Strengthening and Diversifying the Biomedical Research Workforce Through a National Institutes of Health and Department of Education Collaboration
Summary
Our nation’s health and the future of scientific research depend on greater inclusion of underrepresented individuals in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields—and in the biomedical sciences in particular. Our nation’s scientists are a homogeneous group: majority white, despite the U.S. population rapidly increasing in diversity. A biomedical science workforce that reflects our nation’s demographics is required to address growing equity gaps and distinct health needs that accompany our diversifying country. This cannot be accomplished without inclusive and practical biomedical educational programs that begin at the PreK–12 level and continue through all levels of higher education, emphasizing Minority Serving Institution (MSI) research programs.
The lack of diversity in biomedical science is unacceptable, especially for an administration deeply committed to equity across its policy agenda. The Biden-Harris Administration must act to address this issue in the biomedical sciences at all levels: from PreK-12 education to research careers. Using the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration’s program Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program (MSIPP) as a model, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) should establish a Biomedical Research Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program (BioMSIPP) to build a sustainable pipeline between NIH’s institutes and centers and biomedical science students at MSIs.
Educational interventions are also crucial at earlier stages of education than higher education. BioMSIPP would also include a grant program that funds participating MSIs to produce PreK-12 educational resources (i.e. SEPA tools) and to create a high school to undergraduate bridge program to further link educational interventions with biomedical research careers. We also propose that the Department of Education’s White House Initiative for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and other MSIs, create community-based engagement plans to assess the needs of individual communities and generate data to aid in future programming. Simultaneously, the Department of Education (ED) should launch a Bright Spots campaign to highlight efforts taking place across the country, building examples for policymakers as roadmaps to bolster biomedical science education and excellence.
Challenge and Opportunity
On June 25, 2021, President Biden signed an executive order establishing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) as national priorities. This order authorized the reestablishing of a coordinated government-wide DEIA Initiative and Strategic Plan. From there, over 50 federal agencies, including ED, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and NIH, released equity action plans, which can be strengthened by supporting meaningful partnerships with MSIs.
MSIs offer broad access to higher education for students who would otherwise not have the opportunity, such as underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities, low-income students, first-generation-to-college students, adult learners, and other post-traditional or nontraditional students. Furthermore, these institutions set an example of DEIA through diverse leadership, administration, and faculty, which is not seen at predominately white institutions (PWIs). The federal government should support institutions that foster diverse talent and the pipelines that feed these institutions through MSI-guided programming for PreK–12 students.
Despite a marginal increase in racially diverse doctorate graduates, there is still a substantial gap in the number of historically marginalized groups that enter and stay in the biomedical enterprise. While there are training programs (see Table 1) to diversify the biomedical sciences at federal agencies such as NIH and NSF, these programs have failed to substantially change the national percentage of racially diverse biomedical scientists. This is in part because the structure of these programs often does not support MSIs in building research capacity, an essential aspect in raising the research classification of an institution determined partly by research spending. In addition, current federal programs do not effectively capture the full spectrum of diverse students since they leave out engagement at the PreK–12 years.
Early exposure to STEM careers is essential to increased STEM participation and success. In fact, getting children involved in STEM-related activities at a young age has been demonstrated to bolster enrollment in STEM degrees and participation in STEM-related careers. Programs focused on STEM education at the PreK–12 level encourage learning in engineering, technology, and computer-based skills. We propose a focused approach in the field of biomedical science. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, STEM-related occupations are estimated to grow by 10.8 percent in the next 10 years, and biomedical science is estimated to see exponential growth at 17 percent. A sustainable and diverse STEM ecosystem requires education interventions focused on biomedical sciences at an early age. Currently, interventions primarily focus on undergraduate and graduate students, leaving out formative PreK–12 years (Table 1). ED has programs to immerse PreK–12 students into STEM and to support STEM capacity at MSIs through the Title III Higher Education Act, but none focused specifically on biomedical science.
| Department or Agency | Program | PreK-12 programs in the biomedical sciences? |
National Institutes of Health | Maximizing Access to Research Careers | No |
| National Institutes of Health | Minority Biomedical Research Support Program | Yes (supplement) |
| National Institutes of Health | Research Infrastructure in Minority Institutions | No |
| National Institutes of Health | High School Scientific Training and Enrichment Program 2.0 | Yes (high school seniors in DC, VA, or MD only) |
| National Science Foundation | Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology | Yes (supplement) |
| National Science Foundation | HBCU Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering | No |
| National Science Foundation | Hispanic Serving Institutions Program | No |
| National Science Foundation | Discovery Research Pre-K | Yes |
| Department of Defense | Research and Education Program for Historically Black Colleges and Universities / Minority-Serving Institutions | No |
| Department of Defense | Historically Black Colleges and Universities / Minority Serving Institution Science Program | No |
| Department of Defense | Hispanic Serving Institutions Program | No |
Plan of Action
The U.S. Department of Education and the National Institutes of Health should collaborate to create a program that strengthens the biomedical science pipeline. NIH and ED are committed to diversity and inclusion in their respective strategic plans. Leveraging their combined resources to strengthen and diversify the biomedical sciences would work toward the DEIA goals set in their strategic plans and prioritized by the Biden-Harris Administration at large. More importantly, it would take an essential step toward creating a biomedical workforce that represents and serves the diverse makeup of the U.S. population.
We propose a new program to address the disparities in the biomedical science education pipeline through NIH and ED collaboration by:
- Establishing a direct pipeline from MSIs to regional educational and NIH-funded laboratories.
- Collaborating with the White House initiatives for HBCUs, HSIs, and other MSIs to create community-based engagement plans to assess the needs of individual communities and generate data to aid in future programming.
- Amplifying these combined efforts and their outcomes as models for any future policy through a Bright Spots campaign.
Recommendation 1. Establish a Biomedical Research Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program (BioMSIPP) to serve as a direct pipeline from MSIs to the research capacity resources at the Department of Education and the research laboratories at the National Institutes of Health.
The Department of Energy established the Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program to build a “sustainable pipeline between the Department of Energy’s (DOE) sites/labs and minority-serving institutions in STEM disciplines.” This program is an example of direct measures to invest in university research capacity and workforce development through relationships between the federal government and institutions that serve historically marginalized populations. The program consists of a network of DOE/National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) national laboratories, nonprofit organizations, and MSIs through enrichment activities that span from PreK–12 to the postdoctoral level. We recommend that ED and NIH collaboratively fund and implement a similar program that includes a network of highly-funded NIH laboratories, nonprofit organizations, MSIs, and PreK–12 schools that serve historically marginalized communities.
The program should be implemented under ED, with support from NIH’s research resources and laboratories. The Higher Education Act of 2022 requires ED to provide grants for activities such as research capacity building and institutional support. Further, research capacity grants funded through ED allow for hiring administrative staff to support project management. Opening the capability of funding to include staff to support project management circumvents the eligibility requirement where the sponsoring institution must assure support for the proposed program, a possible barrier to entry.
