Summary

Cattle in the United States release the greenhouse gas methane (known as “enteric methane”) from their digestive systems, which is equivalent to the amount of methane that leaks from fossil fuel infrastructure. Addressing enteric methane in cattle represents an opportunity to reduce the U.S. greenhouse gas footprint by 3% and simultaneously improve cattle productivity by ~6%. However, current solutions only address, at most, 10% of these emissions, and the U.S. has spent under $5m per year on R&D over the past five years to address this critical climate area. 

Therefore, to establish long-term U.S. leadership and export competitiveness, we recommend regulatory simplification and an $82m per year U.S. Department of Agriculture research and innovation program. These common-sense recommendations would create a win for producers and a win for the environment by advancing solutions that easily drop into existing farm practices and convert avoided methane into increased milk and meat production.

Challenge & Opportunity

Cattle and other ruminants digest their food via anaerobic (oxygen-free) fermentation. This unique system allows them to digest roughage such as grasses and other forage and transform it into meat and milk. But it also generates methane. Cattle release on average 6% of the calories they eat as methane, a substantial loss in their potential meat and milk productivity. This methane is in addition to the methane emitted by their manure. 

An invisible and odorless gas, methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that is responsible for 0.5°C of the 1°C of modern global warming (based on the 2010-2019 average). One-third of U.S. anthropogenic methane emissions come from cattle and other ruminants. Solutions may be able to be developed that both disrupt enteric methane production while also increasing cattle productivity. That would help reduce global temperatures and provide benefits for both producers and consumers. Currently, there are a few tested and marketable solutions that use chemicals to disrupt methane-creating microbes in the cattle’s first stomach (the rumen). These are important solutions that need to be evaluated for regulatory approval. However, additional research and development must also be done, to help address the majority of emissions that don’t yet have available solutions, particularly from cattle grazing in pastures. Additional work is also needed to continue developing solutions that consistently lead to a productivity benefit. Focused scientific research could deepen our understanding of cattle metabolism, and advance new solutions for reducing enteric methane further.

Progress on this front also requires improved research tools to measure how much methane cattle emit and relate these methane emissions to their productivity and intake of feed and forage. Access to such research tools enables researchers and innovators to develop and evaluate new solutions. Methane emissions rates vary widely between cattle on the same farm of the same breed, as well as across breeds. Currently these tools are expensive and not widely available. For example, the primary tool available measures twenty cattle per day, costs ~$100,000, and can be found at only a handful of research institutions. That presents a practical problem of access not only for producers but also for non-specialist scientific innovators. Making those tools more accessible, for example via fee-for-service centers at leading U.S. Land Grant institutes, would make them more affordable for producers and researchers. That would help unlock the creativity of U.S. innovators, and provide evidence that their solutions have a positive climate impact and are feasible for producers and acceptable to consumers.

Even when new solutions are found and proven, innovators still face a 10-year FDA approval process. This is uncompetitive and restrictive compared to other countries. Since much faster approval is possible in Australia, Brazil, and Europe, innovators have an incentive to launch their products and build their businesses there rather than in the USA. And as climate-aware export markets develop, slow FDA approval will cost U.S. producers market share and market opportunity. We therefore recommend that the FDA be given authority and direction to evaluate new methane-reducing products for safety on an accelerated timeline, while maintaining critical human and animal safety standards. This would help the U.S. position itself as a global leader in a potential multi-billion dollar market while upholding its climate commitments.

Minimizing peak temperatures requires livestock enteric methane research today.

Plan of Action

I. FUND BASIC & APPLIED LIVESTOCK ENTERIC METHANE RESEARCH

Total Funds Needed: $50,000,000 per year 

Developing science-based, effective livestock enteric methane solutions depend on a detailed understanding of cattle microbiology as well as practical understanding of what makes solutions easy to adopt. These solutions have the potential to not only decrease enteric methane emissions but could unlock a new frontier of efficiency for the U.S. livestock sector, helping build a more resilient and productive food system. Increasing funding for basic and applied research could accelerate development of new methods, and rapidly build a portfolio of scalable potential solutions. Capacity funding will increase the near- and long-term throughput for solution development and shorten the idea to market timeline for these products. Competitive funding will drive innovation in sectors and geographies that have significant implementation barriers, such as those applicable to pasture operations, and can accelerate adoption of proven solutions. The Committee on Appropriations, has recognized the innovation potential increased public funds can make possible, and has encouraged USDA-NIFA to prioritize advancement of enteric fermentation solutions.  

We recommend competitive and capacity funding within USDA-NIFA, including AFRI, Hatch, Animal Health and Disease, and other programs be appropriated to:

Basic research in livestock methane microbiology to create a knowledge base that will support development of new win-win solutions and accelerate our understanding of host-microbiome interactions.

Applied livestock methane solutions research based on livestock methane biology knowledge. This work should prioritize solutions that reduce methane in new ways; that simultaneously increase the production of milk or meat; and that have the potential to be in a long-duration (e.g. once per year) product formulation compatible with grazing cattle. Such technology already exists for cattle nutrition and disease prevention.

Perform surveys and other social science research to understand barriers and opportunities to low-cost and low-complexity implementation for American producers and ranchers. This research will help guide the development of new solutions and tailor the design and deployment of solutions among the diversity of U.S. operations. Together, this will maximize the global market potential of U.S. innovation.   

We recommend Congress request of USDA a full-accounting and report of its current spending on enteric methane R&D across all its programs.

II. CREATE PUBLIC FEE-FOR-SERVICE TESTING FACILITIES FOR LIVESTOCK METHANE

Funds Needed: $15,000,000 per year

Access to methane test facilities, from the laboratory to the dairy barn, is a bottleneck. It limits how many innovative ideas for solutions can be tested. Only a small number of institutions worldwide have the tools needed to test methane, and outside access to those tools is limited. We recommend funding be authorized and appropriated for innovation-enabling research infrastructure to USDA-ARS through USDA Equipment Grants and USDA-AFRI. This funding would:

Authorize and establish a nationwide network of fee-for-access livestock methane research facilities. This equips the USDA-ARS laboratories with research measurement equipment and technical staff by partnering with U.S. land grant universities that already possess the necessary research cattle management expertise. Joint investment with them and partial support from research users will quickly make the U.S. an international leader in livestock methane research.

Develop a national center for pre-livestock testing and screening of potential products. This will serve as a user facility. Specialized cattle researchers shouldn’t be the only ones who can test new ideas for reducing livestock enteric methane. Accessible facilities can unlock innovation from the U.S.’ world-leading biology researchers. 

Livestock methane production is invisible: current livestock methane measurement equipment costs about $100,000 for a system that measures 20-30 cattle per day.

III. FUND DEVELOPMENT OF LOW-COST CATTLE METHANE MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY

Funds needed: $15,000,000 per year

What is measured guides innovation and management, and what we measure easily and consistently, we improve. Producers measure milk production on every cow, every day, leading to a 300% productivity increase since 1950. But for all producers and most researchers, livestock methane production is invisible: current livestock methane measurement equipment costs about $100,000 for a system that measures 20-30 cattle per day. We recommend authorizing and appropriating $15 million per year to USDA-NIFA, Division of Animal Systems in order to:

Develop lower-cost measurement systems so every research barn can measure livestock methane. U.S. land grant universities have over ten thousand research cattle. Equipped with measurement systems, they could all provide livestock methane research data.

Develop farm-integrable measurement systems that make methane emissions and costs  visible to U.S. producers, enabling them to experiment and innovate. Methane is a loss for livestock production. If producers can see it, they’ll work to decrease methane and improve their bottom line.

A $15 million annual budget for this technology development will lead to rapid improvements. Part of this would fund interdisciplinary projects that bring engineers from across industry and livestock experts together. We recommend another part be framed as a grand challenge to achieve cost and performance targets connected to a government procurement market-shaping program.

IV. MODERNIZE THE US FOOD, DRUG, AND COSMETIC ACT

Funds Needed: $2,000,000 per year

Current anti-methane feed additives are regulated as drugs, requiring a ten-year approval process. As European export markets increasingly regulate emissions, this may lead to a lack of competitiveness for U.S. products. To address this, Congress asked the FDA to review options to accelerate the approval of environmentally beneficial additives. One mechanism to shorten the regulatory timeframe of approval is to amend an existing approval pathway which exists for feed additives. Legislation has been introduced (Innovative Feed Enhancement and Economic Development Act of 2023) which would, in part, amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to include Zootechnical Animal Feed Substances as a category under the feed additive petition process. This could reduce the approval timeline for environmentally beneficial additives by 5-fold. 

We recommend Congress continue to support the modernization of the U.S. Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, and authorize and appropriate an additional $2 million per year to the Food and Drug Administration, Center for Veterinary Medicine, for personnel resources and infrastructure to robustly evaluate new anti-methane solutions for safety and efficacy and make new solutions available to farmers.

V. SUPPORT ADOPTION OF ENTERIC METHANE MITIGATION STRATEGIES THROUGH EXISTING PROGRAMS

Funds Needed: No Additional Funding

In a recent survey, fewer than 30% of U.S. producers indicated they would be willing to adopt an enteric methane solution if they had to bear the cost. Government or other funding assistance was the second most important factor influencing the use of potential solutions behind increased productivity. The Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) is the flagship program administered by USDA- Natural Resources Conservation Service and can provide financial assistance for the implementation of conservation practices, including practices that reduce greenhouse gasses. In order to promote the adoption of enteric methane mitigation solutions, we recommend USDA-NRCS:

Review conservation practice standards to include new enteric methane mitigation solutions when applicable and include mechanisms to incentivize established methods to reduce enteric methane (i.e. lipid supplementation). Encourage regular updating of practice standards to rapidly incorporate new solutions as they are approved for use, and train technical assistance providers on the implementation of enteric methane mitigation strategies.

Summary

The Department of Energy (DOE) should leverage its congressionally granted other transaction authority to its full statutory extent to accelerate the demonstration and deployment of innovations critical to the clean energy transition. To do so, the Secretary of Energy should encourage DOE staff to consider using other transactions to advance the agency’s core missions. DOE’s Office of Acquisition Management should provide resources to educate program and contracting staff on the opportunity that other transactions present. Doing so would unlock a less used but important tool in demonstrating and accelerating critical technology developments at scale with industry.

Challenge and Opportunity

OTs are an underleveraged tool for accelerating energy technology.

Our global and national clean energy transition requires advancing novel technology innovations across transportation, electricity generation, industrial production, carbon capture and storage, and more. If we hope to hit our net-zero emissions benchmarks by 2030 and 2050, we must do a far better job commercializing innovations, mitigating the risk of market failures, and using public dollars to crowd in private investment behind projects. 

The Biden Administration and the Department of Energy, empowered by Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), have taken significant steps to meet these challenges. The Loan Programs Office, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, the Office of Technology Transitions, and many more dedicated public servants are working hard towards the mission set forward by Congress and the administration. They are deploying a range of grants, procurement contracts, and tax credits to achieve their goals, and there are more tools at their disposal to accelerate a just, clean energy transition. The large sums of money appropriated under BIL and IRA require new ways of thinking about contracting and agreements.

Congress gives several federal agencies the authority to use flexible agreements known as other transactions (OTs). Importantly, OTs are defined by what they are not. They are not a government contract or grant, and thus not governed by the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR). Historically, NASA and the DoD have been the most frequent users of other transaction authorities, including for projects like the Commercial Orbital Transportation System at NASA which developed the Falcon 9 space vehicle, and the Global Hawk program at DARPA.

In contrast, the Department of Energy has infrequently used OTs, and even when it has, the programs have achieved no notable outcomes in support of their agency mission. When the DOE has used OTs, the agency has interpreted their authority as constraining them to cost-sharing research agreements. This restricts the creativity of agency staff in executing OTs. All the law says is that an OT is not a grant or contract. By limiting itself to cost sharing research agreements, DOE is preemptively foreclosing all other kinds of novel partnerships. This is critical because some nascent climate-solution technologies may face a significant market failure or a set of misaligned incentives that a traditional research and development transaction (R&D) may not fix.

This interpretation has hampered DOE’s use of OTs, limited its ability to engage small businesses and nontraditional contractors, and prevented DOE from fully pursuing its agency mission and the administration’s climate goals.

Exploring further use of OTs would open up a range of possibilities for the agency to help address critical market failures, help U.S. firms bridge the well-documented valleys of death in technology development, and fulfill the benchmarks laid out in the DOE’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff.
According to a GAO report from 2016, the DOE has only used OTs a handful of times since they had the authority updated in 2005, nearly two decades ago. Compare the DOE’s use of OTs to other agencies in the four-year period in the table below (the most recent for which there is open data).

TABLE 1

From GAO-16-209

Almost every other agency uses OTs at a significantly higher rate, including agencies that have smaller overall budgets. While quantity of agreements is not the only metric to rely on, the magnitude of the discrepancy is significant. 

Other agencies have made significant changes since 2014, most notably the Department of Defense. A 2020 CSIS report found that DoD use of OTs for R&D increased by 712% since FY2015, including a 75% increase in FY2019. This represents billions of dollars in awards, much of which went to consortia, including for both prototyping and production transactions. While the DOE does not have the same budget or mission as DoD, the sea change in culture among DoD officials willing to use OTs over the past few years is instructive. While DoD did receive expanded authority in the FY2015 and 2016 NDAA, this alone did not account for the massive increase. A cultural shift drove program staff to look at OTs as ways to quickly prototype and deploy solutions that could advance their missions, and support from leadership enabled staff to successfully learn how and when to use OTs.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) only uses OTs for two agencies, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHIMSA). Like DOE, the FAA is not restricted in what it can and can’t use OTs for. It is authorized to “carry out the functions of the Administrator and the Administration…on such terms and conditions as the Administrator may consider appropriate.” Unlike DOE, the FAA and DOT have used their authority for several dozen transactions a year, totaling $1.45 billion in awards between 2010 and 2014.

FIGURE 1

Source

From the GAO chart (Table 1), it’s clear that ARPA-E also follows the DOE in deploying very few OTs in support of its mission. Despite being originally envisioned as a high-potential, high-impact funder for technology that is too early in the R&D process for private investors to support, the most recent data shows that ARPA-E does not use OTs flexibly to support high-potential, high-impact tech.

The same GAO report cited above stated that:

“DOE’s regulations—because they are based on DOD’s regulations—include requirements that limit DOE’s use of other transaction agreements…. Officials told us they plan to seek approval from the Office of Management and Budget to modify the agency’s other transaction regulations to better reflect DOE’s mission, consistent with its statutory authority. According to DOE officials, if the changes are approved, DOE may increase its use of other transaction agreements.” 

That report was published in 2016, but it is unclear that any changes were sought or approved, though they likely do not need to change any regulations at all to actually make use of their authority.¹ The realm of the possible is quite large, and DOE has yet to fully explore the potential benefits to its mission that OTs provide. 

DOE can use OTs without any further authority to drive progress in critical technologies.

The good news is that DOE has the ability to use OTs without further guidance from Congress or formally changing any guidelines. Recognizing their full statutory authority would open up use cases for OTs that would help the DOE make meaningful progress towards its agency mission and the administration’s climate goals. 

For example, the DOE could use OTs in the following ways:

• Using demand-side support mechanisms to reduce the “green premium” for promising technologies like hydrogen, carbon capture, sustainable aviation fuel, enhanced geothermal, and low-embodied construction materials like steel and concrete

• Coordinating the demonstration of promising technologies through consortia with private industry in support of their commercial liftoff goals

• Organizing joint demonstration projects with the DOT or other agencies with overlapping solution sets

• Rapidly and sustainably meeting critical energy infrastructure needs across rural areas

Given the exigencies of climate change and the need to rapidly decarbonize our society and economy, there are very real instances in which traditional research contracts or grants are not enough to move the needle or unlock a significant market opportunity for a technology. Forward contract acquisitions, pay for delivery contracts, or other forms of transactions that are nonstandard but critical to supporting development of technology are covered under this authority.

