describe the structure of data. The inclusion of a meta-
language within a system of systems architecture is a critically
important point. This means that not every supplier of a certain type
of data (e.g. sea surface temperature products) has to have the same
physical format for their data and information products. (In the past,
product format standardization was one method of improving
interoperability.) A machine-readable XML representation of the
internal structure would allow any user to understand and intelligently
parse the dataset. In order for this to work properly, however, the
issue of semantics must be addressed in parallel. Not only must a user
understand the structure of the data, he/she must also understand what
each data element actually means. Activities in semantic
interoperability will enable producers to define the meaning of their
products and services and for users to define their application space.
Semantics, for example would enable a producer (and a user) to
differentiate between bulk sea surface temperature vs. skin
temperature, daily measurements vs. monthly averages, etc. all of
which, to the uniformed user, fall into a single bucket called ``sea
surface temperature.'' Although not referenced explicitly in the GEOSS
reference architecture, international standards for semantics also
exist. XML-based Resource Description Framework (RDF) and Web Ontology
Language (OWL) enable the development of a machine-readable
representation of any knowledge domain. This machine-readable entity is
called an ontology. The ability to create, evolve, and map ontologies
will enable intelligent and optimized data discovery across disperate
domains. Thus, the capability to leverage syntactic and semantic
interoperability will be absolutely essential if we are to use GEOSS to
discover, access, and integrate data from a variety of sources in order
to make more informed decisions from a cross-domain perspective. This
capability is also the key enabler for the market viability of products
or services that cross or span discipline or domain boundaries.
The second big technical challenge relates to capacity building.
Many issues are global in nature and will require both global data and
a global response. Many developing nations have raised the concern that
they may not be able to take advantage of the GEOSS due to their
inability to support data collection or data exploitation activities.
Once again, the GEOSS reference architecture provides a means to
respond to this concern. The plan calls for the implementation of GEOSS
services within a web-enabled, component-based architecture. Using
international standards such as the XML-based Web Services Definition
Language (WSDL) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and registry
protocols such as Universal Description, Discovery and Integration
(UDDI), GEOSS information creation entities (the supply side) and GEOSS
information exploitation entities (the demand side) can build a library
of useful services that span the entire GEOSS life cycle. (data
collection; product processing; metadata management; data discovery;
data browse and visualization; and data integration and synthesis.)
These services can be combined and/or connected to create specific
value chains that will be able to meet the requirements of a variety of
end-users.. As a result, no one organization or country will need a
huge computational infrastructure to exploit GEOSS products and
services. Although not explicitly referenced within the GEOSS
Implementation Plan, it is expected that many of the basic services
(e.g., data discovery; data access; routine processing; browse; simple,
common integration tasks; ontology mapping; and perhaps more complex
services that relate to fulfilling the ``public good'') will be in the
public domain. More specific value-added services will likely be
subject to normal market stimuli. This means that any country will be
able to take advantage of the GEOSS infrastructure at very low marginal
cost even if they have no data/observations to contribute to the
collective.
The last set of challenges, and perhaps the most important, are the
social and cultural issues. These may be the most important because
they represent the biggest obstacle for us to overcome. We can
technically architect a wonderfully capable system, but if the human or
social aspects are not addressed properly, then GEOSS will fail. This
includes the way that people, nations, and governments communicate and
negotiate with each other; it has to do with our collective ability to
establish, articulate, and focus on clear priorities; it has to do with
our perception of the value of environmental information in our
everyday lives; and it has to do with our willingness to embrace a new
paradigm in which every person, every nation has the opportunity to
become empowered, through equal access to relevant products and
services, to make decisions that can lead to improvements in the
quality of life.
Addressing these issues will be difficult. They cannot be solved by
adopting an ISO standard or by developing the next ``killer app''.
That's the bad news. The good news is that unlike technological issues,
there is no bandwidth threshold to overcome. Driven by inspired
leadership and an unwavering commitment to do the right thing, these
issues can be addressed incrementally over time. Success breeds
success. As we begin to make progress and demonstrate the value of
environmental observations as both a means for improved decision making
and a stimulus for economic growth, the required cultural shift will
begin to move in the desired direction.
recommendations
I have attempted to provide some context for the discussion of
GEOSS along a brief characterization of a few near-term challenges.
These items are relevant to any GEOSS application especially an
activity like an all-hazards warning system. Thus, if we return to the
fundamental question that I posed earlier, the Alliance for Earth
Observations makes the following recommendations:
Design and build an all-hazards warning system within the context of
a larger system of system architecture. Develop the syntax,
semantics, and services in such a way as to fulfill the
operational objectives and to enable, facilitate, and encourage
other value-added applications and services to be developed
downstream.
Proactively work the communication pathways to ensure that all
stakeholders (primary, secondary, tertiary, etc) have the
opportunity to contribute throughout the development and
operational lifecycle.
Utilize an incremental approach that provides early opportunities to
prototype key functional requirements and demonstrate success.
One area of focus will be services related to the Common Alert
Protocol (CAP).
In terms of the development of the US IEOS, the Alliance would like
to take this opportunity to make some further recommendations:
The Government should establish an IEOS Program Office to serve as
the formal Government focus for this activity. The Program
Office should be a collaborative interagency initiative modeled
after the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). We should
continue to exploit DOC/NOAA's inspired leadership, but find a
way to leverage other initiatives at other US Agencies as we
begin to entrain existing assets into the US IEOS framework.
The IEOS Program Office should take immediate steps to instantiate a
more formal Government/Industrial/Academic partnership through
the Alliance for Earth Observations.
The IEOS Program Office should use these partnerships to conduct some
near-term activities
Development of a viable business plan for the US IEOS that
includes accurate valuations of the impacts of improved
decision-making and the stimulation of value-added economic
activity.
Initiation of a system-engineering based analysis of the proposed
reference architecture consistent with Federal Enterprise
Architecture (FEA) constructs.
Development of focused test beds and prototypes that address key
technological impact areas related to:
Syntactic interoperability issues;
Semantic interoperability issues;
Identification and isolation of existing functional
capabilities into a FEA-compliant, service component
architecture;
Development of robust, multi-sensor in-situ
platforms;
Georeferencing non-georeferenced data that are likely
to be integrated with environmental data;
Creation of decision support services;
Identification and mitigation of security and
information assurance issues.
Several of these issues cannot wait until FY07 to be addressed.
Therefore we suggest the Government evaluate the following
approach for supporting these activities in the near-term:
Opportunities to leverage FY05 discretionary funds (small);
Opportunities for FY06 supplemental funding (medium);
Strategies for an FY07 integrated approach (right-sized based on
the cost/benefit established in the business case).
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this
Subcommittee, I would be happy to answer any questions that you may
have.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Mr. Hood.
And Dr. Hooke, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM H. HOOKE
Mr. Hooke. Chairman Whitfield, Ms. DeGette, I am very happy
and thankful to have this opportunity to be with you and the
other ladies and gentlemen in this room. My name is Bill Hooke.
I direct the policy program of the American Meteorological
Society.
I thought I would take a second to tell you about that
society. We have 12,000 members. I did a calculation while you
all were over voting, and I figure if we all moved to one of
your two Districts, we would represent 2 percent of your
electorate, so I have a feeling that we don't exactly represent
a powerful group in terms of numbers.
However, all of our members are professionals in
meteorology and oceanography, hydrology. They are engineers who
build satellites and radars, the buoy systems that do the kind
of earth sensing we have talked about. They are broadcast
meteorologists. They are representatives of private sector
weather firms, like Accuweather and Weather Channel, and so on.
And we think we are real stakeholders in this. In fact, we have
done a short policy study, which we have passed along to you
all, and we are hoping both that and our more complete written
statement will be entered into the record.
In the couple of minutes here, I would like to talk about
six aspects of this discussion that I think are particularly
important.
One is I want to reinforce what you have heard from every
other speaker. These observing systems and their integration
are one of the most important tasks facing our Nation. We heard
a lot about tsunamis earlier, but we are trying to conduct our
affairs in the U.S. in what is arguably the most hazardous
weather in the world. And I could go into that a little bit.
Some 20 to 30 percent of our economy, depending on how you do
the numbers, is directly weather-inclement-sensitive. If we are
looking to economic growth, at the same time those weather-
sensitive and climate-sensitive sectors are becoming zero-
margin sectors, for example the electrical utilities. We will
find throughout our future that we need these observations for
economic reasons. We have just heard that from the other
panelist. And finally, we have interests in protecting the
environment and ecosystems, not just within the U.S., but
worldwide because of our position in world affairs.
The second point I wanted to make was that the government
can't do this job alone. I think Nancy and Admiral Lautenbacher
and the other panelists have reinforced that notion.
Fortunately, having government and corporations and academia
and NGO's work together is something that the U.S. is pretty
good at, and so I think we have reasons for optimism on this
score.
Third, the problems that we are talking about, and again
every panelist has stressed this, are long-term. And the key to
this, as Carroll Hood just indicated, is keeping track at every
step of what the benefits are from continuing this work and
taking a long-range view to it. We see the continuing
evaluation of what is going on here as important to this
process.
The--next, this is inherently an international activity. We
can engage in other high-tech activities in the United States,
and if we--if other countries of the world don't come into
these activities with us, we can go it alone. That is true of
mapping the human genome. It is true of nanotechnology. It is
true of high-performance computing. But when it comes to
understanding how the earth works as a whole, when it comes to
doing something as simple as providing a multi-day forecast, we
can not do that without international data-sharing and
cooperation. The air that is going to be over Washington, DC on
Monday is currently in the western Pacific, Siberia, Asia. If
we don't know whether that air is moist or dry, if we don't
know whether that air is hot or cold, we can not make a
reasonable forecast about weather conditions here.
