[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]




                          NASA'S EARTH SCIENCE
                     AND CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVITIES:
                 CURRENT ROLES AND FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                 SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE AND AERONAUTICS

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
                             AND TECHNOLOGY
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION

                               __________

                              MAY 18, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-15

                               __________

 Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology




               [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]




       Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov





                                 ______
                                 

                 U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

44-538 PDF                WASHINGTON : 2023











              COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY

             HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman

ZOE LOFGREN, California              FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, 
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon                 Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California                 MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan,             BILL POSEY, Florida
    Vice Chair                       RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey           BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York              ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California             MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
JERRY McNERNEY, California           PETE SESSIONS, Texas
PAUL TONKO, New York                 DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
BILL FOSTER, Illinois                MIKE GARCIA, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
DON BEYER, Virginia                  YOUNG KIM, California
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois                JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania             CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina         JAY OBERNOLTE, California
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin                PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DAN KILDEE, Michigan                 VACANCY
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
VACANCY
                                 ------                                

                 Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics

                   HON. DON BEYER, Virginia, Chairman

ZOE LOFGREN, California              BRIAN BABIN, Texas, 
AMI BERA, California                     Ranking Member
BRAD SHERMAN, California             MO BROOKS, Alabama
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado              BILL POSEY, Florida
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida               DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey          YOUNG KIM, California








                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              May 18, 2021

                                                                   Page

Hearing Charter..................................................     2

                           Opening Statements

Statement by Representative Don Beyer, Chairman, Subcommittee on 
  Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, Space, and 
  Technology, U.S. House of Representatives......................     9
    Written Statement............................................    10

Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Ranking Member, 
  Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, Committee on Science, 
  Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...........    11
    Written Statement............................................    12

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member, 
  Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 
  Representatives................................................    13
    Written Statement............................................    14

Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, 
  Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. 
  House of Representatives.......................................    15

                               Witnesses:

Dr. Karen M. St. Germain, Division Director, Earth Sciences 
  Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA
    Oral Statement...............................................    16
    Written Statement............................................    19

Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Senior Climate Advisor (Acting) and Director 
  of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA
    Oral Statement...............................................    26
    Written Statement............................................    28

Mr. Riley Duren, Research Scientist, Office of Research, 
  Innovation, and Impact, University of Arizona; Chief Executive 
  Officer, Carbon Mapper, Inc.
    Oral Statement...............................................    52
    Written Statement............................................    54

Mr. Robbie Schingler, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, 
  Planet
    Oral Statement...............................................    70
    Written Statement............................................    72

Discussion.......................................................    80

              Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Dr. Karen M. St. Germain, Division Director, Earth Sciences 
  Division, Science Mission Directorate, NASA....................    98

Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Senior Climate Advisor (Acting) and Director 
  of Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA...................   106

Mr. Riley Duren, Research Scientist, Office of Research, 
  Innovation, and Impact, University of Arizona; Chief Executive 
  Officer, Carbon Mapper, Inc....................................   110

Mr. Robbie Schingler, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, 
  Planet.........................................................   112







 
                          NASA'S EARTH SCIENCE
                     AND CLIMATE CHANGE ACTIVITIES:
                 CURRENT ROLES AND FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

                              ----------                              


                         TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2021

                  House of Representatives,
             Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics,
               Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
                                                   Washington, D.C.

     The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:01 a.m., 
via Zoom, Hon. Don Beyer [Chairman of the Subcommittee] 
presiding.

[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]