One promising area where it seems the DOE is currently using this approach is in supporting the hydrogen hubs initiative. Recently the DOE announced a $1 billion initiative for demand-side support mechanisms to mitigate the risk of market failures and accelerate the commercialization of clean hydrogen technologies. The Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the H2Hubs program notes that “other FOA launches or use of Other Transaction Authorities may also be used to solicit new technologies, capabilities, end-uses, or partners.” The DOE could use OTs more frequently as a tool to advance other critical commercial liftoff strategies or to maximize the impact of dollars appropriated to implementation of the BIL and IRA. Some areas that are ripe for creative uses of other transactions include:

• Critical Minerals Consortium: A critical minerals consortium of vendors, nonprofits, academics, and others all managed by a single entity could do more than just mineral processing improvement and R&D. It could take long-term offtake agreements and do forward purchasing of mineral supplies like graphite that are essential to the production of electric vehicle (EV) batteries and other products. This could function similarly to the successful forward contract acquisition for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve executed in June 2023 by DOE.

This demand-pull would complement other recent actions taken to bolster critical minerals like the clean vehicle tax credit and the Loan Program Office’s loans to mineral processing facilities. Such a consortium could come from the existing critical materials institute or be formed by separate entities.

• Geothermal Consortium: Enhanced geothermal systems technology has received neither the attention nor the investment that it should proportional to its potential benefits as a path towards decarbonizing the electric grid. At the same time, legacy oil and natural gas industries have workforces, equipment, and experiences that can easily translate to growing the geothermal energy industry. Recently, the DOE funded the first cross-industry consortium with the $165 million GEODE competition grant awarded to Project Innerspace, Geothermal Rising, and the Society of Petroleum Engineers. 

DOE could use other transactions to further support this nascent consortium and increase the demonstration and deployment of geothermal projects. The agency could also use other transactions to organize the sharing of critical subsurface data and resources through a single entity.

• Direct Air Capture (DAC): The carbon removal market faces extremely uncertain long-term demand, and unproven technological innovations may or may not present economically viable means of pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. In order to accelerate the pace of carbon removal innovation, aggregated demand structures like Frontier’s advanced market commitment have stepped up to organize pre-purchasing and offtake agreements between buyers and suppliers. The scale of the problem is such that government intervention will be necessary to capture carbon at a rate that experts believe is necessary to mitigate the worst warming pathways. 

A carbon removal purchasing agreement for the DOE’s Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs could function much the same as the proposed hydrogen hubs initiative. It also could take the shape of a consortium of DAC vendors, nonprofits, scientists, and others managed by a single entity that can set standards for purchase agreements. This would cut the negotiation time among potential parties by a significant amount, allowing for cost saving and faster decarbonization.

• Rural Energy Improvements Consortium: The IRA appropriated $1 billion for energy improvements in rural and remote areas. Because of inherent resource limitations, the DOE will not be able to fund every potential compelling project that applies to this grant program. In order to keep the program from making single one-off grants for narrowly tailored projects, it could focus on funding projects with demonstrated catalytic impact. Through OTs, the DOE could encourage promising project developers to form a Rural Energy Improvement/Developers consortium that would not only help create efficiencies in renewable energy development and novel resilient local structures but attract private investment at a scale that each individual developer would not independently attract. 

• Hydrogen Fuel Cell Lifespan Consortia: As hydrogen fuel cells start gaining traction across transportation, shipping, and industrial applications, a consortia for fuel cell R&D could help provide new insights into the degradation of fuel cells, organize uniform standards for recycling of fuel cells, and also provide unique financial incentives to hedge against early uncertainty of fuel cell lifespans. As firms invest in new fleets of fuel cell vehicles, it may help them to have an idea of what expected value they can receive for assets as they reach the end of their lifespans. A backstopped guarantee of a minimum price for assets with certain criteria could reduce uncertainty. Such a consortium could be led by the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains (MESC) and complement existing initiatives to accelerate domestic manufacturing.

• Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES): The DOE commercial liftoff pathway highlights the need to intervene to address stakeholder and investor uncertainty by providing long-term market signals for LDES. The tools they highlight to do so are carbon pricing, greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets, and transmission expansion. While these provide generalizable long-term signals, DOE could leverage OTs to provide more concrete signals for the value of LDES.

DOE could organize an advance market commitment for long-duration energy storage capabilities on federal properties that meet certain storage hour and grid integration requirements. Such a commitment could include the DoD and the General Services Administration (GSA), which own and operate the large portfolio of federal properties, including bases and facilities in hard-to-reach locations that could benefit from more predictable and secure energy infrastructure. Early procurement of capability-meeting but expensive systems could help diversify the market and drive technology down the cost curve to reach the target of $650 per kW and 75% RTE for intra-day storage and $1,100 per kW 55 and 60% RTE for multiday storage.

To use OTs more frequently, the DOE needs to focus on culture and education.

As noted, the DOE does not need additional authorization or congressional legislation to use OTs more frequently. The agency received authority in its original charter in 1977, codified in 42 U.S. Code § 7256, which state:

“The Secretary is authorized to enter into and perform such contracts, leases, cooperative agreements, or other similar transactions with public agencies and private organizations and persons, and to make such payments (in lump sum or installments, and by way of advance or reimbursement) as he may deem to be necessary or appropriate to carry out functions now or hereafter vested in the Secretary.” [emphasis added]

This and other legislation gives DOE the authority to use OTs as the Secretary deems necessary. 

Later guidelines in implementation state that other officials at DOE who have been presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate are able to execute these transactions. The DOE’s Office of Acquisition Management, Office of General Counsel, and any other legal bodies involved should update any unnecessarily restrictive guidelines, or note that they will follow the original authority granted in the agency’s 1977 charter. 

While that would resolve any implementation questions about the ability to use OT at DOE, the agency ultimately needs strong leadership and buy-in from the Secretary in order to take full advantage. As many observers note regarding DoD’s expanding use of OTs, culture is what matters the most. The DOE should take the following actions to make sure the changing of these guidelines empowers DOE public servants to their full potential:

1. The Secretary should make clear to DOE leadership and staff that increased use of OTs is not only permissible but actively encouraged.

2. The Secretary should provide internal written guidance to DOE leadership and program-level staff on what criteria need to be met for her to sign off on an OT, if needed. These criteria should be driven by DOE mission needs, technology readiness, and other resources like the commercial liftoff reports.

3. The Office of Acquisition Management should collaboratively educate relevant program staff, not just contracting staff, on the use of OTs, including by providing cross-agency learning opportunities from peers at DARPA, NASA, DoD, DHS, and DOT.

4. DOE should provide an internal process for designing and drawing up an OT agreement for staff to get constructive feedback from multiple levels of experienced professionals.

5. DOE should issue a yearly report on how many OTs they agree to and basic details of the agreements. After four years, GAO should evaluate DOE’s use of OTs and communicate any areas for improvement. Since OTs don’t meet normal contracting disclosure requirements, some form of public disclosure would be critical for accountability.

Mitigating risk

Finally, there are many ways to address potential risks involved with executing new OTs for clean energy solutions. While there are no legal contracting risks (as OTs are not guided by the FAR), DOE staff should consider ways to most judiciously and appropriately enter into agreements. For one resource, they can leverage the eight recent reports put together by four different offices of inspector generals on agencies’ usage of other transactions to understand best practices. Other important risk limiting activities include:

1. DoD commonly uses consortiums to gather critical industry partners together around challenges in areas such as advanced manufacturing, mobility, enterprise healthcare innovations, and more.

2. Education of relevant parties and modeling of agreements after successful DARPA and NASA OTs. These resources are in many cases publicly available online and provide ready-made templates (for example, the NIH also offers a 500-page training guide with example agreements).

Conclusion

The DOE should use the full authority granted to it by Congress in executing other transactions to advance the clean energy transition and develop secure energy infrastructure in line with their agency mission. DOE does not need additional authorization or legislation from Congress in order to do so. GAO reports have highlighted the limitations of DOE’s OT use and the discrepancy in usage between agencies. Making this change would bring the DOE in line with peer agencies and push the country towards more meaningful progress on net-zero goals.

Summary

The bioeconomy touches nearly every function of the U.S. government. The products of the bioeconomy compete in an international marketplace and include medicines, foods, fuels, materials, and novel solutions to broad challenges including climate and sustainability. The infrastructure, tools, and capabilities that drive the bioeconomy must be safeguarded to maintain U.S. leadership and to protect against misuse. The vast scale of these issues requires a cross-governmental approach that draws on input and engagement with industry, academia, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders across the bioeconomy. 

To achieve a durable and strategic interagency approach to the bioeconomy, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) should establish and Congress should fund a Bioeconomy Initiative Coordination Office (BICO) to coordinate strategic U.S. government investments in the bioeconomy; facilitate efficient oversight and commercialization of biotechnology products; safeguard biotechnology infrastructure, tools and capabilities; and serve as a focal point for government engagement with nongovernmental partners and experts. 

Challenge and Opportunity

Executive Order 14081, “Establishing a National Biomanufacturing and Biotechnology Initiative,” was released in September 2022. Since then, OSTP has worked to coordinate this Initiative and has made significant progress with the March 2023 release of “Bold Goals for Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing,” which describes how government agencies will support and benefit from investments in the bioeconomy; an implementation plan is forthcoming. EO 14081 also initiated interagency efforts to better measure and track the bioeconomy, prepare the regulatory system for future biotechnology products, and establish a Biosafety and Biosecurity Innovation Initiative. Although these efforts are laudable, we need a more strategic, longer-term, and outward-facing approach to ensure that the United States remains the world leader in biomanufacturing and biotechnology development. Expert reports over several years, including those from the National Academies, support the formation of strategic coordinating body within the U.S. government that focuses on the bioeconomy and more strategic planning for its investments in these areas.

The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 provides a critical opportunity for improved interagency coordination. Division B, Title IV calls for the formation of a National Engineering Biology Research and Development Initiative coordinated by an interagency committee, co-chaired by OSTP, and supported by an Initiative Coordination Office (ICO) with a director and full-time staff. This bill stipulates that this coordination office should:

• Serve as “the point of contact on Federal engineering biology activities for government organizations, academia, industry, professional societies, State governments, interested citizen groups, and others to exchange technical and programmatic information”;
• Oversee “interagency coordination of the Initiative”; and
• Promote “access to, and early application of, the technologies, innovations, and expertise derived from Initiative activities to agency missions and systems across the Federal Government, and to United States industry, including startup companies.”

A recent bipartisan letter from Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts confirms Congress’s intent that the ICO described in the legislation incorporate the Initiative as described in Executive Order 14081.

An ICO focused on the bioeconomy would be analogous to other congressionally mandated National Coordination Offices that drive effective interagency coordination at OSTP, including those for the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), and the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program. These offices have several features in common, including:

• Support for regular interagency strategic planning and assessment mechanisms, including budget cross-cuts of relevant U.S. government activities;
• A focus on topics related to horizon scanning, technology development, and responsible innovation; and
• Robust outreach and engagement with non-government stakeholders, including industry partners.

Now is the time for OSTP to establish and for Congress to fund a durable and well-staffed Bioeconomy Initiative Coordination Office (BICO) that leads ongoing, strategic, interagency coordination across the government to support the bioeconomy. The BICO should not replace current interagency committees and processes. Instead, it should coordinate bioeconomy-related efforts that reach across multiple domains, ensure a durable and long-term approach to the bioeconomy, and serve as a focal point and doorway for U.S. government engagement with industry, academia, and other stakeholders. 

Plan of Action

OSTP should establish the BICO within the next year. Its focus should be on (1) biomanufacturing, including infrastructure and capacity, pre-competitive industry issues (e.g., standards), and workforce; and (2) development and commercialization of biotechnology products, tools, and capabilities, with a particular focus on those developed for nontherapeutic uses. The interagency committee that drives the BICO should be established under the National Science and Technology Council, should be co-chaired by OSTP and the Department of Commerce, and should include as participants every agency listed in EO 14081, including:

• Department of Agriculture
• Department of Commerce
• Department of Defense
• Department of Energy
• Department of Health and Human Services
• Environmental Protection Agency 
• National Economic Council
• National Science Foundation
• National Security Council
• Office of Management and Budget
• Office of Science and Technology Policy

Congress should provide an appropriation of at least $4 million per year to ensure funding for at least six full-time employees (director, lead for strategic planning and assessment, lead for regulation, lead for safeguarding, outreach coordinator, and administrator), plus office expenses, events, outreach, and other costs. Absent a specific appropriation from Congress, the BICO should follow the funding model of other congressionally mandated coordination offices, including the USGCRP and the NITRD Coordination Office: each participating agency would contribute a small percentage of its total expenditures on biomanufacturing and biotechnologies to support the BICO.

The office should be tasked with:

• Coordinating strategic planning for U.S. government investments in the bioeconomy;
• A “single door approach” for the biotechnology regulatory system that product developers can use to efficiently get actionable answers about their products’ regulatory pathways;
• An interagency process focused on safeguarding the bioeconomy by ensuring that infrastructure and supply chains are secure and reducing the risk that biotechnology tools and capabilities are accidentally or deliberately misused; and
• Extensive public outreach and engagement on these topics that includes academia, industry, nongovernmental organizations, and other bioeconomy stakeholders.

Strategic Planning

To maintain U.S. leadership in the bioeconomy, the federal government has made significant investments in biomanufacturing and biotechnology development over many years, and EO 14081 provided an important step toward a more strategic approach to these investments. However, we need a more robust and ongoing structure that incorporates opportunities for assessment of the rapidly changing bioeconomy and iteration of planning activities. The BICO should coordinate a strategic approach that includes:

• A strategic planning process with regular updates (e.g., every three years) to revisit goals, assess progress, and renew commitments;
• Budget cross-cuts, published annually, that track U.S. government investments in the bioeconomy; and
• A National Bioeconomy Assessment that incorporates advances in biotechnology products, tools, and capabilities; biomanufacturing infrastructure and workforce; and trends in public and private investment. Because the bioeconomy is rapidly changing, this assessment should incorporate a Living Evidence approach that identifies and incorporates relevant updates as they arise.

To generate an accurate National Bioeconomy Assessment and ensure that it captures updated, relevant information, the BICO should actively seek external stakeholder input and engagement that includes academia, industry, manufacturing institutes (such as BioMADE or NIIMBL), state and local governments, nongovernmental organizations, and others. In addition to informing federal investment in the bioeconomy, this ongoing assessment will be valuable for other activities within the BICO by providing insight into the types of novel products that regulators might expect to see and highlighting priority topics for outreach and engagement on safeguarding biotechnology tools and capabilities. If a Living Evidence approach is not feasible, then National Bioeconomy Assessments could be generated in a more traditional format, with publication of updated assessments at regular intervals (e.g., every three years, offset from the strategic planning publication cycle).

A “Single Door Approach” for the Biotechnology Regulatory System

For the bioeconomy to flourish, the biotechnology regulatory system must allow low-risk products to be developed and marketed quickly and efficiently. At the same time, regulatory oversight is essential to identify and limit risks to human health and the environment. The BICO should establish and support a “single door approach” for the biotechnology regulatory system to reduce ambiguities and uncertainties in the system and to better prepare the regulatory agencies for future products. (See FAQs for more information.)