The next point I want to make is, as Admiral Lautenbacher
stated, the major problems here are not scientific and
technical. You can see from the words of Dr. Glass and Mr.
Hood, that we are actually in pretty good hands. We have got a
huge community working on this. We have policy issues that will
determine how effective this investment is over the long term.
Finally, there are several things that the Congress can do
to reinforce and foster these activities. Very quickly, they
include: No. 1, providing some statutory language, some
support, some sense of the Congress that says we really think
that this is an important long-range investment for the
country. Another thing that we can do, I have to look at my
notes for that, my memory still provides all of the faculties
it used to just no longer same-day service. Okay.
The second point is that we have got to resist the
temptation that is going to be very natural in times of funding
deficits to, you know, have the funding for this be
intermittent and not steady. We have got to work--yes, ma'am.
You raised that point in your opening remarks, and I think
every representative made that kind of reference in one way or
another. We have got to have steady funding for this. We have
got to support research, because not all of the answers are in
hand. And that will be true not only for the agencies you will
hear from in the next panel, but also NASA where a focus on
Mission to Mars threatens to take research dollars away from
very important and very urgent earth-focused research. You can
do a lot to foster dialog on these policy issues.
And finally, through oversight like this, and through
requesting annual reports from the agencies and so on, you can
do a lot to move this forward.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of William H. Hooke follows:]
Prepared Statement of William H. Hooke, Director, American
Meteorological Society Policy Program
Mr. Chairman, Committee members, ladies and gentlemen, my name is
William Hooke, and I very much appreciate this opportunity to appear
before you on behalf of the American Meteorological Society (AMS),
where I direct our Policy Program. The AMS strongly supports the Global
Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) under discussion today, as
well as the Integrated Earth Observing System (IEOS), which embodies
the U.S. contribution to GEOSS. In fact, our members--some 12,000 earth
system scientists and engineers from government, from private industry,
and from the university sector--are helping to plan and implement these
systems, and are putting them to work for the benefit of the Nation and
mankind.
The AMS has just completed a policy study on GEOSS/IEOS
implementation. We have supplied the Committee with this material and
ask that it be included as part of the record of this hearing.
First, some background.
Better observations of the Earth system--its atmosphere, oceans,
land masses, biosphere and natural and human resources and hazards--are
vital to comprehensive understanding of its behavior and our hopes for
a safer, more efficient society. An extraordinary international effort
is now underway to promote and plan ``the development of a
comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observation system of
systems among governments and the international community to understand
and address global environmental and economic challenges.'' Recognizing
the crucial role data from those systems could play in protecting human
health and safety, alleviating human suffering and poverty, and
achieving sustainable development, more than 50 nations have agreed to
cooperatively implement a Global Earth Observation System of Systems
(GEOSS) to collect those data for the purpose of providing information
for decision makers. GEOSS has the potential to provide substantial
benefits to all nations. An ad hoc interagency Group on Earth
Observations (GEO) is developing a 10-year implementation plan for
GEOSS.
In parallel with this coordinated international planning, the U.S.
has established the Interagency Working Group on Earth Observations
(IWGEO) to prepare a strategic plan for the development and
implementation of the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation System (IEOS).
The strategy will reinforce U.S. leadership in GEOSS. Currently, the
international GEO and the U.S. IWGEO are developing the case for an
integrated system of Earth observations; characterizing some of the
societal benefits and requirements; and addressing a range of issues,
such as the need for convergence of observations, the opportunities for
synergy, requirements for interoperability and architecture, data
access and use, capacity building, outreach, governance and funding,
performance indicators, and schedule.
The level and nature of investments made in this area in the coming
few years will either sustain or limit--perhaps for decades--our
ability to meet growing national and international needs for effective
earth observations, science and services. The ultimate international
response to the proposed effort to implement and, in the future,
strengthen GEOSS will depend on how effectively global thinking,
dialogue, and planning address a range of challenges.
While much of the planning effort is directed at the scientific and
technical aspects of the task, there are a host of policy issues that
must be resolved if the implementation of an integrated Earth observing
system is to be successful. The IEOS and GEOSS planners must come to
grips with these issues that are largely if not wholly external in
character. They reflect far broader national and international
political and economic realities, and must be addressed by a range of
individuals, institutions, and nations. Of course, the effort to fully
realize IEOS/GEOSS will extend over a decade, at least, and will
require a commensurate evolutionary approach to resolving the
associated policy issues.
With that preamble, here is our message, which has six points.
1. IEOS and GEOSS are vital to the future of our Nation and the
world's peoples. As members of Congress you deal every day with major
challenges facing our nation: public health and safety, economic
growth, major federal budget deficits and international trade
imbalances, national security, the aging of the population and
corresponding drains on Social Security and Medicare, educational
challenges (especially in the sciences) and many more. Superficially,
none of these problems would seem to have anything to do with a Global
Earth Observation System of Systems, or an Integrated Earth Observing
System. In fact, however, the need for IEOS and GEOSS is woven through
each and all of these issues. For example, U.S. agriculture is
increasingly energy-intensive. The effectiveness of energy use in
agriculture (embodied in the use of irrigation, fertilizers,
herbicides, and pesticides) is highly sensitive to the accuracy of
weather and climate forecasts. Similarly, energy deregulation and
reliance on regional power grids has increased efficiency, but at the
same time increased the vulnerability of electrical utilities to errors
in forecasts of peak demand. Formerly such errors could be readily
accommodated by excess generating capacity in the system. Today such
errors can lead to spikes in spot prices for energy, or in some cases
to brownouts and rolling blackouts. Today, all modes of transportation
clog the existing infrastructure--highways, airports, and harbors--even
under fair weather conditions. As a result, unforecast weather delays
contribute to spiraling costs. Finally, estimating National
requirements for future public health infrastructure will depend
critically upon the long-term outlook for climate change, for aerosol
concentrations, for changes in patterns of moisture and heat and their
associated changes in the impact of vector-borne diseases, and for
changes in the nature and patterns of extreme events. These are just a
few of many examples. To address these and other national priorities
will require the investments in IEOS and GEOSS under discussion today.
Perhaps the best analogy in the national experience is the Manhattan
Project. In World War II, development of atomic weapons was so urgent,
the scientific and technical challenges so great, and the stakes for
mankind so high, that no expense was spared in that effort. Today,
similar statements can be made about the importance and urgency of
earth observations to future human prospects.
2. The challenge cannot be met by government alone. To provide for
public health and safety in the face of earth's extremes, to ensure the
growth of commerce in weather-and climate-sensitive sectors, to protect
the environment and ecosystems, and to meet the requirements of
national security for Earth system science and services, government,
private enterprise, universities, and NGO's such as the AMS must work
together, in a structured way. End users of Earth system science and
services must work with science and service providers to reconcile
supply and demand such information, advance best practices, accelerate
their widespread adoption, and anticipate future requirements.
University researchers, government agencies, private enterprise, and
NGO's such as the AMS all play a vital role. This will not be
accomplished trivially. In our AMS policy study, we indicate some ways
this might be achieved, by involving IEOS/GEOSS stakeholders: through
ongoing, comprehensive stakeholder evaluations of IEOS value (by means
of periodic stakeholder conferences, and coordinated multi-year
studies), by establishing a clearinghouse or referral service for IEOS
user applications and services, and by constituting an IEOS stakeholder
advisory group.
3. The problems are truly long-range. Perhaps the greatest threat
to GEOSS, IEOS, and realizing their full benefits lies in the clamor of
other problems competing for national attention, and the natural
tendency to lose track of the vital in the face of the merely urgent.
To ensure the needed continuity of effort amid such distractions
requires improving our characterization of the program's benefits,
maintaining and enhancing funding levels, ongoing research to meet
growing requirements, and sound programmatic oversight. The latter
should be achieved by establishing a secretariat within the United
States to oversee administration and management of IEOS, and a
counterpart GEOSS secretariat and funding mechanism at the
international level.
4. The challenge is not solely domestic. It is not enough for the
United States to work in isolation to solve its own problems. Suppose
we want to map the human genome, or develop nanotechnology, or a new
cure for cancer. Suppose that other nations of the world do not wish to
join with us. In these cases and many more, if we have to, we can go it
alone. By contrast, if we want to produce a climate outlook, or assess
the effect of climate change on the world's ecosystems, we must rely on
international cooperation. This is even true of a weather forecast for
more than the next few hours. To illustrate: the air that will be over
Washington, DC in five days is currently over Asia and Siberia. Unless
we know whether that air is moist or dry, hot or cold, we will not be
able to predict its condition, and its consequences (will it produce
rain or snow?), upon arrival here. Furthermore, to the extent that
other countries fall prey to natural hazards, such as tsunamis,
hurricanes, cycles of flood and drought, the effects are destabilizing
and spill over into this country. Following Hurricane Mitch in 1998,
which reduced Central American GDP by 50%, there was an uptick of
illegal immigration into this country by Central Americans looking for
work. Similarly, the aftermath of December's tsunami will continue to
constrain the hopes and aspirations of peoples bordering on the Indian
Ocean for years to come. Countries have shared meteorological data for
decades, but the increasing value of such information and country-to-
country differences in public and private roles in the provision of
that information have led to some fraying of the international
agreements in recent years. It is important for all nations to maintain
commitments to full and open exchange of meteorological data. Countries
can then extend that foundation into more problematic areas such as
ecological data sharing. GEOSS is an important foreign policy
opportunity for the United States--a major arena where we can be, and
be seen as, a good neighbor. Again, the recent AMS policy study
indicates some ways international data sharing might be strengthened
and broadened, by developing a negotiating process to progressively
remove data restrictions on a case by case basis.
