This report is part of a series on underinvested clean energy technologies, the challenges they face, and how the Department of Energy can use its Other Transaction Authority to implement programs custom tailored to those challenges.

Cement and concrete production is one of the hardest industries to decarbonize. Solutions for low-emissions cement and concrete are much less mature than those for other green technologies like solar and wind energy and electric vehicles. Nevertheless, over the past few years, young companies have achieved significant milestones in piloting their technologies and certifying their performance and emissions reductions. In order to finance new manufacturing facilities and scale promising solutions, companies will need to demonstrate consistent demand for their products at a financially sustainable price. Demand support from the Department of Energy (DOE) can help companies meet this requirement and unlock private financing for commercial-scale projects. Using its Other Transactions Authority, DOE could design a demand-support program involving double-sided auctions, contracts for difference, or price and volume guarantees. To fund such a program using existing funds, the DOE could incorporate it into the Industrial Demonstrations Program. However, additional funding from Congress would allow the DOE to implement a more robust program. Through such an initiative, the government would accelerate the adoption of low-emissions cement and concrete, providing emissions reductions benefits across the country while setting the United States up for success in the future clean industrial economy.

Introduction

Besides water, concrete is the most consumed material in the world. It is the material of choice for construction thanks to its durability, versatility, and affordability. As of 2022, the cement and concrete sector accounted for nine percent of global carbon emissions. The vast majority of the embodied emissions of concrete come from the production of Portland cement. Cement production emits carbon through the burning of fossil fuels to heat kilns (40% of emissions) and the chemical process of turning limestone and clay into cement using that heat (60% of emissions). Electrifying production facilities and making them more energy efficient can help decarbonize the former but not the latter, which requires deeper innovation.

Current solutions on the market substitute a portion of the cement used in concrete mixtures with Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCMs) like fly ash, slag, or unprocessed limestone, reducing the embodied emissions of the resulting concrete. But these SCMs cannot replace all of the cement in concrete, and currently there is an insufficient supply of readily usable fly ash and slag for wider adoption across the industry.

The next generation of ultra-low-carbon, carbon-neutral, and even carbon-negative solutions seeks to develop alternative feedstocks and processes for producing cement or cementitious materials that can replace cement entirely and to capture carbon in aggregates and wet concrete. The DOE reports that testing and scaling these new technologies is crucial to fully eliminate emissions from concrete by 2050. Bringing these new technologies to the market will not only help the United States meet its climate goals but also promote U.S. leadership in manufacturing. 

A number of companies have established pilot facilities or are in the process of constructing them. These companies have successfully produced near-carbon-neutral and even carbon-negative concrete. Building off of these milestones, companies will need to secure financing to build full-scale commercial facilities and increase their manufacturing capacity. 

Challenges Facing Low-Carbon Cement and Concrete

A key requirement for accessing both private-sector and government financing for new facilities is that companies obtain long-term offtake agreements, which assure financiers that there will be a steady source of revenue once the facility is built. But the boom-and-bust nature of the construction industry discourages construction companies and intermediaries from entering into long-term financial commitments in case there won’t be a project to use the materials for. Cement, aggregates, and other concrete inputs also take up significant volume, so it would be difficult and costly for potential offtakers to store excess amounts during construction lulls. For these reasons, construction contractors procure concrete on an as-needed, project-specific basis. 

Adding to the complexity, structural features of the cement and concrete market increase the difficulty of securing long-term offtake agreements:

• Long, fragmented supply chain: While the supply chain is highly concentrated at either end, there are multiple intermediaries between the actual producers of cement, aggregates, and other inputs and the final construction customers. These include the thousands of ready-mix concrete producers, along with materials dealers, construction contractors, and subcontractors. As a result, construction customers usually aren’t buying materials themselves, and their contractors or subcontractors often aren’t buying materials directly from cement producers. 
• Regional fragmentation: Cement, aggregates, and other concrete inputs are heavy products, which entail high freight costs and embodied emissions from transportation, so producers have a limited range in which they are willing to ship their product. After these products are shipped to a ready-mix concrete facility, the fresh concrete must then be delivered to the construction site within 60 to 90 minutes or the concrete will harden. As a result, the localization of supply chains limits the potential customers for a new manufacturing plant.
• Low margins: The cement and concrete markets operate with very low margins, so buyers are highly sensitive to price. Consequently, low-carbon cement and concrete may struggle to compete against conventional options due to their green premiums. 

Luckily, private construction is not the only customer for concrete. The U.S. government (federal, state, and local combined) accounts for roughly 50% of all concrete procurement in the country. Used correctly, the government’s purchasing power can be a powerful lever for spurring the adoption of decarbonized cement and concrete. However, the government faces similar barriers as the private sector against entering into long-term offtake agreements. Government procurement of concrete goes through multiple intermediaries and operates on an as-needed, project-specific basis: government agencies like the General Services Administration (GSA) enter into agreements with construction contractors for specific projects, and then the contractors or their subcontractors make the ultimate purchasing decisions for concrete.

Federal Support

The Federal Buy Clean Initiative, enacted in 2021 by the Biden Administration, is starting to address the procurement challenge for low-carbon cement and concrete. Among the initiative’s programs is the allocation of $4.5 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) for the GSA and the Department of Transportation (DOT) to use lower-carbon construction materials. Under the initiative, the GSA is piloting directly procuring low-embodied-carbon materials for federal construction projects. To qualify as low-embodied-carbon concrete under the GSA’s interim requirements, concrete mixtures only have to achieve a roughly 25–50% reduction in carbon content,¹ depending on the compressive strength. The requirement may be even less if no concrete meeting this standard is available near the project site. Since the bar is only slightly below traditional concrete, young companies developing the solutions to fully decarbonize concrete will have trouble competing in terms of price against companies producing more well-established but higher-emission solutions like fly ash, slag, and limestone concrete mixtures to secure procurement contracts. Moreover, the just-in-time and project-specific nature of these procurement contracts means they still don’t address juvenile companies’ need for long-term price and customer security in order to scale up.

The ideal solution for this is a demand-support program. The DOE Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) is developing a demand-support program for the Hydrogen Hubs initiative, setting aside $1 billion for demand-support to accompany the $7 billion in direct funding to regional Hydrogen Hubs. In its request for proposals, OCED says that the hydrogen demand-support program will address the “fundamental mismatch in [the market] between producers, who need long-term certainty of high-volume demand in order to secure financing to build a project, and buyers, who often prefer to buy on a short-term basis at more modest volumes, especially for products that have yet to be produced at scale and [are] expected to see cost decreases.” 

A demand-support program could do the same for low-carbon cement and concrete, addressing the market challenges that grants alone cannot. OCED is reviewing applications for the $6.3 billion Industrial Demonstrations Program. Similar to the Hydrogen Hubs, OCED could consider setting aside $500 million to $1 billion of the program funds to implement demand-support programs for the two highest-emitting heavy industries, low-carbon cement/concrete and steel, at $250 million to $500 million each.

Additional funding from Congress would allow DOE to implement a more robust demand-support program. Federal investment in industrial decarbonization grew from $1.5 billion in FY21 to over $10 billion in FY23, thanks largely to new funding from BIL and IRA. However, the sector remains underfunded relative to its emissions, contributing 23% of the country’s emissions while receiving less than 12% of Federal climate innovation funding. A promising piece of legislation that was recently introduced is The Concrete and Asphalt Innovation Act of 2023, which would, among other things, direct the DOE to establish a program of research, development, demonstration, and commercial application of low-emissions cement, concrete, asphalt binder, and asphalt mixture. This would include a demonstration initiative authorized at $200 million and the production of a five-year strategic plan to identify new programs and resources needed to carry out the mission. If the legislation is passed, the DOE could propose a demand-support program in its strategic plan and request funding from Congress to set it up, though the faster route would be for Congress to add a section to the Act directly establishing a demand-support program within DOE and authorizing funding for it before passing the Act.

Other Transactions Authority

BIL and IRA gave DOE an expanded mandate to support innovative technologies from early-stage research through commercialization. In order to do so, DOE must be just as innovative in its use of its available authorities and resources. Tackling the challenge of bringing technologies from pilot to commercialization requires DOE to look beyond traditional grant, loan, and procurement mechanisms. Previously, we have identified the DOE’s Other Transaction Authority (OTA) as an underleveraged tool for accelerating clean energy technologies. 

OTA is defined in legislation as the authority to enter into transactions that are not government grants or contracts in order to advance an agency’s mission. This negative definition provides DOE with significant freedom to design and implement flexible financial agreements that can be tailored to address the unique challenges that different technologies face. DOE plans to use OTA to implement the hydrogen demand-support program, and it could also be used for a demand-support program for low-carbon cement and concrete. The DOE’s new Guide to Other Transactions provides official guidance on how DOE personnel can use the flexibilities provided by OTA. 

Defining Products for Demand Support

Before setting up a demand-support program, DOE first needs to define what a low-carbon cement or concrete product is and the value it provides in emissions avoided. This is not straightforward due to (1) the heterogeneity of solutions, which prevents apples-to-apples comparisons in price, and (2) variations in the amount of avoided emissions that different solutions can provide. To address the first issue, for products that are not ready-mix concrete, the DOE should calculate the cost of a unit of concrete made using the product, based on a standardized mix ratio of a specific compressive strength and market prices for the other components of the concrete mix. To address the second issue, the DOE should then divide the calculated price per unit of concrete (e.g., $/m³) by the amount of CO₂ emissions avoided per unit of concrete compared to the NRCMA’s industry average (e.g., kg/m³) to determine the effective price per unit of CO₂ emissions avoided. The DOE can then fairly compare bids from different projects using this metric. Such an approach would result in the government providing demand support for the products that are most cost-effective at reducing carbon emissions, rather than solely the cheapest.

Furthermore, the DOE should put an upper limit on the amount of embodied carbon that the concrete product or concrete made with the product must meet in order to qualify as “low carbon.” We suggest that the DOE use the limits established by the First Movers Coalition, an international corporate advanced market commitment for concrete and other hard-to-abate industries organized by the World Economic Forum. The limits were developed through conversations with incumbent suppliers, start-ups, nonprofits, and intergovernmental organizations on what would be achievable by 2030. The limits were designed to help move the needle towards commercializing solutions that enable full decarbonization.

Companies that participate in a DOE demand-support program should be required after one or two years of operations to confirm that their product meets these limits through an Environmental Product Declaration.² Using carbon offsets to reach that limit should not be allowed, since the goal is to spur the innovation and scaling of technologies that can eventually fully decarbonize the cement and concrete industry.

Below are some ideas for how DOE can set up a demand-support program for low-carbon cement and concrete.

Program Proposals

Double-Sided Auction 

Double-sided auctions are designed to support the development of production capacity for green technologies and products and the creation of a market by providing long-term price certainty to suppliers and facilitating the sale of their products to buyers. As the name suggests, a double-sided auction consists of two phases: First, the government or an intermediary organization holds a reverse auction for long-term purchase agreements (e.g., 10 years) for the product from suppliers, who are incentivized to bid the lowest possible price in order to win. Next, the government conducts annual auctions of short-term sales agreements to buyers of the product. Once sales agreements are finalized, the product is delivered directly from the supplier to the buyer, with the government acting as a transparent intermediary. The government thus serves as a market maker by coordinating the purchase and sale of the product from producers to buyers. Government funding covers the difference between the original purchase price and the final sale price, reducing the impact of the green premium for buyers and sellers. 

While the federal government has not yet implemented a double-sided auction program, OCED is considering setting up the hydrogen demand-support measure as a “market maker” that provides a “ready purchaser/seller for clean hydrogen.” Such a market maker program could be implemented most efficiently through double-sided auctions.

Germany was the first to conceive of and develop the double-sided auction scheme. The H2Global initiative was established in 2021 to support the development of production capacity for green hydrogen and its derivative products. The program is implemented by Hintco, an intermediary company, which is currently evaluating bids for its first auction for the purchase of green ammonia, methanol, and e-fuels, with final contracts expected to be announced as soon as this month. Products will start to be delivered by the end of 2024.

(Source: H2Global)

A double-sided auction scheme for low-carbon cement and concrete would address producers’ need for long-term offtake agreements while matching buyers’ short-term procurement needs. The auctions would also help develop transparent market prices for low-carbon cement and concrete products. 

All bids for purchase agreements should include detailed technical specifications and/or certifications for the product, the desired price per unit, and a robust, third-party life-cycle assessment of the amount of embodied carbon per unit of concrete made with the product, at different compressive strengths. Additionally, bids of ready-mix concrete should include the location(s) of their production facility or facilities, and bids of cement and other concrete inputs should include information on the locations of ready-mix concrete facilities capable of producing concrete using their products. The DOE should then select bids through a pure reverse auction using the calculated effective price per unit of CO₂ emissions avoided. To account for regional fragmentation, the DOE could conduct separate auctions for each region of the country.

A double-sided auction presents similar benefits to the low-carbon cement and concrete industry as an advance market commitment would. However, the addition of an efficient, built-in system for the government to then sell that cement or concrete allotment to a buyer means that the government is not obligated to use the cement or concrete itself. This is important because the logistics of matching cement or concrete production to a suitable government construction project can be difficult due to regional fragmentation, and the DOE is not a major procurer of cement and concrete.³ Instead, under this scheme, federal, state, or local agencies working on a construction project or their contractors could check the double-sided auction program each year to see if there is a product offering in their region that matches their project needs and sustainability goals for that year, and if so, submit a bid to procure it. In fact, this should be encouraged as a part of the Federal Buy Clean Initiative, since the government is such an important consumer of cement and concrete products.

Contracts for Difference

Contracts for difference (CfD, or sometimes called two-way CfD) programs aim to provide price certainty for green technology projects and close the gap between the price that producers need and the price that buyers are willing to offer. CfD have been used by the United Kingdom and France primarily to support the development of large-scale renewable energy projects. However, CfD can also be used to support the development of production capacity for other green technologies. OCED is considering CfD (also known as pay-for-difference contracts) for its hydrogen demand-support program. 

CfD are long-term contracts signed between the government or a government-sponsored entity and companies looking to expand production capacity for a green product.⁴ The contract guarantees that once the production facility comes online, the government will ensure a steady price by paying suppliers the difference between the market price for which they are able to sell their product and a predetermined “strike price.” On the other hand, if the market price rises above the strike price, the supplier will pay the difference back to the government. This prevents the public from funding any potential windfall profits.

(Source: Canadian Climate Institute)

A CfD program could provide a source of demand certainty for low-carbon cement and concrete companies looking to finance the construction of pilot- and commercial-scale manufacturing plants or the retrofitting of existing plants. The selection of recipients and strike prices should be determined through annual reverse auctions. In a typical reverse auction for CfD, the government sets a cap on the maximum number of units of product and the max strike price they’re willing to accept. Each project candidate then places a sealed bid for a unit price and the amount of product they plan to produce. The bids are ranked by unit price, and projects are accepted from low to high unit price until either the max total capacity or max strike price is reached. The last project accepted sets the strike price for all accepted projects. The strike price is adjusted annually for inflation but otherwise fixed over the course of the contract. Compared to traditional subsidy programs, a CfD program can be much more cost-efficient thanks to the reverse auction process. The UK’s CfD program has seen the strike price fall with each successive round of auctions.

Applying this to the low-carbon cement and concrete industry requires some adjustments, since there are a variety of products for decarbonizing cement and concrete. As discussed prior, the DOE should compare project bids according to the effective price per unit CO₂ abated when the product is used to make concrete. The DOE should also set a cap on the maximum volume of CO₂ it wishes to abate and the maximum effective price per unit of CO₂ abated that it is willing to pay. Bids can then be accepted from low to high price until one of those caps is hit. Instead of establishing a single strike price, the DOE should use the accepted project’s bid price as the strike price to account for the variation in types of products.

Backstop Price Guarantee 

A CfD program could be designed as a backstop price guarantee if one removes the requirement that suppliers pay the government back when market prices rise above the strike price. In this case, the DOE would set a lower maximum strike price for CO₂ abatement, knowing that suppliers will be willing to bid lower strike prices, since there is now the opportunity for unrestricted profits above the strike price. The DOE would then only pay in the worst-case scenario when the market price falls below the strike price, which would operate as an effective price floor.

Backstop Volume Guarantee

Alternatively, the DOE could address demand uncertainty by providing a volume guarantee. In this case, the DOE could conduct a reverse auction for volume guarantee agreements with manufacturers, wherein the DOE would commit to purchasing any units of product short of the volume guarantee that the company is unable to sell each year for a certain price, and the company would commit to a ceiling on the price they will charge buyers.⁵ Using OTA, the DOE could implement such a program in collaboration with DOT or GSA, wherein DOE would purchase the materials and DOT or GSA would use the materials for their construction needs.

Other Considerations for Implementation

Rather than directly managing a demand-support program, the DOE should enter into an OT agreement with an external nonprofit entity to administer the contracts.⁶ The nonprofit entity would then hold auctions and select, manage, and fulfill the contracts. DOE is currently in the process of doing this for the hydrogen demand-support program. 

A nonprofit entity could provide two main benefits. First, the logistics of implementing such a program would not be trivial, given the number of different suppliers, intermediaries, and offtakers involved. An external entity would have an easier and faster time hiring staff with the necessary expertise compared to the federal hiring process and limited budget for program direction that the DOE has to contend with. Second, the entity’s independent nature would make it easier to gain lasting bipartisan support for the demand-support program, since the entity would not be directly associated with any one administration.

Coordination with Other DOE Programs

The green premium for near-zero-carbon cement and concrete products is steep, and demand-support programs like the ones proposed in this report should not be considered a cure-all for the industry, since it may be difficult to secure a large enough budget for any one such program to fully address the green premium across the industry. Rather, demand-support programs can complement the multiple existing funding authorities within the DOE by closing the residual gap between emerging technologies and conventional alternatives after other programs have helped to lower the green premium. 

The DOE’s Loan Programs Office (LPO) received a significant increase in their lending authorities from the IRA and has the ability to provide loans or loan guarantees to innovative clean cement facilities, resulting in cheaper capital financing and providing an effective subsidy. In addition, the IRA and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provided substantial new funding for the demonstration of industrial decarbonization technologies through OCED. 

Policies like these can be chained together. For example, a clean cement start-up could simultaneously apply to OCED for funding to demonstrate their technology at scale and a loan or loan guarantee from LPO after due diligence on their business plan. Together, these two programs drive down the cost of the green premium and derisk the companies that successfully receive their support, leaving a much more modest price premium that a mechanism like a double-sided auction could affordably cover with less risk. 

Successfully chaining policies like this requires deep coordination across DOE offices. OCED and LPO would need to work in lockstep in conducting technical evaluations and due diligence of projects that apply to both and prioritize funding of projects that meet both offices’ criteria for success. The best projects should be offered both demonstration funding from OCED and conditional commitments from LPO, which would provide companies with the confidence that they will receive follow-on funding if the demonstration is successful and other conditions are met, while posing no added risk to LPO since companies will need to meet their conditions first before receiving funds. The assessments should also consider whether the project would be a strong candidate for receiving demand support through a double-sided auction, CfD program, or price/volume guarantee, which would help further derisk the loan/loan guarantee and justify the demonstration funding. 

Candidates for receiving support from all three public funding instruments would of course need to be especially rigorously evaluated, since the fiscal risk and potential political backlash of such a project failing is also much greater. If successful, such coordination would ensure that the combination of these programs substantially moves the needle on bringing emerging technologies in green cement and concrete to commercial scale. 

Conclusion

Demand support can help address the key barrier that low-carbon cement and concrete companies face in scaling their technologies and financing commercial-scale manufacturing facilities. Whichever approach the DOE chooses to take, the agency should keep in mind (1) the importance of setting an ambitious standard for what qualifies as low-carbon cement and concrete and comparing proposals using a metric that accounts for the range of different product types and embodied emissions, (2) the complex implementation logistics, and (3) the benefits of coordinating a demand-support program with the agency’s demonstration and loan programs. Implemented successfully, such a program would crowd in private investment, accelerate commercialization, and lay the foundation for the clean industrial economy in the United States.

This report is part one of a series on underinvested clean energy technologies, the challenges they face, and how the Department of Energy can use its Other Transaction Authority to implement programs custom tailored to those challenges.

The United States has been gifted with an abundance of clean, firm geothermal energy lying below our feet – tens of thousands of times more than the country has in untapped fossil fuels. Geothermal technology is entering a new era, with innovative approaches on their way to commercialization that will unlock access to more types of geothermal resources. However, the development of commercial-scale geothermal projects is an expensive affair, and the U.S. government has severely underinvested in this technology. The Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law concentrated clean energy investments in solar and wind, which are great near-term solutions for decarbonization, but neglected to invest sufficiently in solutions like geothermal energy, which are necessary to reach full decarbonization in the long term. With new funding from Congress or potentially the creative (re)allocation of existing funding, the Department of Energy (DOE) could take a number of different approaches to accelerating progress in next-generation geothermal energy, from leasing agency land for project development to providing milestone payments for the costly drilling phases of development.

Introduction

As the United States power grid transitions towards clean energy, the increasing mix of intermittent renewable energy sources like solar and wind must be balanced by sources of clean firm power that are available around the clock in order to ensure grid reliability and reduce the need to overbuild solar, wind, and battery capacity. Geothermal power is a leading contender for addressing this issue. 

Conventional geothermal (also known as hydrothermal) power plants tap into existing hot underground aquifers and circulate the hot water to the surface to generate electricity. Thanks to an abundance of geothermal resources close to the earth’s surface in the western part of the country, the United States currently leads the world in geothermal power generation. Conventional geothermal power plants are typically located near geysers and steam vents, which indicate the presence of hydrothermal resources belowground. However, these hydrothermal sites represent just a small fraction of the total untapped geothermal potential beneath our feet — more than the potential of fossil fuel and nuclear fuel reserves combined.

Next-generation geothermal technologies, such as enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), closed-loop or advanced geothermal systems (AGS), and other novel designs, promise to allow access to a wider range of geothermal resources. Some designs can potentially also serve double duty as long-duration energy storage. Rather than tapping into existing hydrothermal reservoirs underground, these technologies drill into hot dry rock, engineer independent reservoirs using either hydraulic stimulation or extensive horizontal drilling, and then introduce new fluids to bring geothermal energy to the surface. These new technologies have benefited from advances in the oil and gas industry, resulting in lower drilling costs and higher success rates. Furthermore, some companies have been developing designs for retrofitting abandoned oil and gas wells to convert them into geothermal power plants. The commonalities between these two sectors present an opportunity not only to leverage the existing workforce, engineering expertise, and supply chain from the oil and gas industry to grow the geothermal industry but also to support a just transition such that current workers employed by the oil and gas industry have an opportunity to help build our clean energy future. 

Over the past few years, a number of next-generation geothermal companies have had successful pilot demonstrations, and some are now developing commercial-scale projects. As a result of these successes and the growing demand for clean firm power, power purchase agreements (PPAs) for an unprecedented 1GW of geothermal power have been signed with utilities, community choice aggregators (CCAs), and commercial customers in the United States in 2022 and 2023 combined. In 2023, PPAs for next-generation geothermal projects surpassed those for conventional geothermal projects in terms of capacity. While this is promising, barriers remain to the development of commercial-scale geothermal projects. To meet its goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, the United States will need to invest in overcoming these barriers for next-generation geothermal energy now, lest the technology fail to scale to the level necessary for a fully decarbonized grid. 

Meanwhile, conventional hydrothermal still has a role to play in the clean energy transition. The United States needs all the clean firm power that it can get, whether that comes from conventional or next-generation geothermal, in order to retire baseload coal and natural gas plants. The construction of conventional hydrothermal power plants is less expensive and cheaper to finance, since it’s a tried and tested technology, and there are still plenty of untapped hydrothermal resources in the western part of the country.

Challenges Facing Geothermal Projects

Funding is the biggest barrier to commercial development of next-generation geothermal projects. There are two types of private financing: equity financing or debt financing. Equity financing is more risk tolerant and is typically the source of funding for start-ups as they move from the R&D to demonstration phases of their technology. But because equity financing has a dilutive effect on the company, when it comes to the construction of commercial-scale projects, debt financing is preferred. However, first-of-a-kind commercial projects are almost always precluded from accessing debt financing. It is commonly understood within industry that private lenders will not take on technology risk, meaning that technologies must be at a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 9, where they have been proven to operate at commercial scale, and government lenders like the DOE Loan Programs Office (LPO) generally will not take on any risk that private lenders won’t. Manifestations of technology risk in next-generation geothermal include the possibility of underproduction, which would impact the plant’s profitability, or that capacity will decline faster than expected, reducing the plant’s operating lifetime. Moving next-generation technologies from the current TRL-7 level to TRL-9 will be key to establishing the reliability of these emerging technologies and unlocking debt financing for future commercial-scale projects. 

Underproduction will likely remain a risk, though to a lesser extent, for next-generation projects even after technologies reach TRL-9. This is because uncertainty in the exploration and subsurface characterization process makes it possible for developers to overestimate the temperature gradient and thus the production capacity of a project. Hydrothermal projects also share this risk: the factors determining the production capacity for hydrothermal projects include not only the temperature gradient but also the flow rate and enthalpy of the natural reservoir. In the worst-case scenario, drilling can result in a dry hole that produces no hot fluids at all. This becomes a financial issue if the project is unable to generate as much revenue as expected due to underproduction or additional wells must be drilled to compensate, driving up the total project cost. Thus, underproduction is a risk shared by both next-generation and conventional geothermal projects. Research into improvements to the accuracy and cost of geothermal exploration and subsurface characterization can help mitigate this risk but may not eliminate it entirely, since there is a risk-cost trade-off in how much time is spent on exploration and subsurface characterization.

Another challenge for both next-generation and conventional geothermal projects is that they are more expensive to develop than solar or wind projects. Drilling requires significant upfront capital expenditures, making up about half of the total capital costs of developing a geothermal project, if not more. For example, in EGS projects, the first few wells can cost around $10 million each, while conventional hydrothermal wells, which are shallower, can cost around $3–7 million each. While conventional hydrothermal plants only consist of two to six wells on average, designs for commercial EGS projects can require several times that amount of wells. Luckily, EGS projects benefit from the fact that wells can be drilled identically, so projects expect to move down the learning curve as they drill more wells, resulting in faster and cheaper drilling. Initial data from commercial-scale projects currently being developed suggest that the learning curves may be even steeper than expected. Nevertheless, this will need to be proven at scale across different locations. Some companies have managed to forgo expensive drilling costs by focusing on developing technologies that can be installed within idle hydrothermal wells or abandoned oil and gas wells to convert them into productive geothermal wells.

Beyond funding, geothermal projects need to obtain land where there are suitable geothermal resources and permits for each stage of project development. The best geothermal resources in the United States are concentrated in the West, where the federal government owns most of the land. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages a lot of that land, in addition to all subsurface resources on federal land. However, there is inconsistency in how the BLM leases its land, depending on the state. While Nevada BLM has been very consistent about holding regular lease sales each year, California BLM has not held a lease sale since 2016. Adding to the complexity is the fact that although BLM manages all subsurface resources on federal land, surface land may sometimes be managed by a different agency, in which case both agencies will need to be involved in the leasing and permitting process.

Last, next-generation geothermal companies face a green premium on electricity produced using their technology, though the green premium does not appear to be as significant of a challenge for next-generation geothermal as it is for other green technologies. In states with high renewables penetration, utilities and their regulators are beginning to recognize the extra value that clean firm power provides in terms of grid reliability. For example, the California Public Utility Commission has issued an order for utilities to procure 1 GW of clean, firm power by 2026, motivating a wave of new demand from utilities and community choice aggregators. As a result of this demand and California’s high electricity prices in general, geothermal projects have successfully signed a flurry of PPAs over the past year. These have included projects located in Nevada and Utah that can transmit electricity to California customers. In most other western states, however, electricity prices are much lower, so utility companies can be reluctant to sign PPAs for next-generation geothermal projects if they aren’t required to, due to the high cost and technology risk. As a result, next-generation geothermal projects in those states have turned to commercial customers, like those operating data centers, who are willing to pay more to meet their sustainability goals. 

Federal Support

The federal government is beginning to recognize the important role of next-generation geothermal power for the clean energy transition. For the first time in 2023, geothermal energy became eligible for the renewable energy investment and production tax credits, thanks to technology-neutral language introduced in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Within the DOE, the agency launched the Enhanced Geothermal Shot in 2022, led by the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), to reduce the cost of EGS by 90% to $45/MWh by 2035 and make geothermal widely available. In 2020, the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), a dedicated underground field laboratory for EGS research, drilling, and technology testing established by GTO in 2014, drilled their first well using new approaches and tools the lab had developed. This year, GTO announced funding for seven EGS pilot demonstrations from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), for which GTO is currently reviewing the first round of applications. GTO also awarded the Geothermal Energy from Oil and gas Demonstrated Engineering (GEODE) grant to a consortium formed by Project Innerspace, the Society of Petroleum Engineering International, and Geothermal Rising, with over 100 partner entities, to transfer best practices from the oil and gas industry to geothermal, support demonstrations and deployments, identify barriers to growth in the industry, and encourage workforce adoption. 