     Chairman Beyer. This hearing will come to order. Without 
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at any 
time.
     And before delivering my opening remarks, I wanted to note 
that, today, the Committee is meeting virtually. I want to 
announce a couple reminders to the Members about the conduct of 
this meeting. First, Members should keep their video feed on as 
long as they are present in the hearing. Members are 
responsible for their own microphones, and also please keep 
your microphone muted unless you are speaking. And finally, if 
Members have documents they wish to submit for the record, 
please email them to the Committee Clerk, whose email address 
was circulated prior to the hearing.
     So good morning, and welcome today's hearing on ``NASA's 
Earth Science and Climate Change Activities: Current Roles and 
Future Opportunities.''
     But first, I want to thank our panel of expert witnesses 
for being here. There's no more important time for addressing 
climate change and the health of our planet. Delaying action 
risks everything--from increased exposure to heat waves, spread 
of vector-borne diseases, drought, crop failures, and severe 
weather. Actions taken and policies developed to respond to the 
climate crisis must be informed by peer-reviewed science, and 
that science starts with measurements, observations, and 
research that leads to understanding.
     That's where NASA (National Aeronautics and Space 
Administration) comes in. For studying the Earth, space is the 
ultimate vantage point. And thanks to NASA's fleet of space-
based science observations and measurements, we have long-term 
research data sets that show the scientific signals of climate 
change. Those signals, unlike short-term variations in 
terrestrial weather, change over longer periods of time. NASA 
Earth observation measurements also provide important inputs to 
models that enable our ability to predict and forecast climate 
change. And NASA satellite measurements contribute to studies 
such as the National Climate Assessment, a scientific 
assessment of climate change and its impacts across the United 
States.
     Beyond the data, satellite observations have the ability 
to tell a compelling visual story such as the significant loss 
of sea ice and glacier melt in the Arctic. Several astronauts 
have remarked on their experiences of viewing the Earth from 
space. In a Scientific American article issued just a few days 
ago, former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly said, quote, ``During my 
first mission in 1999 to fix the Hubble Space Telescope, I 
remember passing over South America and being awed by the sheer 
size of the Amazon rainforest. But on my last mission in 2016, 
only 17 years later, burning and clearcutting were clearly 
evident. After seeing the Earth dramatically change from this 
unique perspective, I firmly believe that solving climate 
change is the moonshot of the 21st century,'' end quote.
     Closer to home, NASA satellite data are helping identify 
algal blooms, and NASA and NOAA (National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration) satellite data are helping farmers 
increase their efficient use of water resources for irrigation, 
saving money and increasing profitability. These are just a few 
examples that illustrate the value of NASA's Earth science 
research to business, local resource managers, and 
environmental decisionmakers.
     NASA once referred to its Earth science activities as 
``Mission to Planet Earth.'' In the midst of economic, 
property, health, and environmental impacts from climate 
change, it's clear we have an urgent mission before us. We need 
to look at every opportunity to act now. Is there more than 
NASA could and should do? Are there gaps in our scientific 
understanding of the Earth system that need to be addressed? 
Are there opportunities to expand the transition of research 
into information tools?
     And, of course, it's not just NASA. Other Federal research 
agencies are working on climate change research and mitigation 
efforts. Commercial satellite imaging companies, 
philanthropists, and not-for-profit entities are ready and 
willing to contribute to the climate challenge. And we need 
them all. Where and how do they fit into an overall climate 
strategy? How should NASA effectively partner with non-Federal 
entities and also maintain free and open data?
     In closing, the Nation is planning aggressive efforts to 
mitigate the climate crisis, and we'll need to check our 
progress. While NASA is not a regulatory agency and certainly 
not the carbon police, how can space-based measurements 
validate or check the effectiveness of mitigation strategies? 
Where does NASA play a role?
     Today's hearing is an important opportunity to consider 
these and other questions, and I really look forward to hearing 
from our distinguished witnesses.
     [The prepared statement of Chairman Beyer follows:]