An effective single door approach requires robust interagency coordination that includes OSTP and high-level decision makers from each of the primary regulatory agencies: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Future biotechnology products will include a wide range of applications in the environment, so governmental entities responsible for environmental protection should also be included in this interagency process, including U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service, and the Council on Environmental Quality. These groups have rarely engaged on issues related to the use of genetically engineered organisms in the environment but should prepare for this type of decision-making. Representation in this interagency process should include lawyers from the Offices of the General Counsel of EPA, FDA, and USDA who can work together within a reasonable time frame (e.g., three months) to determine which agency should lead when novel products arise. To support this single door approach, the BICO should:

• Work with the regulatory agencies to establish a method or portal through which product developers can submit information and requests about their products;
• Facilitate interagency meetings and discussion, including with product developers, as needed;
• Track submissions and timelines, work to address bottlenecks to decision-making, and maintain accountability by publishing summaries of decision-making efficiency; and
• Conduct outreach to relevant product developers and industry groups, including a website, to raise awareness and provide information about the regulatory system.

When possible and as experience is gained, the BICO should work with the agencies to distill generalizable principles or summaries of decisions to provide guidance to product developers and the broader bioeconomy on how different types of products are likely to be regulated. 

Safeguarding the Bioeconomy

As the bioeconomy grows, the United States must ensure that its investments are protected and that biotechnology tools and capabilities are not accidentally or intentionally misused. In addition to coordinating discussions among U.S. government agencies on these topics, a key role for the BICO will be to conduct outreach and engagement with the broader bioeconomy community. There are several areas where outreach, particularly to industry partners, will be critical to maintaining U.S. competitiveness and leadership in the bioeconomy. Many industry standards and practices are not well-established, and there are opportunities for the federal government to work with industry partners to protect U.S. assets and keep biomanufacturing and biotechnology development securely within the United States. The BICO, in collaboration with the National Security Council, should facilitate engagement on topics such as:

• Supplies and capabilities that create key bottlenecks for U.S. companies;
• Industry best practices for securing biomanufacturing infrastructure from cyberattacks;
• Industry best practices that enable secure sharing of materials and data between partnering companies or entities, including legal approaches (e.g., contracting and subcontracting arrangements) and technical solutions such as developing standards for APIs (application programming interfaces); and
• How to navigate venture capital interest and investment from other countries, including China, which is particularly difficult for smaller companies and start-ups.

Safeguarding the bioeconomy also requires a process to better understand the potential for accidental or deliberate misuse of biotechnology tools, services, and capabilities to cause harm, and to support development of resources and best practices to reduce these risks. The BICO should develop an engagement strategy that includes opportunities for public discussion of risks related to misuse and strategies to reduce those risks; a publicly accessible portal for experts outside the government to raise concerns or suggest topics for further scrutiny; and a protected venue in which companies can securely share more sensitive information about business products, interactions, or practices. The BICO will maximize the benefit of this forum by conducting outreach and raising awareness of these opportunities, particularly by targeting industry partners. 

Currently, the U.S. government does not have a venue or forum for multi-stakeholder engagement on risks related to potential misuse of biotechnology tools and capabilities. As the bioeconomy grows, a wide range of tools and capabilities will be developed to make biology easier to engineer, including many enabled by artificial intelligence. Accidental or deliberate misuse of these rapidly expanding capabilities could pose risks that will be difficult to anticipate and mitigate. By establishing a process for ongoing and robust engagement to better understand and manage these risks, the BICO can help address these biosecurity needs.

Conclusion

By establishing the BICO as a focal point for coordination among the interagency community and outreach to the broader bioeconomy, OSTP can ensure a long-term and robust U.S. government commitment to biomanufacturing and biotechnology. This commitment includes a strategic approach to investments that can be tracked over time, improvements to the regulatory system that will enable safe and useful products to be more easily commercialized, and activities and engagement to better safeguard advances in the bioeconomy. With appropriate funding, the BICO will form the foundation for a true cross-governmental approach that will ensure U.S. leadership and competitiveness and will ultimately enable the bioeconomy to flourish.

Summary

Law enforcement is a highly visible profession where, without effective training, safety is at risk for both law enforcement officers and community members. Officers regularly respond to calls for service with uncertain risk factors and must balance the work with proactive activities to improve community well-being. Nationally, mandated training hours for new law enforcement officers are consistently less than those required for cosmetology licensure, with training quality and requirements varying significantly by state. Nearly three-quarters of states allow officers to work in a law enforcement function before completing the basic academy. Public trust and safety are placed in the hands of law enforcement officers, even if they lack the training, skills, and knowledge to be successful. Policing practices are regularly shaped by failures shown in national media, yet the shift in practices is rarely institutionalized in basic training practices.

To make communities safer and law enforcement officers more successful, the Biden-Harris Administration should fund research on the effectiveness of law enforcement training and create a national minimum standard for entry-level academy training to further support the Safer American Plan. The 2022 Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing and Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety focuses on strengthening trust between communities and law enforcement officers, including training and equitable policing. The Department of Justice should oversee this research, and the Departments of Homeland Security, Labor, and Commerce can help create national standards and minimum training recommendations. Based on the findings and using pedagogical approaches for the most productive learning, minimum national training standards will be recommended by an interdisciplinary federal task force. Training can be used to compel change in law enforcement, improve community-police relations, and reduce liability while advancing community safety.

Challenge and Opportunity

Law enforcement actions have widespread implications due to the immense power and inherent risks associated with the position. The profession is plagued with complexity and unpredictability, further challenged by extensive discretionary capabilities and varied training requirements. Basic academy training is the foundational coursework for learning about laws and ethics, technical skills relating to actionable law enforcement functions, soft skill development, and honing critical thinking during stressful situations. However, more focus is placed on didactic portions with practical exercises than on cognitive, emotional, and social skills, which can be used to safely de-escalate situations. Even with these known training insufficiencies, academy training topics and hours are rarely updated. Training requirements and pedagogical approaches administered by peace officer standards and training or similar overseeing bodies generally require legislative updates to update curriculum standards, taking significant time and resources to enact change.

Back in 2015, President Obama highlighted the need for training and education in the 21st Century Taskforce on Policing, citing that law enforcement officers (LEOs) are required to be highly skilled in many operational areas to meet the wide variety of challenges and increasing expectations. The Biden-Harris Administration has vowed to advance effective, accountable policing through the Safer America Plan, noting that change at the local and state level requires congressional action. The Safer American Plan would provide funding for 100,000 additional LEOs, all of whom will require training to be effective in their role. Academy training requirements are not regularly collected or monitored at the federal level, and research is not routinely completed to show the efficacy of the training provided. The lack of data on law enforcement actions further complicates the training process, as the time spent during patrol is not regularly cataloged and reviewed to determine where officers spend most of their time. Data showing where officer time is spent can guide training decisions and adjust hours to provide skills for the most commonly utilized skill sets. 

There is no national training standard for LEOs: state requirements vary from 1345 hours in the basic academy in Connecticut to 0 hours in Hawaii. The basic academy provides future LEOs foundational knowledge and skills in law, defensive tactics, report writing, first aid, communication, and other critical skills. The average length of basic training is 833 hours, with an average of 73 hours dedicated to firearm skills and 18 hours to de-escalation techniques. While firearm familiarization and skills are of utmost importance due to the fatal consequences of not understanding the weaponry and one’s ability, the discharge of a firearm occurs significantly less than de-escalation and other communication techniques. When not used regularly, skills become perishable, and the lack of regular training on topics like firearms and traffic stops can reduce an LEO’s efficiency, response time, and safety. The 2022 Executive Order on Advancing Effective, Accountable Policing mandates training federal LEOs with clear guidance on use-of-force standards and implicit bias, but these basic tenets of policing requirements are not extended to state and local law enforcement.

Thirty-seven states allow LEOs to work before they have completed a basic training academy. The time LEOs can work before receiving basic training ranges from 3 months in West Virginia to 24 months in Mississippi. There are obvious dangers to LEOs and the public by providing a uniform and firearm to an untrained person to interact with the community in a position of power. Figure 1 shows the ranges of when the basic academy is required of new LEOs.

With the basic academy averaging 833 hours, or about 21 weeks, it may seem like a sufficient timeframe to train new law enforcement officers. However, it commonly takes at least six months to master a new skill, with the academy requiring many new skills to be developed simultaneously. The minimum basic academy hour requirement in California is 664 hours, though the training is commonly over 1000 hours. By contrast, earning a cosmetology license in California has more extensive hour requirements than the basic police academy, with cosmetology and barber training requiring 1000 hours for state licensure. While injuries can occur in cosmetology, the profession is inherently safer for the practitioner and the client. 

FBI Director Wray noted a 60% increase in murders of law enforcement officers in 2021, explicitly noting that violence against law enforcement officers does not receive as much attention as it should. Of the 245 LEOs who died in the line of duty in 2022, 74 were feloniously killed, up from 48 in 2019. In 2022, 1194 people were killed by LEOs, with 101 people being unarmed. Black people are disproportionately killed by LEOs, at nearly triple the population rate. The statistics of community members killed do not differentiate between legally justified uses of force and illegal actions, so a true picture of potential training concerns versus ethical violations cannot be determined. 

Recognizing the insufficiencies of current LEO training raises opportunities for data-driven improvements. Research is needed to determine the efficacy of the basic academy training in each state, with comparisons made to provide an overall recommendation for minimum national standards. Innovation should be encouraged when developing future training standards, as the basic academy training has not embraced technology or newer learning techniques that may aid in practical decision-making and skill mastery.

Plan of Action

Training can be used to implement vital reforms in law enforcement, potentially saving lives. A multipronged, transparent approach is needed to determine the efficacy of current training before introducing innovation and minimum training standards. Multiple agencies will need to collaborate to complete the evaluation and create recommendations to incorporate inclusive views through multifaceted lenses and coordinate future actions. Transparency of the research and its goals, including making findings available on public-facing websites, is needed for accountability and to foster trust in the process of improving law enforcement. Additional detail of the proposed agencies and their roles is below.

Recommendation 1. Fund research for current LEO training and efficacy

Before overhauling training, data is needed to provide a baseline of training in each state, including its perceived efficacy by stakeholders. The DOJ should create and administer competitive grants to evaluate current training in every state/territory and complete surveys, interviews, and focus groups with stakeholders to determine the impact of training. Use-of-force incidents, accidents, LEO decertification, and other aspects of potential training deficiency should be examined for additional insight into effectiveness. 

Research should also be conducted on fatal and accidental duty-related incidents to determine the human and other contributing factors. Data and trends gained from the research should be incorporated into minimum training standards to reduce future errors. Competitive grants can be provided to evaluate potential root causes of duty-related fatal and accidental deaths.

A key component of the research phase will be bringing the researchers together to discuss findings, regional and national trends, and recommendations. Creating a formal networking  process will allow for best practices to be shared across all states/territories participating and made available to all LEO training commissions. 

Recommendation 2. Spark innovation from adult learning experts and practitioners for LEO training

Through a competitive grant process, the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs can advertise funding opportunities and outline the application process. Grants focusing on practitioners and adult learning experts in collaboration, potentially through practitioner-higher education partnerships, can assist in bringing the necessary experience from the field and adult learning. Curriculum designers should consider immersive or simulation training experiences and the use of technology in training. In addition, they should consider redesigning the rigid paramilitary format to encourage LEOs to utilize critical thinking skills, improve adaptability, and hone communication skills. Using Challenge.gov can also provide additional insights from the community. 

Recommendation 3. Create national minimum standards for LEO basic academy training

Using the recommendations from the state law enforcement training researchers, the fatality factor researchers, practitioner and adult learner experts, FLETC, and DOL, a compilation of recommendations from NIST, DOJ, DHS, DOC, and DOL of national minimal standards should be completed. Requirements for academy instructors will also need to be established, including training program requirements and regular reviews of their performance and impact. NIST will use the information gathered, including contemporary training topics and a focus on adult learning techniques, and create a draft standard. The research teams and the public will have an opportunity to comment on the draft standards, then NIST will adjudicate the comments before sending the standards to an SDO for additional feedback for a quality, peer review. 

The DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs will offer grants to all interested state LEO training bodies to adhere to the national minimum standard, with funding for planning, Implementation, and evaluation of the project. Grants should require a three-year timeline for implementation to ensure trainees receive training before their first day on the streets and the basic academy meets the minimum national requirements.

Recommendation 4. Evaluate curricula changes with environmental changes

Grant funding for the planning and implementation should extend an additional two years for the evaluation component. Evaluators chosen during the grant process can review how well training adheres to the national standards across all academies in the state, LEO feelings of preparedness upon graduation and quarterly after that for up to two years, and supervisor/administrator feedback on LEO performance after the academy. Deidentified records of unjustified use-of-force, decertification, and criminal actions can be reviewed for additional insight into the effectiveness of the basic academy training.

An overall program evaluation will be needed, including reviewing the state evaluations and the overall administration of the project. The grant can be open to one organization or multiple organizations with the selection and funding provided by DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs. Competitive grant funding for up to $5 million should be awarded for the six-to-eight-year evaluation.

Budget Proposal

A budget of $125 million is proposed to evaluate current LEO training, develop minimum requirements, and evaluate the implementation. The primary research of determining current LEO basic academy training and efficacy requires $500,000 for one researcher/research group per state/territory, totaling $28 million.

For the adult learning and practitioner component, competitive grants for up to 10 collaborations should receive up to $300,000 each, totaling $3 million. FLETC and DOL can be funded for their participation in the minimum standard creation at $1 million each, totaling $2 million. 

Each state LEO training commission should be eligible to receive up to $2 million each to plan, implement, and evaluate the minimum training standards. If all states/territories participate, the funding will total $112 million.

An evaluation of the entire program will be conducted for $5 million for six to eight years of expected evaluative work. The final report will be provided to the DOJ to determine if performance metrics were met. 

Conclusion

The national LEO training standard is meant to be the floor of training for states and does not remove the oversight of state peace officer training commissions. Every LEO should go through a basic academy and field training before serving the community to ensure they can be safe and effective in their roles. Developing innovating training techniques can help increase skills and understanding of vital topics while refining critical thinking skills in high-stress situations. Minimum training standards can improve safety for the public and first responders, reduce ethical and criminal violations by LEOs, and assist in repairing community-police relationships.

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration has consistently prioritized consumer protection, invigorating rural communities and natural technologies that address climate change. These three priorities are embodied in this proposal and present an opportunity for a bipartisan win-win. Agriculture directly connects rural Americans with urban ones and is central to practical climate solutions. But as biotechnology advances, consumers face a myriad of new ingredients and labels to parse through at the supermarket. These labels, including ‘organic’ and ‘non-GMO,’ can often be confusing. There are competing views about the proper regulatory framework that will provide the highest nutrition to the most citizens at the lowest possible cost while respecting the environment. Comprehensive food labeling regulation reform can help consumers avoid deceptive marketing and allow farmers and grocers to compete fairly. In addition, it can be a tool to leverage the marketplace to implement climate-friendly solutions.

There are two possible approaches to implementing this reform: The best alternative would be to pass legislation that expands the BE labeling program, enhancing the labeling authority of USDA, strengthening Truth-in-Advertising laws, and providing a legal framework to address misleading claims across Federal agencies. Alternatively, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is already empowered to enforce existing Truth-in-Advertising laws. It can use this authority to reinforce the USDA’s existing labeling programs to ensure that consumer information aligns with scientific evidence. 