Recommendation 2. The Department of Education’s White House initiatives for HBCUs, HSIs, and other MSIs should create community-based engagement plans to assess individual community needs and generate data to aid in future programming.
Diversity in the biomedical sciences is an ever-evolving conversation. Currently, the White House Initiatives for HBCUs and HSIs have working groups that collaborate with other federal agencies to develop best practices to diversify the STEM workforce. First, we charge the White House to expand these working groups to include the entire spectrum of MSIs, as well as to include representation from NIH, providing a crucial biomedical science perspective. Next, the working groups should write a report on best practices to engage with historically marginalized PreK–12 school districts in the biomedical sciences, and in particular, approaches to train teachers in teaching biomedical sciences to historically underrepresented students.
Recommendation 3. The Department of Education, along with the National Institutes of Health, should launch a Bright Spots campaign to highlight efforts that are taking place across the country to bolster biomedical science education and excellence.
Bright Spots campaigns highlight transformative work done by school districts, nonprofits, and federal agencies in education. NIH and ED both have repositories for science education resources. The NIH funds the Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) program, which awards grants to create resources that target state and national PreK–12 standards for STEM teaching and learning and are rigorously evaluated for effectiveness. Likewise, ED funds the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement program to aid MSIs in enhancing their STEM education programs.
We propose that ED and NIH launch a campaign similar to the Bright Spots in Hispanic Education Fulfilling America’s Future spearheaded by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. Moreover, we charge both agencies with disseminating the campaign via webinars, conference exhibitions, and outreach to educational societies.
Conclusion
ED and NIH are at the forefront of our nation’s biomedical science enterprise and have access to funding, cutting-edge research, and technology that could greatly enhance research and education at every level of the educational spectrum, specifically by increasing diversity. To ensure that the biomedical workforce reflects our nation, we must increase the research capacity and resources available to MSIs, promote collaborative research and technology transfer between investigators from MSIs and NIH, and provide key educational resources for student enrichment and career development. Through these recommendations, we hope to close the achievement gap and propel PreK–12 students into achieving careers in the biomedical sciences.
Addressing national priorities in innovation demands a larger-scale effort to support incoming students’ education and workforce training. MSIs are an underutilized and underfunded resource for training and strengthening the biomedical research workforce.
Existing programs at the DoD, NIH, and NSF are limited either to the undergraduate level or to a specific geographic location. Our recommended program is designed for Pre–K to the postdoctoral level, like MSIPP.
We estimate that BioMSIPP will cost about the same as the MSIPP program, which currently costs the Department of Energy $38.8 million.
Digital Ethics for All: Implementing a National Digital Framework for K–12 Education
Summary
With the growing prominence of technology and social media in our lives, children of all ages should be made aware of and trained on the ethics of responsible technology usage. Creating a National Digital Ethics Framework for PreK–12 students will enable them to think critically, behave responsibly, and maintain mental health wellness in a digitally transforming world.
Technology is at the forefront of spreading information: news is read on mobile devices, teachers use applications and open-source software in classrooms, and social media defines the lives and status of youth. The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased technology use among tweens (8–12 years) and teens, with millions of students using digital entertainment such as TikTok, Instagram, and streaming services. But social media is not the only way students are introduced early to technology; online meetings through applications such as Zoom and Webex became the face of communication, and internet access is required for homework, assignments, and learning in all levels of schooling.
We are not adequately preparing our youth to create a positive digital footprint or have basic internet safety awareness. Implementing internet safety and digital ethics curriculum is imperative, and there is no better time to start than now.
A National Digital Ethics Framework would allow students not just to follow protocols and procedures but also to think critically, behave responsibly, and maintain mental health wellness in a digitally transforming world. This can go further to include concepts like leaving a digital footprint, wherein students engage with technology and media to create content, seek information, communicate ideas, and use open-source platforms in a meaningful and safe manner.
Challenge and Opportunity
Children start interfacing with technology as early as 3–4 years old, and they become increasingly dependent on it through their formative years as digital and social media platforms become ever more indispensable tools for navigating the world. Kids aged 8 to 12 spend an average of six hours per day using entertainment media. By the time they’re teenagers, 95 percent of youth in the United States will have their own mobile device and will, on average, spend almost nine hours a day texting, playing games, posting to social media, watching videos, and more. As tweens and teens move into the middle and high school years, they have ongoing, 24/7 access to friends
and peers via apps and mobile devices, with 45 percent of teens saying they’re online “almost constantly.”
On average, parents allow independent internet usage at 8 years old, and the average age that children sign up for social media is 12.6 years old. In 2021, 59 percent of U.S. tween/teenage students had been cyberbullied or threatened online; we cannot expect a 12-year-old to know how to deal with these dangers on their own.
Despite our increasing reliance on technology, it is not reflected in the learning experiences of PreK–12 students. Digital ethics and internet safety need to be heavily emphasized and implemented in the classroom. This can include simple practices like how to distinguish useful information from spam, using reputable and legitimate sites for references, and understanding copyright issues while quoting information and images from the internet. Digital ethics is a critical 21st-century skill that can be taught alongside computer science courses in schools or in conjunction with coursework that requires students to engage with the internet while seeking information.
Students need increased fluency in information literacy, cyberbullying prevention, online safety, digital responsibility, and emotional well-being. There is currently an internet safety requirement for schools under the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) to “educate minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites, in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness.” The requirements state that this education can be held through school assemblies or via presentations provided by Netsmartz. The presentations highlight important topics, but they are not particularly specific or relevant to today’s environment. Simple internet safety such as avoiding clicking on links sent through spam emails, how and when to use the “block” button on social media platforms, and how to create smart passwords are not covered in the current curriculum.
Developing a federal framework will give teachers a clear path to implementation. The vagueness of current internet safety education requirements means that this education is easily overlooked or not presented thoroughly. Integrating this curriculum into CIPA would allow for easier implementation while leveraging existing resources. In order to implement this at the PreK–12 level, teachers will have to be trained on how to deliver this curriculum. Instead of trying to restrict social media usage and heavily monitor or block internet activity, schools should consider this as an opportunity to help students navigate a digitally transforming world in an informed way.
Plan of Action
Recommendation 1. In order to achieve the goal of digital ethics for all learners, the federal government can take a number of steps to keep kids safer in online settings.
- The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) should work with external stakeholders, other federal agencies, and experts to build a National Digital Ethics Framework that outlines the key objectives and standards to teach digital ethics across all grade bands and subjects from PreK to 12th grade.
- The U.S. Department of Education should issue nonregulatory guidance about how to utilize existing grant dollars—particularly from Title II Part A—to support professional development for PreK–12 educators on integrating digital ethics into their classroom content and reference the framework created by NIST.
