October 4, 2012 — It's been a tumultuous few years for marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, the head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She's confronted an unprecedented and politically sensitive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, struggled to keep expensive satellite programs on track, and butted heads with Congress, which sank her efforts to reorganize NOAA's climate science programs and appoint the agency's first chief scientist in nearly 2 decades. Still, Lubchenco says she'd like to keep her job if President Barack Obama is reelected in November.
"There is so much more yet to do, and I want to do everything possible to make [it] happen," she tells ScienceInsider. ScienceInsider traveled to Monterey, California, last week to attend a scientific conference on ocean acidification, where this wide-ranging interview with Lubchenco took place.
In addition to discussing NOAA's budget and infrastructure challenges, Lubchenco revealed that she's hoping to soon fill the agency's long-empty chief scientist slot, which Congress recently removed from a list of positions requiring confirmation by the Senate. "I really want to fill that position," she says. "I can't imagine a science agency not having a chief scientist." The White House could announce the appointment as early as this month, she added, but declined to give any hints. Her initial pick to fill the position, geochemist Scott Doney of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, stepped aside this past January after Senator David Vitter (R-LA) blocked a vote on his nomination as a result of an unrelated dispute with the Obama Administration.
In the meantime, Lubchenco says she's relieved that a temporary spending measure that Congress approved last month gives NOAA special permission to move ahead with two satellite systems. The measure—called a continuing resolution—essentially freezes spending for most government programs for 6 months. But it allows NOAA to proceed with a planned ramp-up in spending on its $12 billion Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS), which needs $916 million in fiscal year 2013 to stay on track to launch in 2017. The agency will also be able to forge ahead with its Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R program, which was in line to get a $200 million boost, to $802 million.
The arrangement reflects a bipartisan desire to avoid further delays in the two programs, which will provide critical data to weather forecasters, disaster planners, and climate scientists, Lubchenco says. "Normally NOAA would be building either a geostationary system or a polar orbiting system," but "for historical reasons, we are doing both right now," she says. "That is a lot of money."
Read the full story at Science Insider