-17 I WILL NOW ADDRESS THE TWO ASPECTS OF H.R. 10039 AS INDICATED EARLIER, WE BELIEVE THAT THE CURRENT -18 IN THE REGULATORY AREA, THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON CLIMATE CHANGE OF THE DOMESTIC COUNCIL'S ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCES COMMITTEE IN THEIR REPORT OF DECEMBER, 1975, THE FEDERAL ROLE IN WEATHER MODIFICATION, CONCLUDED THAT ADDITIONAL FEDERAL REGULATORY LEGISLATION IS NOT NEEDED AT THIS TIME, THAT ADDITIONAL REGULATION IS NOT NEEDED NOW, AND THE PRESENT REPORTING PROCEDURES FULFILL THE CURRENT NEED. WE AGREE WITH THIS ASSESSMENT AND THEREFORE CONCLUDE THAT H.R. 10039 IS NOT NECESSARY. THIS CONCLUDES MY STATEMENT, MR. CHAIRMAN, AND I WILL BE PLEASED TO RESPOND TO ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE. "SOURCE: THE FEDERAL ROLE IN WEATHER MODIFICATION, STATEMENT OF DR. EDWARD P. TODD, DEPUTY ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR ASTRONOMY, ATMOSPHERE, EARTH, AND OCEAN SCIENCES, NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION, ACCOMPANIED BY HUGH ALBERS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, INTERDEPARTMENTAL COMMITTEE FOR ATMOSPHERIC SCIENCES Dr. TODD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to be here. I am appearing today as Chairman of the Interdepartmental Committee for Atmospheric Sciences or ICAS, as we call it. The ICAS is one of the subordinate committees of the Federal Council for Science and Technology, FCST. It was formed by the Federal Council in the fall of 1959 and has functioned to advise the Federal Council for Science and Technology in matters that relate to research on the atmosphere. The member agencies of the Committee are the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, State, and Transportation, plus the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. Copies of the ICAS annual report are regularly sent to the Members of the Congress. I was asked among other things to discuss the history of the Federal weather modification effort. That history is extensive, beginning in 1891. I have appended to my statement a summary of that history in writing and will not take the time to read it here because you have many witnesses. Mr. BROWN. Without objection the appendix will also be included in the record. Dr. TODD. I would like now to summarize the current Federal weather modification program. In the early years of the ICAS the member agencies reported their funding for the support of atmospheric sciences only in two broad categories, meteorology and aeronomy. The earliest year which shows a separate identification of funds for weather modification research was fiscal year 1963, when the total Federal effort amounted to $2.7 million. The level of funding has grown at a fairly steady rate, although there have been occasional dips, to more than $20 million as planned for fiscal year 1977. The Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Interior, and Transportation, plus the Energy Research and Development Administration and the National Science Foundation are currently active in the field of weather modification. Within the Department of Commerce, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration conducts the research; in the Department of Defense the three military services are the participants. The weather modification funds are expended on fog, cloud, and precipitation modification; on hail and lightning suppression; on the amelioration of severe storms, including hurricanes; on mathematical modeling using advanced computers; on inadvertent modification of weather and climate; and on studies of the social, legal, ecological, and economic impact of weather modification activities. The following are brief descriptions of the member agency programs, starting with the Department of Agriculture, which proposes to spend $75,000 in fiscal 1977. These funds represent the residual from a larger program known as Project Skyfire that was carried out by the Department in former years, at one time at a funding level of approximately $300,000 a year. The reduction in the level of effort resulted from a shift of priorities within the Department. The present work involves analysis of data obtained from the field experiments in Project Skyfire which is aimed at a better understanding of the lightning discharge and its relationship to the starting of forest fires. Their analysis is expected to lead to a more precise specification of lightning fire risk and ultimately to the design of a lightning prevention program. I might comment as an aside here that the Department of Agriculture does a number of things such as planting shelter belts of trees to reduce wind damage to fragile crops, frost prevention programs that even involve local heating of the air over fields. There are several types of activities within the Department of Agriculture which would fall under the category of weather modification as defined in H.R. 10039 but which are not considered to be weather modification in the ICAS definition so they are not covered in our numbers here. I might remark that the reduction in emphasis on lightning research by the Agriculture Department does not mean that the total Federal effort devoted at understanding better the lightning phenomenon has ended. NOAA, NASA, and the National Science Foundation continue to have an interest in the subject of lightning. As a matter of fact a little over a month ago the ICAS heard a briefing and prepared an endorsement of the program of lightning research that is planned to begin this coming summer at the Kennedy Space Center. The program will extend over a period of several weeks this summer and will involve about 20 principle investigators plus their associates and members of the Kennedy Space Center staff. Similar efforts are being considered for the following two or three summers and long-range thinking calls for an expansion of the work on understanding the process of lightning generation to other geographical areas as our understanding improves. The following few pages of my testimony are very brief summaries almost by title of the activities of those agencies which have the smaller programs in weather modification. You will be hearing individually from the three agencies of the largest programs, and with your permission I would like to skip over the reading of those details. Mr. BROWN. Please feel free to do that. Dr. TODD. So I will resume on page 8 of my testimony. The Federal total expenditures for weather modification as defined by the ICAS for fiscal year 1977 is contemplated to be $20.5 million. I would like to comment upon the matter of coordination and priority setting with regard to weather modification within the Federal atmospheric sciences community. There has been a persistent demand from a number of the major advisory groups on atmospheric sciences matters for the designation of some sort of lead agency to guide and shape the Federal weather modification effort. The National Academy of Sciences Committee on Atmospheric Sciences has twice, in 1966 and again in 1973, urged that the agency we now know as NOAA be assigned this responsibility. The National Science Foundation Special Commission on Weather |