5. The problems here are not purely technical. Policies at
national, state, and local levels can either increase the utility of
Earth science and services or squelch the potential benefits. For
example, as mentioned earlier, electricity deregulation has had the
hidden consequence of increasing vulnerability to forecast errors of
peak demand. By contrast, the complex web of protocols governing
management of this country's watersheds (through the operation of dams
and reservoirs) has greatly constrained any ability to use seasonal
outlooks to optimize decisions.
6. Congress can do much to foster progress. Congress can commit to
such programs through statutory language. Congress can work with the
Administration to resist the admittedly natural attempts to accomplish
these goals merely through the rearrangement of existing resources.
Congress can stress the importance of ongoing research. This is true of
all federal agencies, especially those represented on previous panels
and under your direct purview, but also including NASA, where recent
emphasis on interplanetary exploration threatens to siphon off funding
needed for Earth system science and applications of that science to
national priorities. Congress can also work with NGO's and the federal
agencies to understand better the role of policy formulation in
defining national benefits in this area. Finally, Congress can use
regular hearings such as this one to check progress.
In summary, I thank the Committee again for this opportunity to
speak, and look forward to the discussion to follow. The AMS will be
happy to continue a structured dialog with the Congress on these issues
in the days and weeks following this hearing.
Mr. Whitfield. Dr. Hooke, thank you and thank all of you
panel members for your fine opening statements. We appreciate
your input very much.
How many of you actually attended the summit in Brussels,
Belgium? Did all of you go and attend that? Do the four of
you--in your organizations, do you find yourselves working with
each other closely on this issue, the organizations represented
here today?
Mr. Hood. As a member of the Alliance, Nancy and I work on
probably a daily basis to try to support this activity.
Mr. Whitfield. What about you, Dr. Glass?
Mr. Glass. I am probably the least directly involved. I
have worked with them and collaborated with them in conferences
and so forth, but I am sort of out there on the edge.
Mr. Whitfield. And what about you, Dr. Hooke?
Mr. Hooke. Well, yes. I have worked with these folks, also
the folks on the panel that is about to testify. This is a
big--well, it is a small community in terms of your
Congressional District. It is a big community in terms of
trying to ``work closely'' with everybody in it. Most of us
can't do that.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, all of you obviously have some
expertise in this area, and it is something that you are
involved in because of your commitment to the program. And if
you were offering advice to the Admiral and to the government
officials in the U.S. as they work to implement this program,
what advice would you give them from your perspective on this
issue?
Mr. Hood. I would say that we need to start with a firm
foundation of requirements. We have kind of a wish list of data
requirements based upon the nine needs that have been
identified, but those need to be further decomposed in terms of
the interoperability that Nancy was talking about. And there--
when you are looking at bringing together a large number of
existing entities into a system of systems looking at
interoperability and enterprise architecture type
considerations, it is a reasonable planning activity that
probably should be conducted.
Mr. Whitfield. Nancy?
Ms. Colleton. I would echo that, and I believe that if
there is a gap in the current planning right now, it is the
fact that we are talking about systems that have been developed
by and for scientists. And I believe there is a great deal of
work that needs to be done in reaching out to these different
sectors to determine what those actual user requirements are.
Mr. Whitfield. And are you optimistic that that reaching
out will occur or do you have a good feeling about that at this
point?
Ms. Colleton. In working--in just facilitating private
sector involvement in the planning over the last year, I must
say that the--you know, there is a public education task that
needs to be done that we are working on very hard in getting in
touch with as many people, letting them know about GEOSS. But I
must say, very honestly, that people are very receptive to this
idea. And I think as--the more we can develop the business case
around GEOSS and show the values of it to people, the greater
opportunity we are going to have for their engagement.
Mr. Whitfield. Yes, Dr. Hooke.
Mr. Hooke. There are advantages and disadvantages to being
older. And one of the disadvantages in this case has been--I
have seen, for 20 or 30 years, the folks in my line of work try
to reach out to users, and it has been fairly difficult.
Now I want to make two comments about that. One has to do
with the reasons why it is difficult. And the second has to do
with why things may be changing. Okay. So let me talk first
about the difficulty here. In most of these businesses that we
are talking about, whether it is public health or agriculture
or energy or transportation, there is sort of a primary set of
issues that folks are focusing on. In agriculture, for example,
it is the price of the commodities that you are growing, not
just locally, but globally. It is the subsidies, you know, kind
of framework that you are operating in and changes on that and
so on. So weather might be down there, as you know, No. 3 or
something in that area. If you were in energy, weather might
be--it wouldn't be No. 1, but it wouldn't be out of the top
ten. If you were in construction, the same thing is true. So
weather tends to be a secondary factor in many of these areas
of application.
Second, the past is an inadequate guide to your need for
this weather and climate and air quality information. I said
earlier we are moving to kind of a zero-margin society. It used
to be that in agriculture you had all of this deep layer of
humus soil, and you could grow anything in it. These days, we
are talking about highly energy-intensive actions. You are
putting fertilizer out there. You are digging wells and doing
energy-intensive irrigation and so on. So you are building up
more and more sensitivity to weather in the course of that. So
you are lagging in your understanding of its importance to you.
Now I said things were about to change, and that is because
these problems are, No. 1, growing more urgent. They are much
more visible then they used to be, these environmental
problems. And No. 2, the capabilities of the environmental--the
earth sciences community and the remote sensing community, much
more able to deal with it.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you.
Yes.
Mr. Hood. I was going to say what Nancy was talking about
the evaluation process, and we heard earlier a statement that a
one-degree improvement in the accuracy of a forecast could save
$1 billion in certain segments. So that--and those types of
benefits in those areas stand by themselves, but I don't want
to forget the secondary and tertiary valued-added product that
will help stimulate the economy as a result of this and use the
Internet as kind of--as a model saying 15 years ago who would
have imagined the type of applications that are now available
on the Internet and the access to, you know, worldwide
environmental data may have that same type of effect and be
able to spawn a large number of value-added industries, a lot
of applications that we haven't even considered at this point,
and that is an important aspect as well.
Mr. Whitfield. Ms. Colleton really had some interesting
references to business benefits from this in her testimony,
which we appreciate.
Ms. DeGette, you have 5 minutes.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think all of you will agree that we think it is important
to put together a national integrated--an international
integrated earth observation system and that the United States
really plays a key role. So my question to each one of you, and
we will start with Dr. Hooke--well, wait. Before I do that, I
forgot to say hello to Mr. Hood, who is my neighbor to the east
from my Congressional District, and it is really--I know we
have been talking a lot about buoys here today. That always
makes me nervous, being from Colorado, but the implications of
this system for drought conditions in the west and for, as I
said in my opening, public health, as Dr. Glass was talking
about, are enormous. So I do look out for our drought
situations in the west.
So Dr. Hooke, I would really like to start with you and ask
each one of the panelists if you can tell me if you think we
have the political will in the Federal Government right now to
do this in a sustained fashion and if we have the financial
commitment to do so. And if not, what do we need to do? Because
I think everybody, Mr. Whitfield and everybody else on this
panel, agrees this is really important. But what do we need to
do to move it forward and sustain it?
Mr. Hooke. I would dearly loved to have been last in this--
in answering this, but let me take a stab at it, and maybe you
will cut me some slack, and if I have something that I thought
I should have said at the end, you will let me come back to it?
Ms. DeGette. Sure. You can ask the chairman, but I----
Mr. Hooke. Okay. You asked basically two questions. You are
saying do you think we have the will and the financial
wherewithal to do this. Yes, I think we have both. It is easy
to look in the past and to feel that the participants in the
past had this sense of manifest destiny that knew how things
were going to turn out. Well, this is our time on the stage
here, and I don't think this is a given. It is not an easy
problem, but we have faced tough problems as a country before.
We have always managed to hit it. In a case like this, I think
we will. I said earlier that these problems are growing more
urgent. That helps build consensus. That helps build commitment
to the resources. And I think if we are content to feel our way
through this rather than think we have to put the whole program
down full blown at the beginning of the 10 years or so, we will
find that we have navigated ourselves through it over a period
of several years.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Mr. Hood. Do we have the political--well, I think we have a
lot of good evangelists who are out there spreading the word. I
am not sure we have the grass roots support that we need to
push something through here. Do we have the financial
capability to make this happen? The answer is yes, but it is
one issue in a matter of several important national priorities.
To be honest, if we, the proponents, can not put together and
articulate a viable business case that provides valuation for
the products and services that will be provided, I believe you
in Congress should not support it. I think it is our
responsibility to articulate and to quantify that benefit as
much as we can, given the fact that many applications are not
out there. I am convinced that the valuation is high, the
benefits are high, the potential impact on the economy in
secondary and tertiary products and services is high, and I
think it is our responsibility to demonstrate that. And success
breeds success. As we demonstrate, in an incremental sense,
that we can do that, then that will help push the culture and
build that grass roots support that we would need.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Mr. Glass. I tried to find the right button.
I would reiterate what the other panelists have said. I
don't think it is an issue of will, and from my experience, we
are already doing, at least in public health, perhaps very
first steps of what needs to be done to create the kind of
warning systems that we would like to see in place. I think
probably the big challenge will be, as Dr. Hooke mentioned,
building the consensus among the right groups of individuals.
And certainly in my field, we have realize that the real
information for health-related issues lies at many different
levels, not only in the Federal agencies, but also in the State
and county agencies. And there needs to be the cross talk
developed and the consensus developed vertically throughout the
public health community that this system provides a really
useful value-added product that will really help the community
that we believe we should be serving.
Ms. Colleton. Thank you. In regards to the political will,
I just wanted to point out that I think that there is a very
strong political will that--behind GEOSS at this point, and I
just wanted to point out that Secretary Bodman sat in the U.S.
chair at the very first summit that took place in July 2003. He
is a very familiar with GEOSS and was involved with helping
move the summit forward.