- The National Science Foundation should allocate a portion of the STEM +C or CS for All grants toward digital ethics and incentivize research on the best tools, resources, and strategies to teach digital ethics. This could include research on how to better embed digital ethics into computer science education.
- The U.S. Department of Education should create a website and toolkit to identify federally funded tools and resources that educators and families could use to support digital literacy and internet safety.
- The U.S. Department of Education should develop best practices and recommendations that can be piloted across classrooms in different regions.
- The U.S. Department of Education should add a question to the Civil Rights Data Collection on whether digital literacy and internet safety are taught in schools.
At a federal level, CIPA is a great avenue to authorize these standards. The act currently applies its internet safety education requirements to “schools and libraries that receive discounts for Internet access through the E-rate program,” which makes certain communications tools affordable for these institutions. Although this does not cover all schools in the United States, schools with less ability to finance technology have the greatest need for digital literacy and internet safety education. By implementing this curriculum under CIPA’s current education suggestions (which are guidelines, not a specific way to conduct internet safety education), then it is likely to be implemented in schools that qualify for CIPA discounts.
Recommendation 2. As the digital ethics framework rolls out, agencies should work with critical stakeholders.
Efforts should directly engage elementary and middle school students and their teachers in designing frameworks, professional learning, and so on. Other stakeholders include state-level legislators that will be responsible for operationalizing and implementing the framework and school district boards that approve learning in each school district/school. Teachers are also key stakeholders, as they will have to receive and implement the information given to them as listed in the standards and may be subject to training.
Recommendation 3. Allocate federal funding to NIST to develop the Digital Ethics Framework and provide temporary staff through fellows with subject matter expertise on how to develop a digital ethics framework.
It will require approximately $1 million to develop the framework. The other actions as part of Digital Ethics for All utilize existing funds but could be bolstered and more quickly executed with the addition of subject matter experts through fellow placements or other staffing mechanisms. It is estimated that one fellow at NSF and one fellow at the U.S. Department of Education would cost approximately $500,000 annually in addition to the above costs.
Conclusion
Having access to a curriculum rooted in digital ethics, internet safety, and technology career paths is essential for students growing up in a society where access to technology is introduced earlier than the concept of computer science. Although computer science curriculum is being widely pushed for at the high school level, we must make sure to educate elementary and middle school youth as well. A National Digital Ethics Framework is not just an advantage—it is imperative in order to protect our students and their future.
Organizations that are developing curriculums centered around digital tools and computer science, such as Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) and CSforAll, could be tapped in order to pull topics or ideas from the standards they have already created. Their standards have been implemented in various states, so leveraging their existing resources will make it easier to develop a national curriculum that is suited for approval and implementation.
Subject matter experts are crucial for this initiative. Their perspective will be important to determine which standards have the best chance of being approved at the state and local level and how CIPA’s current curriculum can be modified. Subject matter experts will be fellows from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. The National Institute of Standards and Technology will also be consulted.
Due to the incorporation of this curriculum into CIPA’s current standards, it would be quicker to implement at a federal level. However, if digital ethics cannot be incorporated into CIPA, it could also be addressed at a state level, similar to the initiatives run by CSTA and CSforAll, where their independent curriculum and standards are adopted by states that want to implement technology standards.
In my own experience as a student and as the CEO and founder of Likeable STEM (an educational technology training company), I have observed that students lack resources to teach them about simple topics such as phishing scams, how to write appropriate emails, cybersecurity/password creation, social media profiles, etc. For the past six years, through Likeable STEM, I have taught these crucial topics to elementary, middle, and high school students and created independent curriculum on digital ethics.
Computer science education has been a bipartisan concern, with both the Democratic and Republican Parties introducing educational principles to support STEM growth and computer science career opportunities. However, one problem area would be the current crackdown on educational topics in states such as Florida. Digital ethics does not have roots in either political party, so it should be likely to be supported by both parties.
Unlocking the U.S. Bioeconomy with the Plant Genome Project
Summary
Plants are an important yet often overlooked national asset. We propose creating a Plant Genome Project (PGP), a robust Human Genome Project-style initiative to build a comprehensive dataset of genetic information on all plant species, starting with the 7,000 plant species that have historically been cultivated for food and prioritizing plants that are endangered by climate change and habitat loss. In parallel, we recommend expanding the National Plant Germplasm System (NPGS) to include genomic-standard repositories that connect plant genetic information to physical seed/plant material. The PGP will mobilize a whole-of-government approach to advance genomic science, lower costs, and increase access to plant genomic information. By creating a fully sequenced national germplasm repository and leveraging modern software and data science tools, we will unlock the U.S. bioeconomy, promote crop innovation, and help enable a diversified, localized, and climate-resilient food system.
Challenge and Opportunity
Plants provide our food, animal feed, medicinal compounds, and the fiber and fuel required for economic development. Plants contribute to biodiversity and are critical for the existence of all other living creatures. Plants also sequester atmospheric carbon, thereby combating climate change and sustaining the health of our planet.
However, as a result of climate change and human practices, we have been losing plants at an alarming rate. Nearly 40% of the world’s 435,000 unique land plant species are extremely rare and at risk of extinction due to climate change. More than 90% of crop varieties have disappeared from fields worldwide as farmers have abandoned diverse local crop varieties in favor of genetically uniform, commercial varieties.
We currently depend on just 15 plants to provide almost all of the world’s food, making our global food supply extremely vulnerable to climate change, new diseases, and geopolitical upheaval—problems that will be exacerbated as the world’s population rises to 10 billion by 2050.
We are in a race against time to stop the loss of plant biodiversity—and at the same time, we desperately need to increase the diversity in our cultivated crops. To do this, we must catalog, decode, and preserve valuable data on all existing plants. Yet more than two decades since we sequenced the first plant genome, genome sequence information exists for only 798 plant species—a small fraction of all plant diversity.
Although large agriculture companies have made substantial investments in plant genome sequencing, this genetic information is focused on a small number of crops and is not publicly available. What little information we have is siloed, known only to large corporations and not openly available to researchers, farmers, or policymakers. This is especially true for nations in the Global South, who are not usually included in most genome sequencing projects. Furthermore, current data in existing germplasm repositories, State Agricultural Experiment Stations, and land-grant universities is not easily accessible online, making it nearly impossible for researchers in both public and private settings to explore. These U.S. government collections and resources of germplasm and herbaria, documented by the Interagency Working Group on Scientific Collections, have untapped potential to catalyze the bioeconomy and mobilize investment in the next generation of plant genetic advancements and, as a result, food security and new economic opportunities.
Twenty years ago, the United States launched the Human Genome Project (HGP), a shared knowledge-mapping initiative funded by the federal government. We continue to benefit from this initiative, which has identified the cause of many human diseases and enabled the development of new medicines and diagnostics. The HGP had a $5.4 billion price tag ($2.7 billion from U.S. contributions) but resulted in more than $14.5 billion in follow-on genomics investments that enabled the field to rapidly develop and deploy cutting-edge sequencing and other technologies, leading to a drop in genomic sequencing cost from $300 million per genome to less than $1,000.