While these initiatives are a good start, significantly more funding from Congress is necessary to support the development of pilot demonstrations and commercial-scale projects and enable wider adoption of geothermal energy. The BIL notably expanded the DOE’s mission area in supporting the deployment of clean energy technologies, including establishing the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations (OCED) and funding demonstration programs from the Energy Division of BIL and the Energy Act of 2020. However, the $84 million in funding authorized for geothermal pilot demonstrations was only a fraction of the funding that other programs received from BIL and not commensurate to the actual cost of next-generation geothermal projects. Congress should be investing an order of magnitude more into next-generation geothermal projects, in order to maintain U.S. leadership in geothermal energy and reap the many benefits to the grid, the climate, and the economy.

Another key issue is that DOE has currently and in the past limited all of its funding for next-generation geothermal to EGS technologies only. As a result, companies pursuing closed-loop/AGS and other next-generation technologies cannot qualify, leading some projects to be moved abroad. Given GTO’s historically limited budget, it’s possible that this was the result of a strategic decision to focus their funding on one technology rather than diluting it across multiple technologies. However, given that none of these technologies have been successfully commercialized at a wide scale yet, DOE may be missing the opportunity to invest in the full range of viable approaches. DOE appears to be aware of this, as the agency currently has a working group on AGS. New funding from Congress would allow DOE to diversify its investments to support the demonstration and commercial application of other next-generation geothermal technologies. 

Alternatively, there are a number of OCED programs with funding from BIL that have not yet been fully spent (Table 1). Congress could reallocate some of that funding towards a new program supporting next-generation geothermal projects within OCED. Though not ideal, this may be a more palatable near-term solution for the current Congress than appropriating new funding.

Table 1. OCED programs that have remaining unspent funding from BIL as of publication in January 2024.

OCED Program	Total Funding	Committed Funding	Unspent Funding
Carbon Capture Demonstration Projects	$2.547 billion	$1.889 billion	$658 million
Carbon Capture Large Scale Pilot Projects	$937 million	$820 million	$117 million
Energy Improvements in Rural and Remote Areas	$1 billion	$365 million	$635 million
Clean Energy Demonstration Program on Current and Former Mine Land	$500 million	$450 million	$50 million
Energy Storage Demonstration Projects and Pilot Grant Program	$355 million	$349 million	$6 million
Long-Duration Demonstration Program and Joint Initiative	$150 million	$30 million	$120 million

A third option is that DOE could use some of the funding for the Energy Improvements in Rural and Remote Areas program, of which $635 million remains unallocated, to support geothermal projects. Though the program’s authorization does not explicitly mention geothermal energy, geothermal is a good candidate given the abundance of geothermal production potential in rural and remote areas in the West. Moreover, as a clean firm power source, geothermal has a comparative advantage over other renewable energy sources in improving energy reliability. 

Other Transactions Authority

BIL and IRA gave DOE an expanded mandate to support innovative technologies from early stage research through commercialization. To do so, DOE will need to be just as innovative in its use of its available authorities and resources. Tackling the challenge of scaling technologies from pilot to commercialization will require DOE to look beyond traditional grant, loan, and procurement mechanisms. Previously, we identified the DOE’s Other Transaction Authority (OTA) as an underleveraged tool for accelerating clean energy technologies. 

OTA is defined in legislation as the authority to enter into any transaction that is not a government grant or contract. This negative definition provides DOE with significant freedom to design and implement flexible financial agreements that can be tailored to the unique challenges that different technologies face. OT agreements allow DOE to be more creative, and potentially more cost-effective, in how it supports the commercialization of new technologies, such as facilitating the development of new markets, mitigating risks and market failures, and providing innovative new types of demand-side “pull” funding and supply-side “push” funding. The DOE’s new Guide to Other Transactions provides official guidance on how DOE personnel can use the flexibilities provided by OTA. 

With additional funding from Congress, the DOE could use OT agreements to address the unique barriers that geothermal projects face in ways that may not be possible through other mechanisms. Below are four proposals for how the DOE can do so. We chose to focus on supporting next-generation geothermal projects, since the young industry currently requires more governmental support to grow, but we included ideas that would benefit conventional hydrothermal projects as well.

Program Proposals

Geothermal Development on Agency Land

This year, the Defense Innovation Unit issued its first funding opportunity specifically for geothermal energy. The four winning projects will aim to develop innovative geothermal power projects on Department of Defense (DoD) bases for both direct consumption by the base and sale to the local grid. OT agreements were used for this program to develop mutually beneficial custom terms. For project developers, DoD provided funding for surveying, design, and proposal development in addition to land for the actual project development. The agreement terms also gave companies permission to use the technology and information gained from the project for other commercial use. For DoD, these projects are an opportunity to improve the energy resilience and independence of its bases while also reducing emissions. By implementing the prototype agreement using OTA, DoD will have the option to enter into a follow-on OT agreement with project developers without further competition, expediting future processes.

DOE could implement a similar program for its 2.4 million acres of land. In particular, the DOE’s land in Idaho and other western states has favorable geothermal resources, which the DOE has considered leasing. By providing some funding for surveying and proposal development like the DoD, the DOE can increase the odds of successful project development, compared to simply leasing the land without funding support. The DOE could also offer technical support to projects from its national labs. 

With such a program, a lot of the value that the DOE would be providing is the land itself, which the DOE currently has more of than actual funding for geothermal energy. The funding needed for surveying and proposal development is much less than would be needed to support the actual construction of demonstration projects, so GTO could feasibly request funding for such a program through the annual appropriations process. Depending on the program outcomes and the resulting proposals, the DOE could then go back to Congress to request follow-on funding to support actual project construction. 

Drilling Cost-Share Program

To help defray the high cost of drilling, the DOE could implement a milestone-based cost-share program. There is precedent for government cost-share programs for geothermal: in 1973, before the DOE was even established, Congress passed the Geothermal Loan Guarantee Program to provide “investment security to the public and private sectors to exploit geothermal resources” in the early days of the industry. Later, the DOE funded the Cascades I and II Cost Shared Programs. Then, from 2000 to 2007, the DOE ran the Geothermal Resource Exploration and Definitions (GRED) I, II, and III Cost-Share Programs. This year, the DOE launched its EGS Pilot Demonstrations program.

A milestone payment structure could be favorable for supporting expensive, next-generation geothermal projects because the government takes on less risk compared to providing all of the funding upfront. Initial funding could be provided for drilling the first few wells. Successful and on-time completion of drilling could then unlock additional funding to drill more wells, and so on. In the past, both the DoD and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) have structured their OT agreements using milestone payments, most famously between NASA and SpaceX for the development of the Falcon9 space launch vehicle. The NASA and SpaceX agreement included not just technical but also financial milestones for the investment of additional private capital into the project. The DOE could do the same and include both technical and financial milestones in a geothermal cost-share program. 

Risk Insurance Program

Longer term, the DOE could implement a risk insurance program for conventional hydrothermal and next-generation geothermal projects. Insuring against underproduction could make it easier and cheaper for projects to be financed, since the potential downside for investors would be capped. The DOE could initially offer insurance just for conventional hydrothermal, since there is already extensive data on past commercial projects that can inform how the insurance is designed. In order to design insurance for next-generation technologies, more commercial-scale projects will first need to be built to collect the data necessary to assess the underproduction risk of different approaches.

France has administered a successful Geothermal Public Risk Insurance Fund for conventional hydrothermal projects since 1982. The insurance originally consisted of two parts: a Short-Term Fund to cover the risk of underproduction and a Long-Term Fund to cover uncertain long-term behavior over the operating lifetime of the geothermal plant. The Short-Term Fund asked project owners to pay a premium of 1.5% of the maximum guaranteed amount. In return, the Short-Term Fund provided a 20% subsidy for the cost of drilling the first well and, in the case of reduced output or a dry hole, a compensation between 20% and 90% of the maximum guaranteed amount (inclusive of the subsidy that has already been paid). The exact compensation is determined based on a formula for the amount necessary to restore the project’s profitability with its reduced output. The Short-Term Fund relied on a high success rate, especially in the Paris Basin where there is known to be good hydrothermal resources, to fund the costs of failures. Geothermal developers that chose to get coverage from the Short-Term Fund were required to also get coverage from the Long-Term Fund, which was designed to hedge against the possibility of unexpected geological or geothermal changes within the wells, such as if their output declined faster than expected or severe corrosion or scaling occurred, over the geothermal plant’s operating lifetime. The Long-Term Fund ended in 2015, but a new iteration of the Short-Term Fund was approved in 2023.

The Netherlands has successfully run a similar program to the Short-Term Fund since the 2000s. Private-sector attempts at setting up geothermal risk insurance packages in Europe and around the world have mostly failed, though. The premiums were often too high, costing up to 25–30% of the cost of drilling, and were established in developing markets where not enough projects were being developed to mutualize the risk. 

To implement such a program at the DOE, projects seeking coverage would first submit an application consisting of the technical plan, timeline, expected costs, and expected output. The DOE would then conduct rigorous due diligence to ensure that the project’s proposal is reasonable. Once accepted, projects would pay a small premium upfront; the DOE should keep in mind the failed attempts at private-sector insurance packages and ensure that the premium is affordable. In the case that either the installed capacity is much lower than expected or the output capacity declines significantly over the course of the first year of operations, the Fund would compensate the project based on the level of underproduction and the amount necessary to restore the project’s profitability with a reduced output. The French Short-Term Fund calculated compensation based on characteristics of the hydrothermal wells; the DOE would need to develop its own formulas reflective of the costs and characteristics of different next-generation geothermal technologies once commercial data actually exists. 

Before setting up a geothermal insurance fund, the DOE should investigate whether there are enough geothermal projects being developed across the country to ensure the mutualization of risk and whether there is enough commercial data to properly evaluate the risk. Another concern for next-generation geothermal is that a high failure rate could cause the fund to run out. To mitigate this, the DOE will need to analyze future commercial data for different next-generation technologies to assess whether each technology is mature enough for a sustainable insurance program. Last, poor state capacity could impede the feasibility of implementing such a program. The DOE will need personnel on staff that are sufficiently knowledgeable about the range of emerging technologies in order to properly evaluate technical plans, understand their risks, and design an appropriate insurance package. 

Production Subsidy

While the green premium for next-generation geothermal has not been an issue in California, it may be slowing down project development in other states with lower electricity prices. The Inflation Reduction Act introduced a new clean energy Production Tax Credit that included geothermal energy for the first time. However, due to the higher development costs of next-generation geothermal projects compared to other renewable energy projects, that subsidy is insufficient to fully bridge the green premium. DOE could use OTA to introduce a production subsidy for next-generation geothermal energy with varied rates depending on the state that the electricity is sold to and its average baseload electricity price (e.g., the production subsidy likely would not apply to California). This would help address variations in the green premium across different states and expand the number of states in which it is financially viable to develop next-generation geothermal projects. 

Conclusion

The United States is well-positioned to lead the next-generation geothermal industry, with its abundance of geothermal resources and opportunities to leverage the knowledge and workforce of the domestic oil and gas industry. The responsibility is on Congress to ensure that DOE has the necessary funding to support the full range of innovative technologies being pursued by this young industry. With more funding, DOE can take advantage of the flexibility offered by OTA to create agreements tailored to the unique challenges that the geothermal industry faces as it begins to scale. Successful commercialization would pave the way to unlocking access to 24/7 clean energy almost anywhere in the country and help future-proof the transition to a fully decarbonized power grid. 

Friends and Colleagues,

In today’s political climate in Washington, it is sometimes hard to believe that change is possible. Yet, at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), we know firsthand that progress happens when the science community has a seat at the policymaking table. At our core, we believe that when passionate advocates join forces and share a commitment to ongoing learning, adaptation, and a drive toward action – science and technology progress can both solve the toughest challenges and uncover new ways to deliver the greatest impact.

In 2023, we remained steadfast in our ability to spur collective action. FAS supported our federal partners on the most significant investments in science and technology in decades with the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science Act (CHIPS) and the Inflation Reduction Act. Our Talent Hub team placed 71 Impact Fellows on tours of service in government and secured a first-of-its-kind partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to place 35 Impact Fellows in key positions within USDA over the next five years. Our expert network published 47 actionable policy memos through our Day One Project platform and drove impact by working with the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to launch the new Advanced Research Projects Agency-Infrastructure (ARPA-I). And our renowned Nuclear Information Project continues to inform the public and challenge assumptions about nuclear weapons arsenals and trends with record breaking public attention. I hope you’ll read more about all of our wins in this year’s FAS Impact Report.

FAS remains focused on honoring our 80-year legacy as a leading voice on global risk while seeking out new policy areas and domains that advance and support science and technology priorities. To support this new era for FAS, we completed a full rebrand—modernizing our look and retelling our story—and rolled out organization-wide strategic goals to drive and define the impact we seek to instill across government. Together, we focus on more than progress for its own sake—we intentionally create the systems and paradigms that make such progress sustainable and tangible.

We have continued to build our team and expertise, and with that growth we are inspired by the caliber of our new teammates. We also remain committed to fulfilling our expectations on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) and continue to advocate for stronger commitments to social equality with all of our partners. 

It is impossible for me to fit the entire year’s successes into a single letter, but I hope our annual report brings my update to life.

Thank you for your continued support,

Dan Correa, FAS CEO

Team FAS Celebrating Science

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

FAS is committed—both in principle and in practice—to creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for all individuals interested in addressing contemporary issues where science, technology, and innovation policy can deliver dramatic progress.

In 2023, FAS expanded its DEIB strategy beyond its initial pledge to:

• Conduct a first-of-its-kind cultural audit 
• Implement changes to create transparent hiring and financial practices 
• Produce accountability mechanisms to track progress 

Much like our work advancing policy change, FAS approaches the mission of infusing DEIB principles into our organizational culture and the importance of broadening our team’s perspectives with urgency. We also recognize that as a science organization with national reach, we can model forward-thinking approaches to these issues that others can emulate. We acknowledge that we still have a long way to go before claiming success, but FAS is committed to this journey for the long run.

Policy Entrepreneurship in Action

For several years, FAS has been evangelizing the power of policy entrepreneurship to galvanize policy change, helping an entire community of experts and practitioners embrace the tools, mindsets and networks needed to get results. The power of policy entrepreneurship is two-fold: 

• It encourages those with lived-experience and expertise to champion the still-underappreciated ways in which science and technology are central to policy solutions. 

• Time and again, it yields tangible policy change.

In FY23, FAS advanced policy entrepreneurship across all of its core issue domains by convening change agents, crafting policy memos, curating policy ideas, and seeding countless actionable policy ideas through policy entrepreneurship. Below are just some of our highlights over the past year.

Championing Critical Funding across the Science and Technology (S&T) Ecosystem—FY23 Omnibus Spending Bill

Public investments in science and technology have declined precipitously since the Cold War, when two percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) went to research and development (R&D). With estimates of R&D investment currently below one percent of GDP  and challenges from peer competitors like China threatening U.S. leadership in emerging technologies, FAS advocates for strong investments in critical and emerging technologies as well as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education to maintain America’s edge in innovation. 

In December 2022, President Biden signed the FY23 Omnibus appropriations package into law, funding a broad range of new science and technology priorities. This funding will strengthen our country’s ability to invest in better science and technology education, stay globally competitive and ensure that innovation opportunities are available across the country. The bill included provisions that stemmed from a number of ideas that FAS staff and Day One Project contributors helped seed, including:

• A moonshot platform for education R&D. FAS co-leads the Alliance for Learning Innovation (ALI) coalition, bringing together education nonprofits, philanthropy, and the private sector to advocate boosting investment in research to transform K–12 student outcomes. In FY23, ALI championed the inclusion in the Omnibus of a $30 million pilot program to establish a National Center for Advanced Development in Education (NCADE), a new platform for transformative research in education (including several ideas outlined in Day One Project memos). NCADE represents a true milestone for the education community which has been calling for a moonshot education R&D platform for more than a decade.
• Initial appropriations of $3.2 million for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Infrastructure (ARPA-I), which will help USDOT build an ambitious moonshot research agenda to address stubborn challenges across transportation, safety, equity, and more. The ARPA-I concept, refined in a 2020 Day One Project USDOT transition workshop, was first authorized in the infrastructure package. FAS is helping USDOT with initial agenda-setting for this transformative research agenda.
• An investment of $500 million for Regional Tech Hubs, a major downpayment to fund planning for a nationwide network of regional innovation clusters that expand U.S. innovation capacity in key technology areas. The $1 billion Build Back Better Regional Challenge inspired the design of the Tech Hubs; Day One Project authors contributed to this initiative and repeatedly made the case for regional technology hubs. As part of a multi-organization campaign for Omnibus appropriations, our team undertook targeted outreach to more than 30 entrepreneurial ecosystem groups and influential economic actors across 10 strategically important states.

Reversing Megafire through Science and Data

Against a backdrop of the growing scourge of megafires, FAS has helped to put wildfires on the policy agenda in a bipartisan way that would have seemed impossible only a year ago. FAS organized more than 30 experts to contribute actionable policy ideas that have been shared directly with the Congressionally-mandated Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission. Through this effort, we are advancing our goal of helping reduce the risks of catastrophic uncontrolled fires and protect people from the health risks of wildfire smoke while promoting beneficial controlled fire to improve ecosystem health. FAS policy recommendations influenced recommendations in the Commission’s report to Congress to guide a legislative implementation strategy which has included $1.6 billion in appropriations requests for smoke and public health.

Addressing Inequities in Medical Devices

The COVID-19 public health emergency revealed deep disparities in medical device use, specifically with pulse oximeters—devices widely used to measure oxygen saturation in blood. Medical researchers and policymakers had overlooked this issue for years until the COVID-19 pandemic revealed a large disparity in the diagnosis and treatment of severe respiratory conditions in Black and Brown communities. Through policy entrepreneurship, FAS identified an opportunity on a previously under-examined health policy issue and achieved two major wins. 

First, FAS brought together more than 60 stakeholders to highlight policy opportunities to address racial bias in pulse oximeters and to cultivate a comprehensive strategy to address biases and inequities in medical innovation from industry to philanthropy and government by hosting an in-person Forum on Bias in Pulse Oximetry in November 2022. 

Second, recognizing the importance of continuing the conversation on disparate impacts of technology and the COVID-19 pandemic on underrepresented communities, FAS developed a research and policy agenda for near-term mitigation of inequities in pulse oximetry and other medical technologies as well as the long-term solutions from the Bias in Pulse Oximetry Forum. FAS’ research and convening on this issue prompted the Veterans Health Administration (VHA)—a major health agency within the U.S. government—to evaluate the use of all pulse oximeters (~50 types) and to understand the impact of the technologies on the more than nine million patients served by the VHA system.

Empowering Expert Talent to Drive Impact Through Government Service

An effective and innovative federal government cannot exist without access to diverse scientific and technical experts to help solve large-scale challenges that impact the public. Yet, too often, the federal government struggles to identify and recruit the expertise needed and to navigate the flexible hiring authorities appropriate for expert tours of service. To support government agency partners, FAS created the Talent Hub to find the best and brightest individuals interested in  federal tours of service and provide the needed technical assistance to place them in high-impact roles.

In FY23, the Talent Hub team placed 71 Impact Fellows in government tours of service and built programming to train and equip these fellows with the skills necessary to effectively deliver on the agency’s mission. Below are a few highlights of FAS’s talent innovation model in action.

Delivering science and technical talent to strengthen the capacity of USDA

Climate change diminishes land and water resources, reducing agricultural productivity and leading to conflict over scarce resources. To blunt the effects of climate on our food systems, the government needs experts fast.

FAS’s success in delivering highly qualified scientific and technical talent shaped by agencies’ needs resulted in our greatest success to date: a partnership with USDA to place 35 Impact Fellows within the department over the next five years to build an efficient, resilient, and sustainable food supply chain. 

Helping to Create the First U.S. National Nature Assessment

Following the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) in Egypt in November 2022, the U.S. government released a Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap, the first U.S. government strategy developed to scale up nature-based solutions. Nature-based solutions combat climate change at lower costs than traditional infrastructure. To contribute to governmental expertise and implement policy within this area, FAS placed a fellow inside the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) in 2021 to design, coordinate, and implement this key Biden administration initiative. 

Heather Tallis, an Impact Fellow serving at OSTP for the last two years, helped to establish the National Nature Assessment. This new effort of the U.S. Global Change Research Program will assess the status, trends and future projections regarding the health of U.S. lands, waters, and wildlife and the benefits they provide to the economy, climate mitigation and adaptation, equity, health and national security. In her role Heather co-chaired the interagency process of the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap. 

Within the Executive Office of the President (EOP), she generated the idea for the Nature-Based Solutions Roadmap with EOP colleagues, advocated to get it included in an executive order, and co-led a government-wide effort across 15 agencies to implement the first National Nature Assessment. This comprehensive effort, led by Heather, resulted in an important new tool for the U.S. government to forecast how nature might change and what those changes may mean for the economy and the lives of Americans.

Empowering New Voices to Start Their career in Nuclear Weapons Field

FAS launched the New Voices on Nuclear Weapons (NVNW) Fellowship in the summer of 2023. The Fellowship was specifically created to address the high barriers to entry into the nuclear field by providing young nuclear scholars with financial support, mentorship, and opportunities for publication. During the four-month pilot program, the four inaugural NVNW fellows worked with a senior academic or policy expert outside of FAS to co-author research projects that provide a creative perspective on rethinking nuclear deterrence policy. Through the NVNW program, FAS is fostering the next generation of talent in the nuclear field, which is critical as nuclear tensions continue to rise and as experienced talent exits the field.

Developing Leaders with Cross-Sector Knowledge and Bolstering the DOE Pipeline for the Clean Energy Transition

Investing in a robust talent pipeline is critical at the Department of Energy (DOE), where roughly four percent of DOE employees are under 30. Building this pipeline is crucial for the clean energy transition that’s already underway—not only for not the federal government, but for the entire ecosystem. To meet clean energy deployment estimates across the country, clean energy jobs will need to increase threefold by 2025 and almost sixfold by 2030.

FAS is taking a multifaceted approach to supporting the clean energy talent pipeline. Following the publication of our report, FAS hosted a workshop with internal talent and human capital champions to share recommendations for how DOE can strengthen its recruitment of technical experts while retaining and diversifying the skills of its existing workforce. FAS is now engaging with various DOE program offices to execute on those recommendations, including leading a communications effort to profile successful DOE innovators while continuing to build sustainable pathways for onboarding technical talent. Last year, FAS expanded our DOE fellowships in a partnership with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) to recruit and place an initial cohort of fellows funded by DOE into DOE program offices. Building on this initial success, DOE contracted with FAS to recruit mid- to senior-level career technical talent to implement a broad range of ambitious priorities to stimulate a clean energy transition.

Enhancing Government’s Capacity to Implement

FAS experts frequently collaborate with stakeholders in Congress and the executive branch to help solve complex science and technology policy challenges that align with government priorities and needs. In FY23, FAS’s unique ability to coordinate actors across the legislative and executive branches and facilitate crucial discourse and planning efforts across government agencies yielded tangible successes as described below.

Accelerating Technology Deployment through Flexible Financial Mechanisms to Maximize Spending from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)

Promising technologies and opportunities for innovation exist across health, clean energy, and other domains but often lack an existing market—or guarantee of a future market—to support their creation and commercialization. The federal government can play a unique role in signaling and even guaranteeing demand for these solutions, including using its power as a buyer. 

FAS worked with the DOE front office to diffuse flexible financial mechanisms to support and accelerate the deployment of novel clean energy technologies that lower greenhouse gas emissions, while supporting the implementation of BIL and IRA. FAS compiled a set of policy recommendations for how DOE could leverage its Other Transactions Authority (OTA) to accelerate commercialization and scale high-impact clean energy technologies. FAS recommended that DOE use its other transaction authority by establishing a formal internal process that encourages the formation of consortia to promote efficiency and collaboration across technology areas, while still appropriately mitigating risk. 

These recommendations prompted DOE to release informed guidance in September 2023 for how program offices and leaders across the agency can leverage other transactions to catalyze demand for clean energy. DOE continues to engage FAS in ongoing discussions on deploying OTAs and other flexible financial mechanisms to stimulate demand and accelerate deployment of promising technologies.

Creating stronger infrastructure through innovation

The United States faces multiple challenges in using innovation to not only deliver transportation infrastructure that is more resilient against climate change, but also to deliver on the clean energy transition and advance equity for communities that have historically been excluded from decision-making on these projects. To address these challenges, in November 2021 Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which included $550 billion in new funding for dozens of new programs across the USDOT.

The bill created the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Infrastructure (ARPA-I) and historic investments in America’s roads and bridges. ARPA-I’s mission is to unlock the full potential of public and private innovation ecosystems to improve U.S. infrastructure by accelerating climate game-changers across the entire U.S. R&D ecosystem. Since its authorization, USDOT has invited FAS to use our expertise to scope advanced research priorities across diverse infrastructure topics where targeted research can yield innovative new infrastructure technologies, materials, systems, capabilities, or processes through ARPA-I.

For example, this year FAS has engaged more than 160 experts in ARPA-I program idea generation and created 50 wireframes for ARPA-I’s initial set of programs, leading to a powerful coalition of stakeholders and laying a strong foundation for the potential that ARPA-I can achieve as it evolves. ARPA-I’s authorization and subsequent initial appropriation in December 2022 provides an opportunity to tackle monumental challenges across transportation and infrastructure through breakthrough innovation. FAS’s programming is helping shape the future of the ARPA-I office.

Providing Government with the Tools to Assess Risks in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Biosecurity

With increased warnings that AI may support the development of chemical and biological weapons, the federal government must act to protect the public from malicious actors. Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Ted Budd (R-NC) introduced the Artificial Intelligence and Biosecurity Risk Assessment Act and the Strategy for Public Health Preparedness and Response to Artificial Intelligence Threats Act with FAS’s technical assistance. These two pieces of legislation empower the federal government to better understand public health security risks associated with AI by directing the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to conduct comprehensive risk assessments of advances in AI.

Helping International STEM Students and Workers in the United States

Sixty percent of computer science PhDs and nearly 50% of STEM PhDs are foreign born, and these workers have contributed to America’s continuing science and technological leadership. FAS has worked across the legislative and executive branches of government to keep the best and brightest science and technology minds in the United States.

In the legislative branch, interest in keeping talented scientific and technical talent in the United States has increased as a natural security concern. Recognizing the importance of this moment, FAS provided technical assistance to the offices of Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mike Rounds (R-SD) and Representatives Bill Foster (D-IL11) and Mike Lawler (R-NY17) in introducing the Keep STEM Talent Act of 2023, a bill that would make it easier for international students with advanced STEM degrees to stay in the United States after graduation.

An executive branch rule states that most nonimmigrants (i.e., non-green card holders) must renew visas outside the United States at an American embassy or consulate overseas. This rule requires students and workers to leave the United States during school or employment and bear the costs of going back to their country of origin; it also creates an administrative burden for consular officers who have heavy caseloads. FAS experts published a policy document that provides specific recommendations for how to reinstate domestic visa renewal. The State Department implemented some of these recommendations through a pilot program. This pilot program, the first step to solving this challenge, allows high-skilled immigrants to renew their work visas in the United States rather than having to travel to their home country to do so.

Driving Accountability through Expert Analysis

FAS has a legacy of pursuing a vision of eradicating the global risks that threaten human civilization. To achieve this vision, boosting the collective understanding of real and perceived threats is a critical public good. FAS remains committed to enhancing transparency around nuclear risks, which underpins informed debate and provide a means of defusing risks. Here are a few examples of FAS’s work to drive accountability through expert analysis.

Enhancing transparency around nuclear risks

Since 2003, the Nuclear Information Project (NIP) team at FAS has published the most comprehensive and accurate nuclear weapon transparency information. Three major wins this year include:

• FAS discovered increasing evidence that the U.S. Air Force’s nuclear mission may be returning to UK soil for the first time in 15 years. Based on satellite imagery and budgetary documents, the NIP team concluded that the United States is currently preparing the infrastructure at Royal Air Force (RAF) Lakenheath in the UK to potentially receive nuclear weapons in the future. This discovery was picked up by national and local news outlets and led to protests at Lakenheath, a UK National Day of Action against nuclear weapons, and members of parliament writing op-eds on the topic and asking questions in parliament. 

• Following Putin’s March 2023 announcement about Russia’s intent to establish a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-style nuclear sharing relationship with Belarus, the Nuclear Information Project team published several investigations identifying the most likely candidate bases for Belarus’s new “nuclear sharing” mission. The NIP team also explored the knowns and unknowns surrounding Putin’s March 2023 statement and continuously analyzed satellite imagery for updates regarding the claimed deployment of these nuclear weapons. These assessments contributed timely and thorough analyses to the ongoing debate about the strategic implications and costs of this type of nuclear-sharing arrangement.
• Over the past year, the Nuclear Information Project team contributed chapters about global nuclear forces to both the Nuclear Weapons Ban Monitor and the annual SIPRI Yearbook. The former was used to inform state policy during the First Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and the latter was translated into nearly a dozen languages and covered in more than 6,000 articles and broadcasts worldwide. Together, these two contributions by our team constituted some of the most widely-sourced and heavily-cited publications about global nuclear forces over the past year. 