Second, Secretary Leavitt currently at HHS led the U.S.
delegation to Tokyo for the second Earth Observation Summit.
Secretary Gutierrez, you all probably have a copy of his
remarks made at the third Earth Observation Summit, and
recently I had an opportunity to meet Secretary Johans at the
Western Governors Association, and he is very familiar with
GEOSS, specifically because of the national integrated drought
information system that would be part of this scenario.
So I can't think of another time in earth observations
where we have had people at that level of government in four
different agencies that are--that have bought in, essentially,
to this system or improving earth observations. I think the key
point here is that, as Carroll said, I believe we need to show
value. And in the short term, I think one of the key
demonstrations that we can have that will show the value of the
global earth observing system is to put in place a
demonstration of an all-media, all-hazards warning system. I
mean, some of the things--and that is why it is so important to
include the private sector. I mean, think of telecommunications
and what we can do now. Before this subcommittee hearing
started, I was talking with Dr. Hooke about one of the
meteorologists in my office was showing me yesterday that, you
know, the snow would stop within the next hour because he had
real time radar data into his cell phone. I mean, these same
people that allow us to monitor the stock market or whatever,
you know, on our cell phones should be engaged to come up with
technical solutions that help get the word via zip codes that
there is severe weather in the west or whatnot.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Did you want to add, Dr. Hooke?
Mr. Hooke. No, I think I will stand by what I said. Thanks.
Mr. Whitfield. Dr. Burgess, you are recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize for
being out of the room as this second panel convened. I was
simply trying to save highway funding in my State.
Dr. Glass, the statement that you have in here about the
data acquisition strategy allowed for the identification of the
outbreak of hanta-virus, can you tell us what the data
acquisition strategy that was used to help outline that
outbreak of--that viral outbreak?
Mr. Glass. Yes, I would be very happy to, Doctor.
What it involved was, in fact, the retrospective study that
built on work that was done during the initial outbreak by
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Indian Health
Service, and a number of universities, including the University
of New Mexico and a number of other institutions in the Four
Corners area. And by gathering that health information, we were
then able to link that, knowing the times and places of when
cases of disease occurred, link that with earth observation
systems, particularly satellite imagery, identify a classifier,
build a model that would let us look over years of where did
conditions seem suitable for outbreaks to occur. That has
continued on an ongoing basis, supported by NASA, NOAA, I
believe EPA as well as Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, and a whole host of other government agencies at
various levels to provide annual updates to forecast and
predict how many cases we expect to see in the U.S. southwest
each year. And to date, we have been really quite successful.
As you know, the southwest has gone through a fairly dry period
the last few years and associated with that has been a
substantial reduction in the numbers of cases. With the winter
snows this year, the increased precipitation, our suspicion is
that, in fact, what we are looking at is the potential for
further outbreaks over the next year or so. And that
information then is provided to the appropriate agencies who
then evaluate the information and provide that to their
constituents.
Mr. Burgess. And now--so you are able to do this because
of, what, the amount of moisture in the air, the aridity or
dryness of the air?
Mr. Glass. What it appears to be is it is related to soil
moisture and the retention of soil moisture near the surface.
It tends to be, therefore, associated, obviously, with certain
land class or vegetation types but not exclusively. So it is
not simply a matter of saying, ``Oh, it will occur in Evergreen
Forest.'' In fact, we can be very specific down to 30 or 40
meters in terms of locating where, for instance, we are going
to find infected mice. And in collaboration with the folks at
the University of New Mexico, we have actually been using that
as a way of monitoring the increase in rodent populations that
are carrying virus out there.
Mr. Burgess. And then you are able to get that data into
the hands of health care providers in that area?
Mr. Glass. Yes, sir.
Mr. Burgess. But that is not the flu you are seeing this
week?
Mr. Glass. As far as I know, that is not the flu. That is
another project. No, and actually one of the tremendous
advantages for us in terms of making this work is that it looks
like we can lead the potential health effects for people by up
to 10 months, so we can actually forecast about 10 months in
advance what the conditions are likely to be like, and we
obviously continue to monitor them monthly so that we can
modify that projection as time goes by.
Mr. Burgess. Are there any other pathogens that fall into
this category that you can provide that type of data for?
Mr. Glass. We are--have just finished up a study on West
Nile virus here in the--it is supposed to be--from where I am
from, we call it the Baltimore-Washington area. Is that okay?
Mr. Burgess. It is the Washington-Baltimore area, as I
understand it.
Mr. Glass. Yes. I have tickets for the Orioles, too.
And what we can show is that, again, using satellite
imagery as well as merging this with the work that the Maryland
Department of Agriculture, who is responsible for vector
control, their data, with satellite imagery, we can not only--
we can distinguish sites where the mosquitoes that carry West
Nile virus occur. We can distinguish those from sites where the
same species occurs but doesn't have the virus. And we can do
that beginning in the spring, March, April, and May, and as you
have probably experienced if you were here over the last couple
of years, most human cases don't start showing up until July,
August, and September. And so again, we can provide
identification of system monitors as well as some lead-time to
local health departments to intervene as they see appropriate.
Mr. Burgess. Very well. Thank you.
I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Dr. Burgess.
Dr. Glass, I might want to question here. The Center for
Disease Control, how do they play into this?
Mr. Glass. My experience with the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention is that the level at which this analysis
occurs varies. It tends to be, oftentimes, at the branch or
division level in different portions of CDC. So, for example,
at Fort Collins, there is a very active collaboration with CSU
and CDC looking, for instance, at plague and relating the
potential for plague outbreaks in the U.S. southwest to
meteorological conditions that are being monitored by satellite
imagery and insight to monitoring. It has been very successful.
Another group there has been using similar sorts of procedures
to look at risks for Lyme disease across the entire U.S. again
using sort of similar strategies. And so, I mean, my impression
of their work is that it is outstanding. I mean, it is a very
good procedure, but--or very good set of procedures.
Other groups that, in my personal opinion, could probably
benefit from them, you know, what they perceive to be
appropriate strategies for monitoring the diseases that they
are responsible for. And so again, as I was saying, you know,
part of this challenge, at least from my perspective for public
health, is convincing the community who does public health or
who is responsible for public health, that you know, there are
some real advantages to be gained by looking at this approach.
Mr. Whitfield. Right.
And Dr. Hooke, to conclude this panel, you had mentioned
statutory action on the part of Congress. Would you elaborate
on that a little bit more?
Mr. Hooke. You mean unburdened by legislative experience
and so on when I have recommendations for specifically what you
do? You all have a great influence on the progress of things,
and particularly when you agree. And if you can come up with
some sense of the Congress that says hey--and to look at the 20
or so problems that are really pressing the country, whether it
is jobs or the aging of the population or the health of Social
Security. In the middle of all of those other problems, we
think this ability to monitor the earth system to forecast what
it is going to do, reduce our vulnerability to the bad stuff,
to help us take advantage of the opportunities that weather and
climate offer. And we recognize that this is pretty much of a
long-term project, that there will always be things that seem
more urgent. But we feel that if we are going to navigate
through this next couple of decades, we need to commit to this
somehow. So that is the first step.
The second step involves kind of looking at the resources
that are available for it, because again, it is going to be
very tempting in the next few years to just put resources into
things where the voices are the loudest, and this thing will
always be vital and hardly ever be urgent.
And finally, again, there is nothing like looking on the
activity periodically and summoning folks up here and saying
how is it going.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, I want to thank you all so much. We
appreciate your being here. We appreciate your--excuse me. I
will pick up where I left off. Thank you. And now, if the third
panel will come up, we will commence with that. We look forward
to staying in touch with you all.
Dr. Allen Dearry, Associate Director, Division of Research
Coordination, Planning, and Translation at the National
Institutes of Health. We have Dr. Gary Foley who is the
Director of the National Exposure Research Laboratory with the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. And we have Dr. Ari
Patrinos, Associate Director for Biological and Environmental
Research at the United States Department of Energy. Thank you
all for your patience. I know it has been a long afternoon. We
genuinely appreciate your being here. You--these are some
exhibits that were provided to us by various witnesses, and I
move that we enter these documents into the record, and without
objection, so ordered.
You all are aware that this is an Oversight and
Investigations hearing, and as you well know now, we ask that
we swear the testimony in. And I would ask you, do you have any
objection to testifying under oath. And do any of you feel a
need to have counsel with you today? If not, if you would join
me, and I would swear you in at this time.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you very much. You are now under oath,
and Dr. Dearry, we will start with you. If you will give your
5-minute statement, please, sir.
TESTIMONY OF ALLEN DEARRY, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF
RESEARCH COORDINATION, PLANNING, AND TRANSLATION, NATIONAL
INSTITUTE OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES, NATIONAL INSTITUTES
OF HEALTH; GARY FOLEY, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL EXPOSURE RESEARCH
LABORATORY, U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY; AND ARISTIDES
PATRINOS, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL
RESEARCH, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Dearry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the
subcommittee, and staff.
I am pleased to be here to discuss very briefly with you
the benefits to human health and well being from establishing a
GEOSS.
GEOSS represents a means of bringing useful, health-
related, environmental data to researchers, to public health,
and medical providers, and to policymakers in a user-friendly
format. This type of comprehensive data system can provide a
powerful tool that actively supports prevention, early warning,
research, health care planning and delivery, and can provide a
variety of timely public health alerts.
The availability of a global observation system plays an
important role in fostering our understanding of the earth and
its many interconnected systems: oceans, land, atmosphere, and
importantly the manmade human constructs, such as cities. Only
by fully exploring and understanding the complex
interrelationships between both natural and manmade
environments can we begin to better implement a holistic
ecosystem-based management approach that provides for
productive economy, sustainable development, and the protection
of human health and well being.