    Good morning and welcome to today's hearing on ``NASA's 
Earth Science and Climate Change Activities: Current Roles and 
Future Opportunities''. First, I want to thank our panel of 
expert witnesses for being here.
    There is no more important time for addressing climate 
change and the health of our planet. Delaying action risks 
everything from increased exposure to heatwaves, spread of 
vector-borne diseases, drought, crop failures, and severe 
weather.
    Actions taken and policies developed to respond to the 
climate crisis must be informed by peer-reviewed science, and 
that science starts with measurements, observations, and 
research that leads to understanding.
    That's where NASA comes in.
    When studying the Earth, space is the ultimate vantage 
point. Thanks to NASA's fleet of space-based science 
observations and measurements, we have long-term research data 
sets that show the scientific signals of climate change.
    Those signals, unlike short-term variations in terrestrial 
weather, change over longer time periods.
    NASA Earth observation measurements also provide important 
inputs to models that enable our ability to predict and 
forecast climate change.
    And NASA satellite measurements contribute to studies such 
as the National Climate Assessment-a scientific assessment of 
climate change and its impacts across the United States.
    Beyond the data, satellite observations have the ability to 
tell a compelling visual story, such as the significant loss of 
sea ice and glacier melt in the Arctic.
    Several astronauts have remarked on their experiences of 
viewing the Earth from space. In a Scientific American article 
issued just a few days ago, former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly 
said, ``During my first mission, in 1999, to fix the Hubble 
Space Telescope, I remember passing over South America and 
being awed by the sheer size of the Amazon rainforest. On my 
last mission in 2016, only 17 years later, burning and clear-
cutting were clearly evident. After seeing the Earth 
dramatically change from this unique perspective, I firmly 
believe that solving climate change is the moonshot of the 21st 
century.''
    Closer to home, NASA satellite data are helping identify 
algal blooms, and NASA and NOAA satellite data are helping 
farmers increase their efficient use of water resources for 
irrigation--saving money and increasing profitability.
    These are just a few examples that illustrate the value of 
NASA's Earth science research to businesses, local resource 
managers, and environmental decision makers.
    NASA once referred to its Earth science activities as 
``Mission to Planet Earth''.
    In the midst of economic, property, health, and 
environmental impacts from climate change, it's clear we have 
an urgent mission before us.
    We need to look at every opportunity to act now.
    Is there more that NASA could and should do?
     Are there gaps in our scientific understanding of 
the Earth system that need to be addressed?
     Are there opportunities to expand the transition 
of research into information tools?
    And it's not just NASA.
    Other Federal research agencies are working on climate 
change research and mitigation efforts.
    Commercial satellite imaging companies, philanthropists, 
and not-for-profit entities are ready and willing to contribute 
to the climate challenge.
    We need them all.
    Where and how do they fit into to an overall climate 
strategy? How should NASA effectively partner with non-Federal 
entities, and also maintain free and open data?
    In closing, the nation is planning aggressive efforts to 
mitigate the climate crisis, and we'll need to check our 
progress.
    While NASA is not a regulatory agency or a carbon police, 
how can space-based measurements validate or check the 
effectiveness of mitigation strategies? Should NASA play a 
role?
    Today's hearing is an important opportunity to consider 
these and other questions, and I look forward to hearing from 
our witnesses.
    And now I'd like to turn to the Ranking Member, the 
gentleman from Texas, Dr. Brian Babin for his opening 
statement.

     Chairman Beyer. So let me--talking about distinguished, 
let me turn to our Ranking Member, the gentleman from Texas, my 
friend, Dr. Brian Babin, for his opening statement. Dr. Babin?
     And, Brian, you are still muted for the moment.
     Mr. Babin. How about now, Mr. Chairman? Can you hear me?
     Chairman Beyer. You're good. Thank you.
     Mr. Babin. OK. Yes, thank you very much. Great to be with 
you. Looking forward to this hearing. It's particularly timely.
     The Biden Administration has proposed increasing NASA's 
Earth science budget by $300 million, which is a 12.5 percent 
increase above fiscal year 2021-enacted levels. Since we don't 
have other details about the proposed budget yet, we do not 
know what impact this proposal will have on other aspects of 
the agency or how the agency is proposing to spend this 
increase.
     While those details may be lacking at this moment, there 
are a number of other initiatives currently underway at NASA 
that we can certainly explore. For example, NASA received the 
second Earth science decadal review from the National Academies 
in 2018. This hearing is a great opportunity to understand how 
NASA is responding to that report. Previous decadal surveys 
highlighted NASA's unique role of developing first-of-a-kind 
instruments that could then be transitioned to operational 
agencies like NOAA and USGS (United States Geological Survey).
     As NASA seeks to take on a more operational role in 
maintaining observational data sets, it will be important for 
Congress to understand the long-term impacts of this evolution 
on other Earth science missions, on other science divisions, on 
other elements of the agency like human exploration, as well as 
the effects on the government and society as a whole. 
Maintaining a balanced and sustainable portfolio of programs 
that NASA could insulate specific programs from wild swings and 
funding that complicate planning and operations.
     One way that NASA can take on these new operational roles 
without breaking the bank or impacting other programs is to 
leverage the existing commercial remote-sensing industry. 
Previous attempts to incorporate commercial data were met with 
resistance from the government, and the industry was still in 
its infancy at that time. The commercial remote industry is 
much more robust today, and agencies are much more receptive to 
incorporating data from novel sources. NASA initiated a data 
buy pilot project in 2017 and, more recently, stood up a formal 
data acquisition program.
     One near-term decision related to leveraging the 
commercial remote-sensing industry is Landsat. The Landsat 
program has provided world-class multi-decade 30 meter 
resolution of Earth's surface. Last year, the Administration 
announced that it was undertaking a Landsat architecture study 
to explore novel ways to maintain the Landsat data set. As the 
former Director of USGS stated at the time, quote, ``Rather 
than one single large satellite bus, which is what Landsat has 
been historically, we've looked at other options. The 
revolution in space is underway, and we'll want to capitalize 
on that as much as we possibly can,'' unquote.
     Despite progress made toward this effort over the last 
several years, NASA issued a request for information, an RFI, 
for a Landsat Next instrument studies that may deviate from 
this plan and return a business-as-usual approach. U.S. law and 
national policy directs NASA to advance the commercial space 
sector. Title 51 of the U.S. code directs NASA to ``seek and 
encourage to the maximum extent possible the fullest commercial 
use of space.'' NASA is also directed to ``acquire, where cost-
effective, space-based and airborne Earth remote-sensing data, 
services, distribution, and applications from a commercial 
provider.''
     Both the 2014 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations 
and the 2015 National Space Weather Action Plan direct Federal 
agencies to identify and pursue commercial solutions. More 
recently, the 2019 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations 
directed agencies to strive to engage with the full Earth 
observations enterprise to determine whether there is a 
commercial solution available or end process that might be more 
appropriate than creation of a new Federal observing asset. 
These policies were also reinforced in the most recent decadal 
survey for Earth science.
     I look very much forward to discussing how NASA plans to 
incorporate commercial remote-sensing data to maximize taxpayer 
dollars spent on Earth science. So thank you, and I yield back 
the balance of my time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:]