Converting New Ideas into Action through Fiscal Sponsorship

Recognizing that the best ideas often need a place to incubate, FAS hosts a fiscal sponsorship program that supports burgeoning entrepreneurs in science and technology policy. FAS provides sponsorship and support to give important ideas life, forge new initiatives, and expand impact in the science community. Below is just one example of the power of our fiscal sponsorship in action.

FLi Sci:  Supporting young scholars’ career paths in science

In FY23, FAS supported the fiscal sponsorship of FLi Sci, an education nonprofit initiative that builds pipelines for high school and college students who are first-generation college students or from low-income backgrounds and sets them up for success navigating a scientific career.

In FY23, FLi Sci had a breakthrough year, making significant strides in its effort to change the face of science. The program:

• Expanded its reach, recruiting 20 FLi Sci Scholars from seven states, with over 95% identifying as Black or Hispanic and 80% as female or nonbinary.
• Established financial stability, growing program revenue by about 407% (from ~$65,000 to $330,000) in FY23.
• Increased program offerings, launching two more programs focused on psychology and data science research.

What’s Next for FAS

At FAS, we are proud of our impact and realize there is still more to be done. While we are working to expand the breadth and depth of our work above, we also see three major opportunities for FAS in the next fiscal year.

Expanding Government’s Capacity 

The U.S. government is critical to solving the largest problems of the 21st century. While significant progress has been made, institutional complexity challenges the government’s ability to quickly innovate and deliver on its mission. Lackluster incentives, bureaucratic bottlenecks, and the lack of feedback loops slow progress and hinder capacity building across four key areas: financial mechanisms, evidence, talent, and culture. This work is especially important in an election year where either a second term or new administration will bring new people and ideas to Washington, DC, and the government’s ability to execute these ideas hinges on its capacity.

FAS is in a unique position to support the federal government in building federal capacity. Since delivering 100 implementation-ready policy proposals for the 2020 presidential transition, FAS has grown and matured, expanding our capabilities as an organization. We are working to diagnose key science and technology policy issues ripe for bipartisan innovation and support. As we move forward with our findings, FAS will use our Day One platform to publicize grand challenges in this space and gather the best ideas from experts across the country on how best to solve these issues.

Mitigating Global Risk

FAS was founded to address the new, human-created nuclear danger that threatened global extinction. Today, in a world vastly more complicated than the one into which nuclear weapons were introduced, FAS supports the development and execution of sound public policy based on proven and effective technical skills to improve the human condition and, increasingly, to reduce global risks. 

FAS’s new Global Risk program is focused on both the promise and peril posed by evolving AI capabilities in the nuclear landscape and beyond. Dedicated to reducing nuclear dangers and ensuring that qualified technical experts are integral parts of the policy process, FAS seeks to advance its work in support of U.S. and global security at the intersection between nuclear weapons, AI, and global risk. By drawing on technical experts, engaging the policy community, convening across multiple skill sets and sectors, and developing joint projects and collaborations with the government, FAS seeks to drive positive policy outcomes and shape the security landscape for the better.

Deepening Knowledge of Emerging Technologies across All Branches of Government

AI’s rapid evolution, combined with a lack of understanding of how it works, makes today’s policy decisions incredibly important but fraught with misconceptions. This is a pivotal moment, and FAS seeks to engage, educate, and inspire congressional staff, executive branch personnel, military decision makers, and state lawmakers on AI’s substantial potential—and risks. Our mission is to translate this transformative technology for lawmakers by advancing impactful policy development and promoting positive and productive discourse.  

FAS finds itself in an unprecedented position to directly inform and influence crucial decisions that will shape AI governance. Our nonpartisan expertise and ability to move rapidly have made us the go-to resource for members of Congress across party lines when they require technical advice on AI-related issues. In the 118th Congress, FAS’s AI team has provided support on six vital AI bills and received requests for assistance and briefings on AI-related topics from over 40 congressional offices.

We recognize that this momentum offers FAS a unique opportunity to not only continue guiding policymakers with much-needed perspectives but also strive for actionable and equitable policy change that addresses the challenges linked with advancements in artificial intelligence.

FAS Values

At FAS, we accomplish our work by practicing four values that animate our theory of change: Impact Driven, Customer Focused, Entrepreneurial, and Growth Oriented. Our incredible staff lives and breathes these values in their daily work, and we’re honored to have them tell you why they are so important for them.

“I see our team embody our ‘Impact Driven‘ value every day as we work not only in service of those who bring science and tech into the public domain, but also those for whom their innovations impact. We relentlessly seek to identify, understand, and fill the gaps between our nation’s reality and our collective ambition for a better future.”

Faith Savaiano, Associate Director, Social Innovation

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“For me, customer focused work at FAS means understanding our audience. How are they helped with our policy analysis? What issues do they care about and want to see advanced in science and technology policy? In order to have the greatest impact, I strive to understand what is the why for our customers in government and philanthropy in shaping the policy conversation.”

Daniel Robinson, Manager, Grants and Development

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“Securing equitable health and well-being for Americans requires navigating a complex continuum of upstream (the social determinants of health) and downstream (how healthcare is delivered) factors while also building a big tent of stakeholders working on all aspects of health security. Embodying an entrepreneurial mindset is essential as I’ve tackled thorny health topics that lack a constituency organizing around high-impact policy solutions at the federal level – like racism in medical technologies and climate change’s impact on human health – with a strong commitment that systemic change is possible if the right people are mobilized to act.”

Grace Wickerson, Health Equity Policy Manager

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“Being growth-oriented means being curious and motivated to learn while intentionally cultivating an environment where others can do the same.”

Eliana Johns, Senior Associate, Nuclear Information Project

Fundraising and Development

The Federation of American Scientists continued our fundraising momentum from FY22 into FY23, securing $51 million in new commitments across 47 total awards and 31 unique funders, representing a 46% increase in funding allocations from last year. These investments by FAS’s philanthropic and agency partners reflect a sustained focus by FAS staff to continue diversifying and expanding our funding portfolio while simultaneously deepening our connections with existing partners and positioning FAS as an indispensable voice for evidence-based, scientifically-driven policy analysis and research.

The majority of the funding FAS receives (99.6%) is restricted for the use of specific projects and initiatives, while unrestricted funding (which only accounts for 0.04% of funding) bolsters the organization’s operational capacity.

The critical work being done at FAS would not be possible without the generous support of its philanthropic partners who continue to invest in the organization’s vision for the future.

Anonymous Donor	Future of Life Institute	LEGO Foundation	Oceans 5	The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Arnold Ventures	The Gates Foundation	Lincoln Network	Open Philanthropy	Thrive Together LLC
Bayshore Global	General Services Administration	Longview Philanthropy	The David and Lucille Packard Foundation	United States Department of Agriculture
Breakthrough Energy	Good Ventures Foundation	The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation	PIT Fund	United States Department of Transportation
Camelback Ventures	Horizon Institute for Public Service	Mercatus Center	The Ploughshares Fund	United States Economic Development Administration
Carnegie Corporation of New York	The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation	The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation	The Prospect Hill Foundation	UnlockAid
The Catena Foundation	Kapor Center	National Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation	Resource Legacy Fund	The Walton Family Foundation
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative	Korea Foundation	National Philanthropic Trust	Schmidt Futures
The Dallas Foundation	The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation	The New Land Foundation	Siegel Family Endowment
The Energy Foundation	The Kresge Foundation	Norwegian People’s Aid	Silicon Valley Community Foundation

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans M. Kristensen, Senior Research Fellow Matt Korda, Research Associate Eliana Johns, and Scoville Peace Fellow Mackenzie Knight.

This issue’s column examines the current state of global nuclear sharing arrangements, which include non-nuclear countries that possess nuclear-capable delivery systems for employment of a nuclear-armed state’s nuclear weapons.

Read the full “Nuclear weapons sharing, 2023” Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, or download a PDF using the button on the left side of this page. The complete archive of FAS Nuclear Notebooks can be found here.

This research was carried out with generous contributions from the New-Land Foundation, Ploughshares Fund, the Prospect Hill Foundation, Longview Philanthropy, and individual donors.

The looming competition for global talent has brought forth a necessity to evaluate and update the policies concerning international visa holders in the United States. Recognizing this, President Biden has directed various agencies to consider policy changes aimed at improving processes and conditions for legal foreign workers, students, researchers, and scholars through the upcoming AI Executive Order (EO). The EO recognizes that attracting global talent is vital for continued U.S. economic growth and enhancing competitiveness. 

Here we offer a comprehensive analysis of potential impacts and beneficiaries under several key provisions brought to attention by this EO. The provisions considered herein are categorized under six paramount categories: domestic revalidation for J-1 and F-1 Visas; modernization of H-1B Visa Rules; updates to J-1 Exchange Visitor Skills List; the introduction of Global AI Talent Attraction Program; issuing an RFI to seek updates to DOL’s Schedule A; and policy manual updates for O-1A, EB-1, EB-2 and International Entrepreneur Rule. Each policy change carries the potential to advance America’s ability to draw in international experts that hugely contribute to our innovation-driven economy.

Domestic Revalidation for J-1 and F-1 Visas

The EO directive on expanding domestic revalidation for J-1 research scholars and F-1 STEM visa students simplifies and streamlines the renewal process for a large number of visa holders. 

There are currently approximately 900,000 international students in the US, nearly half of whom are enrolled in STEM fields. This policy change has the potential to impact almost 450,000 international students, including those who partake in optional practical training (OPT). The group of affected individuals consists greatly of scholars with advanced degrees as nearly half of all STEM PhDs are awarded to international students.

One of the significant benefits offered by this EO directive is the reduction in processing times and associated costs. In addition, it improves convenience for these students and scholars. For example, many among the several hundreds of thousands of STEM students will no longer be obligated to spend excessive amounts on travel to their home country for a 10-minute interview at an Embassy.

Aside from saving costs, this directive also allows students to attend international conferences more easily and enjoy hassle-free travel without being worried about having to spend a month away from their vital research waiting for visa renewal back home.

Expanding domestic revalidation to F and J visa holders was initially suggested by the Secure Borders and Open Doors Advisory Committee in January 2008, indicating its long-standing relevance and importance. By implementing it, we not only enhance efficiency but also foster a more supportive environment for international students contributing significantly to our scientific research community.

Modernization of H-1B Visa Rules

The EO directive to update the rules surrounding H-1B visas would positively impact the over 500k H-1B visa holders. The Department of Homeland Security recently released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to reform the H-1B visa rules. It would allow these visa holders to easily transition into new jobs, have more predictability and certainty in the renewal process and more flexibility or better opportunities to apply their skills, and allow entrepreneurs to more effectively access the H-1B visa. Last year, 206,002 initial and continuing H-1Bs were issued. The new rules would apply to similar numbers in FY2025. But what amplifies this modification’s impact is its potential crossover with EB-1 and EB-2 petitioners waiting on green cards—currently at over 400k petitions. 

Additionally, the modernization would address the issue of multiple applications per applicant. This has been a controversial issue in the H-1B visa program as companies would often file multiple registrations for the same employee, thus increasing the exhaustion rate of yearly quotas, thereby reducing chances for others. This modernization could potentially address this problem by introducing clear rules or restrictions on the number of applications per applicant. USCIS recently launched fraud investigations into several companies engaging in this practice.

Updates to J-1 Exchange Visitor Skills List

The EO directive to revamp the skills list will synchronize with evolving global labor market needs. Nearly 37k of the J-1s issued in 2022 went to professors, research scholars and short term scholars, hailing from mainly China and India (nearly 40% of all). Therefore, this update not only expands opportunities available to these participants but also tackles critical skill gaps within fields like AI in the U.S. Once the J-1 skills list is updated to meet the realities of the global labor market today, it will allow thousands of additional high skilled J-1 visa holders to apply for other visa categories immediately, without spending 2-years in their countries of origin, as laid out in this recent brief by the Federation of American Scientists.

Global AI Talent Attraction Program

Recognizing AI talent is global, the EO directive on using the State Department’s public diplomacy function becomes strategically important. By hosting overseas events to appeal to such crucial talent bases abroad, we can effectively fuel the U.S. tech industry’s unmet demand that has seen a steep incline over recent years. While 59% of the top-tier AI researchers work in the U.S., only 20% of them received their undergraduate degree in the U.S. Only 35% of the most elite (top 0.5%) of AI researchers received their undergraduate degree in the U.S., but 65% of them work in the U.S. The establishment of a Global AI Talent Attraction program by the State Department will double down on this uniquely American advantage.

Schedule A Update & DOL’s RFI

Schedule A is a list of occupations for which the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has determined there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available. Foreign workers in these occupations can therefore have a faster process to receive a Green Card because the employer does not need to go through the Labor Certification process. Schedule A Group I was created in 1965 and has remained unchanged since 1991. If the DOL were to update Schedule A, it would impact foreign workers and employers in several ways depending on how the list changes:

• Adding Occupations: If new occupations are added, it could speed up the immigration process for some foreign workers whose profession has been included. It simultaneously benefits the employers who are struggling to fill those roles with U.S. workers.
• Removing Occupations: Conversely, if occupations are removed from Schedule A, foreign workers in those fields may face longer delays and increased difficulty in obtaining a Green Card as their employers would need to undertake the Labor Certification process to demonstrate that there are not enough qualified U.S. workers for the job.
• Changes Related to Geographical Locations: An update could also affect which geographic areas of labor shortages are recognized.
• Dealing with Dynamic Job Market: As job markets change rapidly with technological developments, updated Schedule A could better reflect current labor market conditions and labor shortages in certain industries or regions better.

Foreign workers with occupations that are on Schedule A do not have to go through the PERM (Program Electronic Review Management) labor certification process, a process that otherwise takes on average 300 days to complete. This is because Schedule A lists occupations for which the Department of Labor has already determined there are not sufficient U.S. workers who are able, willing, qualified and available. An updated Schedule A could cut PERM applications filed significantly down from current high volumes (over 86,000 already filed by the end of FY23 Q3). While the EO only calls for an RFI seeking information on the Schedule A List, this is a critical first step to an eventual update that is badly needed.

Policy Manual Updates for O-1A, EB-1, EB-2 and International Entrepreneur Rule

The EO’s directive to DHS to modernize pathways for experts in AI and other emerging technologies will have profound effects on the U.S. tech industry. Fields such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Quantum computing, Biotechnology, etc., are increasingly crucial in defining global technology leadership and national security. As per the NSCAI report, the U.S. significantly lags behind in terms of AI expertise due to severe immigration challenges.

The modernization would likely include clarification and updates to the criteria of defining ‘extraordinary ability’ and ‘exceptional ability’ under O-1A, EB-1 and EB-2 visas, becoming more inclusive towards talents in emerging tech fields. For instance, the current ‘extraordinary ability’ category is restrictive towards researchers as it preferentially favors those who have received significant international awards or recognitions—a rarity in most early-stage research careers. Similarly, despite O-1A and EB-1 both designed for aliens with extraordinary ability, the criteria for EB-1 is more restrictive than O-1A and bringing both in line would allow a more predictable path for an O-1A holder to transition to an EB-1. Such updates also extend to the International Entrepreneur Rule, facilitating startup founders from critical technology backgrounds more straightforward access into the U.S. landscape.

Altogether, these updates could lead to a surge in visa applications under O-1A, EB-1, EB-2 categories and increase entrepreneurship within emerging tech sectors. In turn, this provision would bolster the U.S.’ competitive advantage globally by attracting top-performing individuals working on critical technologies worldwide.

Enhanced Informational Resources and Transparency

The directives in Section 4 instruct an array of senior officials to create informational resources that demystify options for experts in critical technologies intending to work in the U.S. The provision’s ramifications include:

• Clearer Pathways: The creation of a ‘comprehensive guide’ ensures specialists have an understanding of their options to work in the U.S., reducing the miscommunication or confusion that can hinder recruitment and immigration processes.
• Multi-Lingual Resources: By stipulating these resources be published in ‘multiple languages,’ this provision promotes inclusivity, attracting talent from various linguistic backgrounds.
• Visibility of Relevant Data: The mandate places a responsibility on key departments to monitor and publish relevant immigration data about AI and other critical technology experts. This transparency may instill confidence in potential experts considering making their skills available in the U.S., illustrating an evidence-based approach to policy-making.

Streamlining Visa Services 

This area of the order directly addresses immigration policy with a view to accelerating access for talented individuals in emerging tech fields. 

• Reduced Processing Times: The directive to “streamline processing times” has potentially transformative effects. By speeding up visa petition processing times and ensuring timely visa appointments, needed innovation practitioners can begin contributing to the American economy sooner.
• Continuous Visa Availability: By promoting “continued availability” of visa appointments, the order potentially prevents gaps from occurring in the recruitment or hiring process due to administrative issues, thus ensuring a steady entrance of talents into the industry.

Using Discretionary Authorities to Support and Attract AI Talent

The EO’s directive to the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security to use discretionary authorities—consistent with applicable law and implementing regulations—to support and attract foreign nationals with special skills in AI seeking to work, study, or conduct research in the U.S. could have enormous implications. 

One way this provision could be implemented is through the use of public benefit parole. Offering parole to elite AI researchers who may otherwise be stuck in decades long backlogs (or are trying to evade authoritarian regimes) could see a significant increase in the inflow of intellectual prowess into the U.S. Public benefit parole is also the basis for the International Entrepreneur Rule. Given how other countries are actively poaching talent from the U.S. because of our decades long visa backlogs, creating a public benefit parole program for researchers in AI and other emerging technology areas could prove extremely valuable. These researchers could then be allowed to stay and work in the U.S. provided they are able to demonstrate (on an individual basis) that their stay in the U.S. would provide a significant public benefit through their AI research and development efforts.

Another potential utilization of this discretionary authority could be in the way of the Department of State issuing a memo announcing a one‐​time recapture of certain immigrant visa cap numbers to redress prior agency failures to issue visas. There is precedence for this as when the government openly acknowledged its errors that made immigrants from Western Hemisphere countries face longer wait times between 1968 and 1976 as it incorrectly charged Cuban refugees to the Western Hemisphere limitation. To remedy the situation, the government recaptured over 140,000 visas from prior fiscal years on its own authority, and issued them to other immigrants who were caught in the Western Hemisphere backlog. 

In the past, considerable quantities of green cards have gone unused due to administrative factors. Recapturing these missed opportunities could immediately benefit a sizable volume of immigrants, including those possessing AI skills and waiting for green card availability. For instance, if a hypothetical 300,000 green cards that were not allocated due to administrative failures are recaptured, it could potentially expedite the immigration process for a similar number of individuals. 

Finally, as a brief from the Federation of American Scientists stated earlier, it is essential that the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Homeland Security extend the visa interview waivers indefinitely, considering the significant backlogs faced by the State Department at several consular posts that are preventing researchers from traveling to the U.S. 

In August 2020, Secretary Pompeo announced that applicants seeking a visa in the same category they previously held would be allowed to get an interview waiver if their visa expired in the last 24 months. Before this, the expiration period for an interview waiver was only 12 months. In December 2020, just two days before this policy was set to expire, DOS extended it through the end of March 2021. In March, the expiration period was doubled again, from 24 months to 48 months and the policy extended through December 31, 2021. In September of 2021, DOS also approved waivers through the remainder of 2021 for applicants of F, M, and academic J visas from Visa Waiver Program countries who were previously issued a visa.

In December 2021, DOS extended its then-existing policies (with some minor modifications) through December 2022. Moreover, the interview waiver policy that individuals renewing a visa in the same category as a visa that expired in the preceding 48 months may be eligible for issuance without an interview was announced as a standing policy of the State Department, and added to the department’s Foreign Affairs Manual for consular officers.  In December 2022, DOS announced another extension of these policies, which are set to expire at the end of 2023. 

As the State Department recently noted: “These interview waiver authorities have reduced visa appointment wait times at many embassies and consulates by freeing up in-person interview appointments for other applicants who require an interview. Nearly half of the almost seven million nonimmigrant visas the Department issued in Fiscal Year 2022 were adjudicated without an in-person interview. We are successfully lowering visa wait times worldwide, following closures during the pandemic, and making every effort to further reduce those wait times as quickly as possible, including for first-time tourist visa applicants. Embassies and consulates may still require an in-person interview on a case-by-case basis and dependent upon local conditions.”

These changes would also benefit U.S. companies and research institutions, who often struggle to retain and attract international AI talent due to the lengthy immigration process and uncertain outcomes. In addition, exercising parole authority can open a new gateway for attracting highly skilled AI talent that might have otherwise chosen other countries due to the rigid U.S. immigration system. 

The use of such authorities can result in a transformational change for AI research and development in the U.S. However, all these outcomes entirely depend upon the actual changes made to existing policies—a task that many acknowledge will require serious thoughtfulness for walking a balance between remaining advantageously selective yet inclusive enough.

In summary, these provisions would carry massive impacts—enabling us to retain foreign talent vital across sectors including but not limited to education, technology and healthcare; all fuelling our national economic growth in turn.

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans M. Kristensen, Senior Research Fellow Matt Korda, and Research Associate Eliana Johns.

This issue’s column finds that Pakistan is continuing to gradually expand its nuclear arsenal with more warheads, more delivery systems, and a growing fissile material production industry. We estimate that Pakistan now has a nuclear weapons stockpile of approximately 170 warheads.

Read the full “Pakistan Nuclear Weapons, 2023” Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, or download a PDF using the button on the left side of this page. The complete archive of FAS Nuclear Notebooks can be found here.

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This research was carried out with generous contributions from the New-Land Foundation, Ploughshares Fund, the Prospect Hill Foundation, Longview Philanthropy, and individual donors.

Below, we analyze AI R&D grants from the National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (NSF CISE) directorate, estimating those supporting “trustworthy AI” research. NSF hasn’t offered an overview of specific funding for such studies within AI. Through reviewing a random sample of granted proposals 2018-2022, we estimate that ~10-15% of annual AI funding supports trustworthy AI research areas, including interpretability, robustness, privacy-preservation, and fairness, despite an increased focus on trustworthy AI in NSF’s strategic plan as well as public statements by key NSF and White House officials. Robustness receives the most allocation (~6% annually), while interpretability and fairness each obtain ~2%. Funding for privacy-preserving machine learning has seen a significant rise, from .1% to ~5%. We suggest NSF increases funding towards responsible AI, incorporating specific programs and solicitations addressing critical AI trustworthiness issues. We also clarify that NSF should consider trustworthiness in all AI grant application assessments and prioritize projects enhancing the safety of foundation models.

Background on Federal AI R&D

Federal R&D funding has been critical to AI research, especially a decade ago when machine learning (ML) tools had less potential for wide use and received limited private investment. Much of the early AI development occurred in academic labs that were mainly federally funded, forming the foundation for modern ML insights and attracting large-scale private investment. With private sector investments outstripping public ones and creating notable AI advances, federal funding agencies are now reevaluating their role in this area. The key question lies in how public investment can complement private finance to advance AI research that is beneficial for American wellbeing.

Figure 1.

Inspiration for chart from from Our World in Data

The Growing Importance of Trustworthy AI R&D

A growing priority within the discourse of national AI strategy is the advancement of “trustworthy AI”. Per the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, Trustworthy AI refers to AI systems that are safe, reliable, interpretable, robust, demonstrate respect for privacy, and have harmful biases mitigated. Though terms such as “trustworthy AI”, “safe AI”, “responsible AI”, and “beneficial AI” are not precisely defined, they are an important part of the government’s characterization of high-level AI R&D strategy. We aim to elucidate these concepts further in this report, focusing on specific research directions aimed at bolstering the desirable attributes in ML models. We will start by discussing an increasing trend we observe in governmental strategies and certain program solicitations emphasizing such goals.

This increased focus has been reflected in many government strategy documents in recent years. Both the 2016 National AI R&D Strategic Plan and its 2019 update from the National Science and Technology Council pinpointed trustworthiness in AI as a crucial objective. This was reiterated even more emphatically in the recent 2023 revision, which stressed ensuring confidence and reliability of AI systems as especially significant objectives. The plan also underlined how burgeoning numbers of AI models have necessitated urgent efforts towards enhancing safety parameters in AIs. Public feedback regarding previous versions of this plan highlight an expanded priority across academia, industry and society at large for AI models that maintain safety codes, transparency protocols, and equitable improvements without trespassing privacy norms. The NSF’s FY2024 budget proposal submission articulated its primary intention in advancing “the frontiers of trustworthy AI“, deviating from earlier years’ emphasis on sowing seeds for future advancements across various realms of human pursuits.

Concrete manifestations of this increasing emphasis on trustworthy AI can be seen not only in high-level discussions of strategy, but also through specific programs designed to advance trustworthiness in AI models. One of the seven new NSF AI institutes established recently focuses exclusively on “trustworthy AI“. Other programs like NSF’s Fairness in Artificial Intelligence and Safe-Learning Enabled Systems focus chiefly on cultivating dimensions of trustworthy AI research.

Despite their value, these individual programs focused on AI trustworthiness form only a small fragment of total funding allocated for AI R&D by the NSF; at around $20 million per year against nearly $800 million per year in funding towards AI R&D. It remains unclear how much this mounting concern surrounding trustworthy and responsible AI influences NSF’s funding commitments towards responsible AI research. In this paper, we aim to provide an initial investigation of this question by estimating the proportion of grants over the past five fiscal years (FY 2018-2022) from NSF’s CISE directorate (the primary funder of AI R&D within NSF) which support a few key research directions within trustworthy AI: interpretability, robustness, fairness, and privacy-preservation.

Please treat our approximations cautiously; these are neither exact nor conclusive responses to this question. Our methodology heavily relies upon individual judgments categorizing nebulous grant types within a sample of the overall grants. Our goal is to offer an initial finding into federal funding trends directed towards trustworthy AI research.

Methodology

We utilized NSF’s online database of granted awards from the CISE directorate to facilitate our research. Initially, we identified a representative set of AI R&D-focused grants (“AI grants”) funded by NSF’s CISE directorate across certain fiscal years 2018-2022. Subsequently, we procured a random selection of these grants and manually classified them according to predetermined research directions relevant to trustworthy AI. An overview of this process is given below, with details on each step of our methodology provided in the Appendix.

1. Search: Using NSF’s online award search feature, we extracted a near comprehensive collection of abstracts of grant applications approved by NSF’s CISE directorate during fiscal years 2018-2022. Since the search function relies on keywords, we focused on high recall in the search results over high precision, leading to an overly encompassing result set yielding close to 1000 grants annually. It is believed that this initial set encompasses nearly all AI grants from NSF’s CISE directorate while also incorporating numerous non-AI-centric R&D awards.
2. Sample: For each fiscal year, a representative random subset of 100 abstracts was drawn (approximating 10% of the total abstracts extracted). This sample size was chosen as it strikes a balance between manageability for manual categorization and sufficient numbers for reasonably approximate funding estimations.
3. Sort: Based on prevailing definitions of trustworthy AI, four clusters were conceptualized for research directions: i) interpretability/explainability, ii) robustness/safety, iii) fairness, iv) privacy-preservation. To furnish useful contrasts with trustworthy AI funding numbers, additional categories were designated: v) capabilities and vi) applications of AI. Herein, “capabilities” corresponds to pioneering initiatives in model performance and “application of AI” refers to endeavors leveraging extant AI techniques for progress in other domains. Non-AI-centric grants were sorted out of our sample and marked as “other” in this stage. Each grant within our sampled allotment was manually classified into one or more of these research directions based on its primary focus and possible secondary or tertiary objectives where applicable—additional specifics regarding this sorting process are delineated in the Appendix.

Findings

Based on our sorting process, we estimate the proportion of AI grant funds from NSF’s CISE directorate which are primarily directed at our trustworthy AI research directions.

Figure 2.

As depicted in Figure 2, the collective proportion of CISE funds allocated to trustworthy AI research directions usually varies from approximately 10% to around 15% of the total AI funds per annum. However, there are no noticeable positive or negative trends in this overall metric, indicating that over the five-year period examined, there were no dramatic shifts in the funding proportion assigned to trustworthy AI projects. 

Considering secondary and tertiary research directions

As previously noted, several grants under consideration appeared to have secondary or tertiary focuses or seemed to strive for research goals which bridge different research directions. We estimate that over the five-year evaluation period, roughly 18% of grant funds were directed to projects having at least a partial focus on trustworthy AI.

Figure 3.

Specific Research Directions

Robustness/safety

Presently, ML systems tend to fail unpredictably when confronted with situations considerably different from their training scenarios (non-iid settings). This failure propensity may induce detrimental effects, especially in high-risk environments. With the objective of diminishing such threats, robustness or safety-related research endeavors aim to enhance system reliability across new domains and mitigate catastrophic failure when facing untrained situations.¹ Additionally, this category encompasses projects addressing potential risks and failure modes identification for further safety improvements.

Over the past five years, our analysis shows that research pertaining to robustness is typically the most funded trustworthy AI direction, representing about 6% of the total funds allocated by CISE to AI research. However, no definite trends have been identified concerning funding directed at robustness over this period.

Figure 4.