Improvements in the quality of life and longevity will
require a better understanding of the causes, development, and
progression of common diseases and disorders and how they
relate to environmental factors. So as you have heard a little
bit about already, we need to have a better understanding of
the specific environmental causes and factors that contribute
to underlying burgeoning increases in vector-borne diseases,
such as malaria and West Nile virus. A well designed,
coordinated, global earth observation system would contribute
to providing data on many environmental factors that influence
human health.
One of the most difficult challenges that is faced by
researchers and policymakers in this field is really being able
to monitor and assess the degree of environmental exposures to
which we are exposed daily. GEOSS really offers an excellent
opportunity for improved data and data products to assist in
this process of exposure assessment.
And then we need to be able to combine those environmental
exposure data with the health status data, such as the
information we obtain from CDC and other agencies. And by
combining these in situ and remote observations with disease
tracking data, we will have a better understanding of the links
between environmental exposure and health status. And together,
this information then can be distributed widely and thereby
effectively provide tools for the public and for policymakers
to make individual and community decisions about their daily
lives.
Data relevant to human health and well being that can be
obtained from GEOSS include: air quality; water quantity and
quality; fate and transport of chemicals in the environment;
the impact of environmental changes and manmade activities on
bio-diversity; importantly, the search for natural organisms
and substances that have the potential to be developed as
beneficial products of medicinal and commercial value, so this
is not all just what might harm human health but what might
actually be health-promoting; the environmental conditions that
influence disease transmission from vectors to humans; land
use, urban form, population data, and transportation patterns
for planning and for health impact assessment.
All of the components of an integrated earth observation
system can contribute to improving human health and well being.
The enhanced availability of a variety of earth observations
will allow development of improved predictive models that could
open the door to better forecasting of the occurrence of
environmentally related disease and possibly to controlling or
preventing these diseases in human populations. Enhanced earth
observations can lead to improved data on air quality and
contribute to improvements in human health by reducing
morbidity and mortality due to asthma, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, and
other respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. And similarly,
both the quantity and quality of water on local, national, and
global scales impacts human health. You may, for example, have
heard about the dead zones that occur at different locations
along the coast of the U.S., the most prominent being the Gulf
of Mexico, but they also take place in the Chesapeake Bay.
These are harmful not only socially, culturally, and
economically to the fishing industry, for example, but they
also have a potential impact on human health due to their
contribution to the growth of algal blooms, some of which are
harmful or toxic to humans.
So GEOSS actually represents an excellent opportunity for
us to be able to better assess environmental exposures and how
they contribute to human health.
Thank you for your time. I will be glad to answer any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Allen Dearry follows:]
Prepared Statement of Allen Dearry, Associate Director for Research
Coordination, Planning and Translation, National Institute of
Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health
Good afternoon. I am Dr. Allen Dearry, Associate Director for
Research Coordination, Planning and Translation at the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) of the National
Institutes of Health, DHHS. NIEHS is a member of the Interagency
Working Group on Earth Observations. I am pleased to be here to present
testimony on the benefits to human health and well-being from the
interagency initiative to develop the U.S. component of a global Earth
observation system of systems (GEOSS). GEOSS will be a means of
bringing useful health-related environmental data to the health
communities (researchers, service providers, and policy makers) in a
user friendly form. Comprehensive data sets are powerful tools that
support prevention, early warning, research, epidemiology, health care
planning and delivery, and provide a variety of timely public alerts.
At its most fundamental level, this activity acknowledges the
critical role that the availability of comprehensive and sustained
global observations plays in enabling our understanding of the earth
and its many interconnected systems--oceans, atmosphere, land, and man-
made constructs such as cities. Only by fully exploring and
understanding the relationships between natural and man-made
environments will we be able to implement holistic, ecosystem-based
management and provide simultaneously for a productive economy,
sustainable development, and protection of human health and well-being.
Health status is determined by the interplay of a complex array of
factors--genetic susceptibility, age, nutrition, stress, and
environmental exposures. With the sequencing of the human genome, rapid
progress in understanding the role of human genetic susceptibility in
disease causation and progression is expected. Continued improvements
in quality of life and longevity will require a better understanding of
the causes, development, and progression of common diseases and
disorders--and how they relate to environmental factors. For example,
what are the specific environmental factors underlying burgeoning
increases in vector-borne diseases, such as malaria and West Nile
virus, and chronic diseases already linked to environmental exposures,
such as breast cancer, Parkinson's disease, and asthma? How can we
improve prediction of outbreaks of both acute and chronic diseases? A
well-designed, coordinated global earth observation system of systems
(GEOSS) would contribute significantly to providing data and data
products on many environmental factors that influence human health,
from extreme weather events, to availability of food, to air and water
pollution.
One of the most difficult challenges faced by researchers and
policymakers is monitoring and assessment of environmental exposures.
To assess exposure adequately, investigators must know as much as
possible about the environmental media into which a substance is
released (air, surface water, groundwater, soil surface or subsurface),
how quickly the substance can move through those media, how physical
and chemical properties change under environmental conditions, and how
these changes affect the potential for harming populations or the
environment. GEOSS will offer improved data and data products to aid in
exposure assessment.
Over the past fifty years, an increasing demand for environmental
health knowledge to inform personal and societal decision-making has
been expressed by service providers, policymakers, and the public at
large. The optimal approach to achieve this knowledge base is to
combine in situ and remote observations with disease tracking data.
Together, this information can be distributed widely, using information
systems, and thereby effectively provide tools for the public and for
policymakers to make individual and community decisions about daily
lives and potential regulations that influence human health and well-
being.
Data and data products relevant to human health and well-being that
can be obtained from GEOSS include, but are not limited to, the
following areas:
Air quality and pollution transport.
Water quantity and quality, especially for human use.
Hot spots of pollution in wetland and coastal areas.
Fate of pathogens in marine and other low oxygen environments, such
as aquifers, mountain tops and caves.
Fate and transport of chemicals in the terrestrial, aquatic, and
marine environments.
Impact of environmental changes and man-made activities on
terrestrial and aquatic biodiversity.
Search for natural organisms and substances having the potential to
be developed as beneficial products of medicinal and commercial
value.
Environmental conditions that influence disease transmission from
vectors to humans, including those that affect the spread and
control of emerging or re-emerging diseases.
Safe and adequate supply of food.
Land use, urban form, population data, and transportation patterns
for planning and health impact assessment.
Human activities and location for exposure assessment and resource
management.
Weather and climate.
Invasive species, particularly those affecting humans.
All the components of an integrated earth observation system can
contribute to improving human health and well-being. Researchers,
service providers, policymakers, and the public can use earth
observations to make decisions and take actions. These decisions and
actions help reduce the impact of disasters, protect and manage natural
resources, adapt to and mitigate climate variation, support sustainable
agriculture, forecast weather, protect areas valued for recreational,
religious, or aesthetic purposes, and prevent disease/dysfunction due
to environmental exposures or conditions that increase the likelihood
of transmission of water- or vector-borne diseases. For diseases
influenced by environmental factors, the enhanced availability of a
variety of earth observations will allow the development of improved
predictive models that could open the door to forecasting occurrence
and possibly controlling or preventing these diseases in human
populations.
Enhanced earth observations that lead to improved data on air
quality and an enhanced ability to predict air pollution episodes will
contribute to improvements in human health by reducing morbidity and
mortality due to asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,
atherosclerosis, myocardial infarction, and other respiratory and
cardiovascular diseases. In addition, air pollution affects the
environment in many ways that ultimately impact human health and well-
being: by reducing visibility; damaging crops, forests, and buildings;
acidifying lakes and streams; stimulating the growth of algae in
estuaries; and the build-up, or bioaccumulation of toxics (e.g.,
mercury) in fish and animals. Rapid development and urbanization around
the globe has increased air pollution that threatens people everywhere
as these contaminants can travel great distances across oceans and
national boundaries.
Both the quantity and quality of water on local, national, and
global levels pose similar concerns. For example, an annual dead zone
has developed in the Gulf of Mexico, beginning as early as February and
sometimes lasting until mid-fall. This zone consists of water where the
oxygen content is so low that its denizens cannot survive. Although the
precise timing and size of the Gulf's dead zone varies with the
weather, in many years it encompasses 22,000 square kilometers, a
parcel of underwater real estate roughly the size of New Jersey.
There's no mystery as to what triggers this annual hypoxic zone. Into
the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River deposits water that is
heavily enriched with plant nutrients, principally nitrate. This
pollutant fertilizes the abundant growth of algae. As blooms of algae
go through their natural life cycles and die, they fall to the bottom
and create a feast for bacteria. Growing in unnatural abundance,
bacteria use up most of the oxygen from the bottom water. Caused almost
exclusively by human activities, coastal dead zones are becoming
increasingly common and recurrent. In the Chesapeake, scientists worry
that a growing dead zone in the bay each summer is creating a habitat
that favors jellyfish over commercially valuable finfish, crabs, and
oysters. Despite the nation's most aggressive state and local efforts
to curtail nutrient releases into local waters, last year's dead zone
in the Chesapeake was the largest ever measured. In addition to
economic and social impacts, these changes in marine biology and
chemistry affect human health by promoting growth of toxic or harmful
algal blooms and decreasing our capacity to obtain reliable, valuable
food sources. Improving our ability to measure and monitor land- and
water-based environmental change contributing to such outcomes will
significantly expand our capability to protect both marine resources
and human health.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Dr. Dearry.
And Dr. Foley, you are recognized for a statement.
TESTIMONY OF GARY FOLEY
Mr. Foley. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to
the committee and the staff for this opportunity to talk today.
First, I would like to recognize and thank all of the----
Mr. Whitfield. Is your microphone on, Dr. Foley?