    Today's hearing is particularly timely. The Biden 
Administration proposed increasing NASA's Earth Science budget 
by $300 million--a 12.5 percent increase above FY21 enacted 
levels. Since we don't have other details about the proposed 
budget yet, we do not know what impact this proposal will have 
on other aspects of the agency, or how the agency is proposing 
to spend this increase. While those details may be lacking at 
this moment, there are a number of other initiatives currently 
underway at NASA that we can explore.
    For example, NASA received the second Earth science decadal 
review from the National Academies in 2018. This hearing is a 
great opportunity to understanding how NASA is responding to 
that report. Previous decadal surveys highlighted NASA's unique 
role of developing first-of-a-kind instruments that could then 
be transitioned to operational agencies like NOAA and USGS. As 
NASA seeks to take on a more operational role in maintaining 
observational datasets, it will be important for Congress to 
understand the long-term impacts of this evolution on other 
Earth science missions, on other science divisions, on other 
elements of the agency like human exploration, as well as the 
effects on the government and society as a whole. Maintaining a 
balanced and sustainable portfolio of programs at NASA could 
insulate specific programs from wild swings in funding that 
complicate planning and operations.
    One way NASA can take on these new operational roles 
without breaking the bank or impacting other programs is to 
leverage the existing commercial remote sensing industry. 
Previous attempts to incorporate commercial data were met with 
resistance from the government, and the industry was still in 
its infancy at the time. The commercial remote industry is much 
more robust today, and agencies are much more receptive to 
incorporating data from novel sources. NASA initiated a data 
buy pilot project in 2017, and more recently stood up a formal 
Data Acquisition Program.
    One near-term decision related to leveraging the commercial 
remote sensing industry is Landsat. The Landsat program has 
provided world-class, multi-decade, 30 meter resolution of 
Earth's surface. Last year the Administration announced that it 
was undertaking a Landsat architecture study to explore novel 
ways to maintain the Landsat dataset. As the former director of 
the USGS stated at the time, ``[r]ather than one single large 
satellite bus, which is what Landsat has been historically, 
we've looked at other options.[t]he revolution in space is 
underway and we'll want to capitalize on that as much as we 
possibly can.'' Despite progress made towards this effort over 
the last several years, NASA issued a request for information 
(RFI) for Landsat Next instrument studies that may deviate from 
this plan and return a business as usual approach.
    U.S. law and national policy directs NASA to advance the 
commercial space sector. Title 51 of the U.S. Code direct NASA 
to, ``seek and encourage, to the maximum extent possible, the 
fullest commercial use of space.'' NASA is also directed to 
``acquire, where cost-effective, space based and airborne Earth 
remote sensing data, services, distribution, and applications 
from a commercial provider.''
    Both the 2014 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations 
and the 2015 National Space Weather Action Plan direct Federal 
agencies to identify and pursue commercial solutions. More 
recently, the 2019 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations 
directed agencies to ``strive to engage with the full Earth 
Observations Enterprise to determine whether there is a 
commercial solution available or in process that might be more 
appropriate than creation of a Federal observing asset.'' These 
policies were also reinforced in the most recent decadal survey 
for Earth science.
    I look forward to discussing how NASA plans to incorporate 
commercial remote sensing data to maximize taxpayer dollars 
spent on Earth science. Thank you, and I yield back the balance 
of my time.

