Research NSF charts new course for environmental research The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced in December a $50 million competition for grants con cerning biocomplexity in the environ ment. The initiative, which Congress funded this fall for the first time at the level requested by NSF, was launched by NSF Director Rita Caldwell. The $50 million represents the first step of the $1 billion the NSF hopes to receive over the next five years as a result of the report, Envi ronmental Science & Engineering in the 21st Century: The Role of the Na tional Science Foundation, which was authored by an environmental task force of the National Science Board (NSB), the governing body of the NSF. The report was accepted by the NSB in July. "This is a new direction for envi
ronmental research at NSF, one that embraces interdisciplinary holism and a systems approach rather than a reductionist view to understanding complex environmental problems. The emphasis is on a real look at environmental systems as opposed to just studying interesting science," says David Blockstein, senior scien tist at the Committee for the National Institute for the Environment, an or ganization that educated members of Congress about biocomplexity in an effort to ensure approval for the NSF funding. "For example," says Block stein, "biocomplexity research could examine the complex relationship between ozone depletion and the effects of increased UV radiation on marine organisms." The competition will award grants
to the work of individual scientists in two areas: integrated research, which, by looking at the interrelation ships between biological and other systems, seeks to better understand and model systemic complexity; and incubation activities, which will stim ulate cross-disciplinary research by enabling researchers who have not historically collaborated on biocom plexity projects to work together. The biocomplexity application cites sev eral examples, such as the relation ship between cellular processes and environmental stresses, and integrat ing information technologies with modeling biological systems. For more information on the report and the program announcement, click on www.cnie.org or www.nsf.gov/pubs/. —PATRICIA DEMPSEY
U.S.―Canadian talks set to clear transboundary smog The United States and Canada have agreed to new negotiations to reduce the transport of ozoneforming pollutants that cross the border between the two coun tries. The talks were announced in the midst of a power struggle that each government is engaged in with its local electric power companies over the control of nitrogen oxides (NOx), an ozone precursor that plays a vital role in long-distance ozone transport. Canada's Environment Minis ter David Anderson announced in January that the two countries would hold their first negotiating session on February 16, in Ot tawa, Ontario. The talks will lead to the development of an Ozone Annex that Anderson hopes will result in compatible U.S. and Ca nadian emissions standards to control NO-,, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Once agreed to, the annex will amend the 1991 U.S.-Canada Air Quality Agree ment, which, so far, has resulted in similar commitments to reduce acid rain-causing pollutants.
Compatibility is essential to prevent companies from moving across the border into a region that has more relaxed emission rules and also to evenly protect each country from the other's pollution. Ontario, Canada's most industrialized province, contrib utes most of the ozone-causing pollution in the New England re gion of the United States, said Paul Miller, senior scientist with the Northeast States for Coordi nated Air Use Management. At the same time, however, 50% of Ontario's, and up to 90% of New Brunswick's and Nova Scotia's, ozone pollution comes from downwind sources in the United States, according to Environment Canada figures. Canadian environmentalists wonder what each country can bring to the negotiating table, because both governments are struggling to implement NO^ rules. Others believe that a bilat eral agreement on NO^. reduction will go a long way toward help ing resolve the logjam over im
plementing the most recently finalized standards in the United States, currently stayed by a fed eral appeals court (Environ. Sci. Technol, 1997, 31 (12), 555A). David Wooley, law professor at Pace University of Law, in White Plains, New York, and counsel to the environmental group, the Clean Air Task Force, believes that the Canadians have a very influ ential voice in the U.S. Congress. A formal agreement would pro vide credibility for the science backing up a call for further NO x reductions, he said. Midwestern and southern state officials, as well as some in Congress, have criticized the so-called NO^. state implementation plan (SIP) call rules, saying the science does not illustrate that NOx travels from these regions into the New En gland states. Under the current one-hour ozone standard, these sources must already control their NO x emissions. In addition, "there is a ques tion of neighborliness," said Wooley. From a congressional
MARCH 1, 2000 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / NEWS • 1 1 5 A