Today, we need a Human Genome Project for plants—a unified Plant Genome Project that will create a global database of genetic information on all plants to increase food security and unlock plant innovation for generations to come. Collecting, sequencing, decoding, and cataloging the nation’s plant species will fill a key gap in our national natural capital accounting strategy. The PGP will complement existing conservation initiatives led by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and other agencies, by deepening our understanding of America’s unique biodiversity and its potential benefits to society. Such research and innovation investment would also benefit government initiatives like USAID’s Feed the Future (FTF) Initiative, particularly the Global Food Security Research Strategy, around climate-smart agriculture and genetic diversity of crops.
PGP-driven advancements in genomic technology and information about U.S. plant genetic diversity will create opportunities to grow the U.S. bioeconomy, create new jobs, and incentivize industry investment. The PGP will also create opportunities to make our food system more climate-resilient and improve national health and well-being. By extending this effort internationally, and ensuring that the Global South is empowered to contribute to and take advantage of these genetic advancements, we can help mitigate climate change, enhance global food security, and promote equitable plant science innovation.
Plan of Action
The Biden Administration should launch a Plant Genome Project to support and enable a whole-of-government approach to advancing plant genomics and the bioeconomy. The PGP will build a comprehensive, open-access dataset of genetic and biological information on all plant species, starting with the 7,000 plant species that have historically been cultivated for food and prioritizing plants that are endangered by climate change and habitat loss. The PGP will convene key stakeholders and technical talent in a novel coalition of partnerships across public and private sectors. We anticipate that the PGP, like the Human Genome Project, will jump-start new technologies that will further drive down the cost of sequencing and advance a new era for plant science innovation and the U.S. bioeconomy. Our plan envisions two Phases and seven Key Actions.
Phase 1: PGP Planning and Formation
Action 1: Create the Plant Genomics and U.S. Bioeconomy Interagency Working Group
The White House OSTP should convene a Plant Genomics and U.S. Bioeconomy Interagency Working Group to coordinate the creation of a Plant Genome Project and initiate efforts to consult with industry, academic, philanthropy, and social sector partners. The Working Group should include representatives from OSTP, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and its Agricultural Research Service (ARS), National Plant Germplasm System, Department of Commerce, Department of Interior, National Science Foundation (NSF), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Smithsonian Institution, Environmental Protection Agency, State Department’s Office of Science and Technology Adviser, and USAID’s Feed the Future Initiative. The Working Group should:
- Identify experts and resources to enable the PGP and work with multi-sector entities, including within USDA, to identify sources of seeds/plants in the United States.
- Conduct a kickoff meeting with OSTP and identify a team that includes NPGS representatives to inventory existing resources, coordinate seed collection efforts, and create connectivity with the PGP.
- Provide recommendations on working with international institutes in the Global North (e.g., Global Biodiversity Information Facility and Earth BioGenome Project) and the Global South (e.g., The African BioGenome Project, the International Potato Center and others). The Earth BioGenome Project’s work on green plants and initial genomic quality standards offers potential starting points for collaboration.
- Create recommendations for the nation’s first Plant Genome Research Institute to drive initial and future efforts in obtaining plant genome information and accelerating innovative research in plant genomics.
Action 2: Launch a White House Summit on Plant Genomics Innovation and Food Security
The Biden Administration should bring together multi-sector (agriculture industry, farmers, academics, and philanthropy) and agency partners with the expertise, resource access, and interest in increasing domestic food security and climate resilience. The Summit will secure commitments for the PGP’s initial activities and identify ways to harmonize existing data and advances in plant genomics. The Summit and follow-up activities should outline the steps that the Working Group will take to identify, combine, and encourage the distribution and access of existing plant genome data. Since public-private partnerships play a core enabling role in the strategy, the Summit should also determine opportunities for potential partners, novel financing through philanthropy, and international cooperation.
Action 3: Convene Potential International Collaborators and Partners
International cooperation should be explored from the start (beginning with the Working Group and the White House Summit) to ensure that sequencing is conducted not just at a handful of institutions in the Global North but that countries in the Global South are included and all information is made publicly available.
- During the annual UN General Assembly Summit, OSTP should convene a forum of key leaders across multiple countries, international NGOs, Fortune 1000 companies, and academia.
- This forum will drive international public-private commitments to action that support the launch of the PGP.
- This forum should produce a yearly report–the first of its kind, on progress at the intersection of technological and data-driven advances in plant and crop innovation, preserving plant biodiversity, ending hunger, achieving food security, and improving nutrition.
- This work could culminate in a flagship announcement of new commitments tied to the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Various champions and experts on The Nagoya Protocol, Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and others working with The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) should be included.
We envision at least one comprehensive germplasm seed bank in each country or geographical region similar to the Svalbard seed vault or The Royal Botanic Garden at Kew and sequencing contributions from multiple international organizations such as Beijing Genomics Institute and the Sanger Institute.
Phase 2: PGP Formalization and Launch
Action 4: Launch the Plant Genome Research Institute to centralize and coordinate plant genome sequencing
Congress should create a Plant Genome Research Institute (PGRI) that will drive plant genomics research and be the central owner of U.S. government activities. The PGRI would centralize funding and U.S. government ownership over the PGP. We anticipate the PGP would require $2.5 billion over 10 years, with investment frontloaded and funding raised through matched commitments from philanthropy, public, and private sources. The PGRI could be a virtual institute structured as a distributed collaboration between multiple universities and research centers with centralized project management. PGRI funding could also incorporate novel funding mechanisms akin to the BRAIN Initiative through U.S. philanthropy and private sector collaboration (e.g., Science Philanthropy Alliance). The PGRI would:
- Identify key strategic public and private partners to join the coalition that prioritizes and undertakes the sequencing projects.
- Coordinate sequencing that will be conducted at sequencing centers funded by the PGRI while ensuring that all current consortia and initiatives for plant genome sequencing are included and connected.
- Define metrics for gene sequencing (e.g., accuracy, capacity, and cost of finished sequence), genome assembly, and genetic/physical map creation.
- Engage with industry providers of novel sequencing technology to bring down costs.
- Develop the final operational plan with timelines and funders outside the U.S. government in philanthropy and the private sector.
- Promote the development of novel bioinformatic and computational tools to facilitate gene assembly in polyploid plant genomes and view reference genomes of various plant species and varieties.
- Based on recommendations from the Working Group, select the agency or offices best positioned to house and maintain the data.
- Implement FAIR standards for data storage and dissemination and ensure an open-access, user-friendly interface for the final software platform. This could be achieved through a current database such as GenBank.
- Run an open challenge to share existing genome sequence data that is currently not publicly available and ensure that receiving centers undertake appropriate validation and quality control of all imported data.