Interpretability/explainability

Explaining why a machine learning model outputs certain predictions for a given input is still an unsolved problem.² Research on interpretability or explainability aspires to devise methods for better understanding the decision-making processes of machine learning models and designing more easily interpretable decision systems.

Over the investigated years, funding supporting interpretability and explainability doesn’t show substantial growth, averagely accounting for approximately 2% of all AI funds.

Figure 5.

Fairness/non-discrimination

ML systems often reflect and exacerbate existing biases present in their training data. To circumvent these issues, research focusing on fairness or non-discrimination purposes works towards creating systems that sidestep such biases. Frequently this area of study involves exploring ways to reduce dataset biases and developing bias-assessment metrics for current models along with other bias-reducing strategies for ML models.³

The funding allocated to this area also generally accounts for around 2% of annual AI funds. Our data did not reveal any discernible trend related to fairness/non-discrimination orientated fundings throughout the examined period.

Figure 6.

Privacy-preservation

AI systems training typically requires large volumes of data that can include personal information; therefore privacy preservation is crucial. In response to this concern, privacy-preserving machine learning research aims at formulating methodologies capable of safeguarding private information.⁴

Throughout the studied years, funding for privacy-preserving machine learning exhibits significant growth from under 1% in 2018 (the smallest among our examined research directions) escalating to over 6% in 2022 (the largest among our inspect trustworthy AI research topics). This increase flourishes around fiscal year 2020; however, its cause remains indeterminate.

Figure 7.

Recommendations

NSF should continue to carefully consider the role that its funding can play in an overall AI R&D portfolio, taking into account both private and public investment. Trustworthy AI research presents a strong opportunity for public investment. Many of the lines of research within trustworthy AI may be under-incentivized within industry investments, and can be usefully pursued by academics. Concretely, NSF could: 

• Build on its existing work by introducing more focused programs and solicitations for specific problems in trustworthy AI, and scaling these programs to be a significant fraction of its overall AI budget. 
• Include the consideration of trustworthy and responsible AI as a component of the “broader impacts” for NSF AI grants. NSF could also consider introducing a separate statement for every application for funding for an AI project, which explicitly asks researchers to identify how their project contributes to trustworthy AI. Reviewers could be instructed to favor work which offers potential benefits on some of these core trustworthy AI research directions. 
• Publish a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) inviting proposals and funding requests for specific trustworthy AI projects, and/or a DCL seeking public input on potential new research directions in trustworthy AI.
• NSF could also encourage or require researchers to follow the NIST AI RMF when conducting their research.
• In all of the above, NSF should consider a specific focus on supporting the development of techniques and insights which will be useful in making large, advanced foundation models, such as GPT-4, more trustworthy and reliable. Such systems are advancing and proliferating, and government funding could play an important role in helping to develop techniques which proactively guard against risks of such systems.

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Appendix

Methodology

For this investigation, we aim to estimate the proportion of AI grant funding from NSF’s CISE directorate which supports research that is relevant to trustworthy AI. To do this, we rely on publicly-provided data of awarded grants from NSF’s CISE directorate, accessed via NSF’s online award search feature. We first aim to identify, for each of the examined fiscal years, a set of AI-focused grants (“AI grants”) from NSF’s CISE directorate. From this set, we draw a random sample of grants, which we manually sort into our selected trustworthy AI research directions. We go into more detail on each of these steps below. 

How did we choose this question? 

We touch on some of the motivation for this question in the introduction above. We investigate NSF’s CISE directorate because it is the primary directorate within NSF for AI research, and because focusing on one directorate (rather than some broader focus, like NSF as a whole) allows for a more focused investigation. Future work could examine other directorates within NSF or other R&D agencies for which grant awards are publicly available. 

We focus on estimating trustworthy AI funding as a proportion of total AI funding, with our goal being to analyze how trustworthy AI is prioritized relative to other AI work, and because this information could be more action-guiding for funders like NSF who are choosing which research directions within AI to prioritize.

Search (identifying a list of AI grants from NSF’s CISE Directorate)

To identify a set of AI grants from NSF’s CISE directorate, we used the advanced award search feature on NSF’s website. We conducted the following search:

• For the NSF organization window, we selected “CSE – Direct for Computer & Info Science”
• For “Keyword”, we entered the following list of terms:
  • AI, “computer vision”, “Artificial Intelligence”, “Machine Learning”, ML, “Natural language processing”, NLP, “Reinforcement learning”, RL
• We included both active and expired awards.
• We set the range for each search to capture the fiscal years of interest (e.g. 10/01/2017 to 09/30/2018 for FY18, 10/01/2018 to 9/30/2019 for FY19, and so on). 

This search yielded a set of ~1000 grants for each fiscal year. This set of grants was over-inclusive, with many grants which were not focused on AI. This is because we aimed for high recall, rather than high precision when choosing our key words; our focus was to find a set of grants which would include all of the relevant AI grants made by NSF’s CISE directorate. We aim to sort out false positives, i.e. grants not focused on AI, in the subsequent “sorting” phase. 

Sampling

We assigned a random number to each grant returned by our initial search, and then sorted the grants from smallest to largest. For each year, we copied the 100 grants with the smallest randomly assigned numbers and into a new spreadsheet which we used for the subsequent “sorting” step. 

We now had a random sample of 500 grants (100 for each FY) from the larger set of ~5000 grants which we identified in the search phase. We chose this number of grants for our sample because it was manageable for manual sorting, and we did not anticipate massive shifts in relative proportions were we to expand from a ~10% sample to say, 20% or 30%. 

Identifying Trustworthy AI Research Directions

We aimed to identify a set of broad research directions which would be especially useful for promoting trustworthy properties in AI systems, which could serve as our categories in the subsequent manual sorting phase. We consulted various definitions of trustworthy AI, relying most heavily on the definition provided by NIST: “characteristics of trustworthy AI include valid and reliable, safe, secure and resilient, accountable and transparent, explainable and interpretable, privacy-enhanced, and fair with harmful bias managed.” We also consulted some lists of trustworthy AI research directions, identifying research directions which appeared to us to be of particular importance for trustworthy AI. Based on the above process, we identify the following clusters of trustworthy AI research:

• Interpretability/explainability
• Privacy-preserving machine learning
• Robustness/safety
• Fairness and non-discrimination

It is important to note here that none of these research areas are crisply defined, but we thought that these clusters provided a useful, high-level, way to break trustworthy AI research down into broad categories. 

In the subsequent steps, we aim to compare the amount of grant funds that are specifically aimed at promoting the above trustworthy AI research directions with the amount of funds which are directed towards improving AI systems’ capabilities in general, or simply applying AI to other classes of problems.

Sorting

For our randomly sampled set of 500 grants, we aimed to sort each grant according to its intended research direction. 

For each grant, we a) read the title and the abstract of the grant and b) assigned the grant a primary research direction, and if applicable, a secondary and tertiary research direction. Secondary and tertiary research directions were not selected for each grant, but were chosen for some grants which stood out to us as having a few different objectives. We provide examples of some of these “overlapping” grants below.

We sorted grants into the following categories:

1. Capabilities
   1. This category was used for projects that are primarily aimed at advancing the capabilities of AI systems, by making them more competent at some task, or for research which could be used to push forward the frontier of capabilities for AI systems. 
   2. This category also includes investments in resources that are generally useful for AI research, e.g. computing clusters at universities. 
   3. Example: A project which aims to develop a new ML model which achieves SOTA performance on a computer vision benchmark.
2. Application of AI/ML.
   1. This category was used for projects which apply existing ML/AI techniques to research questions in other domains. 
   2. Example: A grant which uses some machine learning techniques to analyze large sets of data on precipitation, temperature, etc. to test a hypothesis in climatology.
3. Interpretability/explainability.
   1. This category was used for projects which aim to make AI systems more interpretable or explainable, by allowing for a better understanding of their decision-making process. Here, we included both projects which offer methods for better interpreting existing models, and also on projects which offer new training methods that are easier to interpret.
   2. Example: A project which determines the features of a resume that make it more or less likely to be scored positively by a resume-ranking algorithm.
4. Robustness/safety
   1. This category was used for projects which aim to make AI systems more robust to distribution shifts and adversarial inputs, and more reliable in unfamiliar circumstances. Here, we include both projects which introduce methods for making existing systems more robust, and those which introduce new techniques that are more robust in general. 
   2. Example: A project which explores new methods for providing systems with training data that causes a computer vision model to learn robustly useful patterns from data, rather than spurious ones. 
5. Fairness/non-discrimination
   1. This category was used for projects which aim to make AI systems less likely to entrench or reflect harmful biases. Here, we focus on work directly geared at making models themselves less biased. Many project abstracts described efforts to include researchers from underrepresented populations in the research process, which we chose not to include because of our focus on model behavior.
   2. Example: A project which aims to design techniques for “training out” certain undesirable racial or gender biases.
6. Privacy preservation
   1. This category was used for projects which aim to make AI systems less privacy-invading. 
   2. Example: A project which provides a new algorithm that allows a model to learn desired behavior without using private data. 
7. Other
   1. This category was used for grants which are not focused on AI. As mentioned above, the random sample included many grants which were not AI grants, and these could be removed as “other.”

Some caveats and clarifications on our sorting process

This sorting focuses on the apparent intentions and goals of the research as stated in the abstracts and titles, as these are the aspects of each grant the NSF award search feature makes readily viewable. Our process may therefore miss research objectives which are outlined in the full grant application (and not within the abstract and title). 

A focus on specific research directions

We chose to focus on specific research agendas within trustworthy and responsible AI, rather than just sorting grants between a binary of “trustworthy” or “not trustworthy” in order to bring greater clarity to our grant sorting process. We still make judgment calls with regards to which individual research agendas are being promoted by various grants, but we hope that such a sorting approach will allow greater agreement.

As mentioned above, we also assigned secondary and tertiary research directions to some of these grants. You can view the grants in the sample and how we sorted each here. Below, we offer some examples of the kinds of grants which we would sort into these categories.

Examples of Grants with Multiple Research Directions

• Primary: Capabilities, Secondary: Application of ML.
  • A project which aims to introduce a novel ML approach that is useful for making progress on a research problem in another domain would be categorized as having a primary purpose of Capabilities and a Secondary purpose of Application of ML.
• Primary: Application of ML, Secondary: Capabilities
  • This is similar to the above, except that the “application” seems more central to the research objective than the novel capabilities do. Of course, this weighing of which research objectives were most and least central is subjective and ultimately our decisions on many were judgment calls.
• Primary: Capabilities, Secondary: Interpretability
  • A project which introduces a novel method that achieves better performance on some benchmark while also being more interpretable.
• Primary: Interpretability, Secondary: Robustness
  • A project which aims to introduce methods for making AI systems both more interpretable and more robust. 

To summarize: in the sorting phase, we read the title and abstract of each grant in our random sample, and assigned these grants to a research direction. Many grants received only a “primary” research direction, though some received secondary and tertiary research directions as well. This sorting was based on our understanding of the main goals of the project, based on the description provided by the project title and abstract.

How Improved Talent Practices Can Help the Department of Energy Meet the Moment

This report aims to provide a snapshot of clean energy talent at the Department of Energy and its surrounding orbit: the challenges, successes, and opportunities that the workforce is experiencing at this once-in-a-generation moment.

To compile the findings in this report, FAS worked with nonprofit and philanthropic organizations, government agencies, advocacy and workforce coalitions, and private companies over the last year. We held events, including information sessions, recruitment events, and convenings; we conducted interviews with more than 25 experts from the public and private sector; we developed recommendations for improving talent acquisition in government, and helped agencies find the right talent for their needs.

Overall, we found that DOE has made significant progress towards its talent and implementation goals, taking advantage of the current momentum to bring in new employees and roll out new programs to accelerate the clean energy transition. The agency has made smart use of flexible hiring mechanisms like the Direct Hire Authority and Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) agreements, ramped up recruitment to meet current capacity needs, and worked with partners to bring in high-quality talent.

But there are also ways to build on DOE’s current approaches. We offer recommendations for expanding the use of flexible hiring mechanisms: through expanding IPA eligibility to organizations vetted by other agencies, holding trainings for program offices through the Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer, and asking Congress to increase funding for human capital resources. Another recommendation encourages DOE to review its use to date of the Clean Energy Corps’ Direct Hire Authority and identify areas for improvement. We also propose ways to build on DOE’s recruitment successes: by partnering with energy sector affinity groups and clean energy membership networks to share opportunities; and by building closer relationships with universities and colleges to engage early career talent.

Some of these findings and recommendations are pulled from previous memos and reports, but many are new recommendations based on our experiences working and interacting with partners within the ecosystem over the past year. The goal of this report is to help federal and non-federal actors in the clean energy ecosystem grow talent and prepare for the challenges in clean energy in the coming decades.

The Moment

The climate crisis is not just a looming threat–it’s already here, affecting the lives of American citizens. The federal government has taken a central role in climate mitigation and adaptation, especially with the recent passage of several pieces of legislation. The bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) all provide levers for federal agencies to address the crisis and reduce emissions.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is leading the charge and is the target of much of the funding from the above bills. The legislation provides DOE over $97 billion dollars of funding aimed at commercializing and deploying new clean energy technologies, expanding energy efficiency in homes and businesses, and decreasing emissions in a range of industries.

These are robust and much-needed investments in federal agencies, and the effects will ripple out across the whole economy. The Energy Futures Initiative, in a recent report, estimated that IRA investments will lead to 1.46 million more jobs over the next ten years than there would have been without the bill. Moreover, these jobs will be focused in key industries, like construction, manufacturing, and electric utilities.

But those jobs won’t magically appear–and the IIJA and IRA funding won’t magically be spent. That amount of money would be overwhelming for any large organization, and initiatives and benefits will take time to manifest.

When it passed these two bills, Congress recognized that the Department of Energy–and the federal government more broadly– would need new tools to use these new resources effectively. That is why it included new funding and expanded hiring authorities to allow the agencies to quickly find and hire expert staff. 

Now it is up to DOE to find the subject matter expertise, talent, partnerships, and cross-sector knowledge sharing from the larger clean energy ecosystem it needs to execute on Congress’s incredibly ambitious goals. Perhaps the most critical factor in DOE’s success will be ensuring that the agency has the staff it needs to meet the moment and implement the bold targets established in the recent legislation.

Why Talent?

To implement policy effectively and spend taxpayer dollars efficiently, the federal government needs people. Investing in a robust talent pipeline is important for all agencies, especially given that only about 8% of federal employees are under 30, and at DOE only 4% are under 30. Building this pipeline is critical for the clean energy transition that’s already underway–not only for not the federal government, but for the entire ecosystem. In order to meet clean energy deployment estimates across the country, clean energy jobs will need to increase threefold by 2025 and almost sixfold by 2030 from 2020 jobs numbers. This job growth will require cross-sector investment in workforce training and education, innovation ecosystems, and research and development of new technologies. Private firms, venture capital, and the civil sector can all play a role, but as the country’s largest employer, the government will need to lead the way.

To meet its ambitious policy goals, government agencies need to move beyond stale hiring playbooks and think creatively. Strategies like flexible hiring mechanisms can help the Department of Energy–and all federal agencies–meet urgent needs and begin to build a longer-term talent pipeline. Workforce development, recruitment, and hiring can take years to do right – but mechanisms like tour-of-service models (i.e. temporary or termed positions), direct hire authorities, and excepted service hiring allow agencies to retain talent quickly, overcome administrative bottlenecks, and access individuals with technical expertise who may not otherwise consider working in the public sector. See the Appendix for more information on specific hiring authorities.

This paper outlines insights, strategies, and opportunities for DOE’s talent needs based on the Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) one-year pilot partnership with the department. Non-federal actors in the clean energy ecosystem can also benefit from this report–by understanding the different avenues into the federal government, civil society and private organizations can work more effectively with DOE to shepherd in the clean energy revolution. 

Broadly, we hope that our experience working with DOE can serve as a case study for other federal agencies when considering the challenges and opportunities around talent recruitment, onboarding, and retention.

Where does DOE need talent? 

While the IRA and IIJA funded dozens of programs across DOE, there are several offices that received larger amounts of funding and have critical talent needs currently. 

A Pilot Partnership: FAS and DOE Talent Efforts

In January 2022, FAS established a partnership with DOE to support the implementation of a broad range of ambitious priorities to stimulate a clean energy transition. Through a partnership with DOE’s Office of Under Secretary for Science and Innovation (S4), our team discovered unmet talent needs and worked with S4 to develop strategies to address hiring challenges posed by DOE’s rapid growth through the IIJA. 

This included expanding FAS’s Impact Fellowship program to DOE. This program supports fellows who bring scientific and technical expertise to bear in the public domain, including within government. To date, through IPA (Intergovernmental Personnel Act) agreements, FAS has placed five fellows in high-impact positions in DOE, with another cohort of 5 fellows in the pipeline.

FAS Impact Fellows placed at DOE have proven that this mechanism can have a positive impact on government operations. Current Fellows work in a number of DOE offices, using their expertise to forward work on emerging clean energy technologies, facilitate the transition of energy communities from fossil fuels to clean energy, and ensure that DOE’s work is communicated strategically and widely, among other projects. In a short time, these fellows have had a large impact–they are bringing expertise from outside government to bear in their roles at the agency. 

In addition to placing fellows, FAS has worked to evangelize DOE’s Clean Energy Corps by actively recruiting, holding events, and advertising for specific roles within DOE. To more broadly support hiring and workforce development at the agency, we piloted a series of technical assistance projects in coordination with DOE, including hiring webinars and cross-sector roundtables with leaders in the agency and the larger clean energy ecosystem. 

From this work, FAS has learned more about the challenges and opportunities of talent acquisition–from flexible hiring mechanisms to recruitment–and has developed several recommendations for both Congress and DOE to strengthen the federal clean energy workforce.

Flexible Hiring Mechanisms

One key lesson from the past year of work is the importance of flexible hiring mechanisms broadly. This includes special authorities like the Direct Hire Authority, but also includes tour-of-service models of employment. A ‘tour-of-service’ position can take many forms, but generally is a termed or temporary position, often full-time and focused on a specific project or set of projects. In times of urgency, like the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic or following the passage of large pieces of new legislation, hiring managers may need high numbers of staff in a short amount of time to implement policy–a challenge often heightened by stringent federal hiring guidelines. 

Traditional federal hiring is frustrating for both sides. For applicants, filling out applications is complicated and jargony and the wait times are long and unpredictable. For offices, resources are scarce, there are seemingly endless legal and administrative hoops to jump through, and the wait times are still long and unpredictable. In general, tour-of-service hiring mechanisms offer a way to hire key staff for specific needs more quickly, while offering many other unique benefits, including, but not limited to, cross-sector knowledge sharing, professional development, recruitment tools, and relationship-building.

These mechanisms can also expand the potential talent pool for a particular position–highly trained technical professionals can prove difficult to recruit on a full-time basis, but temporary positions may be more attractive to them. IPA agreements, for example, can last for 1-2 years and take less time to execute than hiring permanent employees or contractors. More generally, all types of flexible hiring authorities can give agencies quicker ways of hiring highly qualified staff in sometimes niche fields. Flexible hiring mechanisms can also reduce the barrier to entry for professionals not as familiar with federal hiring processes–broadening offices’ reach and increasing the diversity of applicants.

FAS’s work with DOE has demonstrated these benefits. With FAS and other organizations, DOE has successfully used IPAs to staff high-impact positions. More recommendations on the use of IPAs specifically can be found in a later section. Through its Impact Fellowship, FAS has yielded successful case studies of how cross-sector talent can support impactful policy implementation in the department.

DOE should expand awareness and use of flexible hiring mechanisms.

DOE should work to expand the awareness and use of flexible hiring mechanisms in order to bring in more highly skilled employees with cross-sector knowledge and experience. This could be achieved in a number of ways. The Office of the Chief Human Capital Office (CHCO) should continue to educate hiring managers across DOE about potential hiring authorities available: they could offer additional trainings on different mechanisms and work with OPM to identify opportunities for new authorities. There are existing communities of practice for recruitment and other talent topics at DOE, and hiring officials can use these to discuss best practices and challenges around using hiring authorities effectively. 

DOE can also look to other agencies for ideas on innovative hiring. Agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, and Department of Veterans Affairs run different forms of industry exchange programs that allow private sector experts to bring their skills and knowledge into government and vice versa. Another example is the Joint Statistical Research Program hosted by the Internal Revenue Service’s Statistics of Income Office. This program brings in tax policy experts on term appointments using the IPA mechanism, similar to the National Science Foundation’s Rotator program. Once developed, these programs can allow agencies to benefit from talent and expertise from a larger pool and access specialized skill sets while protecting against conflicts of interest.

DOE should partner with external organizations to champion tour-of-service programs.

There are other ways to expand flexible hiring mechanism use as well. Program offices and the Office of the CHCO can partner with outside organizations like FAS to champion tour-of-service programs in the wider clean energy community, in order to educate non-federal eligible parties on how they can get involved. Federal hiring processes can seem opaque to outside organizations, with additional paperwork, conflict of interest concerns, long timelines, and potential clearance hurdles. If outside organizations better understand the different ways they can partner with agencies and the benefits of doing so, agencies could increase enthusiasm for programs like tour-of-service hiring. At NSF, for example, the Rotator program is well known in the communities it operates within–both academia and government understand the benefits of participating. 

Although these mechanisms and authorities have significant medium- and long-term benefits for agencies, they require upfront administrative effort and cost. Even if staff are aware of potential tools they can use, understanding the logistics, funding mechanisms, conflict of interest regulations, and recruitment and placement of staff hired through these mechanisms often requires investment of time and money from the agency side and can overwhelm already stressed hiring managers. 

Congress should increase funding for DOE’s Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer.

In order to support DOE in using flexible hiring mechanisms more effectively, Congress should direct more funding to the agency’s Office of the Chief Human Capital Officer. In FY23, the office has not only continued to execute on mandates from the IIJA and the IRA, but has introduced new programs aimed at modernizing the office and improving on hiring. These programs and tools, including standing up talent teams to better assess competency gaps across program offices and developing HR IT platforms to more effectively make data-driven personnel decisions, are vital to the growth of the office and in turn the ability of DOE to follow through on key executive priorities. Congress should increase funding to DOE’s Human Capital office by $10M in FY24 over FY23 levels. As IRA and IIJA priorities continue to be rolled out, the Human Capital office will remain pivotal to the agency’s success. 

Congress should increase DOE’s baseline program direction funds. 

A related recommendation is for Congress to further support hiring at DOE by increasing the base budget of program direction funds across agency offices. Restrictions on this funding limits the agency’s ability to hire and the number of employees it can bring on. When offices are limited in the number of staff they can hire, they have tended to bring on more senior employees. This helps achieve the agency’s mission but limits the overall growth of the agency – without early career talent, offices are unable to train a new generation of diverse clean energy leaders. Increasing program direction budgets through the annual appropriations process will allow DOE to have more flexibility in who they hire, building a stronger workforce across the agency.

Clean Energy Corps and the Direct Hire Authority

Expanded Direct Hire Authority has been a boon for DOE, despite some implementation challenges. Congress included DHA in the IIJA, in order to help federal agencies quickly add staff to implement the legislation. In response, DOE set an initial goal of hiring over 1,000 new employees in its Clean Energy Corps, which encompasses all DOE staff who work on clean energy and climate. DOE also requested an additional authority for supporting implementation of the IRA through OPM. To date, the program has received almost 100,000 applications and has hired nearly 700 employees. We have heard positive feedback from offices across the agency about how the DHA has helped hire qualified staff more quickly than through traditional hiring. It has allowed DOE offices to take advantage of the momentum in the clean energy movement right now and made it easier for applicants to show their interest and move through the hiring process. To date, among federal agencies with IIJA/IRA direct hire authorities, DOE has been an exemplar in implementation.

The Direct Hire Authority has been successful so far in part because of its advertisement; there was public excitement about the climate impact of the IIJA and IRA, and DOE took advantage of the momentum and shared information about the Clean Energy Corps widely, including through partnerships with non-governmental entities. For example, FAS and Clean Energy for America held hiring webinars, and other organizations and individuals have continued to share the announcement. 

Congress should extend the Direct Hire Authority.

Congress should consider extending the authority past its current timeline. The agency’s direct hire authority under the IIJA expires in 2027, while its authority requested through OPM expires at the end of 2025 – and is capped at only 300 positions.  With DOE taking on more demonstration and deployment activities as well as increased community and stakeholder engagement with the passage of the IIJA and IRA, the agency needs capacity–and the Direct Hire Authority can help it get the specialized resources it needs. Extending the authority beyond 2025 and requesting that OPM increase the cap on positions is more urgent, but the authority should continue past 2027 as well, to ensure that DOE can continue to hire effectively. 

Congress should expand the breadth of DHA. 

Additionally, Congress should expand the authority to other offices across DOE. It is currently limited to certain roles and offices, but there are additional opportunities within the department to support the clean energy transition that don’t have access to DHA. This is especially important given that offices with the direct hire authority can pull employees from offices without–leaving the latter to backfill positions on a much longer timeline using conventional merit hiring practices. Expanding the authority would support the development of the agency as a whole. 

Beyond just removing the authority’s cap on roles supporting the IRA, expansions or extensions of the authority should increase the number of authorized positions to account for a baseline attrition rate. The authority limits the number of positions that can be filled – once that number of staff is hired, the authority can no longer be used for that office or agency. As with any workplace, federal agencies experience a normal amount of attrition, but the stakes are higher when direct hire employees leave the organization because of the authority’s constraints. Any authorization of the DHA in the future should consider how attrition will impact actual hires over the authorization period. 

In order to bolster support for expanding the authority, DOE can take steps to share out successes of the program. The DHA has been a huge win for federal clean energy hiring, and publicizing news about related programs, offices, funding opportunities, and employees that would not exist but for the support of the Clean Energy Corps would help make the connection between flexible hiring and government effectiveness and would generate excitement about DOE’s activities in the general public.

DOE should highlight success stories of the Clean Energy Corps.

As part of a larger external communications strategy, DOE should highlight success stories of current employees hired through the Clean Energy Corps portal. These spotlights could focus on projects, partnerships, or funding opportunities that employees contributed to and put a face to the achievements of the Clean Energy Corps thus far. Not only would this encourage future high-quality applicants and ensure continued interest in the program, but would also advertise to Congress and the general public that the authority is successful and increase support for more flexible hiring authorities and clean energy funding. 

There are also some opportunities to improve DOE’s use of the authority and make it even more effective. With so many applications, hiring managers and program offices are often overwhelmed by sheer volume – leading to long wait times for applicants. Some offices at DOE have tried to address this bottleneck by building informal processes to screen and refer candidates–using their internal system to identify qualified applicants and sharing those applications with other program offices. But there may be additional ways to reduce the backlog of applications. 

DOE should conduct a review of DHA’s use thus far.

DOE should conduct an assessment of the use of the Direct Hire Authority in relevant offices. The program has been running for over a year, and there is enough data to review and better understand strengths and areas of growth of the authority. The review could be an opportunity to highlight and build on successful strategies like the informal process above–with program offices who currently use those strategies helping to scale them up. It could also assess attrition rates and compare them to agency-wide and non-DHA attrition rates to understand opportunities to improve or share out successes around retention. Finally, the review could also act as a resource for Congress to help justify the authority’s renewal in the future. 

Use of IPA Agreements

One of the most well-known tour-of-service programs is the Intergovernmental Personnel Act. When used effectively, it can allow agencies to share cross-sector knowledge, increase their capacity, and achieve their missions more fully. As noted previously, DOE has made use of IPAs in some capacities, but barriers to expanding the program still exist. First, the DOE maintains a list of ‘IPA-certified’ organizations, including non-profits that must first certify their eligibility to participate in IPA agreements. According to OPM, if an organization has already been certified by an agency, this certification is permanent and may apply throughout the federal government. This is an effective practice that theoretically allows DOE to bring on IPAs from those organizations more quickly – without the additional administrative work necessary to research and vet each organization multiple times. 

However, when FAS engaged DOE to expand the Impact Fellowship to the agency, FAS was asked to re-certify its eligibility separately with DOE despite already having conducted IPA agreements with other agencies. As of May 2021, DOE has only approved 22 organizations for IPA eligibility. With the clean energy ecosystem booming, this leaves a large amount of talent potential going untapped. 

DOE should amend its IPA directive.

One solution to this issue would be for DOE to amend its IPA directive, which was last updated in 2000, to automatically approve IPA eligibility for organizations that have been certified by other agencies. Agencies such as NSF, USDA, GSA, and others also maintain lists of IPA-eligible organizations, providing DOE a readily available pool of potential IPA talent without certifying those organizations independently. This solution could expand the list of certified organizations and reduce DOE’s internal administrative burden. Organizations that know they will go through an initial vetting process once rather than multiple times could redouble efforts to build that partnership with DOE. 

DOE should work with outside organizations to share strategies. 

The previous recommendation on educating eligible non-federal organizations on tour-of-service mechanisms applies here as well. Organizations like FAS with a proven track record of setting up IPA agreements with agencies can share best practices, success stories, and champion the program in the broader non-profit ecosystem. However, agencies can also develop externally facing IPA resources, sharing training and ‘how-to’ guides with nonprofits and academic institutions that could be good fits for the program but aren’t aware of their eligibility or requirements to participate.