Mr. Foley. I am sorry.
First of all, I would like to thank all of the agency
partners and industrial partners that have participated in this
effort. It has been quite an experience working with so many
people with such diverse interests. And I especially want to
put my recognition in for Vice Adm. Lautenbacher for his
dedicated leadership in making the vision for GEOSS real. I
have gone with him to most of the GEO meetings and have seen
his leadership in action.
GEOSS has the potential to be a very important source of
information to inform policies, especially in the environmental
arena. And our former Administrator, Mike Leavitt, recognized
this in using the phrase that ``GEOSS would take the pulse of
the planet.'' EPA's mission is to protect human health and
safeguard the natural environment, and so, therefore, we
believe we have an important continuing leadership role to play
in GEOSS.
By comparing the goals and objectives in EPA's strategic
plan with the societal benefit areas identified in the
Strategic Plan for the U.S. Integrated Earth Observation
System, it is very clear that GEOSS has the potential to make a
significant contribution to environmental protection. It is for
this reason that EPA has joined with the other agencies to be
an active contributor and a leader in both the interagency and
international GEOSS efforts.
EPA is very dependent on observational data for our
environmental decisionmaking as well as for the increased
understanding of our environmental problems and in order to
look at our performance in addressing these environmental
problems. To fulfill our mission, EPA has a long tradition of
partnering with other Federal agencies to access and share data
and information.
EPA was a co-chair of the international ``User Requirements
and Outreach'' subgroup that was formed under the ad hoc Group
on Earth Observations. And one of the tasks of this group was
to draft the first set of societal benefits that ultimately got
negotiated and became part of the framework for this plan.
We at EPA are an important partner in GEOSS, because we are
both a data provider and a data user, contributing to all of
the nine societal benefit areas. Like the international model
for the GEOSS architecture, EPA in its partnership with Federal
agencies, States, tribal governments, and local environmental
agencies, collects many types of environmental monitoring data
and develops and validates environmental models that support
decisions about the environment.
In addition, EPA is helping these same State, tribal, and
local environmental agencies and their decisionmakers to
address the challenge of defining and tracking environmental
stewardship with outcome-based performance metrics. As
information from GEOSS becomes available, we will be able to
refine these metrics even more.
EPA stands ready and willing to further its already strong
support on the implementation of GEOSS, working with all of our
international and domestic partners.
And again, thank you for inviting EPA to appear before this
subcommittee, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Gary Foley follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gary Foley, Director of the National Exposure
Research Laboratory, Office of Research and Development, United States
Environmental Protection Agency
introduction
Good afternoon Chairman Whitfield, Ms. DeGette, and Members of the
Subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this
Subcommittee to discuss the role of the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) in the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). EPA's
mission is to protect human health and to safeguard the natural
environment, and therefore we have an important, continuing role to
play in GEOSS. It is my pleasure to discuss this role with you this
afternoon.
epa's unique geoss role in earth observation linkages
As previous speakers have said, GEOSS is an excellent example of
science serving society. Over time, GEOSS will provide important
scientific information for sound policy and decision making in every
sector of society. EPA recognized immediately that GEOSS aligned with
our mission and that we could potentially make a significant
contribution.
The (2003-2008 EPA Strategic Plan: (Direction for the Future(
emphasized that EPA's mission is clear: to protect human health and to
safeguard the natural environment. The vision for GEOSS is to realize a
future wherein decisions and actions are informed by coordinated,
comprehensive, and sustained Earth observations and information. By
comparing the Goals and Objectives in EPA's Strategic Plan with the
Societal Benefit areas identified in the Strategic Plan for the U.S.
Integrated Earth Observation System (IEOS), it is clear that GEOSS has
the potential to make a significant contribution to environmental
protection. EPA recognized this in 2003 as the first Earth Observation
Summit (EOSI) was being planned, and has joined with other Agencies to
be an active contributor and leader in both the interagency and
international effort.
Under the authority of numerous environmental statutes, EPA strives
to implement environmental protection as science and technology
continuously advance. As an agency, EPA depends on observational data
to assist in environmental decision making, as well as to increase our
understanding of environmental problems and how best to address them.
EPA has traditionally partnered with other Federal Agencies to access
and share data and information for other programs. For example, in air
quality, EPA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
continue to benefit from a partnership that started 50 years ago by the
Public Health Service and the Weather Service. In water quality, EPA,
NOAA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Geological
Survey have worked together for the last decade assessing U.S. coastal
conditions. This effort recently produced a second National Coastal
Condition Report. In recent years, there has been an effort across all
agencies to strengthen these partnerships, which have become the
backbone of both IEOS and GEOSS. It is important to emphasize that the
IEOS is the U.S. contribution to GEOSS.
EPA brings to GEOSS experience in scientifically sound
environmental policy and decision making. Over time, opportunities to
link information from GEOSS observations to environmental decision
making may be numerous, and some of these links are underway now. EPA
faces the challenge of addressing environmental problems at different
geographic scales and of improving environmental performance in a
holistic manner. Compounding this challenge is the need to be flexible
enough to embrace innovative approaches to demonstrate improved
environmental performance at less cost. Addressing these challenges can
require harmonizing our own and others( vast environmental data
resources. For data to be useful to the broad community of stakeholders
to inform their environmental decisions and to measure their success,
the systems of different observations, models, and decision support
tools all need to be interoperable. EPA has been actively encouraging
and facilitating the development of interoperable systems, both working
with the Federal community, as well as with the state, tribal, and
other environmental agencies.
epa as a geoss leader
In November of 2003, former Administrator Michael Leavitt arrived
at EPA with his ``Enlibra Principles,'' an awareness of GEOSS, and the
desire to play a leadership role along with the heads of other
Agencies. Administrator Leavitt led the U.S. delegation to Tokyo, Japan
for the second Earth Observation Summit in April 2004, where he
combined his recognition of Earth Day with the adoption of the GEOSS
Framework Document, remarking that GEOSS ``will give us the pulse of
the planet.''
From the very beginning, at both the international and U.S. levels,
EPA has been one of the leaders of GEOSS. Acting EPA Administrator
Marianne Lamont Horinko as she closed the first Earth Observation
Summit on July 31, 2003, remarked about the historic, unprecedented,
and huge challenges before all of us. Horinko emphasized, ``You are
building a global partnership to protect the global community. You're
strengthening the human ties that link all people everywhere. Through
information, you will inspire a deeper understanding of who we are and
where we live.''
Also, EPA became a co-chair of the international ``User
Requirements and Outreach'' subgroup formed under the ad hoc Group on
Earth Observations (GEO). One of the principal tasks of this group was
to draft the Societal Benefit areas, to come up with compelling
rationale for the importance of the benefits, and to then draft a broad
``first cut'' of the observational requirements to meet these Societal
Benefits.
This concept was emphasized by EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt in
Tokyo 2004. ``The tools provided by GEOSS will aid us in managing our
watersheds, improving our drinking water, protecting our food supply
and ensuring a safe transportation system. It will help us avoid
disease outbreaks and secure a reliable energy supply. GEOSS will help
us sustain people, promote prosperity and protect our planet. The
potential benefits are limited only by our imaginations.'' Under the
U.S. Interagency Working Group on Earth Observations (under the
Committee on Environment and Natural Resources of the National Science
and Technology Council), EPA continues to play a role as the agencies
develop and begin to implement the opportunities under the Societal
Benefit areas. EPA's leadership role is being reaffirmed by the
Administrator nominee, Stephen L. Johnson, who recently said, ``I am
thrilled with the promise of GEOSS. It can provide us with better
information to use in decision-making, producing better decisions that
are better informed with more data points. If confirmed as EPA's
administrator, I hope to help make the promise of GEOSS a reality.''
The identification of user requirements is an ongoing and dynamic
effort that many Agencies and countries are undertaking. In concert
with our stakeholders, we at EPA continue to identify additional
scientific gaps that GEOSS could address and how best to fill these
gaps. At this point, our users include the breadth of stakeholders
concerned about using the information available to make the best
possible environmental decisions.
Also, because of EPA(s effort to develop a Report on the
Environment, EPA is in a good position to provide information and
guidance on human health and environmental indicators that meet user
needs. In addition, EPA's Air Now Program is a ``trail blazer'' in
providing meaningful air quality indicators to the public in realtime.
Partnerships have been established with NOAA and the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to further develop models
and observations to improve the indicators and forecasts that states,
tribes and local agencies can use.
Implementing environmental protection across our country has become
a network of state and tribal partnerships. With the evolution of
GEOSS, this partnership network will expand across countries.
achieving and measuring environmental progress
Like GEOSS, EPA in partnership with Federal, state, tribal and
local environmental agencies, collects many kinds of environmental
monitoring data, and develops and validates environmental models that
support decisions about the environment.
At the same time, EPA is helping state, tribal, and local
environmental agencies and their decision makers address the challenge
of defining and tracking ``environmental stewardship'' with
outcomebased performance metrics. EPA is a leader in using data to
measure and evaluate environmental progress.
To improve accountability, EPA made a commitment in our Strategic
Plan to measure our performance. As part of this commitment, EPA
published our first `` Draft Report on the Environment'' in 2003,
providing the first EPA national look at the condition of human health
and the environment. The Draft Report on the Environment also served as
a capstone report on the state of the science of environmental health
indicators, identifying gaps and limitations and starting EPA down a
path towards comprehensive real-time environmental health indicators
that will be widely accepted and used.
In addition to our strong network with state, tribal and local
environmental agencies, EPA also has a strong international network.
Consistent with the notion that the Earth is one integrated
interoperable system and that the environment knows no political
boundaries, GEOSS will require concerted and long-term international
cooperation to achieve many of the internationally shared health and
environmental goals. EPA has a history of international environmental
partnerships, where the transfer of technology and knowledge benefits
all parties.