Challenge and Opportunity

In the past 50 years, the idea of “health foods” has gone mainstream. Despite the lack of hard scientific evidence, the term has morphed from denoting foods that help individuals avoid diet-related diseases to marketing foods that claim to help every American live healthier. This change in the market has also generated healthy profit margins for certain grocery retailers.¹ But the distinction is more than marketing—most physicians now agree that there is a strong relationship between diet and disease based on scientific evidence. For example, scientific communities agree that specific ingredients like saturated fats can affect health. To ensure consumers can make informed choices about these ingredients, their presence is explicitly listed on the FDA’s nutrition labels.

Unfortunately, the zealous proponents of health foods have gone beyond advocacy of ingredients the medical establishment deems “healthy.” Foods whose heritage can be traced to intentional genetic modification in a modern laboratory are ominously labeled as “genetically modified organisms” (GMOs). Although this label has taken on a negative connotation, it’s simply a descriptor and, by itself, cannot convey whether or not a product is “healthy.” Such labeling is like singling out children born using modern in vitro fertilization and treating them differently than children conceived “naturally”! Conflating the nutritional composition of food with its genetic heritage allows marketers to extract a premium for foods labeled “non-GMO” while failing to acknowledge the actual health benefits of some GMOs.

In 2016, Congress established the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (NBFDS), a US federal law that mandates “BE” labeling for bioengineered foods. These foods contain genetic material not accessible via breeding, added using in vitro recombinant DNA techniques. This law empowers USDA to specify whether ingredients should be labeled BE depending on their supply chains and to define analytical tests that establish whether labeling is necessary. These analytical tests allow the agency to define bioengineered products precisely. While GMO and BE foods may overlap, the two labels are inconsistent and have different criteria specified by different organizations. 

Science has weighed in on GMO/BE foods, and numerous studies have shown no health risks associated with the consumption of GMO/BE foods.² Indeed, bioengineering improves the nutritional content of some foods. For example, low linoleic acid canola oil has less trans-fat, a dietary component associated with increased rates of heart disease. In such cases, the nutritional differences are reflected on food labels following FDA guidelines. In addition, bioengineering can reduce the number of agricultural chemicals needed to prevent spoilage, eliminating potentially toxic residues and food waste. But marketers of “health(y) foods” have spent millions to support “non-GMO” labels that are unrelated to health while continuing to sow irrational fears to help maintain their margins.

To make matters worse, marketers have added to the confusion by labeling certain foods with another vague descriptor, “organic”. Organic farming is a cultivation practice that avoids synthetic pesticides and artificial fertilizers. It is how the crops are grown, not what. But even the USDA’s National Organic Program (65 FR 80547. 12/21/2000)³ conflates the two, specifying that even animals fed with GMO feed cannot be labeled USDA Organic! From a scientific perspective, it is inaccurate to consider any GMO an “ingredient” because the genes themselves are present in minuscule amounts and can be fully digested. The changes are in the code, not the composition. They are made up of natural building blocks, as are the proteins produced.

Further, because farm animals digest food to these components, any “pass-through” of GMO characteristics would require extraordinary proof. While it is impossible to prove a negative, there is no evidence of adverse consumer reactions (even among those with severe food allergies) to GMOs themselves. For this reason, USDA’s BE designation expressly excludes animals fed with bioengineered foods (NBFDS, Sec 293(a)(2)(A)]. The current regulatory regime around bioengineered foods, organic farming, and GMOs is inconsistent and requires reform. Consumers deserve objective and relevant information about the foods they consume, but current sources of information can be inaccurate or incomplete.. As consumers have become more health- and origin-conscious, corporations have seized on this awareness to promote their products. Unfortunately, health(y) food marketers often use scientifically tenuous and potentially deceptive labels. Corporations fund academic researchers and non-governmental organizations to conduct independent research to legitimize these marketing messages, often as philanthropic, tax-advantaged donations.

While such funding is not necessarily nefarious, it can confuse consumers and undermine more trusted and objective sources of nutrition information – federal agencies. The Government’s responsibility is to provide accurate ratings that support fact-based competition. Free and fair competition in the marketplace has long been the objective of Federal regulations. While corporations should be allowed to differentiate their goods in the eye of the consumer, they shouldn’t be allowed to instill irrational fear of health hazards lacking robust scientific support. This is not unique to the agricultural industry – in fact, it is the core of the regulatory framework for pharmaceuticals.

Corporations currently exploit the hodgepodge rating system, but it can be improved through Government regulation. As shown in the figure, surveys show that U. S. consumers trust Government ratings more than any other source except for “experts” and find such ratings to be more understandable, particularly in contrast to those expressed by experts.

There is an opportunity for regulatory improvement in the food labeling space, both legislatively and through executive action. Because USDA labeling covers agricultural food sources (including Bio-Engineered and Organic labels), adding a non-Bio Engineered label would further enable consumers to make an informed choice. The dissonance between BE and USDA Organic labels should also be resolved by removing the prohibition on using BE/GMO sources as a condition of Organic labeling. However, this is an issue that must be corrected legislatively.

Furthermore, because of the significant market advantages gained through advertising unsubstantiated health claims, market players have taken to the courts, where dozens of lawsuits have been filed against USDA, attempting to force the Department’s labels to support spurious health claims due to ambiguities in the legal definitions of both “organic” and “bioengineered”. Affirming that USDA is empowered by statute to determine specific criteria for its own labels when legislative language is ambiguous will help negate any claims to the contrary. 

Plan of Action

Food labeling is central to the flow of accurate and unbiased information from farm to table. Currently, two primary agencies are responsible for food labeling, USDA and FDA (under HHS), and one agency is responsible for truth in advertising, FTC (under Commerce). These responsibilities are split: USDA covers farm products, FDA covers nutrition, and FTC prosecutes false advertising. The recommended actions below will improve coordination among these agencies, produce a more uniform response to labeling issues, and increase consumer confidence in and knowledge of the food they purchase.

Because food labels are often relied upon during a purchase decision in the grocery aisle, the Bioengineered Food Labeling Standard established in 2016⁴ and mandated in 2022⁵ should be strengthened. Specifically:

Congress should pass legislation removing redundancy in USDA’s Organic and BE labeling requirements. 

Although this may be a more long-term solution, the current regulatory regime is confusing and conflates agricultural methods with content. Congress should take up this issue in future Farm Bills and appropriations cycles and develop clear, mutually exclusive legal definitions. This will create more transparent labels for consumers and lead to more explicit decisions by the judiciary in marketing lawsuits. 

USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service should certify a non-Bioengineered label. 

AMS currently oversees the assignment of BE labels. Through independent laboratory analysis, the agency should also offer a service to firms to certify a non-BE label, using the NBFLS criteria. USDA already has analytical laboratories and staff conducting spot inspections of meat producers. These capabilities could be leveraged to confirm a non-BE label. In addition, producers who wish to label their goods as “non-BE” would be willing to pay an evaluation fee comparable to fees paid to non-governmental certification agencies, so the budgetary impact should be minimal. Alternatively, because the NBFLS establishes methods that can be performed in certified testing facilities, USDA’s resources could be deployed to spot-check the claims. Further, because non-BE labeling would not be mandatory, producers can choose to remain silent on the content of their goods if their bioengineered content is unknown.

Any ingredients with known health benefits should appear on the FDA nutrition label, and any marketer that uses either Organic or non-GMO labeling without adhering to USDA’s authorities should be prosecuted for false advertising.

For budgetary purposes, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and its Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) are allocated approximately $1.7B and $1B, respectively. Additional staffing needs would likely be minimal because spot inspections of manufacturing facilities are already part of their routine.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) should increase enforcement of ‘Truth-in-Advertising’ regulations to prosecute improperly labeled Organic or non-GMO foods. 

Another angle agencies could take to support a more coordinated approach to consumer protections is through prosecution of improperly labeled Organic or non-GMO foods. While USDA would maintain the responsibility of conducting spot inspections, the FTC would be responsible for enforcing any transgressions through False Advertising Laws.⁶ 

There is already precedent for this type of enforcement. Between 2003 and 2010, FTC successfully removed spurious health claims made by POM Wonderful, a marketer of pomegranate juice and related products, despite a vigorous appeal mounted by the company. While this example rejected false advertising based on specific health claims, it could also be extended to false advertising based on general health claims.

Conclusion

This proposal presents a more coordinated framework for food labeling regulations and would have wide-ranging effects. Among the stakeholders are farmers (both large and small), national grocery chains, food processing companies, agricultural biotechnology companies (particularly those that use laboratory-derived technologies that do not result in a “Bio-Engineered” label), and alternative protein companies that create consumer goods using processes developed in laboratories (e.g., Impossible Foods). In addition, various organizations, such as the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), have filed amicus briefs in lawsuits that target USDA labeling. There is significant interest in improving the current system.

In addition to providing the protection that consumers deserve, this proposal has health and climate impacts. Nutrition and health are tightly linked, and consumers know for themselves what foods are likely to aggravate their health outcomes. Accurate labeling empowers consumers to decide for themselves about their individual needs, to the extent that consumers believe that non-BE foods are more nutritious. Constraining both seed and method to organic, non-GMO can have a demonstrable negative impact on the climate mitigation capabilities of agricultural practices.

As suggested above, language suggesting that using seeds descended from laboratory methods of genetic modification anywhere in the chain precludes organic production methods should be eliminated. This can be more accurately communicated using two different labeling permutations, “organic & BE” and “organic & non-BE.”

Summary

Untreated substance use disorders (SUDs) are common among those who pass through the criminal justice system. At both the state and federal levels, re-entry into communities is a critical time period for these individuals. Preventing opioid relapse and potential overdose post-release can prevent recidivism, and improve an individual’s life after time in jail. Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorders (OUDs) can help some sustain recovery. However, there are many barriers that interfere with the distribution of medication: cost, accessibility, and distribution are difficult to overcome, along with a lack of professionals trained to prescribe medication for OUDs.

To address this facet of the growing opioid crisis, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) should facilitate the accessibility for medications for OUDs (MOUDs) and train professionals to prescribe MOUDs. Additionally, incarcerated individuals with an OUD should have intensive case management that continues through reintegration into society. Finally, Medicare coverage should be available in order to continue treatment and support successful reentry into their community. Together, these will help reduce risks of recidivism, opioid-related relapse, and overdoses during reintegration back into their community.

Challenge and Opportunity

Approximately 65% of the United States prison population has a substance use disorder. An estimated 17% of those detained in state and federal prisons who meet the criteria for substance use disorder have an opioid use disorder specifically. Repeated drug usage causes a person to grow physiologically reliant on the drug, requiring more to have the desired effect, known as increasing tolerance. Individuals with an OUD lose their tolerance to the drug while incarcerated, which sets them at a greater risk of overdose mortality upon release. The risk of mortality from a lethal overdose is more than 12 times greater than that of another person within two weeks of being released from jail or prison. A meta-analysis determined that MOUDs during incarceration increased post-release treatment involvement and reduced opioid use post-release. Similarly, a randomized control trial at a Baltimore pre-release prison setting, showed that those who began methadone therapy and counseling while in prison were more likely to continue treatment post-release. They also had reduced rates of opioid use re-offending over the course of six months compared to those who received counseling only.

Methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone are MOUDs that have been authorized by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of OUDs. Research on the utilization of MOUD has demonstrated to be an effective treatment, specifically with methadone and buprenorphine. However, the distribution amount of MOUDs in the criminal justice system settings is low: only 3.6% of incarcerated individuals with OUD across the United States were prescribed and administered buprenorphine. According to the Pew Charitable Trusts and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), just 14 states administered at least one MOUD, 39 states provided naltrexone in jail or prison settings, and only one state (Rhode Island) provided all three MOUDs. Increasing the percentage of MOUD administration in carceral settings and after release across the United States is critical in order to reduce opioid overdose deaths. 

Rhode Island’s Approach to Opioid Use Disorder Treatment

The Rhode Island Department of Corrections (RIDC) is the first correctional system to launch an extensive program to screen individuals for an OUD upon entry, offer all three MOUDs to eligible incarcerated individuals, and continue with treatment post-release. The RIDC MAT program provides incarcerated individuals with access to MOUDs, and counseling during incarceration. RIDC MAT also provides linkage to care after release through a partnered non-profit organization, Community Organization for Drug Abuse Control (CODAC) Behavioral Healthcare. Together, RIDC and CODAC have established a successful pipeline for the continuation of MAT post-incarceration. Prior to an individual’s release date, CODAC develops a re-entry strategy with the assistance of case management and care providers. As a result, Rhode Island’s statewide overdose fatalities decreased by 12% in the first year of this program’s adoption, while post-incarceration overdose deaths decreased by 61%. A decrease in mortality rates related to opioid overdose post incarceration allows approximately $7,300 more in personal income per individual’s extended years of life. Other states have turned to Rhode Island’s MAT program to learn from and advocate for incarcerated individuals in order to treat OUDs during and after incarceration, and help reduce recidivism. 

Challenges for Implementation

Despite these strong results, challenges remain. 

Opioid use treatment and services are covered by health insurances under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) of 2008. However, incarcerated individual healthcare coverage is entirely operated by the state, which contributes to the above mentioned disparities in drug therapeutic access and counseling–but only while incarcerated. As individuals transition back into society, if they do not have health insurance to pay for their MOUDs or other rehabilitation treatments, they lose treatment, and experience an increased likelihood of relapse. 

The Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy under the Social Security Act prevents and prohibits Medicaid coverage while incarcerated, making it difficult for formerly incarcerated individuals to acquire healthcare upon release, and thus access MOUDs. The majority of these individuals qualify for Medicaid upon release since they are low-income and fall below the federal poverty line. In 2018, Congress provided waiver opportunities for CMS to connect individuals who were recently released from jail/prison to healthcare across the states, but not federally. 

Medicaid Section 1115 Waivers

To combat this gap, states are waiving the Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy to provide Medicaid coverage for incarcerated individuals upon release by filing Section 1115 waivers. A section 1115 waiver is a provision within the Social Security Act that grants the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to waive specific requirements within the Medicaid program. Section 1115 waivers offer states the flexibility to design and implement innovative approaches to enhance access to healthcare. To obtain approval, states must submit proposals outlining their proposed changes and demonstrate that the waiver will not increase federal government expenditures over the waiver period. Once approved, the waiver permits the states to operate the Medicaid program with modified, exempted, or alternative requirements. For instance, Section 1115 waivers from New Hampshire and Utah were approved, enabling the expansion of healthcare coverage to incarcerated individuals. Under the waiver, incarcerated individuals are granted full Medicaid coverage for care coordination and provider services, which commences approximately one month prior to their release. 

Plan of Action

The Biden Administration has urged states to submit Section 1115 waivers to propose options for expanding coverage in order to reduce health disparities, remove barriers to MOUDs treatment access, and find long-term solutions to OUDs issues. It is imperative that the federal government prioritize reducing relapse, and opioid overdose mortality rates during incarceration and post-release in order to reduce recidivism. The DOJ, CMS, and SAMHSA should collaborate to develop a pipeline that expands training across professionals, have MOUDs more accessible to correctional facilities, and have healthcare coverage post-release.

Recommendation 1. Compare and contrast the Section 1115 waivers submitted by states to encourage and detail advantages to the remaining states. 

