White House Taps Panel of Experts on Energy R&D

Dr. John H. Gibbons, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, announced in March the formation of a panel of distinguished, independent experts to review the Nation's energy research and development (R&D) program. The panel, created under the auspices of the President's Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), will provide recommendations on how to ensure the United States' energy R&D program addresses the economic, environmental and national security needs of the nation for the next century. The panel will be chaired by John P. Holdren, the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Holdren, a member of PCAST, previously chaired 1995 PCAST studies on the U.S. fusion energy program and protection of nuclear-weapon materials. Holdren received the 1995 APS Forum Award.

Working with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the U.S. Department of Energy, the panel will review current and projected U.S. energy R&D programs and will make recommendations on federal support for energy research and development, incentives for private- sector investments in energy research and development and U.S. commitments to international cooperation in energy research and development. Issues covered by the panel will include R&D on energy and end-use efficiency, renewables, advanced fossil-fuel technologies, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. The panel will report its findings to the President by October 1997.

The other members of the panel, of whom are longstanding APS members, are Diana MacArthur, Dynamac Corporation; Charles Vest, MIT; Virginia Weldon, Monsanto; Lillian Shiao-Yen Wu, IBM; John Young, Hewlett-Packard; John Ahearne, Duke University; Richard Balzhiser, Electric Power Research Institute; Robert Frosch, Harvard University; Joan Bok, New England Electric System; William Fulkerson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Robert Conn, University of California, San Diego; Hal Harvey, The Energy Foundation; William L. Fisher; University of Texas, Austin; Thomas L. Fisher, Northern Illinois Gas Company; Larry Papay, Bechtel Corporation; Dan Lashof, Natural Resources Defense Council; Laura D'Andrea Tyson, University of California, Berkeley; Don Paul, Chevron Corporation; Robert Williams, Princeton University; and Maxine Savitz, Allied Signal Ceramic Components.