At EOSII in Japan 2004, EPA Administrator Michael Leavitt put the
GEOSS efforts in a familiar context. ``The world is beginning to
intuitively organize itself into networks. Similar to the way we
communicate with computer networks, we will solve environmental
problems best by connecting multiple disciplines and finding a common
language. Doing this well is the new frontier in productivity.'' In my
view, GEOSS will help facilitate a common language and understanding by
building the technical and social networks, improving our ability to
monitor and predict changes, and enabling citizens and policy makers to
make more informed decisions affecting their environment.
EPA stands ready and willing to further its already strong support
on the implementation of GEOSS with all our partners. For example, EPA
has an advanced monitoring initiative in the FY 2006 President's
Budget, which is part of GEOSS. This initiative will enable pilot
efforts to demonstrate how new data and information can be quickly
brought into environmental applications and make a difference. Thank
you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to your
questions.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Dr. Foley.
And Dr. Patrinos, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
TESTIMONY OF ARISTIDES PATRINOS
Mr. Patrinos. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. It--I am indeed honored to testify on behalf of
the Department of Energy.
Like the other sister agencies you have heard from, the
Department of Energy is an enthusiastic participant in the
activities of GEOSS. The business of energy, Mr. Chairman, can
be a major beneficiary of improved observations and of better
forecasts that would be derived from these improved
observations. For example, better weather forecasts can help us
better stage power plant operations. Also, better predictions
of rainfall and snow pack can greatly aid the operation of
hydroelectric stations. We stand to significantly benefit in
terms of improved efficiency, energy security, and decreased
reliance on foreign sources of energy.
Another area of great interest to the Department of Energy
is that of climate variability and climate change, whether it
is from natural causes or because of increases in greenhouse
gases from fossil fuel burning.
Climate change prediction is, frankly, more complicated
than weather forecasting, because we are generally searching
for a small signal against large natural variations. Even
though many observations benefit both the weather forecasting
and the prediction of climate change, there are some special
measurements that need to be made for predicting climate change
more reliable. These additional measurements are mostly fluxes,
whether they are of greenhouse gases or fluxes of atmospheric
radiation and atmospheric water in its various phases.
Observations from satellites are essential for studying
both weather and climate because of their wide area coverage.
The recent decades have brought us dramatic increases in the
number of satellites and the instruments on these satellites,
and this increase has clearly been reflected in the
improvements of both weather forecasting and climate change
prediction.
However, satellite-observing systems must continue to be
augmented with ground-based observing systems. Ground-based
systems that provide sustained and continuous measurements
provide a complementary look to the atmosphere as well as serve
to calibrate and validate the satellite observations.
The Department of Energy supports some of those ground-
based measurements that are particularly important for the
study of climate change. The Department of Energy's Atmospheric
Radiation Measurement program, the ARM program, as we call it,
provides such high-quality measurements at three permanent
stations at the Oklahoma-Kansas border, on the north slope of
Alaska, and the tropical western Pacific, and with its mobile
site, which is currently located in California and expected to
be moved to Niger, Africa next January.
The ARM program measures the continuous fluxes of
atmospheric radiation of water and of aerosols as well as cloud
properties with great precision. These sites will be part of
GEOSS, including the U.S. integrated earth observation system,
as spelled out in the integrated earth observation system draft
strategic plan that you have seen.
DOE also supports over 15 Ameriflux sites around the U.S.
and Canada. These facilities measure the continuous flux of
carbon for various ecosystems and help us better understand the
global carbon cycle, including its principal sources and sinks.
Finally, I would like to mention an exciting new dimension
of earth observations, and that is that of environmental
genomics. This has come about because of the successful human
and microbial genome sequencing that DOE has played such an
important role in. This particular measurement involves
sequencing all of the DNA that is captured in a gram of soil, a
cc of seawater, or a liter of air. You may have seen the
article in the paper this week about Craig Ventor's sampling of
the atmosphere above New York City. He is one of our PIs in
this very exciting project. From the DNA sequence, we can infer
the diversity of living systems in various locations.
Eventually, we may be able to monitor that diversity across
space and time and acquire a new and more sensitive way to
check on the health of the planet.
Genomics sampling is, of course, still at the very early
stage, but eventually I am convinced and very bullish about the
possibility that it could become a part of the GEOSS system.
I would be delighted to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Aristides Patrinos follows:]
Prepared Statement of Aristides Patrinos, Associate Director of Science
for Biological and Environmental Research
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee: Several energy
related interests are addressed and benefits derived from global earth
observations. These interests and benefits include improving weather
and climate forecasts which allow us to better project energy demand in
the future and to better understand and assess the potential for
consequences of future climatic changes. Such forecasts are also
essential for predicting the future capacity of hydroelectric systems
which depend, of course, on precipitation and runoff.
Most of the current earth observing systems have been designed
primarily for the needs of weather forecasting. Weather forecasting is
an ``initial condition'' problem. By that, we mean that the success of
the forecast is heavily dependent on the quality of the specified
initial state of the atmosphere. Thus, weather forecasting observing
systems tend to focus on determining the three-dimensional values of
the state variables of the system (the atmosphere)--namely, air
temperature, humidity, and the three components of the wind vector.
While weather forecasting requires accurate observations, spatial
patterns and relative accuracy across those patterns are the primary
concerns.
Climate, on the other hand, is a ``boundary condition'' problem;
that is, climate simulation depends on knowing the energy fluxes into
and out of the system and the quantities of components such as carbon
dioxide and water vapor which affect the flow of those energy fluxes in
the system. Consequently, climate observing systems need to extend
beyond measurements of state variables to measurements of fluxes of
radiation, energy and water. The focus on energy and water cycles is
because they are involved in the dominant forms of energy transfer in
the climate system (solar energy, thermal infrared energy, evaporation
and condensation). Further, because forecasting climate is a search for
small system trends and imbalances in the midst of large weather
variability, climate observations require a much higher degree of
precision than do weather observations.
Satellite instruments are essential for both weather and climate
observing systems. Satellites provide wide area coverage by their
orbital characteristics and the use of cross-track scanning
instruments. The past several decades have brought a dramatic increase
in the number of satellites and instruments, their measurement
resolution and variety, and their calibration. This trend has benefited
both weather forecasting and climate. It is now possible to routinely
measure temperature profiles, water vapor path amount and some
profiles, cloud occurrence and other properties, wind direction and
speed by tracking cloud movements, aerosol column amount, and a wide
variety of other parameters.
Satellite observing systems must continue to be augmented with
ground-based observing systems for climate in particular, but also for
other applications such as weather forecasting, environmental
prediction systems, and research. Ground based systems provide high
temporal resolution measurements, usually on the order of seconds.
These measurements, when acquired continuously, provide a complementary
look at the atmosphere compared to the broad spatial resolution of
satellite instruments. It is technically possible to acquire
simultaneous measurements of many different quantities in the
atmosphere and at the surface, including both state variables and
energy fluxes. The combination of active and passive sensor
measurements to retrieve atmospheric properties is now a well
established technique that will allow scientists to investigate climate
and weather processes in unprecedented detail. In addition, these
ground-based measurements provide the best way to evaluate the accuracy
and representative nature of satellite measurements and vice versa. The
climate observing system of the future must be a combination of
satellite and ground-based systems.
DOE supports some of the ground-based measurements at its three
stationary Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) facilities, and at a
new mobile facility that is just being deployed. These ARM facilities
will be part of the GEOSS, including the U.S. Integrated Earth
Observation System that is spelled out in the IEOS draft strategic
plan.
As we look to the future of climate change, climate research, and
climate modeling, there is no doubt that progress in this arena will be
intimately connected to data availability. Climate observing systems
must include a balanced approach that is based on a combination of
satellite and ground-based systems; neither is adequate by itself. In
situ observations must also be included as a critical component for
evaluation and assessment of accuracy. Without an integrated observing
system, it is extremely unlikely that we will be able to develop or
validate the climate models that we require to understand and forecast
future climate variability and change.
I would be pleased to answer your questions.
Mr. Whitfield. Thank you, Dr. Patrinos.
Dr. Dearry, in your testimony, you referred to the dead
zones in the Gulf of Mexico and also in the Chesapeake Bay. And
I think that you said that the dead zone in the Chesapeake Bay
was larger than it has ever been in its history, is that
correct?
Mr. Dearry. That is correct, yes.
Mr. Whitfield. Now how concerned are you about that and
what--how will GEOSS help in that situation?
Mr. Dearry. Well, this is a growing concern, not only in
this country, but around the world. The incidents of these
types of dead zones is really increasing on a global level. The
dead zone that is in the Gulf of Mexico, for example, is an
area the size of the State of New Jersey. It is 22,000 square
kilometers. And these are mostly manmade in terms of their
causation. They are due to non-point source pollution and
runoff of plant nutrients, principally nitrates. And what
happens is that those nitrates then lead to these types of
blooms of algae. The algae eventually die and fall to the
bottom of the water column, and they are consumed by bacteria.
And it is that bacterial process that actually depletes water
of its oxygen content. And what happens as a result of that is
that the normal denizens of that area of water leave because
oxygen is no longer there in the water to support them. So the
potentially useful foods in terms of human consumption,
shellfish, fin fish, leave those areas and are no longer
available to us as a reliable, viable source of food, and those
algae that grow as a result are also, in many cases, harmful
because they release toxic compounds that can be taken up by
humans through either inhalation or direct exposure dermally.
So this is a growing concern, I think, for those of us in
the U.S. as well as elsewhere around the world. There is a lot
of focus on a regional level within this country, for example,
in the whole Mississippi delta system, on a State basis, to try
to address what leads to these types of dead zones and what we
can do through both policy and other regulatory considerations
to try to decrease their occurrence.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, allowing these runoffs, I am assuming
that is a violation of existing environmental laws or is it
not?
