Information for State & Local Government
State leaders are making more and more decisions that rely on access to high quality scientific information—from their state's technology portfolio, to managing natural resources, maintaining infrastructure, and improving education and health care.
More and more states are seeking input from the National Academies—both our expert, consensus reports and also convening activities—to address their toughest science issues. The National Academies can work directly with state agencies to prepare co-operative-agreement and contract proposals, and there a variety of funding mechanisms, including partnering with federal agencies and private entities.
Examples of National Academies State Advice
Assessing the Safety of a Bio-containment Lab in Boston
At the request of the state of Massachusetts, the National Research Council reviewed a draft document from the National Institutes of Health assessing the risks of a new National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory being built at Boston University. The facility would include a Biosafety Level 4 facility for research on deadly pathogens such as the Ebola and monkeypox virsuses. The opening of the lab had been challenged by both state and federal lawsuits.
Technical Input on the National Institutes of Health's Draft Supplementary Risk Assessments for the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory, Boston University (2007) concludes that the NIH draft report has serious weaknesses and does not adequately identify, or thoroughly develop, worst case scenarios for the release and spread of a pathogen. The report commends NIH for working with the community to identify pathogens to include in the scenarios, but finds that the process appears to have led to the selection of pathogens that do not fully address matters raised by the state. The report concludes that NIH should have included agents that are readily transmissible and would have demonstrated that the modeling approach used recognizes biological complexities, reflecting what is known about disease outbreaks and being appropriately sensitive to population density, for example.
Oyster Options in the Chesapeake Bay
Decades of heavy fishing, environmental pressures, and deadly disease have nearly wiped out native oysters in the Chesapeake Bay and a once-thriving oyster industry. Because oysters feed on algae, their disappearance is thought to play a role in the general decline of water quality in the Chesapeake Bay. At the request of the states and federal partner agencies, the National Academies identified potential risks and benefits of introducing the Asian-origin Suminoe oyster to supplement or replace the disease-plagued native species. Opponents fear that the nonnative could become an invasive species, with potentially devastating impacts on the ecology and economic vitality of the region.
Nonnative Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay (2004) recommends aquaculture of non-reproductive Suminoe oysters as the most prudent option until completion of research to investigate the potential impacts of introducing this nonnative oyster species. The report also proposes stricter regulations to reduce the risk of unintentional introductions of nonnative species.
Guiding Stem Cell Research in California
In 2004, the state of California sought advice on how best to spend the $3 billion that voters approved for state-funded stem-cell research. To help guide the state in its research planning, the National Academies convened experts in the field for a two-day workshop in California. Topics discussed at the workshop included grant-making processes, intellectual property, institutional review boards, facility development, and the development of standards and ethical guidelines.
Evaluating Research Grants in Ohio
Since 2003, the National Academies has been providing oversight for research programs in Ohio that were established to foster partnerships between the state's universities and industrial sectors in order to promote the commercialization of research and economic development. The National Academies bring together panels of experts from across the country to review proposals submitted to these programs. Using a set of criteria, the panels identify which ones have the greatest merit for the state of Ohio to consider funding and then review the progress of the grants that are funded.
Watershed Solutions in New York
The state of New York has always enjoyed high-quality water from the Catskills Mountain watershed, which provides about 90 percent of the drinking water for New York City. Unfortunately, increased housing developments and septic systems, and the impacts of agriculture caused water quality to deteriorate. By the late 1990s, New York City water managers had two choices: build a water-filtration system at an estimated cost of up to $6 billion or take steps to protect its major watershed.
To help weigh the scientific and technical aspects of its dilemma, the state turned to the National Academies. On the basis of recommendations in
Watershed Management for Potable Water Supply: Assessing the New York City Strategy (2000), stakeholders decided against building the filtration system and began taking recommended steps to protect the watershed at a total projected investment of about $1-1.5 billion.