Action 5: Expand and Strengthen NPGS-Managed Seed Repositories
We recommend strengthening the distributed seed repository managed by the U.S. National Plant Germplasm System and building a comprehensive and open-source catalog of plant genetic information tied to physical samples. The NPGS already stores seed collections at state land-grant universities in a collaborative effort to safeguard the genetic diversity of agriculturally important plants and may need additional funding to expand its work and increase visibility and access.
- Bring in new partnerships, funding, and technical expertise from the private sector, a major user of the NPGS collections and the primary means by which new and improved plants are commercialized.
- Provide funding to create structured and highly annotated datasets of seed profiles with taxonomic data and other criteria such as phenotypic/physical attributes, local usage, commercial characteristics, and rarity.
- Automatically feed data from all new and existing germplasm repositories into the PGP, linking existing physical germplasm data to novel genetic data and connecting genomic and genetic data with taxonomic information.
- Invite computer scientists to develop novel data-driven algorithms and machine-learning models incorporating newly collected genomic data to identify plant varieties that might be especially climate resilient. (This potential innovation has been demonstrated in machine-vision research involving digitized herbarium specimens).
Action 6: Create a Plant Innovation Fund within AgARDA
The Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority (AgARDA) is a USDA-based advanced research projects agency like DARPA but for agriculture research. The 2018 Farm Bill authorized AgARDA’s creation to tackle highly ambitious projects that are likely to have an outsize impact on agricultural and environmental challenges—such as the PGP. The existing AgARDA Roadmap could guide program setup.
- The Administration should launch BioDRIVe, a $100 million public natural assets fund targeted at plant innovation and biodiversity gains inspired by the DRIVe program focused on preventing future pandemics. If traditional federal funding mechanisms are inadequate, such data-driven investment vehicles/flexible funding tools could also include philanthropic funding mechanisms and be integrated within the PGRI. This would promote public-private partnerships and de-risk promising technologies that drive innovation for food security and biodiversity conservation.
- Through its RFP process, AgARDA could help drive key agricultural innovation that arises from the PGP, such as creating stronger, more climate-resilient, disease-resistant, or nutritionally superior plants and identifying plants that can break down pollutants or produce novel enzymes and products. AgARDA is ready to go as soon as it receives funding through the annual Congressional funding process.
Phase 3: Long-Term, Tandem Bioeconomy Investments
Action 7: Bioeconomy Workforce Development and Plant Science Education
Invest in plant science and technical workforce development to build a sustainable foundation for global plant innovation and enable long-term growth in the U.S. bioeconomy.
- Use the PGRI as a platform for a renewed focus on training world-class botanists, plant breeders, horticulturists, and agronomists. A networked effort to train the next generation of plant scientists, similar to the 100Kin10 initiative that successfully trained 100,000 new STEM teachers in 10 years, could be very useful. Funding could be targeted to scholarships in these areas at universities, community colleges, and scientific associations such as the American Society of Agronomy. We also recommend increasing emphasis on plant science in K-12 education.
- Build stronger ties between the plant science industry and the engineering workforce to support the growing data and technology needs for plant science research. This could include bringing in science and engineering fellows from existing fellowship programs to help build new software and data science tools for plant science.
- Launch a fellowship program in partnership with NSF, USDA, and scientific associations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science or the American Society of Plant Biologists for talented plant biologists, agricultural researchers, and data and software engineers to serve a yearlong “tour of duty” in public service, where they would work internationally to collect, maintain, and expand the plant genome database. Existing and new repositories could benefit from this talent pool, and these cohorts of fellows would disseminate knowledge of the database throughout their careers, helping to achieve adoption at scale.
Conclusion
We are in a race against time to identify, decode, catalog, preserve, and cultivate the critical biodiversity of the world’s plant species before they are lost forever. By creating the world’s first comprehensive, open-access catalog of plant genetic information tied to physical samples, the Plant Genome Project will unlock plant innovation for food security, help preserve plant biodiversity in a changing climate, and advance the bioeconomy. The PGP’s whole-of-government approach will accelerate a global effort to secure our food systems and the health of the planet while catalyzing a new era of plant science, agricultural innovation and co-operation.
We estimate that it would cost ~$2.5 billion to sequence the genomes of all plant species. (For reference, the Human Genome Project cost $5.4 billion in 2017 to sequence just one species).
Yes, we recommend active solicitation of existing sequence information from all entities. This data should be validated and checked from a quality control perspective before being integrated into the PGP.
The newly created Plant Genome Research Institute (PGRI) will coordinate the PGP. The structure and operations of the PGRI will follow recommendations from the OSTP-commissioned Stakeholder Working Group. All work will be conducted in partnership with agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, private companies, and public academic institutions.
Existing sequencing efforts and seed banks will be included within the framework of the PGP.
The PGP will start as a national initiative, but to have the greatest impact it must be an international effort like the Human Genome Project. The White House Summit and Stakeholder Working Group will help influence scope and staging. The extinction crisis is a global problem, so the PGP should be a global effort in which the United States plays a strong leadership role.
In Phase 1, emphasis might be placed on native “lost crops” that can be grown in areas that are suffering from drought or are affected by climate change. Collection and selection would complement and incorporate active Biden Administration initiatives that center Indigenous science and environmental justice and equity.
In Phase 2, efforts could focus on sequencing all plants in regions or ecosystems within the U.S. that are vulnerable to adverse climate events in collaboration with existing state-level and university programs. An example is the California Conservation Genomics Project, which aims to sequence all the threatened, endangered and commercially exploited flora and fauna of California. Edible and endangered plants will be prioritized, followed by other plants in these ecosystems.
In Phase 3, all remaining plant species will be sequenced.
All collected seeds will be added to secure, distributed physical repositories, with priority given to collecting physical samples and genetic data from endangered species.
The PGP will work to address and even correct some long-standing inequalities, ensuring that the rights and interests of all nations and Indigenous people are respected in multiple areas from specimen collection to benefit sharing while ensuring open access to genomic information. The foundational work being done by the Earth BioGenome Project’s Ethical, Legal and Social Committee will be critically important.
Invitees could include but would not be limited to the following entities with corresponding initial commitments to support the PGP’s launch:
- Genome sequencing companies, such as Illumina, PacBio, Oxford Nanopore Technologies, and others, who would draft a white paper on the current landscape for sequencing technologies and innovation that would be needed to enable a PGP.
- Academic institutions with active sequencing core facilities such as the University of California, Davis and Washington University in St. Louis, among others, who would communicate existing capacity for PGP efforts and forecast additional capacity-building needs, summarize strengths of each entity and past contributions, and identify key thought leaders in the space.
- Large ag companies, such as Bayer Crop Science, Syngenta, Corteva, and others, who are willing to share proprietary sequence information, communicate industry perspectives, identify obstacles to data sharing and potential solutions, and actively participate in the PGP and potentially provide resources.