Recruitment

Recruitment is another area where we learned lessons from our work alongside DOE. FAS and Clean Energy for America held recruitment information sessions for people interested in working for DOE, spotlighting offices who needed more staff. One strategy that helped target specific skill gaps within the agency was developing ‘personas’ based on certain skill sets, like finance and manufacturing. These personas were short descriptions of a specific skill set for an industry, consisting of several highlighted experiences, skills, or certifications that are key to roles in that industry. This enabled our team to develop a more tailored recruitment event, conduct targeted outreach, and execute the event with a more invested group of attendees. 

DOE should identify specific skills gaps to target recruitment efforts.

DOE hiring managers and program offices should identify skills gaps in their offices and recruit for those gaps using personas. Personas can help managers more intentionally target outreach and recruit in certain industries by allowing them to advertise to associations, academic programs, or on job boards that include potential applicants with those skills and experiences. This practice could bolster recruitment and reduce the time to hire by attracting more qualified candidates up front. It also helps offices take a more proactive approach to hiring–a difficult ask for hiring managers, who are often overworked. 

DOE should continue to utilize remote flexibilities.

Another successful recruitment strategy highlighted in our work with DOE has been the use of remote flexible positions. DOE should continue to widely utilize remote flexibilities in job opportunities and recruitment in order to attract talent from all 50 states, not just those where DOE has a physical presence. As the desire for remote employment remains high across the public and private sector, fully utilizing the remote flexibilities can help federal employers stay competitive with the private sector and attract high-quality talent.

Another area of recruitment where DOE could capitalize further is with more partnerships with non-federal organizations. Outside organizations can leverage their networks–helping expand the talent pool, increase diversity, and support candidates through the federal hiring process, competitive or otherwise.  Networks like New York Climate Tech have been tirelessly organizing the climate tech community in New York City, and even plan to start expanding to other cities soon. These types of organizing are invigorating for climate professionals; they can energize existing advocates and evangelize to new ones. Helping connect those networks to government opportunities–whether prize competitions, job opportunities, or grants–can strengthen cross-sector relationships and the clean energy workforce overall. 

Such efforts would also support federal recruitment strategies, which are often not as visible as they could be given the sheer amount of work required for proactive outreach. Earth Partners, a climate tech venture capital firm, partnered with the Office of Clean Energy Deployment to hire for high-impact positions by leveraging its own network. 

DOE should use partner organizations to broadcast hiring needs. 

DOE Office of the Human Capital Officer, hiring managers, or program offices should consider how they can partner with other organizations to broadcast hiring needs. These can be larger clean energy associations and member organizations like Clean Energy for America, New York Climate Tech, FAS, and Climate Power, or they could be energy sector affinity groups like Women In Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy (WRISE) and the American Association of Blacks in Energy (AABE). Coordinated social media campaigns, partnered recruitment events, or even sending out open positions in those organizations’ regular newsletters could help broaden DOE’s recruitment reach. Because of the momentum in the clean energy community, non-federal organizations have built out substantial recruitment infrastructure for potential applicants and can help publicize positions. 

DOE should build a presence at campus hiring events.

Similarly, DOE hiring managers should build and maintain a presence at higher education hiring events. There are a number of ways to bring more early career staff into government, but DOE can focus on recruiting more intentionally from universities and community colleges. The agency should cultivate relationships with university networks–especially those of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs)–and develop recruitment messages that appeal to younger populations. DOE could also focus on universities with strong clean energy curricula–in the form of recognized courses and programs or student associations. 

DOE should expand partnerships with external recruitment firms.

Some positions, of course, are harder to recruit for. In addition to mid-level employees, government also needs strong senior leaders–candidates for these positions don’t often come in droves to recruitment events. Some DOE offices have found success with using private recruitment firms to identify candidates from the private sector and invite them to apply for Senior Executive Service (SES) level positions in government. This practice, in addition to bringing in specific executive recruitment, also helps career private-sector applicants navigate the government hiring process. 

DOE should learn from current strategies and continue to partner with private recruitment firms to identify potential SES candidates and invite them to apply. Using recruitment firms can help simplify position description language and help guide candidates through the process. DOE currently uses this successfully for certain skill set gaps, but should seek to expand the practice for recruitment needs that are more specific. 

DOE should develop its own senior talent recruitment strategy. 

Longer term, DOE should develop its own senior talent recruitment strategy. This strategy can be developed using lessons learned from private recruitment firms or from meeting with other agencies to understand best practices in the space. SES positions require different candidate management strategies, and if DOE aims to attract more non-federal talent, developing in-house expertise is important.

DOE already has the infrastructure for strategies like this. Offices involved in IIJA implementation are building office-specific recruitment strategies. These strategies consider diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, as well as skill sets and high-need positions within offices. Incorporating senior talent needs into these strategies could help uncover best practices for attracting quality leaders, and expanding these recruitment strategies beyond just IIJA-oriented offices could support workforce development across the agency more broadly. 

The Path Forward

DOE has made significant progress on the road to implementation, hiring hundreds of new employees to support the clean energy transition and carry out programs from IIJA, IRA, and the CHIPS and Science Act. The agency still faces challenges, but also opportunities to grow its workforce, improve its hiring processes, and bring in even more high-quality, skilled talent into the federal government. We hope DOE and Congress will consider these recommendations as they continue to work toward a stronger clean energy ecosystem in the years to come.

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Appendix: Overview of hiring authorities

IPAs 

The Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) Mobility Program that allows temporary assignment of personnel between the federal government and state/local/tribal governments, colleges/universities, FFRDCs, and approved non-profit organizations. According to a 2022 Government Accountability Office report, IPAs are a high-impact mechanism for bringing talent into the federal government quickly, yet they’re often underutilized. As detailed in the report, agencies’(including DOE) can use the IPA Mobility Program to address agency skills gaps in highly technical or complex mission areas, provide talent with flexibility and opportunities for temporary commitments, and can be administratively light touch and cost effective, when the program is implemented correctly. The report noted that agencies struggled to use the program to its full effectiveness, and that there’s an opportunity for agencies to increase their use of the program, if they can tackle the challenges. 

Direct Hire

The Direct Hire Authority allows agencies to directly hire candidates for critical needs or when a severe shortage of candidates exists. This authority circumvents competitive hiring and candidates preferences, allowing agencies to significantly reduce the time involved to hire candidates. It also presents an easier application process for candidates. DHA must be specially granted by OPM unless a governmentwide authority already exists–as it does for Information Technology Management, STEM, and Cybersecurity. For example, DOE was granted a DHA for positions related to implementing the IIJA and IRA.

Excepted Service

EJ and EK

EJ and EK hiring authorities are a form of “excepted service” unique to DOE. According to DOE, the EJ authority is used to enhance the Department’s recruitment and retention of highly qualified scientific, engineering, and professional and administrative personnel. Appointments and corresponding compensation determined  under this authority can be made without regard to the civil service laws.” The EK authority is similar, but more specific to personnel whose duties will relate to safety at defense nuclear facilities of the Department. The EK authority is time-limited by law and must be renewed.

Schedule A(r)

Also known as the “fellowship authority,”  Schedule A(r) facilitates term appointments for 1 to 4 years. This authority is especially helpful for:

• “Professional/industry exchange programs that provide for a cross-fertilization between the agency and the private sector to foster mutual understanding, an exchange of ideas, or to bring experienced practitioners to the agency.”
• “Positions established in support of fellowship and similar programs that are filled from limited applicant pools and operate under specific criteria developed by the employing agency and/or a non-federal organization.

Experts and Consultants

According to the department’s HR resources, DOE uses Experts and Consultants to, “provide professional or technical expertise that does not exist or is not readily available within DOE or to perform services that are not of a continuing nature and/or could not be performed by DOE employees in competitive or other permanent full-time positions.” Typically, Expert and Consultants can be used for intermittent, part-time, or term-limited, full-time roles.

Understanding and using these flexible hiring authorities can help DOE expand its network of talent and hire the people it needs for this current moment. More details on flexible hiring mechanisms can be found here.

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans M. Kristensen, Senior Research Fellow Matt Korda, and Research Associate Eliana Johns.

This issue’s column reviews the status of France’s nuclear arsenal and finds that the stockpile of approximately 290 warheads has remained stable in recent years. However, significant modernizations regarding ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, submarines, aircraft, and the nuclear industrial complex are underway.

Read the full “French Nuclear Weapons, 2023” Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, or download a PDF using the button on the left side of this page. The complete archive of FAS Nuclear Notebooks can be found here.

Executive Summary

In November 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), which included $550 billion in new funding for dozens of new programs across the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). Alongside historic investments in America’s roads and bridges, the bill created the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Infrastructure (ARPA-I). Building on successful models like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Advanced Research Program-Energy (ARPA-E), ARPA-I’s mission is to bring the nation’s most innovative technology solutions to bear on our most significant transportation infrastructure challenges.

ARPA-I must navigate America’s uniquely complex infrastructure landscape, characterized by limited federal research and development funding compared to other sectors, public sector ownership and stewardship, and highly fragmented and often overlapping ownership structures that include cities, counties, states, federal agencies, the private sector, and quasi-public agencies. Moreover, the new agency needs to integrate the strong culture, structures, and rigorous ideation process that ARPAs across government have honed since the 1950s. This report is a primer on how ARPA-I, and its stakeholders, can leverage this unique opportunity to drive real, sustainable, and lasting change in America’s transportation infrastructure.

How to Use This Report

This report highlights the opportunity ARPA-I presents; orients those unfamiliar with the transportation infrastructure sector to the unique challenges it faces; provides a foundational understanding of the ARPA model and its early-stage program design; and empowers experts and stakeholders to get involved in program ideation. However, individual sections can be used as standalone tools depending on the reader’s prior knowledge of and intended involvement with ARPA-I.

• If you are unfamiliar with the background, authorization, and mission of ARPA-I, refer to the section “An Opportunity for Transportation Infrastructure Innovation.”

• If you are relatively new to the transportation infrastructure sector, refer to the section “Unique Challenges of the Transportation Infrastructure Landscape.”

• If you have prior transportation infrastructure experience or expertise but are new to the ARPA model, you can move directly to the sections beginning with “Core Tenets of ARPA Success.”

An Opportunity for Transportation Infrastructure Innovation

In November 2021, Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) authorizing the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Infrastructure (ARPA-I), among other new programs. ARPA-I’s mission is to advance U.S. transportation infrastructure by developing innovative science and technology solutions that:

• lower the long-term cost of infrastructure development, including costs of planning, construction, and maintenance; 

• reduce the life cycle impacts of transportation infrastructure on the environment, including through the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions; 

• contribute significantly to improving the safe, secure, and efficient movement of goods and people; and

• promote the resilience of infrastructure from physical and cyber threats.

ARPA-I will achieve this goal by supporting research projects that:

• advance novel, early-stage research with practicable application to transportation infrastructure;

• translate techniques, processes, and technologies, from the conceptual phase to prototype, testing, or demonstration;

• develop advanced manufacturing processes and technologies for the domestic manufacturing of novel transportation-related technologies; and

• accelerate transformational technological advances in areas in which industry entities are unlikely to carry out projects due to technical and financial uncertainty.

ARPA-I is the newest addition to a long line of successful ARPAs that continue to deliver breakthrough innovations across the defense, intelligence, energy, and health sectors. The U.S. Department of Defense established the pioneering Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1958 in response to the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite to develop and demonstrate high-risk, high-reward technologies and capabilities to ensure U.S. military technological superiority and confront national security challenges. Throughout the years, DARPA programs have been responsible for significant technological advances with implications beyond defense and national security, such as the early stages of the internet, the creation of the global positioning system (GPS), and the development of mRNA vaccines critical to combating COVID-19. 

In light of the many successful advancements seeded through DARPA programs, the government replicated the ARPA model for other critical sectors, resulting in the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy within the Department of Energy, and, most recently, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Health (ARPA-H) within the Department of Health and Human Services.

Now, there is the opportunity to bring that same spirit of untethered innovation to solve the most pressing transportation infrastructure challenges of our time. The United States has long faced a variety of transportation infrastructure-related challenges, due in part to low levels of federal research and development (R&D) spending in this area; the fragmentation of roles across federal, state, and local government; risk-averse procurement practices; and sluggish commercial markets. These challenges include:

• Roadway safety. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, an estimated 42,915 people died in motor vehicle crashes in 2021, up 10.5% from 2020.

• Transportation emissions. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the transportation sector accounted for 27% of U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020, more than any other sector.

• Aging infrastructure and maintenance. According to the 2021 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure produced by the American Society of Civil Engineers, 42% of the nation’s bridges are at least 50 years old and 7.5% are “structurally deficient.”

The Fiscal Year 2023 Omnibus Appropriations Bill awarded ARPA-I its initial appropriation in early 2023. Yet even before that, the Biden-Harris Administration saw the potential for ARPA-I-driven innovations to help meet its goal of net-zero GHG emissions by 2050, as articulated in its Net-Zero Game Changers Initiative. In particular, the Administration identified smart mobility, clean and efficient transportation systems, next-generation infrastructure construction, advanced electricity infrastructure, and clean fuel infrastructure as “net-zero game changers” that ARPA-I could play an outsize role in helping develop.

For ARPA-I programs to reach their full potential, agency stakeholders and partners need to understand not only how to effectively apply the ARPA model but how the unique circumstances and challenges within transportation infrastructure need to be considered in program design.

Unique Challenges of the Transportation Infrastructure Landscape

Using ARPA-I to advance transportation infrastructure breakthroughs requires an awareness of the most persistent challenges to prioritize and the unique set of circumstances within the sector that can hinder progress if ignored. Below are summaries of key challenges and considerations for ARPA-I to account for, followed by a deeper analysis of each challenge.

• Federal R&D spending on transportation infrastructure is considerably lower than other sectors, such as defense, healthcare, and energy, as evidenced by federal spending as a percentage of that sector’s contribution to gross domestic product (GDP). 

• The transportation sector sees significant private R&D investment in vehicle and aircraft equipment but minimal investment in transportation infrastructure because the benefits from those investments are largely public rather than private.

• Market fragmentation within the transportation system is a persistent obstacle to progress, resulting in reliance on commercially available technologies and transportation agencies playing a more passive role in innovative technology development.

• The fragmented market and multimodal nature of the sector pose challenges for allocating R&D investments and identifying customers.

Lower Federal R&D Spending in Transportation Infrastructure 

Federal R&D expenditures in transportation infrastructure lag behind those in other sectors. This gap is particularly acute because, unlike for some other sectors, federal transportation R&D expenditures often fund studies and systems used to make regulatory decisions rather than technological innovation. The table below compares actual federal R&D spending and sector expenditures for 2019 across defense, healthcare, energy, and transportation as a percentage of each sector’s GDP. The federal government spends orders of magnitude less on transportation than other sectors: energy R&D spending as a percentage of sector GDP is nearly 15 times higher than transportation, while health is 13 times higher and defense is nearly 38 times higher.

Agency ^1	Actual federal R&D spending, 2019	Value added by industry and % of U.S. GDP, 2019	2019 federal R&D spending as % of sector GDP
Defense	$54.69 billion	$732 billion (3.4%)	7.5%
Health and Human Services	$38.51 billion	$1,452 billion (6.8%) ^2	2.7%
Energy	$18.27 billion	$607 billion (2.8%) ^3	3.0%
Transportation	$1.10 billion	$610 billion (2.9%) ^4	0.2%

Expand Footnotes

1. The comparison of federal R&D spending and sector expenditures for 2019 is similar to those for the years 2020 and 2021.

2. Excludes GDP value-adds relating to Social Assistance

3. Includes GDP value-adds relating to oil and gas extraction, utilities, and petroleum and coal products

4. Excludes GDP value adds relating to Warehousing

Public Sector Dominance Limits Innovation Investment 

Since 1990, total investment in U.S. R&D has increased by roughly 9 times. When looking at the source of R&D investment over the same period, the private and public sectors invested approximately the same amount of R&D funding in 1982, but today the rate of R&D investment is nearly 4 times greater for the private industry than the government. 

While there are problems with the bulk of R&D coming from the private sector, such as innovations to promote long-term public goods being overlooked because of more lucrative market incentives, industries that receive considerable private R&D funding still see significant innovation breakthroughs. For example, the medical industry saw $161.8 billion in private R&D funding in 2020 compared to only $61.5 billion from federal funding. More than 75% of this private industry R&D occurred within the biopharmaceutical sector where corporations have profit incentives to be at the cutting edge of advancements in medicine.

The transportation sector has one robust domain for private R&D investment: vehicle and aircraft equipment manufacturing. In 2018, total private R&D was $52.6 billion. Private sector transportation R&D focuses on individual customers and end users, creating better vehicles, products, and efficiencies. The vast majority of that private sector R&D does not go toward infrastructure because the benefits are largely public rather than private. Put another way, the United States invests more than 50 times the amount of R&D into vehicles than the infrastructure systems upon which those vehicles operate. 

Market Fragmentation across Levels of Government

Despite opportunities within the public-dominated transportation infrastructure system, market fragmentation is a persistent obstacle to rapid progress. Each level of government has different actors with different objectives and responsibilities. For instance, at the federal level, USDOT provides national-level guidance, policy, and funding for transportation across aviation, highway, rail, transit, ports, and maritime modes. Meanwhile, the states set goals, develop transportation plans and projects, and manage transportation networks like the interstate highway system. Metropolitan planning organizations take on some of the planning functions at the regional level, and local governments often maintain much of their infrastructure. There are also local individual agencies that operate facilities like airports, ports, or tollways organized at the state, regional, or local level. Programs that can use partnerships to cut across this tapestry of systems are essential to driving impact at scale. 

Local agencies have limited access and capabilities to develop cross-sector technologies. They have access to limited pools of USDOT funding to pilot technologies and thus generally rely on commercially available technologies to increase the likelihood of pilot success. One shortcoming of this current process is that both USDOT and infrastructure owner-operators (IOOs) play a more passive role in developing innovative technologies, instead depending on merely deploying market-ready technologies. 

Multiple Modes, Customers, and Jurisdictions Create Difficulties in Efficiently Allocating R&D Resources

The transportation infrastructure sector is a multimodal environment split across many modes, including aviation, maritime, pipelines, railroads, roadways (which includes biking and walking), and transit. Each mode includes various customers and stakeholders to be considered. In addition, in the fragmented market landscape federal, state, and local departments of transportation have different—and sometimes competing—priorities and mandates. This dynamic creates difficulties in allocating R&D resources and considering access to innovation across these different modes.

Customer identification is not “one size fits all” across existing ARPAs. For example, DARPA has a laser focus on delivering efficient innovations for one customer: the Department of Defense. For ARPA-E, it is less clear; their customers range from utility companies to homeowners looking to benefit from lower energy costs. ARPA-I would occupy a space in between these two cases, understanding that its end users are IOOs—entities responsible for deploying infrastructure in many cases at the local or regional level. 

However, even with this more direct understanding of its customers, a shortcoming of a system focused on multiple modes is that transportation infrastructure is very broad, occupying everything from self-healing concrete to intersection safety to the deployment of electrified mobility and more. Further complicating matters is the rapid evolution of technologies and expectations across all modes, along with the rollout of entirely new modes of transportation. These developments raise questions about where new technologies and capabilities fit in existing modal frameworks, what actors in the transportation infrastructure market should lead their development, and who the ultimate “customers” or end users of innovation are.

Having a matrixed understanding of the rapid technological evolution across transportation modes and their potential customers is critical to investing in and building infrastructure for the future, given that transportation infrastructure investments not only alter a region’s movement of people and goods but also fundamentally impact its development. ARPA-I is poised to shape learnings across and in partnership with USDOT’s modes and various offices to ensure the development and refinement of underlying technologies and approaches that serve the needs of the entire transportation system and users across all modes.

Core Tenets of ARPA Success

Success using the ARPA model comes from demonstrating new innovative capabilities, building a community of people (an “ecosystem”) to carry the progress forward, and having the support of key decision-makers. Yet the ARPA model can only be successful if its program directors (PDs), fellows, stakeholders, and other partners understand the unique structure and inherent flexibility required when working to create a culture conducive to spurring breakthrough innovations. From a structural and cultural standpoint, the ARPA model is unlike any other agency model within the federal government, including all existing R&D agencies. Partners and other stakeholders should embrace the unique characteristics of an ARPA.

Cultural Components

ARPAs should take risks. 

An ARPA portfolio may be the closest thing to a venture capital portfolio in the federal government. They have a mandate to take big swings so should not be limited to projects that seem like safe bets. ARPAs will take on many projects throughout their existence, so they should balance quick wins with longer-term bets while embracing failure as a natural part of the process.

ARPAs should constantly evaluate and pivot when necessary.

An ARPA needs to be ruthless in its decision-making process because it has the ability to maneuver and shift without the restriction of initial plans or roadmaps. For example, projects around more nascent technology may require more patience, but if assessments indicate they are not achieving intended outcomes or milestones, PDs should not be afraid to terminate those projects and focus on other new ideas.

ARPAs should stay above the political fray. 

ARPAs can consider new and nontraditional ways to fund innovation, and thus should not be caught up in trends within their broader agency. As different administrations onboard, new offices get built and partisan priorities may shift, but ARPAs should limit external influence on their day-to-day operations.

ARPA team members should embrace an entrepreneurial mindset. 

PDs, partners, and other team members need to embrace the creative freedom required for success and operate much like entrepreneurs for their programs. Valued traits include a propensity toward action, flexibility, visionary leadership, self-motivation, and tenacity.

ARPA team members must move quickly and nimbly.

Trying to plan out the agency’s path for the next two years, five years, 10 years, or beyond is a futile effort and can be detrimental to progress. ARPAs require ultimate flexibility from day to day and year to year. Compared to other federal initiatives, ARPAs are far less bureaucratic by design, and forcing unnecessary planning and bureaucracy on the agency will slow progress.

Collegiality must be woven into the agency’s fabric.

With the rapidly shifting and entrepreneurial nature of ARPA work, the federal staff, contractors, and other agency partners need to rely on one another for support and assistance to seize opportunities and continue progressing as programs mature and shift. 

Outcomes matter more than following a process.

ARPA PDs must be free to explore potential program and project ideas without any predetermination. The agency should support them in pursuing big and unconventional ideas unrestricted by a particular process. While there is a process to turn their most unconventional and groundbreaking ideas into funded and functional projects, transformational ideas are more important than the process itself during idea generation.

ARPA team members welcome feedback.

Things move quickly in an ARPA, and decisions must match that pace, so individuals such as fellows and PDs must work together to offer as much feedback as possible. Constructive pushback helps avoid blind alleys and thus makes programs stronger.

Structural Components

The ARPA Director sets the vision.

The Director’s vision helps attract the right talent and appropriate levels of ambition and focus areas while garnering support from key decision-makers and luminaries. This vision will dictate the types and qualities of PDs an ARPA will attract to execute within that vision.

PDs can make or break an ARPA and set the technical direction.

Because the power of the agency lies within its people, ARPAs are typically flat organizations. An ARPA should seek to hire the best and most visionary thinkers and builders as PDs, enable them to determine and design good programs, and execute with limited hierarchical disruption. During this process, PDs should engage with decision-makers in the early stages of the program design to understand the needs and realities of implementers.

Contracting helps achieve goals.

The ARPA model allows PDs to connect with universities, companies, nonprofits, organizations, and other areas of government to contract necessary R&D. This allows the program to build relationships with individuals without needing to hire or provide facilities or research laboratories. 

Interactions improve outcomes. 

From past versions of ARPA that attempted remote and hybrid environments, it became evident that having organic collisions across an ARPA’s various roles and programs is important to achieving better outcomes. For example, ongoing in-person interactions between and among PDs and technical advisors are critical to idea generation and technical project and program management. 

Staff transitions must be well facilitated to retain institutional knowledge. 

One of ARPA’s most unique structural characteristics is its frequent turnover. PDs and fellows are term-limited, and ARPAs are designed to turn over those key positions every few years as markets and industries evolve, so having thoughtful transition processes in place is vital, including considering the role of systems engineering and technical assistance (SETA) contractors in filling knowledge gaps, cultivating an active alumni network, and staggered hiring cycles so that large numbers of PDs and fellows are not all exiting their service at once.

Scaling should be built into the structure.

It cannot be assumed that if a project is successful, the private sector will pick that technology up and help it scale. Instead, an ARPA should create its own bridge to scaling in the form of programs dedicated to funding projects proven in a test environment to scale their technology for real-world application. 

Technology-to-market advisors play a pivotal role.

Similarly to the dedicated funding for scaling described above, technology-to-market advisors are responsible for thinking about how projects make it to the real world. They should work hand in hand with PDs even in the early stages of program development to provide perspectives on how projects might commercialize and become market-ready. Without this focus, technologies run the risk of dying on the vine—succeeding technically, but failing commercially. 

A Primer on ARPA Ideation

Tackling grand challenges in transportation infrastructure through ARPA-I requires understanding what is unique about its program design. This process begins with considering the problem worth solving, the opportunity that makes it a ripe problem to solve, a high-level idea of an ARPA program’s fit in solving it, and a visualization of the future once this problem has been solved. This process of early-stage program ideation requires a shift in one’s thinking to find ideas for innovative programs that fit the ARPA model in terms of appropriate ambition level and suitability for ARPA structure and objectives. It is also an inherently iterative process, so while creating a “wireframe” outlining the problem, opportunity, program objectives, and future vision may seem straightforward, it can take months of refining. 

Common Challenges

No clear diagnosis of the problem

Many challenges facing our transportation infrastructure system are not defined by a single problem; rather, they are a conglomeration of issues that simultaneously need addressing. An effective program will not only isolate a single problem to tackle, but it will approach it at a level where something can be done to solve it through root cause analysis.

Thinking small and narrow

On the other hand, problems being considered for ARPA programs can be isolated down to the point that solving them will not drive transformational change. In this situation, narrow problems would not cater to a series of progressive and complementary projects that would fit an ARPA.

Incorrect framing of opportunities:

When doing early-stage program design, opportunities are sometimes framed as “an opportunity to tackle a problem.” Rather, an opportunity should reflect a promising method, technology, or approach already in existence but which would benefit from funding and resources through an advanced research agency program.

Approaching solutions solely from a regulatory or policy angle

While regulations and policy changes are a necessary and important component of tackling challenges in transportation infrastructure, approaching issues through this lens is not the mandate of an ARPA. ARPAs focus on supporting breakthrough innovations in developing new methods, technologies, capabilities, and approaches. Additionally, regulatory approaches to problem-solving can often be subject to lengthy policy processes.

No explicit ARPA role

An ARPA should pursue opportunities to solve problems where, without its intervention, breakthroughs may not happen within a reasonable timeframe. If the public or private sector already has significant interest in solving a problem, and they are well on their way to developing a transformational solution in a few years or less, then ARPA funding and support might provide a higher value-add elsewhere.

Lack of throughline

The problems identified for ARPA program consideration should be present as themes throughout the opportunities chosen to solve them as well as how programs are ultimately structured. Otherwise, a program may lack a targeted approach to solving a particular challenge.

Forgetting about end users

Human-centered design should be at the heart of how ARPA programs are scoped, especially when considering the scale at which designers need to think about how solving a problem will provide transformational change for everyday users.

Being solutions-oriented

Research programs should not be built with predetermined solutions in mind; they should be oriented around a specific problem to ensure that any solutions put forward are targeted and effective.

Not being realistic about direct outcomes of the program

Program objectives should not simply restate the opportunity, nor should they jump to where the world will be many years after the program has run its course. They should separate the tactical elements of a program and what impact they will ultimately drive. Designers should consider their program as one key step in a long arc of commercialization and adoption, with a firm sense of who needs to act and what needs to happen to make a program objective a reality.

Keeping these common mistakes in mind throughout the design process ensures that programs are properly scoped, appropriately ambitious, and in line with the agency’s goals. With these guideposts in mind, idea generators should begin their program design in the form of a wireframe.

Wireframe Development 

The first phase in ARPA program development is creating a program wireframe, which is an outline of a potential program that captures key components for consideration to assess the program’s fit and potential impact. The template below shows the components characteristic of a program wireframe.

Wireframe template

To create a fully fleshed-out wireframe, program directors work backward by first envisioning a future state that would be truly transformational for society and across sectors if it were to be realized. Then, they identify a clearly-articulated problem that needs solving and is hindering progress toward this transformational future state. During this process, PDs need to conduct extensive root cause analysis to consider whether the problem they’ve identified is exacerbated by policy, regulatory, or environmental complications—as opposed to those that technology can already solve. This will inform whether a problem is something that ARPA-I has the opportunity to impact fundamentally. 

Next, program directors identify a promising opportunity—such as a method, approach, or technology—that, if developed, scaled, and implemented, would solve the problem they articulated and help achieve their proposed future state. When considering a promising opportunity, PDs must assess whether it front-runs other potential technologies that would also need developing to support it and whether it is feasible to achieve concrete results within three to five years and with an average program budget. Additionally, it is useful to think about whether an opportunity considered for program development is part of a larger cohort of potential programs that lie within an ARPA-I focus area that could all be run in parallel.