A root of the issue is the failure to provide pre-release healthcare coverage to incarcerated individuals in order for them to continue having coverage post-release. Hence, increasing the access to healthcare post-release by states applying for Section 1115 waivers to propose measures and assist incarcerated individuals in obtaining healthcare coverage is important. Currently 35 states have filed approved Section 1115 waivers. Collecting data on these states would provide insight into how these waivers reduce recidivism and overdose rates. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) should issue an open call for evidence synthesis to delve into the impacts of Section 1115 waivers. By doing so, AHRQ would aim to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the impacts and outcomes from the implementation of Section 1115 waivers. This initiative would contribute to evidence-based decision-making and further enhance the understanding of the implication of Section 1115 waivers on healthcare. Examples of data collection that could be obtained to assess the success of Medicaid resources are: 

1. Overdose mortality rates between those who have Medicaid and those who do not 
2. Post-release drug-related opioid reoffending
3. Economic impact such as quality-adjusted life years gained. 

Once the data has been gathered, it is essential that the dataset is made publicly accessible to researchers. The dataset can be published on the CMS data website, enabling widespread access and utilization for researchers. This accessibility will allow researchers to examine the significance of reducing overdose-related fatalities after incarceration and assess how the expansion of Section 1115 waivers could contribute to achieve this reduction. 

Recommendation 2. Increase opioid treatment program accessibility during and after incarceration.

Rhode Island’s MAT program has shown to be effective in reducing opioid overdose deaths. A replica of the Rhode Island program has improved OUD treatment to reduce opioid related relapses and death in a correctional facility in Massachusetts. In order to provide intensive case management when individuals come into contact with the criminal justice system and adequately rehabilitate them, correctional facilities should use a method similar to that used by Rhode Island’s Department of Corrections MAT program. Since correctional facilities and licensed professionals must be accredited by the DEA and SAMHSA to provide MOUDs, individuals will have the opportunity to have access to MOUDs at Opioid treatment programs (OTPs) during and after incarceration who are certified. Thus, the DOJ and SAMHSA should collaborate with CODAC and similar organizations to increase OTP accessibility across correctional facilities during and after incarceration. These organizations can assist with creating a re-entry treatment plan during incarceration and continue after release. Incarcerated individuals will have access to MOUDs at OTPs as well as counseling. This aims to increase accessibility to MOUDs, licensed therapists, and medical doctors.

Recommendation 3. Intensive case management during incarceration should continue when reintegrating back into the community. 

The DOJ, CMS and OTPs should further collaborate to establish a pipeline that aids individuals to combat OUDs. Currently, upon release, formerly incarcerated individuals’ MOUD treatment is terminated and they do not have access to treatment unless they are referred to a rehabilitation center or seen by a licensed professional. The first two weeks after release are crucial because there is a higher risk of relapsing. Thus, it is essential for correctional facilities to assist incarcerated individuals to apply for Medicaid within a few months of release to access  MOUDs and therapy. Medicaid would cover MOUD costs and counseling services at OTPs or similar organizations. MOUD treatment should be administered during prison in order to commence proper rehabilitation, whether that is at a correctional facility or an OTP. Subsequently, continuing their pharmacological treatment in parallel with counseling post-release reduces relapse, withdrawal symptoms, and overdose deaths. This aims to expand access while in a correctional facility and continue treatment post-release to reduce opioid mortality rates.

Conclusion

Opioid relapses and overdoses following imprisonment have escalated significantly, accelerating the chance of overdose mortality. Incarcerated individuals with an OUD should get comprehensive case management while incarcerated that continues as they reintegrate into their communities. However, the Social Security Act prevents incarcerated individuals from receiving Medicaid coverage while incarcerated. Implementing these measures will decrease overdose mortality rates, risk of relapse, and reduce recidivism.

Summary 

Wildfires are burning in ways that surprise even seasoned firefighters. Our current models cannot predict this extreme fire behavior—nor can they reproduce recent catastrophic wildfires, making them likely to fail at predicting future wildfires or determining when it is safe to light prescribed fires. 

To better prepare the fire management community to operate in a new climate, Congress should establish and fund five regional centers of excellence (CoE) to develop, maintain, and operate next-generation fire and vegetation models to support wildland fire planning and management. Developing five regional CoEs (Southeast, Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, Northern/Central Rockies) will ensure that researchers pursue a range of approaches that will ultimately lead to better models for predicting future wildfire behavior, improving our ability to safeguard human lives, communities, and ecosystems.

Challenge and Opportunity

In the decade ending in 2021, total federal wildfire suppression expenditures surpassed $23 billion, which is a fraction of the total costs of damages from wildfire over that period. For example, the 2018 wildfires in California are estimated to have amounted to $148.5 billion in economic costs for the state. The costs of suppressing fire, and the societal and natural resources costs of extreme wildfire, will continue to increase with increasing temperatures. 

Fewer than 2% of ignitions become large wildfires, but it is this 2% that cause most of the damage because they are burning under extreme conditions. The area of forests burned by wildfire annually in the western United States has been increasing exponentially since 1984. While the number of ignitions remains relatively constant from year to year, climate change is drying fuels and making forests more flammable. As a result, no matter how much money we spend on wildfire suppression, we will not be able to stop increasingly extreme wildfires. Thus, we need to better understand where the risks lie on our landscapes and work proactively to reduce them. 

When vegetation—especially dead vegetation—is subjected to high temperatures, any moisture absorbed during the winter months quickly evaporates. As a result, increasingly hot summers are making our forests more flammable. Live vegetation moisture content does not react as quickly as dead vegetation, but sharp increases in air temperature when conditions are dry can make live plants more flammable as well. While this relationship between temperature and ecosystem flammability has remained consistent over time, until the past decade we had not reached a level of warming that dried ecosystems sufficiently to allow for consistent extreme fire behavior. This is in part because large dead fuels, such as dead trees and logs, did not dry sufficiently to become flammable for the majority of the fire season until recently. 

Our current operational models for simulating wildfire and vegetation are incapable of reproducing the extreme fire behavior and rapid ecosystem change that we are now experiencing. Forest growth-and-yield models, such as the Forest Vegetation Simulator, used by managers have served them well for decades. However, because they are built using statistical relationships between past tree growth and climate, they are incapable of capturing the effects of changing climate, especially extreme events, on tree growth and mortality. Similarly, our operational fire models, such as FARSITE, that are used for both management planning and simulating fire spread to plan fire suppression activities are not designed to deal with the substantial ecosystem changes that are occurring from climate change. These fire models have served us well in the past, but increasing temperature and a drying atmosphere are causing conditions that far exceed the data used to build these models. 

For example, our current operational fire models do not account for large dead trees and logs and how they contribute to fire spread or for the way fire behaves in the wildland–urban interface. Yet wildfires are increasingly burning through communities, and the number of dead trees and logs is increasing because of drought- and insect-induced tree mortality and is increasingly available to burn because of high temperatures. The 2020 Creek Fire in the Sierra Nevada, California, burned through an area of extensive tree mortality from prolonged drought and insect outbreaks. The operational fire spread model ELMFIRE, which is used to predict fire spread of active wildfires, was unable to predict the mass fire behavior created by the massive number of dead trees.

Managing wildfire risk both prior to and during wildfires requires advanced models that are able to account for changing climatic conditions. We need new wildfire models that account for the increasing fuel dryness that facilitates extreme fire behavior, and we need new vegetation models that account for the effects of extreme drought and temperature on vegetation mortality. The research and development necessary to prepare us for our increasingly flammable world requires both fundamental and applied research, neither of which is sufficient on its own. 

Further, we need to ensure that we commit to maintaining these models as the climate continues to change so that we do not create another tool that fails to serve us well within a decade or two. As the climate continues to change, these next-generation fire and vegetation models will be challenged with novel conditions that require continuous efforts to ensure they are capable of capturing the dynamics of the system. In addition, we must ensure that the mechanistic understanding of the system that develops is applied to supporting fire and vegetation management decision-making. This will require ongoing experimentation and observations of actual wildfire behavior, along with extensive data collection to characterize how quickly the flammability of the system changes as a function of vegetation type and weather conditions. 

Developing these next-generation models is necessary for both fire suppression and management planning. Incident command teams rely on fire spread models to help plan suppression efforts for active wildfires, and thus having better predictions of fire spread is essential for effective operations and firefighter safety. Likewise, planning forest treatments that are effective for reducing the risk of high-severity wildfire under extreme weather conditions requires better vegetation and fire models that can capture the influence of changing climate on the probability that high-severity wildfire occurs. 

Plan of Action

Developing and future-proofing next-generation fire and vegetation models will require new and sustained investment. Further, we must accept that these advanced models will require a level of expertise to operate that we cannot expect from a land manager trained in natural resource management, requiring that we fund expert model users to support management planning and suppression efforts. 

As with all research and development, there are many possible pathways. Regional differences in weather, vegetation, and management history will alter climate effects on vegetation growth, mortality, and flammability. Similar to the Manhattan Project approach of simultaneously pursuing two different ignition systems when there was more than one potential viable alternative, we lack the necessary understanding to pick a “winning” model at this point. 

To account for regional differences in vegetation and the research momentum that is developing in different nascent modeling approaches, an effective and robust federal investment would entail the following actions. 

Recommendation 1. Congress should establish and fund five centers of excellence housed at academic institutions in the Southeast, Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, and Northern/Central Rockies to develop and maintain next-generation fire and vegetation models that are capable of modeling extreme fire behavior and can be operationalized to support planning for wildfire and vegetation management and to support wildfire suppression. 

Establishing five centers with this geographic distribution will allow for investigation into the forest types where the majority of wildfire area occurs and will capture the range of climatic conditions under which wildfires are occurring. It will also take advantage of past and ongoing regional research efforts that will form the information foundation for each center. While these centers should have largely independent research programs, it will be necessary to coordinate some large-scale experimentation and to ensure that research findings and advances are shared rapidly. To achieve these objectives, one center should be selected to act as the coordinating center for the network. 

Recommendation 2. Congress should require institutional partnerships between the host institutions and federal research institutions (e.g., U.S. Forest Service Research and Development, Department of Energy National Labs, U.S. Geological Survey, etc.). 

We are currently in an all-hands-on-deck situation in the fire and fuels research community, and we need to operate in a collaborative and regionally coordinated manner. Requiring partnerships between the academic centers of excellence and federal research facilities within each region will ensure that effort is not duplicated and a wider range of expertise. For example, efforts are under way at federal research facilities that could be integrated within the regional fire centers. The integration will ensure collaboration between academic and federal partners and allow for the overall research effort to draw on the strengths of these different types of institutions. 

Recommendation 3. Congress should mandate and fund the centers to operate these next-generation models and support wildfire and vegetation management planning and operations. 

To date, we have relied on fire and vegetation models developed by the research community to use data collected by fire and forest managers and packaged so that natural resource professionals can operate the models. Both of these constraints have contributed to the limitations of our current suite of models. We can no longer afford the limitations imposed by expectations on the research community to develop models that a natural resource professional can run on a desktop computer. Accounting for a range of factors, such as how changing climatic conditions will directly change the amount of fuel on the landscape and also for how short-term changes in weather will interact with longer-term changes in climate and influence fuel moisture, requires a more sophisticated approach to simulating the system than is necessarily accessible to a non-expert user. Expecting a natural resource professional to use an advanced coupled atmosphere-biosphere fire model would be like teaching someone how to balance their checkbook and then expecting them to calculate exactly how much they need to save every week for retirement. Further, important feedback to model improvement will come from repeated application by expert model users. To deploy next-generation fire and vegetation models in a manner that will effectively support fire and natural resource management decision-making, each center will employ experts who will work collaboratively with managers in response to their requests to run simulations for pre-fire management and suppression operations planning.

Recommendation 4. Congress should mandate the creation of strategic plans to support implementation and coordination across centers. 

Each center will develop a five-year strategic plan to guide its research and development efforts. Following strategic plan development, representatives from the five centers will convene to determine necessary coordinated experimentation and implementation plans to facilitate coordinated efforts. The coordinating center will hold biannual leadership meetings to ensure data and information flow and identify additional opportunities for collaboration among individual centers. 

Conclusion 

Establishing five centers of excellence to develop, maintain, and operate next-generation models will cost approximately $26 million per year, which is less than 1% of the 2021 federal wildfire suppression expenditure. This level of funding would provide $5 million per year per center (plus an additional $1 million per year for the coordinating center). The annual budgets would fund staff scientist and research assistant positions, provide support for the experiments necessary to develop and parameterize new models, provide computing resources for computationally sophisticated models, and fund staff analysts to run the models in support of managers. Initially, the majority of the annual appropriation would be focused on model development, transitioning to maintaining and operating the models to support land management as the technology matures. 

The centers could be supported through National Science Foundation (NSF) funding. NSF could provide financial support for five university host institutions (one in each region) selected through a competitive bidding process. In turn, these university host institutions can manage the required federal partnerships. Selection of university host institutions could be based in part on demonstrated capacity to manage successful partnerships with federal institutions. 

It is imperative that we invest in new models that will support more effective mitigation to reduce wildfire severity, otherwise spending on suppression will continue to balloon despite improved fire intelligence.

Preamble: The Why, What, And How Of This Guide

“Data is like garbage. You better know what you are going to do with it before you collect it.”

-Mark Twain

Purposes, Intended Uses, and Scope

Purposes. Data Governance is an important, complicated consideration in the modern era of local governments. As cities and counties (each sometimes hereinafter referred to as a “Jurisdiction”) discover ways to use, retain, and organize data, it is imperative to learn from one another as we consider the complex nature of governance.  Sharing effective approaches to policy development and implementation tools in a “community of practice” manner, as envisioned in the formation of the MetroLab Network Data Governance Task Force that produced this document, enhances the ability of local governments to both use data to provide increasingly efficient and beneficial public services, and to protect the public and mitigate risks of misuses of data.

Intended Uses. This Policy and Practice Guide (the “Guide”) is intended  to be several things:

1. A useful tool for practitioners, co-developed by practitioners (with the guidance and input of expertise from individuals from academia and other organizations with relevant expertise). 
2. A living guide housed on the MetroLab Network website, and curated, updated, and refined there through a multi-functional online platform to help local governments as they keep pace with rapidly evolving Data collection and dissemination technologies and other changes in circumstance.
3. A reminder of several legal considerations that permeate Data Governance—while a few lawyers were involved in this project, it is incumbent upon us to tell you that this is not legal advice, and the local governments should of course obtain legal advice from their attorneys on legal issues affecting Data governance policies and practices. 

Scope. The suggested governance approaches in this Guide are for Data that is owned or in possession of a municipality—this includes Data that the Jurisdiction directly collects, or Data received by a local government intentionally (i.e., the local government has contracted with a third party or is working with a third party on a project/pilot, such as a grant). While this Guide addresses a wide range of local government interactions with such Data internally and externally, it does not include governance approaches or specific policy considerations or recommendations on issues of surveillance or uses of artificial intelligence.

A Note on Maturity Levels: We recognize that cities and counties are at different levels of established processes with respect to Data Governance. We have included the full gamut of recommended policies. This Guide includes resources and recommendations for varied maturity levels and the website search tools will be maintained in a way designed to help users at varying stages in their Data Governance journeys navigate to the resources most pertinent to their needs and circumstances. 

Simply put: got data? Use whatever portions of this Guide fit well with your needs and circumstances!

Data Ethics and Data Empowerment

We would like to highlight the ethos of this collaborative group of practitioners and Data Governance subject matter experts. First, what drives much of our passion and curiosity to ensure a proper governance structure is our sense of obligation to protect and provide for residents. Data is a powerful tool, a tool that is required to provide services for everyday necessities like water, electricity, and food stamps. Therefore, it is incumbent upon local governments (and other levels of government alike) to protect and take care of people’s information. And while Data is something to protect, it is also something that can unlock answers to complicated challenges and improve local government services. Thus, we also wish to advocate for its (proper) use. Data is also a powerful tool for good. The combined importance of those two themes is the “why” behind the publication of this Guide. Local governments have a moral obligation to protect individual Data, and an obligation to use it to hold it accountable as a service provider. We know both can and should coexist.