- Government agencies and public institutions such as NIH/NCBI, NSF, USDA, Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, CGIAR, Missouri Botanical Garden, would draft white papers communicating existing efforts and funding, identify funding gaps, and assess current and future collaborations.
- Current sequencing groups/consortiums, such as the Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium, Earth BioGenome Project, Open Green Genomes Project, HudsonAlpha, and others, would draft white papers communicating existing efforts and funding needs, identify gaps, and plan for data connectivity.
- Tech companies, such as Google and Microsoft, could communicate existing efforts and technologies, assess the potential for new technologies and tools to accelerate PGP, curate data, and provide support such as talent in the fields of data science and software engineering.
The STEMpathy Task Force: Creating a Generation of Culturally Competent STEM Professionals
Summary
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are powerful levers for improving the quality of life for everyone in the United States. The connection between STEM’s transformative potential and its current impact on structural societal problems starts in the high school classroom.
Teachers play a critical role in fostering student cultural awareness and competency. Research demonstrates that teachers and students alike are eager to affect progress on issues related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA). Educational research also demonstrates that DEIA and empathy enhance student sense of belonging and persistence in professional STEM pathways. However, formal STEM learning experiences lack opportunities for students to practice cultural competency and explore applications of STEM to social justice issues.
Cultural Competency is the ability to understand, empathize, and communicate with others as part of a diverse community.
The Biden-Harris Administration should establish the STEMpathy Task Force to aid high school STEM teachers in establishing cultural competency as an overarching learning goal. Through this action, the Administration would signal the prioritization of STEM equity—reflected in both the classroom and the broader community—across the United States. The program would address two pertinent issues in the STEM pipeline: the lack of momentum in STEM workforce diversification and STEM’s unfulfilled promise to relieve our society of systems of oppression and bias. Students need to be taught not only the scientific method and scientific discourse, but also how to approach their science in a manner that best uplifts all people.
Challenge & Opportunity
In a 2017 survey, over 1,900 U.S. companies listed the ability to work effectively with customers, clients, and businesses from a range of different countries and cultures as a critical skill. Since then, the importance of cultural competency in the U.S. workforce has become increasingly apparent.
Culturally competent workers are more creative and better equipped to solve tricky problems. For example, foresters have managed wildfires by following the instruction and guidance of tribal nations and traditional ecological knowledges. Engineers have designed infrastructure that lowers the water bills of farmers in drought-stricken areas. Public health representatives have assuaged concerns about COVID-19 vaccines in under-served communities. STEM professionals who improve Americans’ quality of life do so by collaborating and communicating with people from diverse backgrounds. When students can see these intersections between STEM and social change, they understand that STEM is not limited to a classroom, lab, or field activity but is also a tool for community building and societal progress.
Today’s middle and high school students are increasingly concerned about issues around race/ethnicity, gender, and equity. Recent college graduates also share these interests, and many demonstrate a growing desire to participate in meaningful work and to pursue social careers. When students realize that STEM fields are compatible with their passion for topics related to identity and social inequities, they are more likely to pursue STEM careers—and stick with them. This is the way to create a generation of professionals who act with STEMpathy.
To unite STEM subjects with themes of social progress, cultural competency must become a critical component of STEM education. Under this framework, teachers would use curricula to address systemic social inequities and augment learning by drawing from students’ personal experiences (Box 1). This focus would align with ongoing efforts to promote project-based learning, social-emotional learning, and career and technical education in classrooms across the United States.
| American high school STEM students will demonstrate an understanding of and empathy for how people from varied backgrounds are affected by environmental and social issues. An environmental sciences student in California understands the risks posed by solar farms to agricultural production in the Midwest. They seek to design solar panels that do not disrupt soil drainage systems and financially benefit farmers.An astronomy student in Florida empathizes with Indigenous Hawaiians who are fighting against the construction of a massive telescope on their land. The student signs petitions to prevent the telescope from being built.A chemistry student in Texas learns that many immigrants struggle to understand healthcare professionals. They volunteer as a translator in their local clinic.A computer science student in Georgia discovers that many fellow residents do not know when or where to vote. They develop a chatbot that reminds their neighbors of polling place information. |
With such changes to the STEM lessons, the average U.S. high school graduate would have both a stronger sense of community within STEM classrooms and the capacity to operate at a professional level in intercultural contexts. STEM classroom culture would shift accordingly to empower and amplify diverse perspectives and redefine STEM as a common good in the service of advancing society.
Plan of Action
Through an executive order, the Biden-Harris Administration should create a STEMpathy Task Force committed to building values of inclusion and public service into the United States’ STEM workforce. The task force would assist U.S. high schools in producing college- and career-ready, culturally competent STEM students. The intended outcome is to observe a 20 percent increase in the likelihood of students of color and female- and nonbinary-identifying students to pursue a college degree in a STEM field and for at least 40 percent of surveyed U.S. high school students to demonstrate awareness and understanding of cultural competence skills. Both outcomes should be measured by National Center for Education Research data 5–10 years after the task force is established.
The STEMpathy Task Force would be coordinated by the Subcommittee on Federal Coordination in STEM Education (FC-STEM) from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). The interagency working group would partner with education-focused organizations, research institutions, and philanthropy foundations to achieve their goals (FAQ #6). These partnerships would allow the White House to draw upon expertise within the STEM education sphere to address the following priorities:
- Publish guides on cultural-competency-oriented learning goals for STEM students that comply with STEM curricula and standards frameworks, as well as on suggested assessments for measuring student achievement in cultural competency skills.
- Issue nonregulatory guidance on federal funding streams for paid teacher professional development opportunities that improve their ability to teach students to apply STEM concepts to public service projects.
- Consider adding cultural competency assessments and measures into federally funded programs such as the What Works Clearinghouse, Blue Ribbon Schools Program, and the National Assessment of Educational Progress science questionnaire.
- Highlight and reward educators and schools that demonstrate high student achievement in science and cultural competence skills.1
Working toward these priorities will equip the next generation of STEM professionals with cultural competence skills. The task force will form effective STEM teaching methods that result in measurable improvement in STEM major diversity and career readiness.
This approach meets the objectives of existing federal STEM education efforts without imposing classroom standards on U.S. educators. In the Federal STEM Education Strategic Plan, the Committee on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education (Co-STEM) aims to (1) increase work-based learning and training, (2) lend successful practices from across the learning landscape, and (3) encourage transdisciplinary learning. The Department of Education also prioritizes the professional development of educators to strengthen student learning, as well as meet students’ social, emotional, and academic needs. In these ways, the STEMpathy Task Force furthers the Administration’s education goals.
Conclusion
Current national frameworks for high school STEM learning do not provide students with a strong sense of belonging or an awareness of how STEM can be leveraged to alleviate social inequities. The STEMpathy Task Force would establish a rigorous, adaptable framework to address these challenges head-on and ensure that the United States provides high school students with inclusive, hands-on science classrooms that prepare them to serve the diverse communities of their country. Following the implementation of the STEMpathy Task Force, the Biden-Harris Administration can expect to see (1) an increase in the number and diversity of students pursuing STEM degrees, (2) a reduction in race/ethnicity- and gender-based gaps in the STEM workforce, and (3) an increase in STEM innovations that solve critical challenges for communities across the United States.