Most importantly, before diving into how to solve the problem, PDs need to articulate what has prevented this opportunity from already being solved, scaled, and implemented, and what explicit role or need there is for a federal R&D agency to step in and lead the development of technologies, methods, or approaches to incentivize private sector deployment and scaling. For example, if the private sector is already incentivized to, and capable of, taking the lead on developing a particular technology and it will achieve market readiness within a few years, then there is less justification for an ARPA intervention in that particular case. On the other hand, the prescribed solution to the identified problem may be so nascent that what is needed is more early-stage foundational R&D, in which case an ARPA program would not be a good fit. This area should be reserved as the domain of more fundamental science-based federal R&D agencies and offices.

One example to illustrate this maturity fit is DARPA investment in mRNA. While the National Institutes of Health contributed significantly to initial basic research, DARPA recognized the technological gap in being able to quickly scale and manufacture therapeutics, prompting the agency to launch the Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics (ADEPT) program to develop technologies to respond to infectious disease threats. Through ADEPT, in 2011 DARPA awarded a fledgling Moderna Therapeutics with $25 million to research and develop its messenger RNA therapeutics platform. Nine years later, Moderna became the second company after Pfizer-BioNTech to receive an Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine.

Another example is DARPA’s role in developing the internet as we know it, which was not originally about realizing the unprecedented concept of a ubiquitous, global communications network. What began as researching technologies for interlinking packet networks led to the development of ARPANET, a pioneering network for sharing information among geographically separated computers. DARPA then contracted BBN Technologies to build the first routers before becoming operational in 1969. This research laid the foundation for the internet. The commercial sector has since adopted ARPANET’s groundbreaking results and used them to revolutionize communication and information sharing across the globe.

Wireframe Refinement and Iteration

To guide program directors through successful program development, George H. Heilmeier, who served as the director of DARPA from 1975 to 1977, used to require that all PDs answer the following questions, known as the Heilmeier Catechism, as part of their pitch for a new program. These questions should be used to refine the wireframe and envision what the program could look like. In particular, wireframe refinement should examine the first three questions before expanding to the remaining questions.

• What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.

• How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?

• What is new in your approach, and why do you think it will be successful?

• Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make?

• What are the risks?

• How much will it cost?

• How long will it take?

• What are the midterm and final “exams” to check for success?

Alongside the Heilmeier Catechism, a series of assessments and lines of questioning should be completed to pressure test and iterate once the wireframe has been drafted. This refinement process is not one-size-fits-all but consistently grounded in research, discussions with experts, and constant questioning to ensure program fit. The objective is to thoroughly analyze whether the problem we are seeking to solve is the right one and whether the full space of opportunities around that problem is ripe for ARPA intervention.

One way to think about determining whether a wireframe could be a program is by asking, “Is this wireframe science or is this science fiction?” In other words, is the proposed technology solution at the right maturity level for an ARPA to make it a reality? There is a relatively broad range in the middle of the technological maturity spectrum that could be an ARPA program fit, but the extreme ends of that spectrum would not be a good fit, and thus those wireframes would need further iteration or rejection. On the far left end of the spectrum would be basic research that only yields published papers or possibly a prototype. On the other extreme would be a technology that is already developed to the point that only full-scale implementation is needed. Everything that falls between could be suitable for an ARPA program topic area.  

Once a high-impact program has been designed, the next step is to rigorously pressure test and develop a program until it resembles an executable ARPA program.

Applying ARPA Frameworks to Transportation Infrastructure Challenges

By using this framework, any problem or opportunity within transportation infrastructure can be evaluated for its fit as an ARPA-level idea. Expert and stakeholder idea generation is essential to creating an effective portfolio of ARPA-I programs, so idea generators must be armed with this framework and a defined set of focus areas to develop promising program wireframes. An initial set of focus areas for ARPA-I includes safety, climate and resilience, and digitalization, with equity and accessibility as underlying considerations within each focus area. 

There are hundreds of potential topic areas that ARPA-I could tackle; the two wireframes below represent examples of early-stage program ideas that would benefit from further pressure testing through the program design iteration cycle.

Note: The following wireframes are samples intended to illustrate ARPA ideation and the wireframing process, and do not represent potential research programs or topics under consideration by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Next-Generation Resilient Infrastructure Management

A Digital Inventory of Physical Infrastructure and Its Uses

Wireframe Development Next Steps

After initial wireframe development, further exploration is needed to pressure test an idea and ensure that it can be developed into a viable program to achieve “moonshot” ambitions. Wireframe authors should consider the following factors when iterating:

• The Heilmeier Catechism questions (see page 14) and whether the wireframe needs to be updated or revised as they seek to answer each of the Heilmeier Catechism questions
• Common challenges wireframes face (see page 11) and whether any of them might be reflected in the wireframe
• The federal, state, and local regulatory landscape and any regulatory factors that will impact the direction of a potential research program
• Whether the problem or technology already receives significant investment from other sources (if there is significant investment from venture capital, private equity, or elsewhere, then it would not be an area of interest for ARPA-I)
• Adjacent areas of work that might inform or affect a potential research program
• The transportation infrastructure sector’s unique challenges and landscape
• How long will it take?
• Existing grant programs and opportunities that might achieve similar goals

Wireframes are intended to be a summary communicative of a larger plan to follow. After further iteration and exploration of the factors outlined above, what was first just a raw program wireframe should develop into more detailed documents. These should include an incisive diagnosis of the problem and evidence and citations validating opportunities to solve it. Together, these components should lead to a plausible program objective as an outcome.

Conclusion

The newly authorized and appropriated ARPA-I presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to apply a model that has been proven successful in developing breakthrough innovations in other sectors to the persistent challenges facing transportation infrastructure.

Individuals and organizations that would work within the ARPA-I network need to have a clear understanding of the unique circumstances, challenges, and opportunities of this sector, as well as how to apply this context and the unique ARPA program ideation model to build high-impact future innovation programs. This community’s engagement is critical to ARPA-I’s success, and the FAS is looking for big thinkers who are willing to take on this challenge by developing bold, innovative ideas.

To sign up for future updates on events, convenings, and other opportunities for you to work in support of ARPA-I programs and partners, click here.

To submit an advanced research program idea, click here.

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Advanced Research at DOT

We’re scoping ambitious ideas to help ARPA-I begin executing projects that improve transportation across the country.

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The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans M. Kristensen, Senior Research Associate and Project Manager Matt Korda, and Research Associate Eliana Johns.

This issue’s column examines Russia’s nuclear arsenal, which includes a stockpile of approximately 4,489 warheads. Of these, some 1,674 strategic warheads are deployed on ballistic missiles and at heavy bomber bases, while an approximate additional 999 strategic warheads, along with 1,816 nonstrategic warheads, are held in reserve. The Russian arsenal continues its broad modernization intended to replace most Soviet-era weapons by the late-2020s.

Read the full “Russian Nuclear Weapons, 2023” Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, or download a PDF using the button on the left side of this page. The complete archive of FAS Nuclear Notebooks can be found here.

Fire is a natural and normal ecological process, but today’s fires have grown in intensity and cost, causing more destruction to people and property. A changing climate and our outdated policy responses are amplifying these negative effects.

The federal government has many responsibilities for wildland fire management in the United States. Federal entities manage public lands where prescribed burns and wildfires occur, support wildfire response, and conduct research into fire’s impacts. Recognizing that this work will only grow, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission to develop and deliver a comprehensive set of new policy recommendations to Congress focused on how to “better prevent, manage, suppress, and recover from wildfires.”

About the Wildland Fire Policy Accelerator

In response to the Commission’s call for input, the Federation of American Scientists launched a Wildland Fire Policy Accelerator to source and develop actionable policy ideas aimed at improving how we live with fire. This effort is in partnership with COMPASS, the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST), and Conservation X Labs, who bring deep expertise in the accelerator topics and connections to interested communities.

Participants come from academia, the private sector, nonprofits, and national labs, and bring expertise across fire ecology, forestry, modeling, climate change, fire intelligence, cultural burning, and more. The Accelerator followed the approach of the FAS Day One Project to provide structured training, support, and policy expert feedback over several months to help participants refine their policy ideas. In the Accelerator’s second phase, a subset of these contributors will publish full memos on FAS’s website with more information about their policy recommendations.

Table of Contents

Landscapes and Communities

Create Federal Indemnity Fund to cover accidental damages from cultural and prescribed fire

Directly fund Tribes to create and implement land stewardship initiatives

Create a categorical exclusion in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for Cultural Burning

Legally define “Cultural Fire Practitioner” and “Cultural Fire” to encourage Cultural Burning

Expand the scope and funding of the Tribal Forest Protection Act of 2004

Reduce federal subsidies for development that might exacerbate fire risk

Public Health and Infrastructure

Make smoke management a core goal of wildland fire management

Foster smoke-ready communities to save lives and money

Build data infrastructure to support decision making based on smoke hazards

Consider modifying the Clean Air Act to incentivize increased use of beneficial fire

Support strategic deployment of community resilience hubs to mitigate smoke impacts and other hazards

Science, Data, and Technology

Save lives, properties, and ecosystems with real-time actionable fire intelligence

Advance the predictive science of fire ecology and forest resilience

Develop next-generation fire and vegetation models for a changing climate 

Expand capacity for effective collaboration between scientists and resource managers to inform forest management

Launch an Open Disaster Data Initiative to bolster whole-of-nation resilience from wildfires and related hazards

Develop a federal framework to measure and evaluate the socio-ecological impacts of wildfire

Improving safety and efficiency of wildfire suppression with advanced UAS

Workforce

Establish a Tribal ranger program to fund permanent land stewardship opportunities for Tribal communities

Expand corps programs for wildfire mitigation and healthy forests

Invest in worker-led industries for whole-of-community wildfire resilience

Invest in workforce development that empowers Indigenous experience and knowledge and supports marginalized communities

Directly Fund Tribes to Create and Implement Land Stewardship Initiatives

Landscapes and Communities

Create Federal Indemnity Fund to cover accidental damages from cultural and prescribed fire

Chris Adlam, PhD, Oregon State University

For millennia, the forests of the West were fundamentally shaped by Tribal use of fire, with different Tribes employing unique cultural fire traditions. Unfortunately, Indigenous Cultural Fire Practitioners are now dissuaded from treating both private and public forests with cultural burns because they fear being held liable for the cost of damages in the rare cases in which cultural fires accidentally escape their planned bounds. To allow Cultural Fire Practitioners to work to restore our forests, the federal government must protect them from being held personally liable for the risks of the public service that they are performing. Similar programs are being proposed for prescribed fire; cultural burning should be equally protected and benefited by any Fund that is created.

Congress should establish and fund a Federal Cultural and Prescribed Burning Indemnity Fund to encourage wildfire prevention initiatives and to protect both fire practitioners and landowners from losses incurred from responsibly conducted cultural or prescribed burns that spread beyond their intended range.

Prescribed and cultural burning, in tandem with other treatments, are needed to reduce fuel loads and restore the health of forests that are relied upon for recreation, industry, and drinking water. Fuel treatment is also essential to reducing the cost of catastrophic wildfires, which cost the United States an estimated $14.5 billion dollars in damages and emergency response efforts from 2021 to 2022.

Across the country, prescribed burns have empirically been overwhelmingly safe. According to Chief Randy Moore of the US Forest Service, over 99.84% of prescribed fires on USFS land occur as planned. In a separate review of prescribed burns in the Southern Great Plains, researchers found similar findings that less than 1% of prescribed burns escape. Similar studies have not been conducted to analyze the empirical safety cultural burns, but surveys of relevant research did not uncover an example of an escaped cultural burn. However, the fact that risk cannot be completely eliminated weighs on practitioners and decision-makers, restricting their use of controlled burning. In the event that damages result from a burn, the Fund would seek to minimize the disruption caused by these damages by ensuring that all affected parties would be quickly and fully compensated. By creating this funding structure, landowners would no longer be dependent on individual acts of Congress to receive compensation, as victims of the Hermit’s Peak/Calf Canyon Fire did.

In the past year, states have begun to create similar funds after observing the need to support fire practitioners. California recently created the Prescribed Fire Claims Fund and funded it with $20 million. However, a federal fund is needed to provide coverage on a larger scale, with a scope and financial scale that is not possible for individual states.

Recommendations

To ensure that Cultural Fire Practitioners across the nation are covered, Congress should consider the following actions: 

• Establish a Federal Cultural and Prescribed Burning Indemnity Fund within a federal agency (such as FEMA, which also administers Fire Prevention and Safety (FP&S) Grants) to protect both fire practitioners and landowners from losses incurred from responsibly conducted cultural or prescribed burns that spread beyond their intended range. 
• Appropriate funds annually to be administered by the designated federal agency, such as FEMA. Each year, remaining funds could be rolled over to the following year or disbursed as grants to fund further cultural and prescribed burns.
• Direct FEMA (or other designated agency, as appropriate) to create a baseline gross negligence standard for cultural burns and for prescribed burns that will be used to determine the validity of claims. To gain access to the Fund, states would need liability standards that protect Fire Practitioners at a level that meets the minimum requirements outlined by the federal baseline gross negligence standards. The Fund would cover claims caused by escaped cultural fires and prescribed fires that were planned and implemented with due diligence, and the burner would cover claims that result from gross negligence by the burner. 
• Direct FEMA (or other designated agency, as appropriate) to work with Tribal Nations and organizations to develop eligibility criteria that ensure that Cultural Fire Practitioners, as defined by federal definitions, are always covered by the Fund, regardless of the laws of the state in which they are operating. 
• Direct administering agencies to ensure that Tribal Nations and organizations lead and oversee the administration of the Fund.

We recommend that Congress consider FEMA as the primary administrator of the Fund because it administers Fire Prevention and Safety (FP&S) Grants, which are part of the Assistance to Firefighters Grants (AFG) program, and because of its post-fire disaster assistance mission. The USDA Forest Service or the Department of the Interior are other potential administrators of the Fund. To encourage state investment, the Fund could require matching funds from states after a certain amount. 

The Fund could be paired with the development of regionally specific definitions of ‘Cultural Fire Practitioner.’ These definitions of Cultural Fire Practitioners should be developed in processes led by Tribal Nations and organizations. Care should also be taken to ensure that Cultural Fire Practitioners can access the Fund without being subject to undue requirements while burning – requirements that detract from their cultural traditions or add an unmanageable regulatory burden to their work.

To further protect Cultural Fire Practitioners as they carry out vital public services, Congress could also provide Cultural Fire Practitioners with coverage under the Federal Torts Claims Act, similarly to how Tribal contractors, employees, and volunteers are classified as federal employees for the purpose of FTCA coverage. In the past, Tribal medical or law enforcement personnel have received coverage after taking over programs previously administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As policy reforms allow Tribal Cultural Fire Practitioners to practice cultural burns with less interference from the BIA, FTCA coverage would become increasingly beneficial and necessary.

By creating this Fund, Congress would support fire practitioners working on the frontlines of the crisis and the communities most threatened by fire.

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Directly fund Tribes to create and implement land stewardship initiatives

Nina Fontana, PhD, University of California, Davis

Across the United States, Tribal nations and organizations have the knowledge and will to lead cultural and prescribed burns. Unfortunately, they are consistently limited by (a) insufficient funds, and (b) burdensome regulatory requirements that often prove overly burdensome to comply with. These two issues are connected. Tribal practitioners are often unable to obtain federal grants for land stewardship purposes because they do not have the capacity to find and apply for them, to compete with state agencies and organizations in the application process, and to comply with the grant requirements, which can conflict with Cultural Fire traditions in fundamental ways.

Congress should appropriate discretionary funds directly to Tribal nations and Tribally-led organizations for fire hazard reduction in order to decrease the administrative capacity needed for Tribes to compete for grants. The funds will be dispersed by regional Tribal liaisons, who will gather and utilize input from local actors to direct grants.

Tribal governments and organizations require direct grant funding to exercise their sovereignty in a rightfully unencumbered manner. When Tribal governments and organizations are provided with adequate funding and are able to direct its usage, Cultural Fire Practitioners (CFPs) are able to design cultural fire projects that fit their unique traditions and local plant communities contained within their lands. In addition, by giving Tribes greater discretion over funds, the federal government would a) decrease the regulatory burden on Tribes, and b) provide greater recognition of cultural burning as a uniquely valuable form of land restoration and place-based knowledge, instead of categorizing the practice as an often-overlooked subset of prescribed burning.

Most importantly, direct funding would allow Tribal governments and organizations to shift crucial capacity away from time-intensive administrative tasks and towards stewarding their ancestral lands. Tribes could expand their fire practitioner workforce, treat larger areas of land, and better conserve important natural and cultural resources.

Recommendations 

We recommend that Congress: 

• Commission a study conducted collaboratively with Tribal nations and organizations to explore financial mechanisms to deliver consistent, direct funding to Tribal Nations and organizations for Cultural Fire purposes. Potential mechanisms could include a federal endowment or a dedicated tax.
  • Direct the study to ensure that proposed funding mechanisms would be easily accessible for CFPs to obtain funding.
• Once the appropriate financial mechanism is identified, employ regional Tribal liaisons to direct the funding to Tribes and to receive input from local communities and CFPs. The liaisons would help to create two-way communication channels that empower local voices in a funding process that has been historically top-down. 

By drawing upon the expertise of communities and Cultural Fire Practitioners, the Tribal liaisons would be able to target funds to groups and landscapes that have the greatest need, ensuring that federal resources are utilized in an effective manner each year.

It is time for the federal government to recognize the deep expertise of Tribes in fire management. By giving Tribes greater influence in determining the use of funds for preventative and mitigative activities, Congress would bring funding structures in line with the rightful sovereignty of Tribes, and it would protect communities and natural resources across the country by clearing the path for more beneficial fire.

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Create a categorical exclusion in the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for Cultural Burning

Nina Fontana, PhD, University of California, Davis; Chris Adlam, PhD, Oregon State University

One of the original stated purposes of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 is “to promote efforts which will prevent or eliminate damage to the environment and biosphere and stimulate the health and welfare of man.” Cultural and prescribed burning directly contribute to this goal. Unfortunately, current interpretations of NEPA require Cultural Fire Practitioners (CFPs) to undertake onerous Environmental Impact Statements before burns on federal or Tribal trust lands, which often prevent Tribes from even attempting to burn in these locations. Because Tribal lands are held in trust by the federal government, CFPs must also comply with NEPA regulations that were designed to govern federal actions. This arrangement limits Tribal sovereignty and imposes an undue burden.

To bring the implementation of NEPA in line with its purpose, NEPA should recognize cultural burning as part of the background condition of our natural environment here in the United States. Tribes have utilized these cultural burning practices for centuries, even millenia, to manage the fire-prone landscapes within the United States, including taking measures to protect ancient wildland urban interfaces in the Southwest. Through this long history, cultural burning has fundamentally influenced what we consider to be our human environment today. For that reason, cultural burning should be classified as a categorical exclusion.

Current guidelines on implementing NEPA include a categorical exclusion for “Prescribed burning to reduce natural fuel build-up and improve plant vigor,” as long as the project does not require the use of herbicides or over 1 mile of low standard road construction (DOE NEPA Guidelines). Additionally, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act categorically excluded “establishing and maintaining linear fuel breaks” for the purpose of wildfire risk mitigation under specific circumstances. 

The following recommendations represent several pathways for Congress to encourage cultural burning. By implementing one or all of these measures, Congress would begin the process of recognizing burning as a sovereign right for Tribes (similar to hunting and plant gathering) and therefore exempt from permitting. 

Recommendations

To these ends, Congress should consider: 

• Acting to statutorily exclude cultural burns from a detailed environmental analysis, recognizing cultural burning as part of a landscape’s natural baseline condition.
  • Alternatively, direct federal agencies to consider creating categorical exclusions for cultural burns.
• Delegating to Tribal governments and organizations the authority to craft permitting processes and to issue permits on Tribal trust lands.
• Utilizing federal definitions of “Cultural Fire Practitioner” and “Cultural Fire” to help provide guidelines for which activities are to be considered a cultural burn. Alternatively, region-specific guidelines can be developed by working groups composed of representatives from Tribal Nations and organizations.
• Creating a dedicated and specially trained team of NEPA practitioners to handle surge capacity for permitting for cultural burning and to provide Tribes with guidance on how to navigate NEPA requirements for land stewardship activities. 

By carrying out these recommendations, Congress would bring the implementation of the National Environmental Policy Act in line with its original purpose and create positive impacts on the ground for communities across the nation.

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Legally define “Cultural Fire Practitioner” and “Cultural Fire” to encourage Cultural Burning

Raymond Gutteriez, Member of Wuksachi Band of Mono Indians

Cultural Fire Practitioners (CFP) have the knowledge, experience, and willingness to help lead the restoration of more sustainable fire regimes to their ancestral homelands. However, they are currently dissuaded from carrying out cultural burns for a variety of reasons including fear of liability, burdensome regulations, burn bans, and resource constraints. In addition, Cultural Fire Practitioners receive limited support from the federal government for their important work.

As an important first step in encouraging cultural fire, Congress should direct the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Department of the Interior (DOI) to develop regionally-specific definitions of ‘cultural fire’ and ‘Cultural Fire Practitioner’ through a process led by Tribal governments.

Currently, the federal government does not adequately recognize cultural fire, despite its deep-rooted traditional significance for Tribal Nations and its potential benefits for forest and wildfire management across the country. Because of this lack of recognition and other barriers, many CFPs have not been able to carry out their cultural fire traditions. Those that have continued to implement cultural fire have had to operate with minimal federal support and with higher personal risk. In addition, they have been forced to significantly alter their traditions and practices to fit existing legal processes and definitions that were designed for prescribed burns. These factors have combined to make cultural burning prohibitively difficult to implement on federal, tribal, and state lands. 

Recommendations 

In order to provide the proper legal framework needed to enable and support cultural burning, Congress should:

• Direct USDA and DOI to participate in a process led by Tribal governments and Tribally-led organizations to develop regionally-appropriate definitions of ‘cultural fire’ and ‘cultural fire practitioner’. These definitions would differentiate cultural fire from the separate risk reduction strategy that is prescribed burning. Cultural burning includes diverse purposes that are not captured under current definitions of prescribed burning, including preservation and stewardship of culturally relevant plants and animals.
  • Ensure that definitions include all Tribal entities, not just federally recognized Tribes.
• Direct agencies to consider how these definitions can be used to address barriers for cultural burning.
• Explore opportunities to use this definition to support cultural burning. 

These definitions will create a legal foundation that can be used to expand the role of cultural burners and ease restrictions, in a manner similar to that of California’s own legislation defining cultural burning (CA SB 332; CA SB 926; CA AB 642). In tandem with adopting a formal definition, California implemented a gross negligence standard that limited the financial liability of CFP who take appropriate precautions before a fire. 

Federal agencies can explore opportunities to use the definitions to support cultural burning. For example, federally recognized CFPs could be provided with exemptions from having to obtain formal National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) qualifications and/or from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) environmental assessment process. The federal government could also support creation of an easily accessible federal indemnity fund that provides support to cultural burners.

By codifying these definitions, the federal government would take a key step in elevating the visibility and status of Cultural Fire Practitioners as key partners in land stewardship and wildfire risk reduction and management.

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Expand the scope and funding of the Tribal Forest Protection Act of 2004

Raymond Gutteriez, Member of Wuksachi Band of Mono Indians

Under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 and the Tribal Forest Protection Act (TFPA) of 2004, Tribes are able to propose and execute projects (called 638 projects) on USFS-managed and BIA-managed land which (i) borders or is adjacent to Indian trust land, and (ii) poses a fire, disease, or other threat to Tribal forest or rangeland or that otherwise requires land restoration activities. Unfortunately, 638 projects are rarely proposed or implemented due in large part to lack of funding and its limited scope of only including tribes that possess land adjacent to federally managed lands.

Congress should appropriate dedicated funding for ‘638’ projects and expand the range of the TFPA to include the ancestral homelands of Tribal Nations.

The aforementioned 638 law was enacted to promote “maximum Indian participation in the Government,” but it fails at this goal in its current form. The initiative has been hampered by the fact that “no specific funding was appropriated or authorized for 638” projects (USFS). Instead, funding is expected to be obtained from other sources of funds for activities on federal lands, which often require prohibitive amounts of administrative burdens for Tribes to compete for and obtain. Additionally, many Tribes are ineligible to participate in 638 projects because they do not possess lands that are adjacent to national forests, even though those national forest lands are part of their ancestral homelands. 

Recommendations 

We recommend that Congress consider: 

• Appropriating dedicated funding for 638 projects. By creating a dedicated source of funding for this class of project, Congress would help to protect national forestlands by encouraging risk reduction and restoration activities on federal lands.
• Expanding the range of eligibility for 638 projects to include the ancestral homelands of Tribal Nations and Tribal organizations. 

In addition, these changes can be paired with other efforts to expand Tribal authority and ability to plan, implement, and review prescribed and cultural burns on federal lands.

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Reduce federal subsidies for development that might exacerbate fire risk

Max Moritz, Adjunct Professor, UC Santa Barbara

Federal spending on wildfire suppression has ballooned in the past four decades. Despite these efforts, property damage due to wildfire continues to escalate, devastating communities and robbing tens of thousands of people of treasured homes, businesses, and gathering places. 

This is in part because more and more Americans are living and working adjacent to wildlands, where they are more vulnerable to wildfire impacts. In 2020, 4.5 million homes were located in areas of “high or extreme wildfire risk.” To make matters worse, fires on state, local, and private land have doubled in size (on average) since 1991. While decisions about land use and urban planning are made locally, there are important opportunities for crucial guidance at the federal level to help mitigate harm to communities. 

Congress should direct agencies to determine to what extent and through what mechanisms federal dollars are subsidizing development in a manner that perpetuates fire risk.

Where and how we build our communities can influence fire probabilities in the broader region surrounding a particular development, crossing administrative boundaries and even state lines. 

Money from federal agencies supports development of homes and related infrastructure. Failing to identify and address when and how federal funds may be subsidizing development in wildfire hazard risk areas will continue to exacerbate social and economic losses.

The federal government should investigate to what extent and through which programs it is subsidizing development in a manner that exacerbates fire risk. Using this information, Congress and agencies can take action through existing mechanisms to support local and regional planning that is both fire-resilient and equitable. 

Recommendations 

Congress should: 

• Create an interagency working group to identify all federal planning, housing, infrastructure and mitigation/recovery budgets, policies, and authorities that impact built environments in wildfire hazard areas and deliver this information to Congress. 

Using this information, Congress can consider whether it would be appropriate to take one or more of the following actions: 

• Develop specific guidance on constructing and adopting fire hazard and land use planning maps that consider wildfire risk, mitigation, and management, in addition to resiliency goals at the state and local levels. This could include creating centralized fire hazard maps, as well as parcel-level maps of vulnerabilities (e.g., socio-economic factors, evacuation constraints) and available mitigation options. 
• Informed by guidance on fire hazard maps, set voluntary standards for resilient siting and construction to make new development safer and more survivable. This could include developing and recommending new building codes that exceed current fire standards in medium- or high hazard areas, in addition to landscape-specific mitigation strategies, and community evacuation preparedness strategies. 
• Require that recipients of federal funds for infrastructure projects meet a set of fire-resilient development standards for building codes and community siting criteria. 

• Communities possess varying capacities for implementing federal standards. The federal government should prioritize funding and technical assistance for vulnerable communities looking to meet federal standards for new fire-resilient development and should take into consideration a variety of mitigation options, from citing development in safer locations to resilient building approaches.

Should the federal government choose to take action on any of the recommendations above, there are important considerations Congress and agencies must keep in mind.

• Housing demand and equity. In actions on this topic, the federal government must take care not to penalize rural development or development in low-income communities. Housing supply and infrastructure needs must be balanced with fire resilience. 
• Existing legislation and precedent. There are legislative precedents for how new federal guidance could be implemented. California legislation provides a precedent for 1) using fire hazard maps to guide building codes and 2) methods for citing new development to avoid the most hazardous locations, as long as housing needs overall can be met. 
• Challenges with hazard mapping. A core challenge for these approaches is identifying what portions of landscapes are “hazardous” in the context of fire and mapping this in a scientifically consistent way. There is also federal legislation supporting fire risk mapping related to allocation of FEMA relocation assistance after wildfire disasters, which may augment existing federal fire hazard mapping efforts.

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Public Health and Infrastructure

Make smoke management a core goal of wildland fire management 

Alistair Hayden, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Public & Ecosystem Health, Cornell University 

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. Despite this, wildfire smoke is often reported and managed separately from other wildfire impacts. 

Congress should establish smoke management as a core goal of wildland fire management and create institutional capacity to achieve that goal. 

The 2014 National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy describes a vision for the century: “To safely and effectively extinguish fire, when needed; use fire where allowable; manage our natural resources; and as a Nation, live with wildland fire.” Significant research conducted since the publication of the Strategy indicates that wildfire smoke impacts people across the United States, causing 10,000 deaths and billions of dollars of economic losses annually. Smoke impacts exceed their corresponding flame impacts; yet, wildfire strategy and funding largely focus on flames and their impacts. 