Project History and Methodologies

Project History

Origin. Students and faculty in an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional projects-based, graduate-level civic and social entrepreneurship course at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) developed a Draft Model Data Handling Policy (“Draft Data Handling Policy”) in collaboration with personnel in Kansas City, MO city government and in Kansas City, KS/Unified Government of Wyandotte County, and other individuals.¹  Many elements of that document reflected: (i) studies of data-related and “Internet of Things” (IOT) policies or guidelines in various cities in the U.S. and some in other countries, many of which were “Open Data Portal” policies; (ii) research on several issues presented by municipal data initiatives; and (iii) review of a sampling of data sharing agreements that some cities had entered into with for-profit companies and other organizations in varying contexts. 

MetroLab Network Vetting of Draft Data Handling Policy.  The Draft Data Handling Policy was vetted at a Roundtable Session at the September 2019 MetroLab Network Summit held in Boulder, CO. That session validated the proposition that many local governments were in the process of developing or were interested in developing relatively comprehensive Data Governance policies with wider scope than seen in Open Data Portal policies. It also provided great feedback and suggestions for a next iteration of that draft document that would, among other things, have more practice tools, be less “prescriptive,” and offer options for local governments at varying levels of maturity in their data collection, data security and data sharing activities and processes. Following up on the Boulder session, a call for collaborators from across the United States to participate, with MetroLab network assistance, in the co-development of the next iteration of the Draft Data Handing Policy, as described in an April 2020 article in the online GovTech publication.²

2022 Formation of the MetroLab Network Data Governance Task Force.  After a hiatus occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, in the winter and spring of 2022 UMKC Professor Tony Luppino renewed the call for collaborators to build on an April 2020 version of the Draft Data Handling Policy and organized an initial co-working group for its next iteration. At a Roundtable Session at the MetroLab Networks Summit in Chicago, IL in June of 2022 several members of that group presented reasons to take a “community of practice” approach to that endeavor. That session led to a collaboration, among Prof. Luppino, MetroLab Network leadership, and Miles Light of the Future of Privacy Forum to expand and formalize an initial project co-working group, which in turn resulted in the MetroLab Network formally launching a national task force to bring practitioners and subject matter experts together. That MetroLab Data Governance Task Force (sometimes referred to in this Guide as the “Task Force”) is comprised of  city and county staff members, metropolitan planning organizations staff members, educators, and other researchers from diverse disciplines and jurisdictions across the United States—a group of approximately 50 individuals from some 20 cities and counties that made this Guide possible.³ 

Methodologies

The Task Force utilized the following principal steps/methodologies in producing this June 2023 Guide: 

1. Online meetings of “Sub-Groups” of volunteers to explore specific topics and “standard headaches” (i.e., “Challenges”) identified in May 2022 by the initial co-working group.
2. Asynchronous postings in an online platform of comments on the April 2020 Draft Data Handling Policy, resources to consider in addressing the Challenges presented, and use cases to help guide thinking on the development of potential policies and practice tools.
3. Initial drafting of Guide text, working off of the April 2020 document as a starting place, by a group of volunteer drafters and editors from within the Task Force.
4. A series of live online co-working sessions open to all Task Force members to explore key discussion questions relating to text sections of this Guide, with results then taken into account by the editors in producing a refined draft.
5. An “all hands” online meeting, and an additional call for postings in the Task Force’s online platform to gather feedback on that refined draft and gather “practice tools” suggestions for inclusion in the Guide’s appendices.
6. Presentation of the Guide in an online platform on the MetroLab website in June 2023 as both a downloadable document and electronic version that users can navigate on the site.

Format of this Guide 

This Guide has five Sections essentially corresponding to key topic areas identified by the 2022 Initial Co-working Group and subsequently refined by the Task Force.  Each Section begins with a brief “Section Note” summarizing its purpose/subject matter and noting the most prominent Challenges identified by the initial co-working group addressed in the Section, and then proceeds with recommendations of principles, policies, and/or practices a city or county might consider adopting in addressing such Challenges.  It also contains several footnotes citing or linking to sources or providing other information for readers. References in the Guide to materials posted on websites mean such  materials as they existed on those websites on June 20, 2023. In addition, a library (Resources Library) of Data Governance resources has been compiled in conjunction with the Task Force initiative, and contains links to a wide range of policies, practice tools, and associated background readings. Both the Guide and the Resources Library are meant to be “living” instruments accessible on the MetroLab Network website that can be updated, expanded, and refined over time.

Toxic smoke from wildland fire spreads far beyond fire-prone areas, killing many times more people than the flames themselves and disrupting the lives of tens of millions of people nationwide. Data infrastructure critical for identifying and minimizing these smoke-related hazards is largely absent from our wildland fire management toolbox. 

Congress and executive branch agencies can and should act to better leverage existing smoke data in the context of wildland fire management and to fill crucial data infrastructure gaps. Such actions will enable smoke management to become a core part of wildland fire management strategy, thereby saving lives.

Challenge and Opportunity

The 2023 National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy Addendum describes a vision for the future: “To safely and effectively extinguish fire, when needed; use fire where allowable; manage our natural resources; and collectively, learn to live with wildland fire.” Significant research conducted since the publication of the original Strategy in 2014 indicates that wildfire smoke impacts people across the United States, causing thousands of deaths and billions of dollars of economic losses annually. 

Smoke impacts exceed their corresponding flame impacts and span far greater areas coast to coast. However, wildfire strategy and funding largely focus on flames and their impacts. Smoke mitigation and management should be a high priority for federal agencies considering the 1:1 ratio of economic impacts and 1:30 ratio of fire to smoke deaths.

Some smoke data is already collected, but these datasets can be made more actionable for health considerations and better integrated with other fire-impact data to mitigate risks and save more lives.

Smoke tracking

Several federal programs exist to track wildfire smoke nationwide, but there are gaps in their utility as actionable intelligence for health. For example, the recent “smoke wave” on the East Coast highlighted some of the difficulties with public warning systems. 

Existing wildfire-smoke monitoring and forecast programs include:

• The Fire and Smoke Map, collaboratively managed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the US Forest Service, which displays real-time air-quality data but is limited to locations with sensors;
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke Product, which evaluates total-atmosphere smoke, but lacks ground-level estimates of what people would breathe; and 
• The Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program (IWFAQRP) and the experimental U.S. Forest Service (USFS) BlueSky Daily Runs, which integrate external data to make forecasts, but lack location-specific data for all potentially impacted locations.

The EPA also publishes retrospective smoke emissions totals in the National Emissions Inventory (NEI), but these lack specificity on the downwind locations impacted by the smoke that would be needed to be used for health considerations.

Existing data are excellent, but scientists using the data combine them in non-standardized ways, making interoperability of results difficult. New nationwide authoritative smoke-data tools need to be created—likely by linking existing data and existing methods—and integrated into core wildland fire strategy to save lives.

Smoke health impacts

There is no single, authoritative accounting of wildfire smoke impacts on human health for the public or policymakers to use. Four key gaps in smoke and health infrastructure may explain why such an accounting doesn’t yet exist. 

1. The U.S. lacks a standardized method for quantifying the health impacts of wildfire smoke, especially mortality, despite recent research progress in this area. 
2. The lack of a national smoke concentration dataset hinders national studies of smoke-health impacts because different studies take different approaches. 
3. Access to mortality data through the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), managed by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), is slow and difficult for the scientists who seek to use mortality data in epidemiological studies of wildfire smoke. 
4. Gaps remain in understanding the relative harm of wildfire smoke, which can contain aerosolized hazardous compounds from burned infrastructure, compared to the general air pollution (e.g., from cars and factories) that is often used as analog in health research. 

Addressing these gaps together will enable official wildfire-smoke-attributable death tolls to be publicized and used by decision-makers.

Integration of wildfire smoke into wildland fire management strategy

Interagency collaborations currently set wildland fire management strategy. Three key groups with a mission to facilitate interagency collaboration are the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), and the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC). NIFC maintains datasets on wildfire impacts, including basic summary statistics like acres burned, but smoke data are not included in these datasets. Furthermore, while NWCG does have 1 of its 17 committees dedicated to smoke, and has collaborations that include NOAA (who oversees smoke tracking in the Hazard Mapping System), none of the major wildfire collaborations include agencies with expertise in measuring the impacts of smoke, such as the EPA or Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Finally, WFLC has added calls for furthering community smoke-readiness in the recent 2023 National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy Addendum, but greater emphasis on smoke is still needed. Better integration of smoke data, smoke-health data, and smoke-expert agencies will enable better consideration of smoke as part of national wildland fire management strategy.

Plan of Action

To make smoke management a core and actionable part of wildland fire management strategy, thereby saving lives, several interrelated actions should be taken.

To enhance decision tools individuals and jurisdictions can use to protect public health, Congress should take action to:

1. Issue smoke wave alerts nationwide. Fund the National Weather Service (NWS) to develop and issue smoke wave alerts to communities via the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) system, which is designed for extreme weather alerting. The NWS currently distributes smoke messages defined by state agencies through lower-level alert pathways, but should use the WEA system to increase how many people receive the alerts. Furthermore, a national program, rather than current state-level decisions, would ensure continuity nationwide so all communities have timely warning of potentially deadly smoke disasters. Alerts should follow best practices for alerting to concisely deliver information to a maximum audience, while avoiding alert fatigue.
2. Create a nationwide smoke concentration dataset. Fund NOAA and/or EPA to create a data inventory of ground-level smoke PM2.5 concentrations by integrating air-monitor data and satellite data, using existing methods as needed. The proposed data stream would provide standardized estimates of smoke concentrations nationwide, and would be a critical precursor for estimating smoke mortality as well as the extent to which smoke is contributing to poor air quality in communities. This action would be enhanced by data from recommendation 4 (below).
3. Create a smoke mortality dataset. Fund the CDC and/or EPA to create a nationwide data inventory of excess morbidity and mortality attributed  to smoke from wildland fires. An additional enhancement would be to track the smoke health impacts contributed by each source wildfire. Findings should be disseminated in NIFC wildfire impact summaries. This action would be enhanced by data from recommendations 4-5 and research from recommendations 6-8 (below).

The decision-making tools in recommendations 1-3 can be created today based on existing data streams. They should be further enhanced as follows in recommendations 4-10:

To better track locations and concentrations of wildfire smoke, Congress should take action to: 

4. Install more air-quality sensors. Fund the EPA, which currently monitors ground-level air pollutants and co-oversees the Fire and Smoke Map with the USFS, to establish smoke-monitoring stations in each census tract across the U.S and in other locations as needed to provide all communities with real-time data on wildfire-smoke exposure. 
5. Create a smoke impact dashboard. The current EPA Fire and Smoke Map shows near-real-time data from regulatory-grade air monitors, commercial-grade air sensors, and satellite data of smoke plumes. An upgraded dashboard would combine that map with data from recommendations 1-3 to give current and historic information about ground-level air quality, the fraction of pollutants due to wildfire smoke, and the expected health impacts. It would also include short-term forecast data, which would be greatly improved with additional modeling capability to incorporate fire behavior and complex terrain.

To better track health impacts of wildfire smoke, Congress should take action to:

6. Improve researcher access to mortality data. Specifically, direct the CDC to increase epidemiologist access to the National Vital Statistics System. This data system contains the best mortality data for the U.S., so enhancing access will enhance the scientific community’s ability to study the health impacts of wildfire smoke (recommendations 6-8).
7. Establish wildfire-health research centers. Specifically, fund the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish flagship wildfire-smoke health-research centers to research the health effects of wildfire smoke. Results-dissemination pathways should include through the NIFC to reach a broad wildfire policy audience.
8. Enhanced health-impact-analysis tools. Direct EPA to evaluate the available epidemiological literature to adopt standardized wildfire-specific concentration-response functions for use in estimating health impacts in their BenMAP-CE tool. Non-wildfire functions are currently used even in the research literature, despite potentially underestimating the health impacts of wildfire smoke. 

To enhance wildland fire strategy by including smoke impacts, Congress should take action to:

9. Hire interagency staff. Specifically, fund EPA and CDC to place staff at the main NIFC office and join the NIFC collaboration. This will facilitate collaboration between smoke-expert agencies with agencies focused on other aspects of wildfire.

Support landscape management research. Specifically, direct the USFS, CDC, and EPA to continue researching the public health impacts of different landscape management strategies (e.g., prescribed burns of different frequencies compared to full suppression). Significant existing research, including from the EPA, has investigated these links but still more is needed to better inform policy. Needed research will continue to link different landscape management strategies to probable smoke outputs in different regions, and link the smoke outputs to health impacts. Understanding the whole chain of linkages is crucial to landscape management decisions at the core of a resilient wildland fire management strategy.

Diagram with arrows showing data flow from top to bottom, between the proposed infrastructure, with each shape representing one recommendation. Data flows from the data inputs (top boxes) to actionable tools for decision-making (circles), and finally on to pathways for integrating smoke into wildland fire management strategy (bottom boxes). The three blue shapes are recommendations that can be implemented immediately.

Cost estimates

This proposal is estimated to have a first-year cost of approximately $273 million, and future annual cost of $38 million once equipment is purchased. The total cost of the first year represents less than 4% of current annual wildfire spending (subsequent years would be 0.5% of annual spending), and it would lay the foundation to potentially save thousands of lives each year. Assumptions behind this estimate can be found in the FAQ.

Conclusion

In the U.S., more and more people are being exposed to wildfire smoke—27 times more people are experiencing extreme smoke days than a decade ago. The suggested programs are needed to improve the national technical ability to increase smoke-related safety, thereby saving lives and reducing smoke-related public health costs.

Summary

Public and active transportation are not equally accessible to all Americans. Due to a lack of sufficient infrastructure and reliable service for public transportation and active modes like biking, walking, and rolling, Americans must often depend on personal vehicles for travel to work, school, and other activities. During the past two years, Congress has allocated billions of dollars to equitable infrastructure, public transportation upgrades, and decreasing greenhouse gas pollution from transportation across the United States. The Department of Transportation (DOT) and its agencies should embrace innovation and partnerships to continue to increase active and public transportation across the country. The DOT should require grant applications for funding to discuss cross-agency collaborations, partner with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to organize prize competitions, encourage public-private partnerships (P3s), and work with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to grant money for transit programs through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. 

Challenge and Opportunity

Historically, U.S. investment in transportation has focused on expanding and developing highways for personal vehicle travel. As a result, 45% of Americans do not have access to reliable and safe public transportation, perpetuating the need for single-use vehicles for almost half of the country. The EPA reports that transportation accounts for 29% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, with 58% of those emissions coming from light-duty cars. This large share of nationwide emissions from personal vehicles has short- and long-term climate impacts. 

Investments in green public and active transit should be a priority for the DOT in transitioning away from a personal-vehicle-dominated society and meeting the Biden Administration’s “goals of a 100% clean electrical grid by 2035 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.” Public and active transportation infrastructure includes bus systems, light rail, bus rapid transit, bike lanes, and safe sidewalks. Investments in public and active transportation should go towards a combination of electrifying existing public transportation, such as buses; improving and expanding public transit to be more reliable and accessible for more users; constructing bike lanes; developing community-owned bike share programs; and creating safe walking corridors. 