In any team setting, students will function effectively and with empathy. They will interact respectfully with people from varied cultural backgrounds. To achieve these behavioral goals, students will learn three key skills, as outlined by the Nebraska Extension NebGuide:
- Increasing cultural and global knowledge. Students understand the historical background of current events, including relevant cultural practices, values, and beliefs. They know how to ask open-minded, open-ended questions to learn more information.
- Self-assessment. Students reflect critically on their biases to engage with others. They understand how their life experience may differ from others based on their identity.
- Active Listening. Students listen for the total meaning of a person’s message. They avoid mental chatter about how they will respond to a person or question, and they do not jump directly to giving advice or offering solutions.
No. Although the task force will conduct research on STEM- and cultural-competency-related learning standards and lesson plans, the OSTP will not create incentives or regulations to force states to adopt the standards or curricula. The task force is careful to work within the existing, approved educational systems to advance the goals of the Department of Education and Committee on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Education (Co-STEM).
As observed during recent efforts to teach American students about structural racism and systemic inequality, some parents may find topics pertaining to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility sensitive. The STEMpathy Task Force’s cultural competency-focused efforts, however, are primarily related to empathy and public service. These values are upheld by constituents and their representatives regardless of political leaning. As such, the STEMpathy Task Force may be understood as a bipartisan effort to advance innovation and the economic competitiveness of U.S. graduates.
Another associated risk is the burden created for teachers to incorporate new material into their already-packed schedules and lesson plans. Many teachers are leaving their jobs due to the stressful post-pandemic classroom environment, as well as the imbalance between their paychecks and the strain and value of their work. These concerns may be addressed through the STEMpathy Task Force’s objectives of paid training and rewards systems for educators who model effective teaching methods for others. In these ways, teachers may receive just compensation for their efforts in supporting both their students and the country’s STEM workforce.
In its first two years, the STEMpathy Task Force would complete the following:
- Revise FC-STEM’s “Best Practices For Diversity and Inclusion in Stem Education and Research” guide to include information on evidence-based or emerging practices that promote cultural competence skills in the STEM classroom.
- Train 500+ teachers across the nation to employ teaching strategies and curricula that improve the cultural competence skills of STEM students.
In the next two years, further progress would be made on the following:
- Measure the efficacy of the teacher training program by assessing ~10,000 students’ cultural competence skill development, STEM interest retention and performance, and classroom sense of belonging.
- Reward/recognize 100 schools for high achievement in cultural competency development.
STEM subjects and professionals have the greatest potential to mitigate inequities in American society. Consider the following examples wherein marginalized communities would benefit from STEM professionals who act with cultural competency while working alongside or separate from decision-makers:
- Native Hawaiians aim to protect their land from a telescope that may be built elsewhere
- Women and non-binary people who require precision medicine face built-in biases from biomedical technologies
- Defendants of color are more likely to be wrongly labeled as “high-risk” than white defendants at bail hearings
- Low-income neighborhoods aim to promote healthy eating and skill building by designing an urban farm
- Transgender individuals require specialized, destigmatized healthcare
Furthermore, although the number of STEM jobs in the United States has grown by 7.6 million since 1990, the STEM workforce has been very slow to diversify. Over the past 30 years, the proportion of Black STEM workers increased by only 2 percent and that of Latinx STEM workers by only 3 percent. Women hold only 15 percent of direct science and engineering jobs. LGBTQ male students are 17 percent more likely to leave STEM fields than their heterosexual counterparts.
Hundreds of professional networks, after-school programs, and nonprofit organizations have attempted to tackle these issues by targeting students of color and female-identifying students within STEM. While these commendable efforts have had a profound impact on many individuals’ lives, they are not providing the sweeping, transformative change that could promote not only diversity in the STEM workforce but a generation of STEM professionals who actively participate in helping diverse communities across the United States.
Based on the president’s budget for ongoing STEM-related programming, we estimate that the agency task force would require approximately $100 million. This amount will be divided across involved agencies for STEMpathy Task Force programming.
The STEMpathy Task Force must combine interagency expertise with nongovernmental organizations such as educational nonprofits, research institutions, and philanthropy foundations.
Carbon Capture in the Industrial Sector: Addressing Training, Startups, and Risk
This memo is part of the Day One Project Early Career Science Policy Accelerator, a joint initiative between the Federation of American Scientists & the National Science Policy Network.
Summary
Decarbonizing our energy system is a major priority for slowing and eventually reversing climate change. Federal policies supporting industrial-scale solutions for carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) have significantly decreased costs for large-scale technologies, yet these costs are still high enough to create considerable investment risks. Multiple companies and laboratories have developed smaller-scale, modular technologies to decrease the risk and cost of point-source carbon capture and storage (CCS). Additional federal support is needed to help these flexible, broadly implementable technologies meet the scope of necessary decarbonization in the highly complex industrial sector. Accordingly, the Department of Energy (DOE) should launch an innovation initiative comprising the following three pillars:
- Launch a vocational CCS training program to grow the pool of workers equipped with the skills to install, operate, and maintain CCS infrastructure.
- Develop an accelerator to develop and commercialize modular CCS for the industrial sector.
- Create a private-facing CCS Innovation Connector (CIC) to increase stability and investment.
These activities will target underfunded areas and complement existing DOE policies for CCS technologies.
Challenge and Opportunity
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the largest driver of human-induced climate change. Tackling the climate crisis requires the United States to significantly decarbonize; however, CCS and CCUS are still too costly. CCUS costs must drop to $100 per ton of CO2 captured to incentivize industry uptake. U.S. policymakers have paved the way for CCUS by funding breakthrough research, increasing demand for captured CO2through market-shaping, improving technologies for point-source CCS, and building large-scale plants for direct-air capture (DAC). DAC has great promise for remediating CO2 in the atmosphere despite its higher cost (up to $600/ton of CO2 sequestered), so the Biden Administration and DOE have recently focused on DAC via policies such as the Carbon Negative Shot (CNS) and the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). By comparison, point-source CCS has been described as an “orphan technology” due to a recent lack of innovation.
Part of the problem is that few long-term mechanisms exist to make CCS economical. Industrial CO2 demand is rising, but without a set carbon price, emissions standard, or national carbon market, the cost of carbon capture technology outweighs demand. The Biden Administration is increasing demand for captured carbon through government purchasing and market-shaping, but this process is slow and does not address the root problems of high technology and infrastructure costs. Therefore, targeting the issue from the innovation side holds the most promise for improving industry uptake. DOE grants for technology research and demonstration are common, while public opinion and the 45Q tax credit have led to increased funding for CCS from companies like ExxonMobil. These efforts have allowed large-scale projects like the $1 billion Petra Nova plant to be developed; however, concerns about carbon capture pipelines, the high-cost, high-risk technology, and years needed for permitting mean that large-scale projects are few and far between. Right now, there are only 26 operating CCUS plants globally. Therefore, a solution is to pursue smaller-scale technologies to fill this gap and provide lower-cost and smaller-scale — but much more widespread — CCS installations.