In order to ensure that all impacts of wildland fire, including smoke, are addressed efficiently and comprehensively, Congress should take actions that establish wildfire smoke management as a core goal of wildfire management. 

To ensure that wildland fire smoke is considered as a core wildland fire hazard, Congress should consider amending relevant legislation to specifically account for smoke. 

For example, Congress could: 

• Amend the Stafford Act Sec. 102 to list smoke as a Major Disaster.
• Pass the Wildfire Smoke Emergency Declaration Act of 2021. 
• Amend the John D. Dingell, Jr. Conservation, Management, And Recreation Act of 2019 Section 1114 to promote technology to track smoke emissions and impacts, and to extend smoke forecasts to future emissions based on land-management strategies. 
• Amend the Federal Land Assistance, Management, and Enhancement Act of 2009 (FLAME Act) Sec. 3 to require that smoke be considered in the National Cohesive Strategy.

Current interagency wildfire leadership groups occasionally consider smoke in the context of wildland fire impacts and management. To ensure wildfire strategy discussions always include modern smoke-management considerations, these groups should include agencies with expertise on smoke data and impacts (e.g., Environmental Protection Agency, Center for Disease Control, National Aeronautics and Space Administration). 

Congress should therefore:

1. Amend the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Sec. 70203(b) and the FLAME Act Sec. 3 to include smoke-expert agencies in development of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy.
2. Pass new policy adding smoke-expert agencies to wildfire-policy collaborations, including the National Interagency Fire Center, National Wildfire Coordinating Group, and the Wildland Fire Leadership Council. 

To succeed, Congress should also allocate funding for smoke management programs described in companion suggestions (here and here). 

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Foster smoke-ready communities to save lives and money 

Alistair Hayden, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Public & Ecosystem Health, Cornell University 

In the US, more and more people are being exposed to wildfire smoke—27 times more people experienced extreme smoke days than a decade ago. Wildfire smoke poses higher risks to outdoor workers, unhoused individuals, children, older adults, and people with diabetes or heart disease. 

The federal government can equitably save lives and money by helping communities prepare for, identify, and respond to smoke events. 

Recommendations 

Congress should designate some of the annual $6+ billion in wildfire management to create funding for households and public spaces to improve indoor air-quality during heavy smoke.

To help communities prepare for smoke events: 

• The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) should designate air filtration and weatherization as eligible for Hazard Mitigation Assistance grants.
• FEMA’s Benefit-Cost Analysis, which determines grant funding eligibility, should consider the health benefits of reducing smoke exposure.
• FEMA should incentivize building community-appropriate, smoke-resistant, multi hazard resilience hubs.

To ensure communities are able to identify potentially deadly smoke events, Congress should:

• Direct the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration to define harmful air due to wildfire smoke. Both have definitions of harmful air quality based on constituent particles, but wildfire smoke is more toxic than particles from other sources (for an example law, see California Code of Regulations, Title 8, Section 5141.1). 

To provide communities with support needed to act during smoke events, Congress should:

• Pass the Wildfire Smoke Emergency Declaration Act of 2021 to enable FEMA to provide emergency assistance to smoke-impacted communities (including grants, equipment, supplies, and personnel and resources for establishing smoke shelters and air-quality monitors) and the Small Business Administration to provide grants to small businesses that lose revenue due to smoke. These actions should be taken in concert with efforts to support long-term resilience and, where possible, should provide support that can be applied in recurring smoke emergencies. 
• Amend the Stafford Act Sec 420 to automatically provide smoke mitigation support as part of the commonly used Fire Management Assistance grant program.

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Build data infrastructure to support decision making based on smoke hazards

Alistair Hayden, Assistant Professor of Practice, Cornell University; Teresa Feo, Senior Science Officer, California Council on Science and Technology

National spending on fire suppression exceeds $4 billion in the fiscal year 2023 funding bill, while less than $10 million is allocated for smoke management. This 600:1 funding ratio for fire compared to smoke is misaligned to the 1:1 ratio of economic impacts and 1:100 ratio of fire to smoke deaths.

Data infrastructure critical for minimizing these smoke-related hazards is largely absent from our firefighting arsenal. 

Congress should take action to better leverage existing smoke data in the context of wildland fire management and fill crucial data infrastructure gaps to enable smoke management as a core part of wildland fire management.

Some smoke data is already collected, including smoke forecasts for active fires from the Interagency Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program and retrospective smoke emissions totals from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the National Emissions Inventory (NEI). However, these smoke impacts are considered separately from flame impacts (e.g., structures burned), and are left out of broader wildfire strategy. New authoritative realtime smoke-data tools need to be created and integrated into wildfire management strategy.

Recommendations 

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

• Direct the CDC to create a retrospective data inventory estimating morbidity and mortality due to smoke for individual wildland fires and publish their findings in National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) wildfire impact summaries. 
• Direct the CDC to increase epidemiologist access to the National Vital Statistics System, to enhance the scientific community’s ability to study possible linkages between smoke and health impacts.

To better integrate smoke data with other fire data, Congress should:

• Expand the NIFC to include smoke in its mission, and rename it as the National Interagency Fire and Smoke Center.
• Direct EPA and CDC to join the NIFC collaboration and place staff at NIFC headquarters.
• Require the expanded NIFC to develop smoke-impact data products, including smoke deaths and smoke-plume footprints, for each fire and publish them alongside common fire data products like structures and area burned.
• Direct NOAA or EPA to create high-resolution daily datasets of wildfire-attributable air pollutants nationwide, make these data available in real-time, and integrate them with the NEI.

To enable the consideration of smoke-related health impacts in wildland fire management, Congress should:

• Direct EPA to define wildfire-specific concentration-response functions for use in estimating health impacts in the BenMAP-CE tool.
• Direct NIH to create Research-Center-scale grants to study health impacts of wildfire smoke. Direct NIH to hire new staff to translate the findings for wildfire management strategists.
• Direct the USFS, CDC, and EPA to continue researching the health impacts of smoke from different types of wildland fire (e.g., prescribed burns compared to unplanned wildfires), hiring new staff as appropriate. A more detailed understanding is critical to optimizing prescribed-burn strategy.
• Direct the NIFC, USFS, EPA, and CDC to create models linking parcel-specific landscape management to long-term smoke emissions and resulting health impacts (and hire new staff as appropriate). These models are critical to optimizing location-specific prescribed burn strategies and to evaluating the smoke-related public health tradeoffs of alternative management strategies (e.g., prescribed burn strategies compared to suppression-focused strategies of the past).

The suggested additions would improve national technical ability to increase smoke-related safety, thereby saving lives and reducing smoke-related public health costs. 

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Support strategic deployment of community resilience hubs to mitigate smoke impacts and other hazards 

Lee Ann Hill, Director of Energy and Health, PSE Healthy Energy

Exposure to wildfire smoke can have severe impacts on human health, including higher risk of respiratory problems, heart attack, stroke, and premature death. One tool communities can use to build resilience to smoke and other hazards that threaten human health are resilience hubs.  Resilience hubs are indoor community spaces designed to address overall community vulnerability and to foster public safety, security, and wellbeing. Resilience hubs can also support communities amid emergencies, including smoke emergencies, by providing access to clean indoor air. 

The federal government can foster holistic community resilience to wildfire smoke impacts and other hazards by supporting the development of community resilience hubs.

Public health guidance and climate adaptation policies should account for the reality that many communities will be exposed to multiple hazards, sometimes concurrently. Rather than address specific exposures (e.g., wildfire smoke or extreme heat) in isolation, policymakers should consider mitigation approaches that will build capacity to prepare for and withstand multiple hazards, including those associated with 1) mitigation strategies (e.g., prescribed fire smoke), 2) extreme weather events (e.g., smoke, extreme heat) and natural disasters, and 3) power outages. Policymakers can prioritize policy interventions that reduce harmful smoke exposures while also expanding broader community resilience to maximize the human health benefit of every dollar spent. 

Community resilience hubs equipped with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning and powered by distributed clean energy resources can reduce harmful smoke exposures while expanding broader community resilience amid extreme weather events, natural disasters, and grid outages. Local governments across the United States and Canada have established resilience hubs focused on disaster and emergency response; pilot efforts to build resilience more holistically are underway in Baltimore, Maryland and Northern California. 

The proposed Wildfire Smoke Emergency Declaration Act of 2021 focuses on wildfire smoke more singularly, including provision of “resources for establishing smoke shelters, air purifiers, and additional air monitoring sites” upon each declaration of a smoke emergency. Federal efforts to reduce the human health cost of wildfire smoke should consider how investment can effectively mitigate multiple hazard exposures, reducing inefficiencies stemming from focusing singularly on wildfire smoke alone and redeploying resources during each emergency smoke declaration. While evidence suggests that resilience hubs are most effective when they are community-led, the federal government can support the proliferation of these tools of community resilience in a multi-hazard environment. 

To support these efforts, Congress can take the following steps:

• Require HHS, EPA, and FEMA, in partnership with state and local public health and emergency response agencies and community-based organizations, to assess resilience hub needs and resources requirements and develop a set of best practices for resilience hub design to mitigate exposures associated with wildfire smoke events and other climate-related events.  
• Expand financial resources for the existing FEMA Hazard Mitigation Assistance Grant Program and EPA’s Wildfire Smoke Preparedness in Community Buildings Grant Program to develop resilience hubs aimed at mitigating exposures to a range of hazards and to support deployment for distributed clean energy resources (e.g., solar and battery storage) as part of resilience hub planning and implementation.  
• For existing or planned resilience hubs, require reporting on use during climate-related events, natural disasters, and grid outages, including a range of metrics such as accessibility and equity. Hubs often already collect data for public safety purposes; it should be standardized and reported annually to interagency groups focused on climate mitigation and adaptation, emergency response, as well as to Congress. 

Resilience hubs can reduce hazard exposures and strengthen community-level resilience to provide support during extreme weather events, natural disasters, and grid outages. Resources to support interagency coordination, distributed energy resource deployment, and data collection efforts can bolster and inform future and ongoing resilience hub planning and implementation efforts. 

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Consider modifying the Clean Air Act to incentivize increased use of beneficial fire

Alistair Hayden, Assistant Professor of Practice, Department of Public & Ecosystem Health, Cornell University; Susan Prichard, Research Scientist, University of Washington 

Recent wildfires have spewed so much toxic smoke across the country that decades of life-saving air-quality improvement under the Clean Air Act (CAA) have been reversed in many states. The CAA unintentionally aids this reverse by disincentivizing the use of beneficial fire at scales needed to mitigate catastrophic wildfires. Congress should modify the CAA to instead incentivize beneficial fire–prescribed burns, cultural burning, and managed wildfire—to support use at scales needed to mitigate unmanaged wildfires.

Though beneficial fire produces smoke, it is the most effective means to reduce overall smoke output because it mitigates unmanaged wildfires. Proactive application of beneficial fire is planned under specific weather and fuel conditions to minimize impacts to communities, while unmanaged wildfires are unplanned events that often burn under extreme conditions, frequently with significant smoke lasting for weeks. 

The CAA aims to save lives and money by reducing air pollution, including wildfire smoke, but it currently discourages the beneficial fire that minimizes overall smoke output. Days with smoke from unplanned wildfires often qualify as “exceptional events” that CAA excludes from a jurisdiction’s pollution limits. In contrast, beneficial fires rarely qualify, so their smoke can make a jurisdiction exceed its pollution limits. Jurisdictions therefore restrict beneficial fire to achieve pollution limits, unintentionally preventing fire use at the needed scale. Current CAA policy therefore shifts smoke emissions from beneficial fires to unplanned wildfires, which disproportionately contribute to hazardous smoke impacts. 

To incentivize more beneficial fire while leaving intact other life-saving provisions of the CAA, Congress should:

• Define a new “Landscape Emissions” category containing emissions from both beneficial fire and unplanned wildfire. Defining a category complementary to the other major categories (Point Sources, Non-Point Sources, and Mobile Sources) enables CAA to manage Landscape Emissions specifically. For example, pollution exceedances due to fires could invoke different penalties and incentives while leaving existing provisions—carefully tailored to other major categories—intact.
• Define Landscape Emissions as not exceptional by amending 42 U.S. Code § 7619(b)(1). Wildfires are expected, not exceptional, and jurisdictions can reasonably control wildfire emissions through widespread beneficial-fire use. Pollution exceedances due to Landscape Emissions could trigger landscape-related penalties, distinct from existing CAA penalties.
• Define beneficial fire as a Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT). RACT is a CAA definition used to control a specific pollutant to a specific limit. No RACTs currently address wildfire.
• Require State Implementation Plans (SIPs) to include beneficial fire, and restrict SIPs from decreasing beneficial fire to reach attainment. SIPs are written by states with pollution above CAA limits and describe how they will meet the limits. 

Policy encouraging beneficial fire supports choosing when and where smoke happens, reducing the frequency of even more dangerous unplanned fires and the overall smoke hazard. The CAA should incentivize beneficial fire; doing so will save lives and money by reducing air pollution—exactly its intended function.

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Science, Data, and Technology

Save lives, properties, and ecosystems with real-time actionable fire intelligence

Tim Ball, Fireball Information Technologies; Carlton Pennypacker; University of California, Berkeley; Harry Statter, Frontline Wildfire Defense

The authors are part of a research group, FUEGO, that designed a satellite to bridge the intelligence gap described in this proposal.

Securing our lives, communities, and ecosystems in the face of more intense fires and a swelling Wildland-Urban Interface requires that governments and citizens work together using the most reliable sources of intelligence. Emergency management agencies, firefighters, public utilities, and the public need real-time understanding of when fires start, where fires are located, how their intensity is changing, and where they are spreading.

The National Wildland Fire Coordinating Group (NWCG) has recognized this is a serious unmet intelligence need. Creating an uninterrupted, high cadence, and low latency capability to map fire activity will support response in real time at local and national scales. The intelligence need is even more urgent for fast-spreading fires or those that are difficult to observe, either because aircrafts are unavailable or cannot operate in the local conditions. This challenge can be met with new, cost-effective means of gathering data and disseminating intelligence.

The US Fire Administration and USGS should lead in establishing a public-private-university-nonprofit partnership to collect, combine, and disseminate actionable information on fire activity for the benefit of firefighters and the public. A key piece of the intelligence system is a new geostationary satellite launched and maintained by the appropriate federal agencies.

Details

Lack of intelligence in the first 90 minutes of the 2018 Camp Fire thwarted the wildfire evacuation plan that had been practiced by the town of Paradise, California. Because of the time of the fire, the aircraft that would have normally been used to gather intelligence was unstaffed and no alternative sources of intelligence were available. Mandatory evacuation of the town began only after the fire was well established in the town. The speed of the Camp Fire, the intelligence challenges, and the problems with evacuation are not unique.

Current satellites used to monitor wildland fires collect infrequent and low-resolution images that are not useful for actionable intelligence. A new geostationary (GEO) satellite constantly watching North America could detect a brush fire the size of a semi-truck and pinpoint its location to within 50 yards. Aircraft and satellites in low-Earth orbit are still required to collect higher resolution data, particularly for smaller and slower-moving fires. Points of critical consequence found at GEO can be investigated further by a low-Earth satellite, then coordinates of interest can be passed to aircraft pilots. The technical details of existing satellites for wildland fire management are compared to a GEO satellite in the appendix.

The intelligence gathered by a new GEO satellite should be merged with other sources to form an integrated intelligence system. This requires coordination, likely through a public-private-university-nonprofit partnership to enable collection, fusion, and dissemination of actionable intelligence, but the keystone of this system must be the GEO satellite. Further, collecting new data across spatial resolutions and time scales would contribute significantly to fire science, fire modeling efforts, and evaluation of fire mitigation efforts.

Recommendations

• The US Fire Administration and USGS should lead in establishing a public-private-university-nonprofit partnership to enable collection, fusion, and dissemination of actionable intelligence on fire activity for the benefit of firefighters and the public. The Fire Administration should strongly urge and support cooperative and complementary fire intelligence collection at multiple altitudes and spatial resolutions for operational use and fire science.
• Congress should direct relevant agencies to study the cost of developing, launching, and maintaining a geostationary satellite to enable persistent, high-resolution monitoring of wildland fire activity in the United States. The data should be publicly available for the benefit of the citizens and fire officials.

Appendix

The authors are part of a research group, FUEGO, that designed a satellite to bridge this intelligence gap described here. The following table compares the technical parameters of this system with satellites currently used for fire management.

	FUEGO	GOES Meso Sector	VIIRS
Minimum Detectable Fire	2 to 2 Megawatts	35 Megawatts	7 Megawatts
Persistence (Seconds between images of the same place on Earth)	20 seconds	60 seconds	43000 seconds
Spatial Resolution Ground Sample Distance (Meters)	290	2200	375
Ability to locate a point source within a pixel	1/10th pixel	none	none
Data Latency	90 seconds	300 seconds	12000 seconds

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Advance the predictive science of fire ecology and forest resilience

Winslow Hansen, Forest Ecologist, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Forest area burned and fire severity are increasing in some forest types in the U.S. Fire suppression, which allows vegetation to accumulate and consequently fuel larger fires, and climate change are contributing to this growing problem. Unprecedented resources are becoming available to address the fire crisis, but the landscape of fire and forest management remains fragmented. Managers and policy makers are being asked to balance competing demands of human safety, fuels management, air quality, biodiversity conservation, and carbon sequestration in the face of tremendous scientific uncertainty about where, when, how, and why ecosystems and fire regimes will change. How can we manage a system when we do not understand how it functions? 

Congress should support an ambitious research collaborative to ensure the predictive science of fire ecology and forest resilience rapidly advances in time to support management and policy that addresses the fire crisis.

Recognizing the severity of the fire crisis, Congress allocated $5 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act for “forest management, planning, and restoration” activities, including hazardous fuels treatments. While unprecedented, the investment is sufficient to mechanically treat only a small portion of western forests. This means managers need to be strategic in implementation of fuels treatments and able to track their efficacy. No investor would commit funds to an endeavor where they could not quantitatively evaluate gains and losses. The same is true for investing in strategies to address the fire crisis. 

The consequences of today’s management decisions will accrue over decades, the temporal scale on which forests and fire regimes change. To track progress toward more resilient forests, less catastrophic fire, and safer human communities, we need tools to determine in near real time where, when, and how forests are changing. We also need ways to evaluate the efficacy of fuels treatments for fostering more resilient forests and less catastrophic fire. Real time forest and fire tracking must also seamlessly feed into long-term models that help us project how today’s decisions may influence outcomes for decades to come. Such an integrated monitoring and projection system does not exist, but is vitally necessary for decision making. A fire ecology and forest resilience science collaborative could develop such a tool.

Recommendations 

We recommend that Congress:

• Allocate funding and direct the National Science Foundation to launch the western-US Fire ecology and forest resilience science collaborative in partnership with the USDA Forest Service, Department of Interior, and Joint Fire Science Program.

We recommend that the USDA Forest Service and Department of Interior:

• Ask that employees managing federal lands use the online tools developed through the collaborative for planning treatment locations and for tracking efficacy of treatments. 

We anticipate that the collaborative would cost about 100 million dollars over ten years. This funding would support a network of 20 scientific teams across the country and a lead center of excellence that provides synthesis, coordination, amplification, and management. Leaders of this effort should consider ongoing research efforts in relevant disciplines, collaborating where appropriate to ensure efforts are not duplicated. 

NSF is the right agency to administer the collaborative because of their deep expertise in funding basic and applied research and because of their success in ambitious large-scale initiatives such as the Long-term Ecological Research Network and the National Ecological Observatory Network. NSF has also recently made investments in fire research. Our proposal builds off this momentum. Partnerships with USDA Forest Service, DOI, and Joint Fire Science Program would strengthen the connections between the science conducted and manager needs. If launched, the science collaborative would provide managers and policy makers with tools to plan strategies and track the efficacy of federal investment in proactive fire and forest management, based on state-of-the-art modeling and remote sensing, and underpinned by strong foundational science. 

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Develop next-generation fire and vegetation models for a changing climate 

Matthew Hurteau, University of New Mexico 

Wildfires are burning in ways that surprise seasoned firefighters, and current models are failing to predict evolving fire behavior. Due in part to climate change, existing models cannot reproduce recent catastrophic wildfires. This means existing fire and vegetation models are likely to fail at predicting future wildfires or when it is safe to light prescribed fires, challenging our capacity to effectively suppress wildfires or mitigate their impacts. 

Congress should establish and fund centers of excellence to develop, maintain, and operate next-generation fire and vegetation models that support wildland fire planning and management.

Climate change is expanding what is flammable. For example, the 2020 Creek Fire in California burned through forests that had already been weakened by beetle infestations and drought, and burned with such intensity that current operational fire models could not reproduce the event. Ongoing climate change made this extreme fire behavior possible. 

The wildfire research community has demonstrated it can respond to problem-based research needs as evidenced by the successful Joint Fire Science Program and the National Science Foundation funding of Centers of Excellence (CoE). CoE’s have been created in a variety of topic areas and have demonstrated that supporting hubs of expertise to address specific research areas leads to positive outcomes. Developing five regional CoEs will a) facilitate research collaboration across disciplines, institutions, and regions, and b) provide regional service centers which will develop and run models focused on near and mid-term dynamics at local and event (e.g. treatment unit, wildfire) scales that support land management planning and decision-making. A cross-CoE leadership team will ensure that research and development activities are complementary.

We recommend that Congress:

• Establish and fund five CoE’s housed at academic institutions (southeast, southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, northern/central Rockies).
• Require institutional partnerships between the host institutions and federal research institutions (e.g. USFS Research & Development, Department of Energy National Labs, US Geological Survey, etc).
• Mandate and fund the centers to develop and maintain next-generation fire and vegetation models (focused on near and mid-term dynamics at local scales) that are capable of modeling extreme fire behavior and can be operationalized to support planning for wildfire and vegetation management and wildfire suppression. This could include training fire behavior analysts to use models in decision-making. 
• Mandate and fund the Centers to operate these next-generation models to support wildfire and vegetation management planning and operations. This could include developing methods and standards for science translation. 

One path forward for this approach could be a pilot initiated at a single institution with collaborators in each of the five regions, with the opportunity to expand to five regional centers as research questions evolve and collaboration mechanisms are refined. 

Establishing five CoEs to develop, maintain, and operate next-generation models will cost approximately $25 million per year, which is less than 1% of the 2021 federal wildfire suppression expenditure. The Centers could be established and funded using directed funding through the National Science Foundation (NSF) in partnership with the Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). NSF is well-positioned to lead this effort given prior investments in wildland fire prediction and management as well as research collaborations in the space.  

Managing fuels effectively to prevent future catastrophic events requires developing models that account for the new climatic conditions fire managers face, and will allow us to make wildfire management more predictable.

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Expand capacity for effective collaboration between scientists and resource managers to inform forest management

Meg Krawchuk, Associate Professor, Oregon State University 

For years, the federal government has recognized the importance of scientists and decision-makers working together to solve complex wildland fire management problems. While many successful federal programs support such collaborations, institutional barriers still stand in the way of many fruitful science coproduction and communication efforts in wildland fire management.  

The federal government should expand financial and institutional support for co-production of wildland fire science and science communication to help natural resource managers make evidence-based decisions in the context of the wildfire crisis. 

According to USGS, coproduction of science projects “focus on scientists and resource managers working closely together to produce actionable products that are used to inform natural resource management decisions.” More broadly, science communication work at the project and program level can enhance the reach and relevance of coproduced science and distill literature for decision-making applications. These approaches have been championed in the field of wildland fire science and land management for years by land management agencies (including the USGS Climate Adaptation Science Centers and US Forest Service) and funding agencies (including the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) and National Science Foundation). 

However, both researchers and natural resource managers report that funding, capacity, and institutional barriers inhibit coproduced science efforts in wildland fire. For example, financial support and incentive structures (e.g., performance evaluation criteria, awards, and professional recognition) are often insufficient to support scientists in conducting longer-term collaborative, relationship-building work that can extend the reach and impact of co-produced science. Furthermore, program staff in agencies (where they exist) may lack bandwidth necessary to effectively distill large quantities of journal articles into the core “so what” conclusions needed by land management practitioners to integrate the most recent science with existing management strategies. 

Addressing these gaps in coproduction and broader science communication support is crucial to maximizing the potential of scientific research to inform pressing forest management problems and capitalizing on successful investments in coproduction projects. More robust support for coproduction and communication in the wildland fire space will equip agencies to ensure that decision-makers have access to the “best available science” and can fulfill goals outlined in federal initiatives including the USFS 10-year Wildfire Crisis Strategy, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Administration’s “Year of Evidence for Action,” and the “Year of Open Science.”  

Specifically, Congress should: 

• Request information about existing natural resource manager efforts in federal fire agencies to engage with agency and external scientists in decision-making. If appropriate, it should then direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to identify critical gaps and capacity needs at these agencies to best utilize evidence-based policymaking in wildland fire management. Their findings should be reported to Congress within the next two years.
• Allocate dedicated and designated funding to the DOI and USDA for new investment in science integration, including project-specific funding for scientists (delivered through USGS and USFS) and program-wide support for federal USFS managers, the USFS Ecology Program, the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP), investment landscapes, and forest collaboratives.

Specifically, the Department of Interior US Geological Survey (USGS) and US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service (USFS) should:

• Expand Support for Project-Specific Coproduction Work:
  • Initiate focus panels to work with USGS Climate Adaptation Science Centers (CASCs) to develop a program that provides funding support to researchers and practitioners in conducting longer-term science integration work on a project-by-project basis. 
  • Initiate a focus panel to work with USDA USFS Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP) and Wildfire Crisis investment landscapes to develop an ongoing funding call to support scientists and practitioners in longer-term integration of fire and climate science into project-by-project and program-wide collaborative activities. 
• Expand Program Support for Science Translation:
  • Expand the JFSP multi-agency funding initiative to support a broader reach of coproduced wildland fire research, including support for science translation capacity.
  • Expand the successful USFS Ecology Program from Regions 5 and 6 to all Forest Service regions in the United States and add program staff to existing programs. 
  • Support USGS CASCs to expand programs to assist practitioners in applying wildland fire and climate adaptation science to management tasks. 

These investments would total less than the current price tag of existing coproduction work but extend the reach and impact of initial investments. 

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Launch an Open Disaster Data Initiative to bolster whole-of-nation resilience from wildfires and related hazards

Shefali Juneja Lakhina, Wonder Labs

Federal, state, local, and Tribal agencies collect and maintain a range of disaster vulnerability, damage, and loss data. However, this valuable data currently lives on different platforms and in various formats across agency silos, making it difficult to augment whole-of-nation preparedness, response, and recovery from a range of natural hazards, including wildfires, smoke, drought, extreme heat, flooding, and debris flow. 

The Biden-Harris Administration should launch an Open Disaster Data Initiative that mandates federal, state, local, and Tribal agencies to systematically collect, share, monitor, and report on disaster vulnerability, damage, and loss data, in formats that are consistent and interoperable. 

In the past decade, several bipartisan research, data, and policy reviews have reiterated the need to develop national standards for the consistent collection and reporting of damage and loss data. Recent disaster and wildfire research data platforms and standards provide 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 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 marginalized communities. 

Recommendations

We recommend the White House and Congress, where appropriate, take the following actions: 

1. Appoint a White-House level staff position in the Office of Science Technology and Policy to establish the Open Disaster Data Initiative with the participation of all relevant federal agencies currently engaged in the management of hydro-meteorological and hydro-geological hazards including drought, extreme heat, wildfires, smoke, flooding, and landslides.   
2. Issue an  Executive Order to  promote the development and adoption of national standards for disaster vulnerability, damage, and loss data collection, sharing, and reporting, by all relevant federal, state, local, and Tribal agencies, as well as by universities, non-profits, and the private sector.  
3. Designate  FEMA as the national focal point agency to maintain a national disaster loss database––a federated, open, integrated, and interoperable disaster data system that can seamlessly roll-up local data, including research and non-profit data. 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, and Tribal agencies, as well as non-profit stakeholders. 

Building on recent experience with developing an all-of-government COVID-19 pandemic management data platform, it is recommended that all federal agencies engaged in wildland fire management activities collaborate in taking the following steps to launch the Open Disaster Data Initiative: 

1. Undertake a Disaster Data Systems and Infrastructure Assessment to inform the development of national standards and identify barriers for accurate disaster data tracking, accounting, and sharing between federal, state, local, and Tribal agencies, as well as the philanthropic and private sector. 
2. Adopt national standards for disaster loss data collection and reporting to address ongoing issues concerning data quality, completeness, integration, interoperability, and accessibility. 
3. Ensure appropriate federal agency work plans reflect the national data standards, such as for digital and infrastructure planning, requests for proposals, and procurement processes to streamline all future data collection, sharing, and reporting. 
4. Develop federal agency capacities to accurately collect and analyze disaster vulnerability, damage, and loss data, especially as it relates to population estimates of mortality and morbidity, including from wildfire smoke. 
5. Provide guidance, training, and resources to states, non-profits, and the private sector to adopt national disaster data standards and facilitate seamless roll-up of disaster vulnerability, damage, and loss data to the federal level thereby enabling accurate monitoring and accounting of community resilience in inclusive and equitable ways. 