In addition to reducing carbon emissions, improved public transportation that disincentivizes personal vehicle use has a variety of co-benefits. Prioritizing public and active transportation could limit congestion on roads and lower pollution. Fewer vehicles on the road result in less tailpipe emissions, which “can trigger health problems such as aggravated asthma, reduced lung capacity, and increased susceptibility to respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia and bronchitis.” This is especially important for the millions of people who live near freeways and heavily congested roads. 

Congestion can also be financially costly for American households; the INRIZ Global Traffic Scorecard reports that traffic congestion cost the United States $81 billion in 2022. Those costs include vehicle maintenance, fuel cost, and “lost time,” all of which can be reduced with reliable and accessible public and active transportation. Additionally, the American Public Transportation Association reports that every $1 invested in public transportation generates $5 in economic returns, measured by savings in time traveled, reduction in traffic congestion, and business productivity. Thus, by investing in public transportation, communities can see improvements in air quality, economy, and health.

Public transportation is primarily managed at the local and state level; currently, over  6000 local and state transportation agencies provide and oversee public transportation in their regions. Public transportation is funded through federal, state, and local sources, and transit agencies receive funding from “passenger fares and other operating receipts.” The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) distributes funding for transit through grants and loans and accounts for 15% of total income for transit agencies, including 31% of capital investments in transit infrastructure. Local and state entities often lack sufficient resources to improve public transportation systems because of the uncertainty of ridership and funding streams.

Public-private partnerships can help alleviate some of these resource constraints because contracts can allow the private partner to operate public transportation systems. Regional and national collaboration across multiple agencies from the federal to the municipal level can also help alleviate resource barriers to public transit development. Local and state agencies do not have to work alone to improve public and active transportation systems. 

The following recommendations provide a pathway for transportation agencies at all levels of government to increase public and active transportation, resulting in social, economic, and environmental benefits for the communities they serve. 

Plan of Action

Recommendation 1. The FTA should require grant applicants for programs such as the Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) to define how they will work collaboratively with multiple federal agencies and conduct community engagement. 

Per the National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, FTA staff should prioritize funding for grant applicants who successfully demonstrate partnerships and collaboration. This can be demonstrated, for example, with letters of support from community members and organizations for transit infrastructure projects. Collaboration can also be demonstrated by having applicants report clear goals, roles, and responsibilities for each agency involved in proposed projects. The FTA should: 

1. Develop a rubric for evaluating partnerships’ efficiency and alignment with national transit decarbonization goals. 
2. Create a tiered metrics system within the rubric that prioritizes grants for projects based on collaboration and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the transit sector.
3. Add a category to their Guidance Center on federal-state-local partnerships to provide insight on how they view successful collaboration. 

Recommendation 2. The DOT and HUD should collaborate on a prize competition to design active and/or public transportation projects to reduce traffic congestion. 

Housing and transportation costs are related and influence one another, which is why HUD is a natural partner. Funding can be sourced from the Highway Trust Fund, which the DOT has the authority to allocate up to “1% of the funds for research and development to carry out . . . prize competition program[s].”

This challenge should call on local agency partners to provide a design challenge or opportunity that impedes their ability to adopt transit-oriented infrastructure that could reduce traffic congestion. Three design challenges should be selected and publicly posted on the Challenge.gov website so that any individual or organization can participate. 

The goal of the prize competition is to identify challenges, collaborate, and share resources across agencies and communities to design transportation solutions. The competition would connect the DOT with local and regional planning and transportation agencies to solicit solutions from the public, whether from individuals, teams of individuals, or organizations. The DOT and HUD should work collaboratively to design the selection criteria for the challenge and select the winners. Each challenge winner would be provided with a financial prize of $250,000, and their idea would be housed on the DOT website as a case study that can be used for future planning decisions. The local agencies that provide the three design challenges would be welcome to implement the winning solutions.

Recommendation 3. Federal, state, and local government should increase opportunities for public-private partnerships (P3s). 

The financial investment required to develop active and public transportation infrastructure is a hurdle for many agencies. To address this issue, we make the following recommendations: 

• Currently, only 36 out of the 50 states have policies that allow the use of P3s. The remaining 14 states should pass legislation authorizing the use of P3s for public transportation projects so that they too can benefit from this financing model and access federal P3 funding opportunities. 
• In 2016, the DOT launched the Build America Bureau to assist with financing transportation projects. The Bureau administers the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program, which provides financial assistance through low-interest loans for infrastructure projects and leverages public-private partnerships to access additional private-sector funding. Currently, only about 30% of all loans through the TIFIA are used for public transit projects while 66% are used on tolls and highways. Local and regional agencies should use the TIFIA loan more to fund public and active transit projects.
• EPA should specify in its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund guidelines that public and active transit projects are eligible for investment from the fund and can leverage public and private partnerships. EPA is set to distribute $27 billion through the Fund for carbon pollution reduction: $20 billion will go towards nonprofit entities, such as green banks, that will leverage public and private investment to fund emissions reduction projects, with $8 billion allocated to projects in low-income and disadvantaged communities; $7 billion will go to state and local agencies and nonprofits in the form of grants or technical assistance to low-income and disadvantaged communities. EPA should encourage applicants to include public and active transportation projects, which can play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions and air pollution, in their portfolios. 

Conclusion

The road to decarbonizing the transportation sector requires public and active transportation. Federal agencies can allocate funding for public and active transit more effectively through the recommendations above. It’s time for the government to recognize public and active transportation as the key to equitable decarbonization of the transportation sector throughout the United States.

Summary 

The $350 billion space industry could grow to more than $1 trillion by 2040, spurring international interest in harnessing space resources. But this interest will bring with it a challenge: while existing international agreements like the Artemis Accords promote the peaceful and shared exploration of celestial bodies, they do little to address differences between existing scientific research activities and emerging opportunities like lunar mining, particularly for water ice at polar latitudes and in the perpetually shaded depths of certain craters. Lunar water ice will be a vital resource for outer space exploration and development efforts because it can be used to make hydrogen fuel cells, rocket fuel, and drinking water for astronauts. It will also be cheaper than transporting water from Earth’s surface into outer space, given the moon’s lower surface gravity and proximity to human space operations on its surface and beyond. The moon harbors other valuable long-term commodities like helium-3, the fuel needed for low-emissions nuclear fusion energy.

However, current multilateral agreements do not address whether nongovernmental operators can claim territory on celestial bodies for their use or own the resources they extract. Further, the space object registration process is currently used for satellites and other spacecraft while in orbit, but it does not include space objects intended for use on the surface of celestial bodies, such as mining equipment. These gaps leave few options for the United States or other Artemis Accords nations to resolve conflicts over territorial claims on a celestial body. In the worst-case scenario, this increasing competition for resources—especially with other major space powers like China and Russia—could escalate into military conflict. 

Adopting new treaties or amendments to the existing Outer Space Treaty (OST) for modern space use is a slow process that may fail to meet the urgency of emerging space resource issues. However, the United States has another diplomatic avenue for faster action: revision of the existing United Nations’ Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space under the auspices of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). Such a process avoids the decade-long deliberations of a formal treaty amendment. The United States should thus lead the development of multilateral protocols for extracting resources from celestial bodies by proposing two updates to either the COPUOS Guidelines, the OST, or both. First, there should be an updated registration process for all space objects, which should specify the anticipated location, timeline, and  type(s) of operation to establish usage rights on a particular part of a celestial body. Second, the United Nations should establish a dispute resolution process to allow for peaceful resolution of competing claims on celestial surfaces. These strategies will lay the necessary foundation for peacefully launching new mining operations in space.

Challenge and Opportunity 

Right now, outer space is akin to the Wild West, in that the opportunities for scientific innovation and economic expansion are numerous, yet there is little to no political or legal infrastructure to facilitate orderly cooperation between interested terrestrial factions. For example, any nation claiming mining rights to lunar territory is on shaky legal ground, at best: the Outer Space Treaty and the subsequent Guidelines for the Long-term Sustainability of Outer Space, promulgated by the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, do not provide legally sound or internationally recognized development rights, enforcement structures, or deconfliction mechanisms. If one claimant allegedly violates the territorial rights of another, what legal systems could either party use to press their case? Moreover, what mechanisms would avert potential escalation toward militarized conflict? Right now, the answer is none. 

This is an unfortunate obstacle to progress given the enormous economic potential of outer space development in the coming decades. To put the potential value in perspective, the emerging $350 billion space industry could grow to more than $1 trillion by 2040, motivating significant international interest. One potentially lucrative subset of operations is space mining, a sector valued at $1 billion today with a potential value of $3 billion by 2027. Once operational, space mining would be a valuable source of rare earth elements (e.g., neodymium, scandium, and others), 60% of which are currently produced in China. Rare earth elements are necessary for essential technologies such as electric vehicles, wind turbines, computers, and medical equipment. Additionally, in the event that nuclear fusion becomes commercially viable in the long-term future, space mining will be an essential industry for securing helium-3 (He-3), an abundant isotope found on the moon. Recent increases in fusion investment and a breakthrough in fusion research show the potential for fusion energy, but there is no guarantee of success. He-3 could serve as a critical fuel source for future nuclear fusion operations, an emerging form of energy production free of carbon emissions that could provide humanity with the means to address global climate and energy crises without losing energy abundance. The abundance of lunar He-3 could mean having access to secure clean energy for the foreseeable human future.

Furthermore, human exploration and development of outer space will require water, both in the form of drinking water for crewed missions and in the form of rocket propellant and fuel cell components for spacecraft. As it costs over $1 million to transport a single cubic meter of water from Earth’s surface into low Earth orbit, extracting water from the lunar surface for use in outer space operations could be substantially more economical due to the moon’s lower escape velocity—in fact, lunar water ice is estimated to be worth $10 million per cubic meter. 

The space mining sector and lunar development also offer promise far beyond Earth. Our moon is the perfect “first port of call” as humanity expands into outer space. It has lower surface gravity, polar ice deposits, and abundant raw materials such as aluminum, and its status as our closest celestial neighbor make it the ideal layover supply depot and launch point for spacecraft from Earth heading deeper into our solar system. Spacecraft could be launched from Earth with just enough fuel to escape Earth’s gravity, land and refuel on the moon, and launch far more efficiently from the moon’s weaker gravity elsewhere into the system. 

All in all, the vast untapped scientific and economic potential of our moon underscores the need for policy innovation to fill the gaps in existing international space law and allow the development of outer space within internationally recognized legal lines. The imperative for leading on these matters falls to the United States as a nation uniquely poised to lead the space mining industry. Not only is the United States one of the global leaders in space operations, but U.S. domestic law, including the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act of 2015, provides the U.S. private sector some of the necessary authority to commercialize space operations like mining. However, the United States’ rapid innovation has also led the way to a growing space industry internationally, and the sector is now accessible to more foreign states than before. The internationalization of the space economy further highlights the gaps and failings of the existing space policy frameworks. 

Two main challenges must be addressed to ensure current governance structures are sufficient for securing the future of lunar mining. First is clarifying the rights of OST State Parties and affiliated nongovernmental operators to establish space objects on celestial bodies and to own the resources extracted. The OST, the primary governing tool in space (Figure 2), establishes that no State that signed the treaty may declare ownership over all or part of a celestial body like the moon. And despite the domestic authority bestowed by the 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, the multilateral OST does not address whether nongovernmental operators can claim territory and own resources they extract from celestial bodies. Thus, the OST promotes the peaceful and shared exploration of space and scientific research but does little to address differences between research operations and new commercial opportunities like lunar mining. This leaves few options to resolve conflicts that may arise between competing private sector entities or States.

Even if domestic authorization of mining operations were sufficient, a second challenge has emerged: ensuring transparency and recordkeeping of different operations to maintain peaceful shared operations in space. Through the OST and the Registration Convention, States have agreed to inform the U.N. Secretary General of space activities and to maintain a record of registered space objects (including a unique identifier, the location and date of launch, and its orbital path). But this registration process covers space objects simply at a geospatial position in orbit, and there are gaps in the process for space objects intended for use on the surface of celestial bodies and whether a spacecraft that was designed for one purpose (i.e., landing) can be repurposed for another purpose (i.e., mining). This leaves little recourse for any group that seeks to peacefully pursue mining operations on the moon’s surface if another entity also seeks to use that land.

In spite of these gaps, the U.S. government has been able to move forward with scaling up moon-related space missions via NASA’s bipartisan Artemis Program and the corresponding Artemis Accords (Figure 1), a set of bilateral agreements with updated principles for space use. The Accords have 24 signatories who collectively seek to reap the benefits of emerging space opportunities like mining. In part, the Artemis Accords aim to remedy the policy gaps of previous multilateral agreements like the OST by explicitly supporting private sector efforts to secure valuable resources like He-3 and water ice.

But the Accords do not address the key underlying challenges that could stifle U.S. innovation and leadership in space mining. For instance, while the Accords reaffirm the need to register space objects and propose the creation of safety zones surrounding lunar mining operations, gaps still remain in describing exactly how to register operations on celestial objects. This can be seen in Section 7 of the Artemis Accords, which states that space objects need to be registered, but does not specify what would classify as a “space object” or if an object registered for one purpose can be repurposed for other operations. Further, the Accords leave little room to address broader international tensions stemming from increased resource competition in space mining. While competition can have positive outcomes such as spurring rapid innovation, unchecked competition could escalate into military conflict, despite provisions in the original OST to avoid this.

In particular, preemptive measures must be taken to alleviate potential tensions with other OST signatories in direct competition with the Accords. China and Russia are not party to the Accords and therefore do not need to abide by the agreement. In fact, these nations have declared opposition to the Accords and instead formed their own partnership to establish a competing International Lunar Research Station. As these programs develop concrete lunar applications, designating methods to determine who can conduct what type of operations on specific timelines and in specific locations will be a crucial form of anticipatory diplomacy.

Plan of Action 

The United States should propose that when any State registers a space object in advance of operations on a celestial body, it must specify the anticipated location of the operation; the timeline; and the type(s) of operation, described as “intent to” do one or more of the following: mine/extract resources for sale, conduct scientific research, or perform routine maintenance. This multilaterally developed process would clarify the means to register space objects for peaceful occupation of celestial object surfaces. 

Additionally, the United States should propose the implementation of a process for States to resolve disputes through either bilateral negotiation or arbitration through another mutually agreed-upon third party such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) or the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA). Similar disputes related to maritime resource extraction under the United Nations Law of the Sea have been resolved peacefully using the aforementioned bilateral negotiations or third party arbitration. The new dispute resolution process would similarly allow for peaceful resolution of competing claims on celestial body surfaces and resources.

To guide the creation of a space object arbitration process, other such processes like the ICJ, PCA, and International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea can be used as models. The PCA has had success with halting unfair processes and setting up a dialogue between participating parties. It has helped smaller countries set up arbitration processes with bigger ones, such as Ecuador vs. the United States, in which the Republic of Ecuador instituted arbitral proceedings against the United States concerning the interpretation and application of an investment treaty between the two countries. In the short term, existing negotiation avenues will likely be sufficient to allow for dispute resolution. However, as the space industry continues to grow, it may eventually be necessary to establish an internationally recognized “Space Court” to arbitrate disputes. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea provides an example of the type of international body that could arbitrate space disputes.

These anticipatory diplomacy steps could be implemented in one of three ways: 

1. As a binding amendment to the OST: This would require the most time to implement, but this would also make it enforceable and binding, an obvious advantage. It would also provide an opportunity to bring all the important players to the table, specifically the parties who did not sign the Artemis Accords, and would help to start a discussion on the improvement of diplomatic relations for future space operations.
2. As a nonbinding update to COPUOS Guidelines: This would be faster to implement, but would not be enforceable or binding.
3. As an update to the COPUOS Guidelines followed by an amendment to the OST: This would allow for both quick action in the nearer term and a permanent and enforceable implementation longer-term. Implementing a revised COPOUS could be a precursor to build support for the nonbinding updates to COPUOS. If the model is successful, State Parties would be more likely to agree to a binding amendment to OST. However they are implemented, these two proposed anticipatory diplomacy steps would improve the ability of space faring nations to peacefully use resources on celestial bodies.