Mr. Dearry. Not really. You know, in many cases, this is
regulated at a State level.
Mr. Whitfield. Okay.
Mr. Dearry. And Maryland, for example, has had, really, the
most aggressive policy, I would say, of trying to regulate that
type of runoff on a State level, but it is not as if Maryland
has total control of the Chesapeake Bay. You know, those waters
originate in Upstate New York.
Mr. Whitfield. Right.
Mr. Dearry. And so it really takes at least a regional, if
not a national, strategy to try to address those problems.
Mr. Whitfield. Dr. Foley, in your testimony, you mentioned,
I believe, that the GEOSS system would be helpful in
identifying additional scientific gaps.
Mr. Foley. That is correct. Yes.
Mr. Whitfield. Would you elaborate on that a little bit?
Mr. Foley. Well, we start with the fact that societal
benefits that EPA tries to produce come from--as a result of
environmental decisions that we make. As we look and talk to
the environmental decisionmakers, we recognize that they are
very dependent on observational data, usually acquired from the
fixed-site monitoring networks, local ones. Those networks, as
best as you can have them today, are far from perfect. And so
we see where in these environmental decisions better data could
lead to better decisions. Then the question is how can you
augment these fixed site monitoring networks that you have,
either for the air or for water quality, with satellite data
and with more robust modeling. And by combining the data sets
of--from the three things, the modeling, the satellite data,
and the fixed site monitors, you can provide a more robust data
set that can improve the understanding that goes into the
decisionmaking. And as we are able to make satellite
measurements on a finer and finer scale as we move into the
future, we should be able to do this even better. And again, as
computers get faster, the models get better. And so we see ways
of bringing this altogether to improve decisionmaking. And we
are trying this out in areas of air pollution and areas of
water pollution working with States or local communities to
actually do proof of concepts that this really works and you
could get these benefits. And as we do it, the word spreads and
more people want to try this with us.
And so it seems to be an approach that works.
Mr. Whitfield. Okay. Thank you.
Ms. DeGette.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I think all of us agree that, as well as an intellectual
commitment from the various agencies to support this type of
system, we also need to have a financial commitment. And I am--
I just have one question. I would like to ask each one of you
if you can tell me what your agencies have proposed in the 2006
budget to advance the initiative, starting with Dr. Dearry.
Mr. Dearry. On the part of the National Institutes of
Health, we are actually very engaged in trying to foster the
collection of environmental data and communicating that to end-
users, to public health and to medical providers. So--and for
example, we have worked with our partners at the National
Science Foundation to develop a set of Centers for Oceans and
Human Health, which are actively carrying out more research
efforts to enable us to develop better sensors in the oceans,
not only for ocean chemistry, for changes in temperature or
salinity, oxygen, but also biological sensors so that, for
example, we might be able to better analyze some of these
harmful algal blooms.
Ms. DeGette. Doctor, I hate to interrupt you. I only have--
--
Mr. Dearry. Okay.
Ms. DeGette. --5 minutes.
Mr. Dearry. Okay.
Ms. DeGette. And I know you have wonderful efforts going
on. My question is do you have any specific financial line item
in your budget for the GEOSS system and your agency's role?
Mr. Dearry. Do we have a line item in the budget for GEOSS?
Ms. DeGette. Yes. Or do you have an idea how much it is
going to require to integrate your agency with GEOSS?
Mr. Dearry. We do not have a line item in the budget for
GEOSS. What we are doing is supporting a variety of research
efforts with our own budget to try to accomplish the goals of
GEOSS.
Ms. DeGette. Okay. Great.
Dr. Foley.
Mr. Foley. We have a line item in the budget for GEOSS
advanced monitoring of $5.3 million. This augments a base
resource of related research that is probably about 4 to 5
times that. And our expectation is with this program we will be
trying to leverage funding from other agencies to work with us
to the tune of about $10 million. But our line item is $5.3
million.
Ms. DeGette. And do you think that is sufficient for the
2006 cycle?
Mr. Foley. Considering that we are doing a lot now without
it, we think we can do quite a lot more with it. And then we
would look to increase that, possibly, in the future.
Ms. DeGette. Great.
Dr. Patrinos.
Mr. Patrinos. We don't have a specific line item.
Ms. DeGette. I think you need to turn on your microphone.
Mr. Patrinos. We do not have a specific line item for
GEOSS. However, many of our climate programs, and also some of
our biological programs, some of which I have described in my
oral remarks, have been sensitized to the possibilities of
integration across other agency programs and also
internationally.
Ms. DeGette. Thank you.
Let me just say, Mr. Chairman, I know this is our last
panel, and these are my last questions. I mean, I think we all
agree Admiral Lautenbacher has a fabulous commitment to this.
We all think it is a great idea, but as we see with this panel
and also the previous panel--well, actually all three panels
today, it is all a little bit sketchy. Everybody thinks it is a
great idea, and they are doing their best. I think we really
need to have some clear goals from all of the agencies and also
some clear budget directives from Congress, because if we are
just sort of hoping this happens, then we all know it may not.
It may not happen in the time or the way we want.
So thank you for having this hearing.
Mr. Whitfield. Well, very good point. We all were quite
disappointed with the omnibus bill and the omnibus process. And
all of us are trying to be determined not to have another
omnibus bill.
But with that, Dr. Burgess, you have 5 minutes.
Mr. Burgess. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And yes, let me go on record as saying I don't want to end
up in the omnibus process again this year, either.
Ms. DeGette. It is unanimous.
Mr. Burgess. Dr. Dearry, on--what can you tell us about
currently using some of our earth observation system of systems
to, say, help someone with a specific disease, like asthma?
Mr. Dearry. See, I think there is a lot of potential to be
able to collect better air pollution data than we are now able
to do. Most of this on an ongoing basis now is done at very
localized sites. There is no large-scale global effort to try
to collect these data and to integrate them on either a State
or a national scale. So that offers a lot of potential for us
to be able to better utilize information related to particulate
matter, to different air pollutants, such as sulfates and
nitrates, which have been shown to be triggers of asthma, to
exacerbate asthma attacks. So having better sources and better
integration of those types of data on a larger scale will
enable us to better predict where those types of risks arise
for people who have asthma.
Mr. Burgess. Is anyone correlating that sort of data with
syndrome surveillance, watching purchases at drug stores, over-
the-counter purchases of medications or prescription
medications, emergency room visits, and that type of thing?
Mr. Dearry. There is a fair amount of that work ongoing,
especially with regard to emergency room visits. A lot of this
we carry out in concert with our other colleagues within the
Department of Health and Human Services, such as CDC and FDA,
to be able to start to assess some of those links between
environment exposures and health impacts. There is really no
national tracking or surveillance system for asthma, for
example. Some municipalities, some States have the beginnings
of that type of tracking system on their own, but there is
nothing on a national level. Nevertheless, we are working with
CDC to start to develop an environmental public health tracking
system that would have exactly that goal. How is it that we can
better examine both indoor and outdoor air environments and
track those, relate those to the incidence of asthma?
Mr. Burgess. It seems to me that there possibly even could
be a homeland security implication in this as well, if, for
example, there was a disconnect between what was happening at
the drug store and emergency room level and what you were
seeing on your observational system. So I would just encourage
you to continue that, and it sounds like a very attractive area
of research.
And then--which leads me to the next point about the
environmental genomics. And could you just expound upon that a
little bit? What all is involved in that? Or how are you taking
these samples? How large a sample? And do you relate it back to
things like algal blooms? Or do you check the DNA of the
bacteria that are growing as a result of that?
Mr. Patrinos. Sure. The sampling is, in fact, fairly
straightforward. In the oceans, we take certain--a certain
amount of liters, and then we filter it with varying size
filters. And we collect, essentially, all of the DNA that is
caught in the filter. And then we shotgun sequence it through
this innovative sequencing approach that, in fact, Craig Ventor
pioneered a few years back. And now we already have in our data
bases the sequences of many life forms, including a lot of
microbes. And we look for matches on the data bases. So we
infer from the bits of DNA that we have sequenced what life
forms there are, what microbes exist in that particular sample.
We can do that also in land, as we have done it in acid mines
in California, for example. And very recently this week, there
was this article that Craig Ventor did in terms of sampling the
air above New York City, filtering the air that was captured,
and again sequencing the DNA that was captured on the filters.
Every new sequence that we discover, every new bacteria that we
discover, is stored in the data bases. So in a sense, the data
base grows by the day. And ultimately, we get matches, so we
know basically what exists in that particular sample, whether
it is in the ocean, whether it is in the air, or it is on land.
And in some way, it becomes a question of not just necessarily
finding the life forms that are there, but the collection or
the diversity of genes that are there. So one can look at the
diversity of life in a particular ecosystem as the diversity of
genes that are acting in that particular ecosystem. And
ultimately our goal when sequencing can become much cheaper and
much faster, is to be able to monitor a lot of that in real
time and also check its variability across space and time and
therefore give us an entirely new way, as I mentioned, to check
on the health of an ecosystem, ultimately the health of the
planet.
Mr. Burgess. But--and, too, there also does seem to be a
homeland security implication in that as well.
Mr. Patrinos. Indeed.
Mr. Burgess. Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Whitfield. That concludes today's hearing. I want to
thank you for being with us. We appreciate your commitment and
your--and we will keep the record open for 30 days for any
additional testimony or material that may come in, but we look
forward to working with you as we continue to implement the
GEOSS system. And thank you very much for being with us today.
Mr. Dearry. Thank you.
Mr. Foley. Thank you.
Mr. Patrinos. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 6:17 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional material submitted for the record follows:]
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