The Open Disaster Data Initiative will need a budget and capacity commitment to streamline disaster data collection and sharing to bolster whole-of-nation disaster resilience for at least three societal and environmental outcomes. First, the Initiative will enable enhanced data sharing and information coordination among federal, state, local, and Tribal agencies, as well as with universities, non-profits, philanthropies, and the private sector. Second, the Initiative will allow for longitudinal monitoring of 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 socially and historically marginalized communities.  Finally, the Initiative willinform 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.

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Develop a federal framework to measure and evaluate the socio-ecological impacts of wildfire

Leana Weissberg, Associate Specialist, UC Berkeley; Ken Alex, Director, Project Climate, UC Berkeley 

In the face of the wildfire crisis, federal agencies must work together to ensure that historic investments reach their full potential to protect people, property, ecosystems, and cultural resources. At present, federal agencies lack a comprehensive framework for evaluating wildfire’s socio-ecological impacts and efforts to mitigate them. While the importance of evaluating wildfire impacts is widely recognized and smaller scale efforts are underway, agencies don’t currently have a coordinated data sharing and reporting strategy for wildfire impacts. 

We propose that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) convene federal fire agencies to develop a consistent and regionally appropriate framework for assessing the socio-ecological impacts of wildfire using metrics, benchmarks, and evaluation criteria. 

Current federal agency efforts to gather, report, and evaluate the impacts of wildland fire are fragmented and siloed. In some cases, datasets conveying important information (e.g. fire severity and post-fire debris-flow assessments) exist but are not systematically reported. In others, data representing one aspect of wildfire impacts are reported in isolation, limiting their use in decision-making. For example, data on burned acres and wildfire emissions are rarely combined with Census data to estimate wildfire’s public health impacts.

As fire risk reduction investments reach historic levels, a systematic approach to evaluating and mitigating wildfire impacts is critical. By synthesizing and reporting data otherwise produced and evaluated in isolation, a more comprehensive framework will improve our collective understanding of the totality of wildfire impacts, where impacts are most severe, where they are ecologically beneficial, and how they evolve.

Federal departments and agencies involved in wildland fire management have acknowledged the importance of using the best available science and measuring performance. As two of the leading federal fire entities, the US Forest Service and Department of Interior recognize the need to employ the best available science for priority setting. Additionally, strategic planning documents from other federal fire entities identify the need for new performance measures and dashboards (DHS) for equitable disaster recovery and reformed climate threat information delivery (DOC) for improved outcomes in underserved communities. The proposed framework would create connected governmental initiatives and resources to reduce redundancy, build a more complete understanding of wildfire’s socio-ecological impacts, and ensure coordinated and comprehensive reporting on progress toward impact mitigation. All federal departments and agencies whose work touches wildland fire should be involved in this effort, including: DHS, DOC, DOE, DOI, DOT, DHS (including the CDC and NIH), USDA, EPA, and NSF. 

We recommend that Congress take the following steps to implement this framework: 

• Require that OMB coordinate federal fire agencies to develop the outlined framework and, where possible, integrate existing data collection, wildfire outcome tracking, and treatment prioritization efforts at federal, state, and local levels. 
• Require that OMB develop a process to evaluate agencies based on their coordinated reporting of framework metrics, benchmarks, and evaluation criteria and determine an appropriate evaluation interval.
• Allocate funds as appropriate from the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act to begin the coordination process and instruct agencies to develop budgetary requests for remaining needs within one year of the beginning of their coordination. 

A successful framework will require funds for coordination (staffing, data collection efforts, scoping digital infrastructure requirements, and reporting) as well as implementation (expanding data collection and building digital infrastructure). Teams comprising one GS-13 and three GS-11 staff from each department involved in the effort would cost approximately $3 – $3.3 million per year. Alternatively, framework development could utilize term-length personnel, for example via the U.S. Digital Service.

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Improving safety and efficiency of wildfire suppression with advanced UAS

Daniel Wholey, Rain Industries

Uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) have diverse uses in wildland fire management, including real-time fire mapping, delivering supplies to responders, conducting backburns and prescribed fires, and even providing artificial rainfall for fire suppression. Congress has directed the Department of Interior (DOI) and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to expand the use of UAS in wildland fire management operations through legislation such as the Dingell Jr. Act. Security concerns raised in 2020 temporarily halted existing UAS programs and hampered the development and integration of this technology.

Congress, DOI, and USDA should fully resume implementation of the UAS program outlined in the Dingell Jr. Act and include new funding opportunities to promote the development of domestic UAS technology for wildland fire suppression and other management needs.

Fire agencies in the United States effectively use small UAS for conducting prescribed fires and wildland fire mapping. While small UAS have provided significant value for fire agencies, we believe that large UAS, which are currently underutilized, can dramatically improve safety and efficiency of fire mapping and suppression efforts. Other groups have demonstrated the role that larger, more advanced UAS can play in wildfire management and response. In 2018 the California National Guard used an MQ-9 Reaper, a remotely-piloted large UAS, to map wildfires in real time and send live video to operational facilities, providing critical situational awareness. Lockheed Martin and KAMAN demonstrated cargo and water drops from the K-MAX helicopter. Rain Industries [author Daniel Wholey is employed by Rain Industries] is integrating with third party early detection networks and automating large UAS to respond rapidly to wildland fire ignitions.

The Dingell Jr Act directed the DOI and USDA to expand UAS programs and assess new technology, including large UAS, across a range of management operations to accelerate the deployment and integration of UAS in Department operations. Implementation of the Act was challenged in 2020 when the Trump administration grounded drones over fears that sensitive data was sent to the China-based manufacturers, where it could be accessed by the Chinese government. Progress has been made on several fronts since this setback. DOI effectively lifted the drone operations ban in December of 2022. Over $600 million from recent appropriations is reserved for preparedness and suppression, some of which can be used to advance UAS programs.

Given mandates from Congress and the continuing security concerns associated with foreign UAS technology, we believe that the solution is to expand domestic research, development, and production of large UAS for wildfire management operations.

Recommendations

DOI and USDA should resume implementation of the Dingell Jr. Act and include an initiative to promote domestic research, development, and production of large UAS, such as helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft, for wildfire management operations, particularly suppression. This initiative should include innovative funding mechanisms such as prize competitions, milestone-based payment programs, and Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR).

Congress should ensure appropriate resources for the initiative, estimated at $30 million based on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) FY22-26 National Aviation Research Plan.

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Workforce

Establish a Tribal ranger program to fund permanent land stewardship opportunities for Tribal communities

Chris Adlam, PhD, Oregon State University

Due to historic disenfranchisement and current socioeconomic conditions, many members of Tribal Nations currently lack the resources and time needed to steward their ancestral lands in the same manner as generations before them have done for millenia. This lack of opportunity has contributed to negative outcomes for Tribal communities, including compromised forest health on ancestral lands, entrenched poverty on reservations, and the erosion of vital, intergenerational Traditional Ecological Knowledge. 

Congress should allocate funds to Tribal Nations and Tribally-led organizations to create and define programs, modeled on Australia’s Indigenous Ranger Program or Canada’s Indigenous Guardians Program, that provide stable funding for long-term employment opportunities, training, and equipment for Tribes to carry out land stewardship activities, including cultural burns, post-fire monitoring, and ecological restoration.

Canada and Australia’s programs create long-term and short term employment opportunities for members of Tribal nations and organizations, and they have helped develop a workforce dedicated to restoration and wildfire mitigation. These programs have empowered Indigenous groups to facilitate effective stewardship of the land, build long-lasting relationships, and better transfer intergenerational knowledge. For example, Indigenous Ranger groups in Australia also reported several broader benefits for the long disadvantaged areas communities they operate within, including “safer communities, strengthened language and culture, an ability to find meaningful employment, increased respect for women, and more role models for younger people.” Similar programs in Australia have seen returns on investment of upward of $3.50 per $1.00 invested. 

By following these successful models, the federal government can create economically beneficial opportunities for Tribal nations and organizations to steward forests on their ancestral lands. This program could focus on long-term opportunities to maximize the benefit of place-based, intergenerational knowledge and wisdom. The United States Tribal Ranger program has the potential to provide a high return on investment by protecting wildland urban interface communities and infrastructure, safeguarding watersheds and air quality, and providing needed economic benefits for Indigenous participants, their communities, and other communities in the landscapes within which they serve. 

Recommendations

We recommend that Congress consider: 

• Allocating funds to Tribal Nations and organizations to design and lead a national Tribal Ranger program, in a model similar to that of the Canadian Indigenous Guardians program (which was jointly developed with First Nations, Inuit, and Métis).
  • Funding can be used by Tribal Nations and organizations to create a process for Tribal Nations and organizations to determine the eligible entities and eligible activities that may be funded through the program, and for Tribal Nations and organizations to form a working group to design and lead a regular application process, or other distribution process, to disburse funds. 
• Guaranteeing  a permanent funding stream for the program through the creation of an endowment that would regularly disburse funds for eligible projects. 

Tribes and Indigenous-oriented organizations could also decide to utilize the program and its funding to create apprenticeship programs (such as those recommended here) focused on conserving and implementing place-based knowledge to steward ancestral lands. If necessary, this program could be launched as a pilot project with additional funds allocated at a later date. 

Through this initiative, the federal government would rightfully recognize and elevate the role of Indigenous practitioners, who have long held deep expertise on fire but who have been continually marginalized. The program would therefore be an important step in correcting centuries of persecution and flawed forest management. 

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Expand corps programs for wildfire mitigation and healthy forests

Irva Hertz-Piccioto, Professor and Director, Environmental Health Sciences Center University of California, Davis 

Dead and sick trees and thick vegetative debris in our forests are fueling megafires and magnifying their frequency, intensity, and destructiveness. Fire suppression alone has cost the U.S. between $1.5 billion and $4.5 billion annually since 2012. Suppression costs amount to only a small fraction of the full costs of wildfire, which include economic, infrastructure, ecosystem, health and other costs. Fixing this problem will require restoring forest health throughout the country through a massive increase in the wildland firefighting workforce, particularly those trained in mitigation and resilience.

To address the growing wildfire challenge and engage youth in wildland fire careers, Congress and federal fire agencies should expand on and better leverage the Corps program model across the United States.

Investments in a workforce prepared to address the nation’s wildland fire challenges are already underway. For example, the DOI Office of Wildland Fire and the US Department of Agriculture are using funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to support a “more permanent workforce capable of fire response and mitigation work on a year-round basis.” Professionalizing the wildland fire workforce to address longer fire seasons and preparing these workers to support mitigation efforts is critical to building a more resilient landscape. However, this alone is not sufficient to meet the magnitude of our forest health problem.

Corps programs can supplement and complement the development of this more permanent workforce and simultaneously accelerate the pace of hazardous fuels reduction on the ground. Across the country, they are already doing so; for example, the California Conservation Corps’ Forestry Corps (which partners with the US Forest Service) focuses on removing overgrown and dead vegetation as part of wildfire mitigation on state lands. Members receive relevant certifications to prepare them for careers in forestry. AmeriCorps has also supported wildland fire mitigation activities in several regions of the country, including through employing veterans, and provides environmental stewardship opportunities across the US.

Given the enormity of the need and the urgency of reducing hazardous fuels, federal agencies can and should expand support for these models across the nation. Partnerships with state agencies, nonprofit, and community organizations can be leveraged to make these programs more wide-ranging and cost-effective. Expanding these programs will accomplish three core goals: 1) reduce buildup of hazardous fuels 2) broaden the pool of qualified applicants for jobs in federal and state wildland fire management and mitigation and 3) enrich the lives of youth by providing them with hands-on service experiences making a difference for the environment and health.

Recommendations

We recommend that Congress:

• Pass legislation that will restore forest health and resilience by allocating funds to expand existing wildland fire mitigation service programs involving partnerships with state, Tribal, territorial, private, non-profit and other entities. These Corps should be modeled after existing successful Corps programs and provide a pathway to more permanent employment, e.g., in wildland fire management.

We recommend that the USFS, AmeriCorps, and DOI work together to:

• Conduct analyses to determine where existing programs (e.g., AmeriCorps’ Environmental Stewardship programs) could be expanded in geography, scope, and partnerships with states, Tribal and community entities to meet the growing wildland fire mitigation needs. This analysis should include a) scaling up jobs directly carrying out fuel reduction and mitigation activities, as well as b) creating opportunities to prepare participants for careers that provide needed support for those activities, (e.g., strategic and regulatory planning, biomass use coordination).

• Establish principles and processes for prioritizing support for hazardous fuel mitigation corps programs in geographies, forest types, and human communities of greatest need, with flexibility and regular re-evaluation of priorities.

• Build and expand  sufficiently long (9-24 months) programs, wherein training can be provided in multiple fuel reduction methods including prescribed burns; removal of dead vegetation; and hand- or mechanical-thinning of small or mid-sized trees. Consider expanding existing apprenticeship programs through the Forest Service.

• For all federally supported Corps programs pertaining to wildland fire, incorporate training in Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) and practices that are based on centuries of experience with fire in a wide variety of ecosystems across the country.

• Enlist persons ages 18 and over, with focused recruitment for youth from underserved communities. Provide education and hands-on training in forest management, intentional fire, use of equipment, and workplace health and safety.

• Provide personal protective equipment to minimize injuries and training in proper use, as well as food, tents or structures for shelter, equipment, and medical care including transport. Corps members’ compensation should be a minimum of $2500 per month.  

• To ensure strong recruitment goals are met, enlist communications and marketing specialists. An adaptive approach should develop strategies that take into account particular needs of today’s generation, e.g., for internet connectivity.  Develop new networks, such as community colleges and professional schools, to attract a broad range of participants with diverse skills and interests.

Expanded Corps program will dramatically reduce destructive megafires and associated evacuations, provide cleaner air to breathe, and restore forest health across the nation.

It also will endow a generation of youth with new skills preparing them for quality jobs, as well as a meaningful connection to nature, improved morale and mental health, and a brighter future.

Invest in worker-led industries for whole-of-community wildfire resilience 

Shefali Juneja Lakhina, Wonder Labs

Forestry and fire workforce discussions have so far focused on addressing the staffing and retention challenges of federal and state agencies. However, not enough attention is being paid to the enormous yet untapped potential of informal workforce capacities. Private industry, small businesses, and community-based organizations, hire and train thousands of diverse informal workers, including students, volunteers, migrant, incarcerated, and justice-impacted people. Spurring increased investment in this fast-growing informal workforce presents the shortest and most sustainable path to meeting national wildfire resilience and climate mitigation goals.  Growing a diverse worker-led forest and fire industry can also help launch previously uncharted industries that are adaptive and responsive to local needs in a changing climate. 

The Biden-Harris Administration should launch an ‘Investing in worker-led industries for whole-of-community wildfire resilience’ program that supports innovative, future-ready, and tech-forward solutions from private industry, small businesses, and community-based organizations working on the frontlines of wildfire impacts. Over the next five years, at least $250 million should be invested in creating a worker-led forestry and fire industry to address the entire lifecycle of workforce development from education, training, and certification, to building resilient community infrastructure that includes family-sustaining housing, and enabling public health and whole-of-community wellbeing.   

Several federal, state, and local efforts to train and certify more forestry and fire workers are already underway. While increased training and certification is one obvious solution to the current workforce shortage, recent studies reveal that addressing barriers related to pay parity, decent housing, mental health, and career-track pathways, will also be essential to build a robust and sustainable forest restoration workforce. Yet, addressing these entry points for federal and state agencies will not necessarily lead to place-based, worker-owned, and community-centered solutions that sustain care for informal sector workers who live and work in the wildland-urban interface and intermix communities across the western United States. Supporting the creation of thousands of small business opportunities presents a high-road to address both the demand and supply side of the current workforce problem in equitable and sustainable ways.  

Building on the Justice40 directive, there is a significant opportunity to invest in most-impacted communities, including Indigenous communities, rural communities, and low-income communities that house students, volunteers, migrant, and incarcerated workers. This investment will spur new worker-owned and worker-led industries––in wildfire risk assessment, home hardening, defensible space, fuels reduction, prescribed burns, woody mass industries, biofuels, timber, fire detection and response, insurance, smoke management, clean air structures, post-disaster reconstruction, and restoration. Instead of building these industries in siloes, this proposal would spur an interdependent network of place-based, worker-owned small businesses that can contribute to resilient local infrastructure and whole-of-community well-being. 

Investment in wildfire resilience must be considered a public good: an investment in the nation’s workers, community infrastructure, and local industry. Past initiatives such as the effort to build affordable housing for farmworker families, and ongoing initiatives, such as the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation’s Forest Futures Program, the Sierra Forest Entrepreneurs Program, and California’s Climate Catalyst Revolving Loan Fund, provide precedents for public-private-people-philanthropic partnerships to bring novel solutions to a cascading crisis.  Capital for this program can be blended in ways that enable worker-owned cooperatives to solve the workforce gap equitably, and foster resilient community infrastructure, including family-sustaining housing. This, in turn, can generate new local industries—not only in wood products but also in related products and services that can spur a much larger wildfire resilience economy.

Recommendations

The Biden-Harris Administration should invest in the creation of a new worker-led forestry and fire industry that supports the creation of resilient local infrastructure and enables whole-of-community wildfire resilience. Specifically, Wonder Labs recommends the following actions: 

Build on the Good Jobs Challenge, the U.S. Department of Commerce should pilot entrepreneurship hubs that provide at least $150m in agile capital and mentorship to trained forestry and fire workers to start up small businesses, procure equipment, create resilient local infrastructure, and contribute to multi-scalar wildfire resilience goals. These hubs should be inclusive and non-discriminatory, including for people from incarcerated and justice-impacted backgrounds.

The Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture should together invest at least $60m in providing agile capital to diverse land and fire stewardship practitioners, including Indigenous fire practitioners, ranchers, and farmers, all who are already contributing to land and habitat restoration on Tribal and private lands, and need investments to scale capacities, equipment, and local infrastructure. 

The U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Bureau of Land Management should work with relevant state agencies and private industry across the western United States to create career-pathways, including small business opportunities, for formerly incarcerated and justice-impacted individuals. Investing at least $25m in piloting such an initiative could enable effective reintegration with communities on release and contribute to greater social, economic, and environmental outcomes. Specifically, learning from the California experience: 

• Raise the pay for fire camp workers so people are equitably compensated for their labor and firefighting expertise, and hours worked in prison can contribute to poverty reduction, reintegration, and family-sustaining lives post-incarceration. 
• Improve fire camp trainings and certifications including programs for the use of tech-forward tools and devices, at par with training received by local fire districts and state and federal agencies.
• Institutionalize careers for incarcerated and justice-impacted people by creating streamlined pathways from fire camps to careers in forestry and fire management, including through innovation camps and technology hubs. 
• Support existing programs and master trainer hubs to extend seed capital and mentorship to fire camp workers and enable them to start up small forestry and fire businesses. 

Build on the Civilian Climate Corps, the Bureau of Land Management, with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park Service, should invest at least $15m in co-facilitating youth-led forestry and fire programs, including sustained outreach to diverse young Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), women, people who identify as LGBTQQIA2S+, and justice-involved people in various stages of career training and eligibility. Specifically:

• Scale-up campus-based training programs and funded partnerships between educational institutions and government, private, and non-profit land managers, enabling youth in high schools, community colleges, state universities, and vocational courses, to earn credits and workforce qualifications while contributing to local wildfire risk management efforts. Earning training credits through the school and university system will make forestry and fire management more readily available as a career pathway, and drastically expand local resilience capacities with a tech-forward and future-ready workforce. 
• Create dedicated scholarships for young BIPOC and justice-involved people for year-round internships and trainings with federal, state, local, and Tribal agencies, including on the latest wildfire risk management technology applications and deployment.  
• Provide seed capital and mentorship to youth, especially from low-income, rural, and Tribal communities interested in starting forestry and fire businesses that contribute to restoration, local economic development, and national wildfire resilience and climate mitigation goals. 

Invest in workforce development that empowers Indigenous experience and knowledge and supports marginalized communities

Ryan Reed, Member of the Karuk Tribe; Indigenous Fire Practitioner; FireGeneration Collaborative; and Kyle Trefny, FireGeneration Collaborative

As the White House acknowledged in recent guidance, Traditional Ecological Knowledge has been “historically marginalized in scientific communities and excluded from research and academic resources, funding, and other opportunities.” The field of wildland fire is no exception: Traditional Ecological Indigenous Knowledge Systems have been relegated to the periphery of fire mitigation and management leadership, preventing Cultural Fire Practitioners from having their years of experience in cultural fire recognized by the credentialing systems.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group should develop curriculum and qualification standards to recognize Traditional Ecological Knowledge systems and take further action to address systemic barriers to participation in the wildland fire management workforce. 

Cultural Fire Practitioners face barriers to partnering with the federal fire management workforce and taking on leadership roles, despite decades of knowledge and practice. These barriers not only  exacerbate oppression, relegating Traditional Ecological Knowledge as lesser, but prevent otherwise qualified leaders from contributing to current mitigation and management structures. 

Women and elders often serve as leaders and teachers in Indigenous communities, stewarding and passing down Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Unfortunately, women face barriers to full inclusion and advancement in the male-dominated wildland fire workforce. For example, one Forest Service survey found that three in four women report having “felt out of place at work because of their gender” and that women in leadership roles “face challenges finding respect.” One third of surveyed Forest Service employees believed that personal characteristics hindered career advancement in wildland fire. 

These systemic barriers must be overcome to create pathways for more inclusive fire management leadership involving Indigenous women and elders, and supporting marginalized groups in the wildland fire space. The National Wildfire Coordinating Group, which establishes operations, positions, and qualification standards across agencies in wildland fire, should take further action to foster a wildland fire workforce and culture that reflects the full diversity of knowledge and experience that America has to offer. 

Recommendations

To ensure that existing workforce development programs incorporate Indigenous knowledge, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group should: 

• Identify curricula where local and regional historical and ecological context for fire management can be incorporated, such as NWCG’s S-130 Firefighter Training and the RT-130 Wildland Fire Safety Training Annual Refresher Intent.
• Jointly develop curricula concerning local and regional historical and ecological context for fire management with Indigenous Cultural Fire Practitioners, focusing on ecological aspects of fire, legacies of Indigenous fire stewardship, and consequences of fire exclusion.
  • Congress and participating agencies should ensure that funds are allocated to compensate Cultural Fire Practitioners for their contributions to these efforts. 
• Ensure that the new curriculum describes how members of the wildland fire workforce can learn about and implement relevant Indigenous and ecological principles into current practices. 

To remove systemic barriers to inclusive fire management work culture and leadership, agencies should leverage their jurisdiction and that of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group to:  

• Allow cultural and prescribed burning experience and knowledge to be applied towards fire management certifications and qualifications, on parity with fire suppression experience. 
• Partner with Indigenous cultural fire practitioners to reevaluate what kinds of physical fitness requirements should be necessary for participating in various prescribed and cultural fire activities, and what additional roles can be developed to overcome barriers that structurally discriminate against the involvement and leadership of women and elders.
• Address sexism, racism, harassment, and homophobia by incorporating elements of each of these into the NWCG L-180 Human Factors in the Wildland Fire Service training, and ensure that this curriculum is received by all contract crews and other fire camp employees who may not receive similar agency training.
• Set expectations that all supervisors across agencies and contract crews communicate clear zero-tolerance policies for harassment or behavior related to sexism, racism, and homophobia, and establish secure systems for reporting misconduct with no fear of job or other reprisal.

Support the ecological fire management workforce of the future through investments in education for youth and communities

Ryan Reed, Member of the Karuk Tribe; Indigenous Fire Practitioner; FireGeneration Collaborative; and Kyle Trefny, FireGeneration Collaborative

Wildland fire doesn’t just affect wildland – it puts livelihoods, physical safety, and treasured cultural resources at risk. Despite the danger fire presents, local communities are often left out of discussions and development when it comes to fire management policy. In this gap is a critical opportunity: a younger generation eager to facilitate transformational shifts to protect their communities and local land.

Congress should invest in youth programs that in the short-term provide a trained workforce to supplement agency capacity, and in the long-term, provide a pathway for a life-long career in fire management. 

Recommendations

We recommend that Congress: 

• Allocate funds to significantly invest in wildland fire workforce development at every educational level, including high schools, community colleges, and universities, to prepare young people for proactive fire management and community resilience work at the scale this crisis demands.
  • These programs can be modeled after the Clemson Fire Tigers and the Oregon Conservation Corps, which provide young people with practical experience and training in prescribed and cultural burning, home wildfire preparation, and community resilience.
  • Funds should specifically target marginalized and most-impacted communities, such as schools serving rural and minority populations (i.e., Indigenous and Latinx students and 1890 Land-Grant Institutions), as well as regions deemed of greatest fire risk with low socioeconomic capacity.
• Change the federal summer fire hiring from the previous Fall to the Spring, to best involve college-age firefighters who are unable to make commitments over half a year in advance.
• Invest in assisting fire-prone communities in applying for and accessing federal funds for fire preparation and mitigation work. Examples include support for access to programs such as the Community Wildfire Defense Grants. Necessary job expansions and funding provisions at the local level include funding for grant-writers and program planners and managers, community organizers, etc. These initiatives should prioritize high risk and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, i.e. low-income rural and Tribal communities.

Directly Fund Tribes to Create and Implement Land Stewardship Initiatives

Nina Fontana, PhD, University of California, Davis

Across the United States, Tribal nations and organizations have the knowledge and will to lead cultural and prescribed burns. Unfortunately, they are consistently limited by (a) insufficient funds, and (b) burdensome regulatory requirements that often prove overly burdensome to comply with. These two issues are connected. Tribal practitioners are often unable to obtain federal grants for land stewardship purposes because they do not have the capacity to find and apply for them, to compete with state agencies and organizations in the application process, and to comply with the grant requirements, which can conflict with Cultural Fire traditions in fundamental ways.

Congress should appropriate discretionary funds directly to Tribal nations and Tribally-led organizations for fire hazard reduction in order to decrease the administrative capacity needed for Tribes to compete for grants. The funds will be dispersed by regional Tribal liaisons, who will gather and utilize input from local actors to direct grants.

Tribal governments and organizations require direct grant funding to exercise their sovereignty in a rightfully unencumbered manner. When Tribal governments and organizations are provided with adequate funding and are able to direct its usage, Cultural Fire Practitioners are able to design cultural fire projects that fit their unique traditions and local plant communities contained within their lands. In addition, by giving Tribes greater discretion over funds, the federal government would a) decrease the regulatory burden on Tribes, and b) provide greater recognition of cultural burning as a uniquely valuable form of land restoration and place-based knowledge, instead of categorizing the practice as an often-overlooked subset of prescribed burning.

Most importantly, direct funding would allow Tribal governments and organizations to shift crucial capacity away from time-intensive administrative tasks and towards stewarding their ancestral lands. Tribes could expand their fire practitioner workforce, treat larger areas of land, and better conserve important natural and cultural resources.

Recommendations 
We recommend that Congress: 

• Commission a study conducted collaboratively with Tribal nations and organizations to explore financial mechanisms to deliver consistent, direct funding to Tribal Nations and organizations for Cultural Fire purposes. Potential mechanisms could include a federal endowment or a dedicated tax.
  • Direct the study to ensure that proposed funding mechanisms would be easily accessible for CFPs to obtain funding.
• Once the appropriate financial mechanism is identified, employ regional tribal liaisons to direct the funding to Tribes and to receive input from local communities and CFPs. The liaisons would help to create two-way communication channels that empower local voices in a funding process that has been historically top-down. 

By drawing upon the expertise of communities and Cultural Fire Practitioners, the Tribal liaisons would be able to target funds to groups and landscapes that have the greatest need, ensuring that federal resources are utilized in an effective manner each year.

It is time for the federal government to recognize the deep expertise of Tribes in fire management. By giving Tribes greater influence in determining the use of funds for preventative and mitigative activities, Congress would bring funding structures in line with the rightful sovereignty of Tribes, and it would protect communities and natural resources across the country by clearing the path for more beneficial fire. 

About these recommendations

Recommendations below include ideas targeted to both Congressional and Executive Branch. The Commission may wish to consider whether Congress has a role in encouraging or supporting Executive Branch changes described here; additionally, we plan to share these recommendations with Executive Branch actors, including the Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) and the White House Wildfire Resilience Interagency Working Group, for their consideration.

A Note on Recommendation Attribution

Note that each of the recommendations below stands alone and is attributed to a specific contributor or team of contributors. The recommendations below do not necessarily reflect the views of the full cohort. Additionally, the list of recommendations as a whole also does not necessarily reflect the views of the full cohort and does not constitute a consensus.

Acronyms

CDC: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

DHS: Department of Homeland Security 

DOC: Department of Commerce

DOI: Department of the Interior 

EPA: Environmental Protection Agency 

FEMA: Federal Emergency Management Agency

HHS: Department of Health and Human Services 

NIH: National Institutes of Health 

NSF: National Science Foundation 

UAS: Uncrewed Aerial Systems

USDA: United States Department of Agriculture 

USFS: United States Forest Service 

USGS: United States Geological Survey