Could this be done through bilateral agreements? After all, the United States has shown diplomatic initiative by entering into agreements with countries such as France, Germany, and India with the aim of using space for peaceful purposes and cooperation, though they don’t explicitly mention mining. But a bilateral process does not offer good prospects for global solutions. For one, it would be very slow and time-consuming for the United States to enter into bilateral agreements with every major country with stakes in lunar mining. If space mining agreements were to occur on a similar timeline to bilateral trade agreements, each agreement could take from one to six years to take effect. A crucial obstacle is the Wolf Amendment, which prevents the United States from entering into bilateral agreements with China, one of the its major competitors in the space industry. This restriction makes it hard to negotiate bilaterally with an important stakeholder concerning space mining.

Further, reaching these agreements would require addressing aspects of the Accords that have made many major stakeholder countries hesitant to sign on. Thus, an easier path would be to operate diplomatically through the COPUOS, which already represents 95 major countries and oversees the existing multilateral space treaties and potential amendments to them. This approach would ensure that the United States still has some power over potential amendment language but would bring other major players into some sort of dialogue regarding the usage of space for commercial purposes. 

While the COPUOS guidelines are not explicitly binding, they do provide a pathway for verification and arbitration, as well as a foundation for the adoption of a binding amendment or a new space treaty moving forward. Treaty negotiations are a slow, lengthy process; the OST required several years of work before it took full effect in 1967. With many Artemis Program goals reliant upon successful launches and milestones achieved by 2025, treaty amendments are not the timeliest approach. Delays could also be caused by the fact that some parties to the OST may have reservations about adopting an amendment for private sector space use due to another space treaty, the Moon Agreement. This agreement, which the United States is not party to, asserts that “the Moon and its natural resources are the common heritage of mankind and that an international regime should be established to govern the exploitation of such resources when such exploitation is about to become feasible.” Thus, countries that have signed the Moon Agreement probably want the moon to operate like a global commons with all countries on Earth having access to the fruits of lunar mining or other resource extraction. Negotiations with these nations will require time to complete.

The U.S. State Department’s Office of Space Affairs, under the Bureau of Oceans and Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES), is the lead office for space diplomacy, exploration, and commercialization and would be the ideal office to craft the required legislation for an OST amendment. Additionally, the Office of Treaty Affairs, which is often tasked with writing up the legal framework of treaties, could provide guidance on the legislation and help initiate the process within the U.S. State Department and the United Nations. Existing U.S. law like the Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, and international treaties like OST and Registration Convention, provide authority for these proposals to be implemented in the short term. However, negotiation of updates to COPOUS Guidelines and amendments to the OST and other relevant space treaties over the next 5 to 10 years will be essential to their long term success.

Finally, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) at the Department of Transportation would be the logical federal agency to initially lead implementing the updated registration process for U.S.-affiliated space objects and for verifying the location and intended use of space objects from other nations. FAA implements the current U.S. process for space objects registration. In the long term it could be appropriate to transfer responsibility for space object registration to the rapidly growing Office of Space Commerce (OSC) at the Department of Commerce. Moving responsibilities for implementing space object registration and verification to the OSC would provide opportunities for the office to expand with the rapidly expanding space industry. This change would also allow the FAA to focus on its primary responsibilities for regulating the domestic aerospace industry. 

Conclusion

Douglas Adams may have put it best: “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.” While Adams was describing the sheer size of space, this description applies just as well to the scale of outer space’s scientific and economic prospects. After all, any new economic theater that will grow into a multi-trillion dollar market in just a few decades is not to be taken lightly. But without a plan to avert and resolve potential conflicts with other outer space actors, the United States’ future efforts in this emerging theater will be hamstrung. Improved collaboration on space mining provides an opportunity to promote international cooperation and economic development, while military conflict in space poses high risks to the economic potential of the current and future space industry. Transparent and widely agreed-upon frameworks would allow for peaceful competition on scientific research and resource extraction on celestial objects.

Lunar mining has shown promise for providing access to water ice, rare earth metals, He-3, and other raw materials crucial for the further exploration of space. Providing a peaceful and secure source of these materials would build on the bipartisan Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act’s guidelines for space resource extraction and, in the long run, further enable the modernization and decarbonization of the U.S. electric grid for public benefit. 

In order to promote the peaceful exploration and development of space, we must update existing international law—either the COPUOS Guidelines, the OST, or both—to clarify the locations, timeline, and types of outer space operations conducted by state actors. We must also propose deconfliction mechanisms for OST parties to resolve disputes peacefully via bilateral negotiation or arbitration by a mutually acceptable third party like the ICJ or PCA. Just as the United States led the world into the “final frontier” in the 20th century, so too must we lead the next chapter in the 21st. If implemented successfully, the anticipatory space diplomacy we propose will allow for the shared peaceful use of celestial bodies for decades to come.

Acknowledgments

Dr. Sindhu Nathan provided valuable insights into the writing of this memo.

Summary

Federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies collect and maintain a range of disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data. However, this valuable data lives on different platforms and in various formats across agency silos. Inconsistent data collection and lack of validation can result in gaps and inefficiencies and make it difficult to implement appropriate mitigation, preparedness, response, recovery, and adaptation measures for natural hazards, including wildfires, smoke, drought, extreme heat, flooding, and debris flow. Lack of complete data down to the granular level also makes it challenging to gauge the true cost of disasters.

The Biden-Harris Administration should launch an Open Disaster Data Initiative to mandate the development and implementation of national standards for disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data to enable federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies to regularly collect, validate, share, and report on disaster data in consistent and interoperable formats.

Challenge and Opportunity

Disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data are used in many life-saving missions, including early detection and local response coordination, disaster risk assessments, local and state hazard mitigation plans, facilitating insurance and payouts, enabling rebuilding and recovery, and empowering diverse communities to adapt to climate impacts in inclusive, equitable, and just ways. 

While a plethora of tools are being developed to enable better analytics and visualizations of disaster and climate data, including wildfire data, the quality and completeness of the data itself remains problematic, including in the recently released National Risk Index. 

This is because there is a lack of agency mandates, funding, capacity, and infrastructure for data collection, validation, sharing, and reporting in consistent and interoperable formats. Currently, only a few federal agencies have the mandate and funds from Congress to collect disaster data relevant to their mission. Further, this data does not necessarily integrate state and local data for non-federally declared disasters. 

Due to this lack of national disaster and climate data standards, federal and state agencies, universities, nonprofits, and insurers currently maintain disaster-related data in silos, making it difficult to link in productive and efficient ways down to the granular level. 

Also, only a few local, state, and federal agencies regularly budget for or track spending on disaster resilience, vulnerability, and response activities. As a result, local agencies, nonprofits, and households, particularly in underserved communities, often lack access to critical lifesaving data. Further, disaster loss data is often private and proprietary, leading to inequality in data access and usability. This leaves already disadvantaged communities unprepared and with only a limited understanding of the financial burden of disaster costs carried by taxpayers. 

Since the 1990s, several bipartisan reviews, research, data, and policy documents, including the recent President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) report on modernizing wildland firefighting, have reiterated the need to develop national standards for the consistent collection and reporting of disaster vulnerability, damage, and loss data. Some efforts are under way to address the standardization and data gaps—such as the all-hazards dataset that created an open database by refining the Incident Command System data sets (ICS-209). 

However, significant work remains to integrate secondary and cascading disasters and monitor longitudinal climate impacts, especially on disadvantaged communities. For example, the National Interagency Fire Center consolidates major wildfire events but does not currently track secondary or cascading impacts, including smoke (see AirNow’s Fire and Smoke Map), nor does it monitor societal vulnerabilities and impacts such as on public health, displacement, poverty, and insurance. There are no standardized methods for accounting and tracking damaged or lost structures. For example, damage and loss data on structures, fatalities, community assets, and public infrastructure is not publicly available in a consolidated format. 

The Open Disaster Data Initiative will enable longitudinal monitoring of pre- and post-event data for multiple hazards, resulting in a better understanding of cascading climate impacts. Guided by the Open Government Initiative (2016), the Fifth National Action Plan (2022), and in the context of the Year of Open Science (2023), the Open Disaster Data Initiative will lead to greater accountability in how federal, state, and local governments prioritize funding, especially to underserved and marginalized communities. 

Finally, the Open Disaster Data Initiative will build on the Justice40 Initiative and be guided by the recommendations of the PCAST Report on Enhancing prediction and protecting communities. The Open Disaster Data Initiative should also reiterate the Government Accountability Office’s 2022 recommendation to Congress to designate a federal entity to develop and update climate information and to create a National Climate Information System. 

Precedents 

Recent disaster and wildfire research data platforms and standards provide some precedence and show how investing in data standards and interoperability can enable inclusive, equitable, and just disaster preparedness, response, and recovery outcomes.

The Open Disaster Data Initiative must build on lessons learned from past initiatives, including:

• the National Weather Service’s (NWS) Storm Events database, which collects meteorological data on when and where extreme events occur, along with occasional but unverified estimates of socioeconomic impacts.
• the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) COVID-19 Data Modernization Initiative, which attempts to  harmonize data collection and reporting across national, tribal, state, and local agencies. 
• the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS), a multiagency partnership that coordinates drought monitoring, forecasting, planning, and information at national, tribal, state, and local levels but is impacted by inconsistent data reporting.
• the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)’s OpenFEMA initiative, which shares vast amounts of data on multiple aspects of disaster outcomes, including disaster assistance, hazard mitigation investments, the National Flood Insurance Program, and grants, but requires technical expertise to access and utilize the data effectively.
• FEMA’s National Risk Index, which maps the nation’s resilience, vulnerability, and disaster losses at county and census tract levels but shows shortcomings in capturing the risk of geophysical events such as earthquakes and tsunamis. In late 2022, Congress passed the Community Disaster Resilience Zones Act (P.L. 117-255), which codifies the National Risk Index. The goal is to support the census tracts with the highest risk rating with financial, technical, and other forms of assistance. 

There are also important lessons to learn from international efforts  such as the United Nations’ ongoing work on monitoring implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030) by creating the next generation of disaster loss and damage databases, and the Open Geospatial Consortium’s Disaster Pilot 2023 and Climate Resilience Pilot, which seek to use standards to enable open and interoperable sharing of critical geospatial data across missions and scales. 

Plan of Action

President Biden should launch an Open Disaster Data Initiative by implementing the following four actions.

Recommendation 1. Issue an Executive Order to direct the development and adoption of national standards for disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data collection, validation, sharing, and reporting, by all relevant federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies to create the enabling conditions for adoption by universities, non-profits, and the private sector. The scope of this Executive Order should include data on local disasters that do not call for a Presidential Disaster Declaration and federal assistance.

Recommendation 2. Direct the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to issue an Open Disaster Data Initiative Directive for all relevant federal agencies to collaboratively implement the following actions:

• Direct the National Council on Science and Technology to appoint a subcommittee to work with the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop national standards for disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data collection, sharing, and reporting, by all relevant federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies, as well as by universities, nonprofits, and the private sector. 
• Direct all relevant federal agencies to adopt national standards for disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data collection; validation; sharing; and reporting to address ongoing issues concerning data quality, completeness, integration, interoperability, accessibility, and usability.

• Develop federal agency capacities to accurately collect, validate, and use disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data, especially as it relates to population estimates of mortality, morbidity, and displacements, including from extreme heat and wildfire smoke.
• Direct FEMA to coordinate and implement training for state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies on how to collect disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data in line with the proposed national standards. Further, building on the FEMA Data Strategy 2023-2027 and in line with OpenFEMA, FEMA should review its private and sensitive data sharing policy to ensure that disaster data is publicly available and useable. FEMA’s National Incident Management System will be well positioned to cut across hazard mission silos and offer wide-ranging operational support and training for disaster loss accounting to federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies, as well as nonprofit stakeholders, in coordination with FEMA’s Emergency Management Institute.

Recommendation 3. Designate a lead coordinator for the Open Disaster Data Initiative within the Office of Science Technology and Policy (OSTP), such as the Tech Team, to work with the OMB on developing a road map for implementing the Open Disaster Data Initiative, including developing the appropriate capacities across all of government.

Recommendation 4. Direct FEMA to direct appropriate funding and capacities for coordination with the National Weather Service (NWS), the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Risk Management Agency, and the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) to maintain a federated, open, integrated, and interoperable disaster data system that can seamlessly roll up local data, including research, nonprofit, and private, including insurance data. 

In addition, Congress should take the following three actions to ensure success of the Open Disaster Data Initiative:

Recommendation 5. Request the Government Accountability Office to undertake a Disaster Data Systems and Infrastructure Review to:

• Inform the development of national standards and identify barriers for accurate disaster data collection, validation, accounting, and sharing between federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies, as well as the philanthropic and private sector. 
• Review lessons learned from precedents (including NWS’s Storm Events database, CDC’s Data Modernization Initiative, NOAA’s NIDIS, and FEMA’s National Risk Index). 
• Form the basis for the OMB and the OSTP to designate an appropriate budget and capacity commitment and suggest a national framework/architecture for implementing an Open Disaster Data Initiative. 

Recommendation 6. Appropriate dedicated funding for the implementation of the Open Disaster Data Initiative to allow federal agencies, states, nonprofits, and the private sector to access regular trainings and develop the necessary infrastructure and capacities to adopt national disaster data standards and collect, validate, and share relevant data. This access to training should facilitate seamless roll-up of disaster vulnerability and loss data to the federal level, thereby enabling accurate monitoring and accounting of community resilience in inclusive and equitable ways.

Recommendation 7. Use the congressional tool of technical corrections to support and enhance the Initiative:

• Pass Technical Corrections and Improvements to the Community Disaster Resilience Zones Act to include provisions for the collection, sharing, and reporting of disaster resilience, vulnerability, and loss data by all relevant federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies and academic, private, community-based, and nonprofit entities, in consistent and interoperable formats, and in line with the proposed national disaster data standards. Technical corrections language could point to the requirement to “review the underlying collection and aggregation methodologies as well as consider the scoping of additional data the agency (ies) may be collecting.” This language should also direct agencies to review dissemination procedures for propriety, availability, and access for public review. The scope of this technical correction should include local disasters that do not call for a Presidential Disaster Declaration and federal assistance. 
• Pass Technical Corrections and Improvements or suspension bill to the ​​Disaster Recovery Reform Act, section 1223 which mandates a study of information collection or section 1224, which requires publication of said data accessible to the public would complement the above by tasking FEMA to study, aggregate, and share information with the public in a way that is digestible and actionable. 

Conclusion

The Open Disaster Data Initiative can help augment whole-of-nation disaster resilience in at least three ways: 

1. Enable enhanced data sharing and information coordination among federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial agencies, as well as with universities, nonprofits, philanthropies, and the private sector.
2. Allow for longitudinal monitoring of compounding and cascading disaster impacts on community well-being and ecosystem health, including a better understanding of how disasters impact poverty rates, housing trends, local economic development, and displacement and migration trends, particularly among disadvantaged communities.
3. Inform the prioritization of policy and program investments for inclusive, equitable, and just disaster risk reduction outcomes, especially in socially and historically marginalized communities, including rural communities.