U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science

1. U.S. Department of Energy’sOffice of Science State of BER BERAC Meeting American Geophysical Union Jerry Elwood Acting Associate Director of Science for Biological and Environmental Research November 30, 2007

2. FY 2008 Operating Status – déjà vu all over again: • Operating under a Continuing Resolution (CR) until at least Dec. 14, 2007; year-long CR possible • CR allows continuation of ongoing activities under terms and conditions of FY 2007 appropriations; spending rate is constrained • Doesn’t allow new program starts or cancellations of existing programs • Does allow new starts of projects in existing programs

3. BER FY 2007 Appropriation, FY 2008 Request, and FY 2008 House and Senate Marks: B/A dollars in thousands FY 2007 Appropriation $479,184 President’s FY 2008 Request: $531,897 House mark $581,897 Senate subcommittee mark $605,320 CR constrains funding at FY 2007 appropriation

4. Biological and Environmental Research Staff: • Associate Director position – Search closed, applications of candidates certified as eligible in hands of selecting official • Two vacant Division Director positions– Life and Medical Sciences, Environmental Remediation Sciences • Filling Division Director positions contingent on first filling AD position

5. Staff changes in BER Departures: • Mike Viola – moved to private sector • Shirley Derflinger – retired New Hires: • Elizabeth (Libby) White – Human Subjects Protection program • Susan Gregurick – Computational Biology • Patrick Glynn – manager of Bioenergy Research Centers • Terry Jones – Administrative Assistant for Environmental Remediation Sciences Division

6. Operational Changes in BER Program Funding at DOE Labs Support of Scientific Focus Areas (SFAs): • Portfolio of BER-funded program research at a lab that takes advantage of unique scientific capabilities, strategic focus, flexibility, and administrative resources of National Labs • Retains use of and reliance on rigorous merit review • Focus on team-based research efforts Intent is to: • strengthen and broaden BER-funded scientific and technical contributions made by DOE labs • provide greater flexibility to BER and Labs to rapidly address new scientific and technical challenges as they arise, and • enable BER to help Labs develop and sustain core competencies that contribute to BER SFAs

7. Life and Medical Sciences: Updates: • 3 GTL Bioenergy Centers funded • GTL solicitations completed in FY2007 • New Analytical and Imaging Technologies for Lignocellulosic Material Degradation • Quantitative Microbial Biochemistry and Metabolic Engineering for Biological Hydrogen Production • New Genomic Strategies and Technologies for Studying Complex Microbial Communities and Validating Genomic Annotations • Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications (ELSI) of Research on Alternative Bioenergy Technologies, Synthetic Genomics, or Nanotechnologies • NAS Study of State of the Science in Nuclear Medicine – recommendations relevant to DOE undergoing internal discussion

8. Life and Medical Sciences:- (cont.) FY 2008 Solicitations: • Plant feedstock genomics for bioenergy – joint solicitation between DOE and USDA-CSREES • Nanotechnology Research Investigating Fate, Transport, Transformation, and Exposure of Engineered Nanomaterials - joint research solicitation between EPA, NSF & DOE • GTL Microbial Hydrogen Production(planned)

9. Life and Medical Sciences:- (cont.) GTL Strategic Plan — first draft release planned for February 2008: Updating of the GTL Roadmap released July 2005, to include: • Science & Technology Objectives, Science Hallmarks • Program Integration of Research Centers, Scientific User Facilities, National Laboratory SFAs, university grants and awards • Coordination with other BER divisional programs (CCRD & ERSD), Inter/Intra-Agency programs • Alignment of GTL Program Goals Against DOE Missions and Long Term Measures • Opportunities for New Elements and Topics with Increasing Emphasis • Grand Challenges

10. DOE Joint Genome Institute Prokaryotes Some bioenergy-related genomes completed in 2007 Pichia stipitis (ethanol fermentation) Current output: 40 Gb/year Sorghum bicolor (biomass feedstock) Termite Hind Gut Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (photosynthetic alga) White Rot Fungus Poplar

11. Climate Change Research: Updates: Strategic Planning: Draft plan to be revisited and modified as needed, depending on outcomes of BERAC workshop on Scientific Grand Challenges in Climate Change Research Key commitments: Completed two of the three CCSP Synthesis and Assessment Reports (SAP 2.1 and 4.5) for which DOE is responsible; SAP 3.1 nearly complete

12. Climate Change Research: - cont FY 2007 Solicitations Completed: • ARM Science • Atmospheric Science Pending Solicitations: • Abrupt climate change modeling • Integrated assessment research

13. Climate Change Science Program Status Center for Biological Diversity, et al case against CCSP for failure to comply with Global Change Research Act (GCRA) provisions Executive Branch decided not comply with court’s decision rather than appeal Court retains jurisdiction over CCSP until provisions are satisfied Case involves CCSP failure to submit a revised Strategic Plan to Congress every three years, and to satisfy global change assessment provisions of Section 106 of the GCRA

14. Court case against CCSP: Court ordered CCSP to… • Publish a revised summary of proposed CCSP Strategic Research Plan in Federal register for public comment by March 1, 2008 and submit revised summary to Congress no later than 90 days thereafter. • Produce a scientific assessment that satisifies Section 106 of the GCRA by May 31, 2008 CCSP agencies have responsibility to satisfying the court order

15. Environmental Remediation Sciences Division (ERSD): Solicitations • 117 proposals submitted to Notice 07-18. Awards subject to budget availability. Scientific Focus Area (SFA) Development at the Labs: • Lab SFA plans progressing. Four Labs already operating under the new funding format. • SFA Plans due to ERSD on January 30, 2008. Program plans to be peer-reviewed and revised in FY2008. Implemented in FY2009. ERSD-EM-20 Collaboration • ERSD working collaboratively with EM-22 to coordinate the research program with long-term basic science needs of the EM cleanup program. BERAC COV • ERSD COV Chaired by Mike Hochella, January, 2008

16. Environmental Remediation Sciences Division (ERSD): - cont. EMSL • 10th anniversary this year. • EMSL Research featured on 7 journal covers in FY 2007 • EMSL scientist, Alice Dohnalkova receives 2007 Diatome Award for work done on EMSL’s Membrane Biology Grand Challenge. • EMSL user Julia Laskin receives a PECASE award. EMSL Supercomputer • New $24M supercomputer to be fully operational in September 2008. HP is the vendor. • >4,500 quad core processors, >160 teraflops peak performance. Optimized for molecular-level computation in support of DOE’s missions. EMSL Capital Equipment Acquisition • $4.5M Field emission TEM in FY2008 President’s request to be a major capability for studying chemical transformations under real temperature and pressure conditions. • Major acquisition effort planned for FY2009-2013.