Modular CCS technologies, like those created by the startups Carbon Clean and Carbon Capture, have shown promise for industrial plants. Carbon Clean has serviced 44 facilities that have collectively captured over 1.4 million metric tons of carbon. Mitsubishi is also trialing smaller CCS plants based on successful larger facilities like Orca or Petra Nova. Increasing federal support for modular innovation with lower risks and installation costs could attract additional entrants to the CCS market. Most research focuses on breakthrough innovation to significantly decrease carbon capture costs. However, there are many existing CCS technologies — like amine-based solvents or porous membranes — that can be improved and specialized to cut costs as well. In particular, modular CCS systems could effectively target the U.S. industrial sector, given that industrial subsectors such as steel or plastics manufacturing receive less pressure and have fewer decarbonization options than oil and gas enterprises. The industrial sector accounts for 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions through a variety of small point sources, which makes it a prime area for smaller-scale CCS technologies.
Plan of Action
DOE should launch an initiative designed to dramatically advance technological options for and use of small-scale, modular CCS in the United States. The program would comprise three major pillars, detailed in Table 1.
DOE should leverage IIJA and the new DOE Office of Clean Energy Demonstration (OCED) to create a vocational CCS training program. DOE has in the past supported — and is currently supporting — a suite of regional carbon capture training. However, DOE’s 2012 program was geared toward scientists and workers already in the CCS field, and its 2022 program is specialized for 20–30 specific scientists and projects. DOE should build on this work with a new vocational CCS training program that will:
- Offer a free, 2- to 3-hour online course designed to raise private-sector awareness about CCS technologies, benefits, and prospects for future projects and employment. DOE should advertise this new program alongside existing grant programs and industry connections.
- Work with community colleges, four-year institutions, and workers’ unions to disseminate the online course and create aligned vocational training programs specifically for CCS jobs. In this effort, DOE should target states like Texas and Louisiana that have carbon-rich economies and low public approval of CCS.
- Partner with DOE-sponsored public university programs and private issue groups like ConservAmerica, American Conservation Coalition, and the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions to advertise and update the course.
This educational program would be cost-effective: the online course would require little upkeep, and the vocational training programs could be largely developed with financial and technical support from external partners. Initial funding of $5 million would cover course development and organization of the vocational training programs.
Pillar 2. Create an accelerator for the development and commercialization of modular CCS technologies.
The DOE Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM) or OCED should continue to lead global innovation by creating the Modular CCS Innovation Program (MCIP). This accelerator would provide financial and technical support for U.S. research and development (R&D) startups working on smaller-scale, flexible CCS for industrial plants (e.g., bulk chemical, cement, and steel manufacturing plants). The MCIP should prioritize technology that can be implemented widely with lower costs for installation and upkeep. For example, MCIP projects could focus on improving the resistance of amine-based systems to specialty chemicals, or on developing a modular system like Carbon Clean that can be adopted by different industrial plants. Projects like these have been proposed by different U.S. companies and laboratories, yet to date they have received comparatively less support from government loans or tax credits.
Proposed timeline of the MCIP accelerator for U.S. startups.
As illustrated in Figure 1, the MCIP would be launched with a Request for Proposals (RFP), awarding an initial $1 million each to the top 10 proposals received. In the first 100 days after receiving funding, each participating startup would be required to submit a finalized design and market analysis for its proposed product. The startup would then have an additional 200 days to produce a working prototype of the product. Then, the startup would move into the implementation and commercialization stages, with the goal to have its product market-ready within the next year. Launching the MCIP could therefore be achieved with approximately $10 million in grant funding plus additional funding to cover administrative costs and overhead — amounts commensurate with recent DOE funding for large-scale CCUS projects. This funding could come from the $96 million recently allocated by DOE to advance carbon capture technology and/or from funding allocated in the IIJA allocation. Implementation funding could be secured in part or in whole from private investors or other external industry partners.
Pillar 3. Create a private-facing CCS Innovation Connector (CIC) to increase stability and investment.
The uncertainty and risk that discourages private investment in CCS must be addressed. Many oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil have called for a more predictable policy landscape and increased funding for CCS projects. Creating a framework for a CCS Innovation Connector (CIC) within the DOE OCED based on a similar fund in the European Union would decrease the perceived risks of CCS technologies emerging from MCIP. The CIC would work as follows: first, a company would submit a proposal relating to point-source carbon capture. DOE technical experts would perform an initial quality-check screening and share proposals that pass to relevant corporate investors. Once funding from investors is secured, the project would begin. CIC staff (likely two to three full-time employees) would monitor projects to ensure they are meeting sponsor goals and offer technical assistance as necessary. The CIC would serve as a liaison between CCS project developers and industrial sponsors or investors to increase investment in and implementation of nascent CCS technologies. While stability in the CCS sector will require policies such as increasing carbon tax credits or creating a global carbon price, the CIC will help advance such policies by funding important American CCS projects.
Conclusion
CO2 emissions will continue to rise as U.S. energy demand grows. Many existing federal policies target these emissions through clean energy or DAC projects, but more can and should be done to incentivize U.S. innovation in point-source CCS. In particular, increased federal support is needed for small-scale and modular carbon capture technologies that target complex areas of U.S. industry and avoid the high costs and risks of large-scale infrastructure installations. This federal support should involve improving CCS education and training, accelerating the development and commercialization of modular CCS technologies for the industrial sector, and connecting startup CCS projects to private funding. Biden Administration policies — coupled with growing public and industrial support for climate action — make this the ideal time to expand the reach of our climate strategy into an “all of the above” solution that includes CCS as a core component.
Preventing Catastrophic Wildfire Under Climate Change
Summary
Wildfires, damages, and deaths are increasing because of unnatural accumulations of wood from outdated forest policies and intensifying heat from human-caused climate change. Preventing catastrophic wildfires requires improved, science-based policies that will shift the government from after-the-fact firefighting to proactive controlled burning. This would improve the lives of Americans and the health of our ecosystems by reducing deaths and damage due to wildfire, restoring damaged forests that naturally require fire, and decreasing the carbon emissions that cause climate change.
This memorandum outlines a policy approach to achieve these outcomes. Executive action will establish a national strategy for proactive fire management. Legislation will ensure revenue neutral implementation by reallocating funds currently used for firefighting to less expensive and more effective fire prevention. Finally, fire managers will increase prescribed burning and use of natural fires, relying on scientific analyses to target areas at greatest risk under climate change.