     Chairman Beyer. Dr. Babin, thank you very much. I really 
appreciate your insights.
     Mr. Babin. Yes, sir.
     Chairman Beyer. And now let me recognize the Ranking 
Member of the Full Science Committee, its Chairman Emeritus, 
Mr. Lucas from Oklahoma.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. 
Chairman.
     Today's hearing is an important opportunity for the 
Committee to engage in oversight of NASA's current and future 
Earth science and climate activities. I'm looking forward to 
discussing how the agency can best utilize resources within 
existing budgets and how it can use additional resources. 
NASA's mandate to research Earth's atmosphere dates back to the 
passage of NASA's Organic Act in 1958, which stated, ``NASA 
shall seek the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the 
atmosphere and space.'' That mission has evolved through the 
decades as our technical capacity and scientific knowledge have 
increased.
     Today, the Earth Science Division of NASA oversees a broad 
range of activities and missions, including managing a variety 
of ongoing Earth observation missions, planning future 
missions, and sharing the data collected from these missions 
with the scientific community and the public. NASA is currently 
operating more than a dozen Earth science missions in tandem 
with international partners and other Federal agencies and has 
a dozen more missions slated to launch in the decade ahead. 
These missions provide a new generation of satellites and 
instruments to monitor and provide data about Earth's changing 
climate and the scientific community.
     Today's hearing represents an opportunity to evaluate 
NASA's Earth science and climate partnerships within the 
Federal Government with international partners and with the 
private sector. This Committee has an opportunity and an 
obligation to consider whether these partnerships work in the 
most effective manner and if the agency would benefit from new 
approaches to these partnerships.
     Our panel represents a cross-section of government, the 
nonprofit sector, and industry, and that is appropriate as all 
three sectors must work together to provide the best knowledge 
to the scientific community.
     Today's hearing is timely. The commercial remote-sensing 
industry has come a long way in a very short period of time. 
New remote-sensing technologies have made images of Earth more 
accessible. The images and data made available by commercial 
providers are of great value to any number of consumers, 
whether it's in the public safety officials, in the West 
managing forest, or farmers in Oklahoma growing crops.
     As the author of NOAA's Commercial Weather Data Buy 
program and the Commercial Data Buy program in the space 
weather legislation passed last Congress, I have long 
championed the ability of commercial remote-sensing industry to 
fill gaps in the Federal Earth observation abilities. To be 
clear, this does not mean that the commercial sector would 
replace the government's role but instead complement it and 
provide more cost-effective and novel solutions.
     We'll hear testimony today about how the commercial sector 
is helping fill this need, as well as how NASA could increase 
its utilization.
     I look forward and thank our witnesses today for sharing 
their perspectives on this topic, and I expect a productive 
discussion about how this community can insure NASA's Earth 
science and climate activities can be made even more efficient 
and cost-effective moving forward.
     Again, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the hearing, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]

    Thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman. Today's 
hearing is an important opportunity for the Committee to engage 
in oversight of NASA's current and future earth science and 
climate activities. I'm looking forward to discussing how the 
agency can best utilize resources within existing budgets and 
how it would use additional resources.
    NASA's mandate to research Earth's atmosphere dates back to 
the passage of NASA's Organic Act in 1958, which stated NASA 
shall seek the ``expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in 
the atmosphere and space.'' That mission has evolved through 
the decades as our technical capacity and scientific knowledge 
have increased. Today, the Earth Science Division at NASA 
oversees a broad range of activities and missions, including 
managing a variety of ongoing Earth observation missions, 
planning future missions, and sharing the data collected from 
these missions with the scientific community and the public.
    NASA is currently operating more than a dozen Earth science 
missions in tandem with international partners and other 
federal agencies, and has a dozen more missions slated to 
launch in the decade ahead. These missions provide a new 
generation of satellites and instruments to monitor and provide 
data about Earth's changing climate to the scientific 
community.
    Today's hearing represents an opportunity to evaluate 
NASA's Earth science and climate partnerships within the 
federal government, with international partners, and with the 
private sector. This Committee has an obligation to consider 
whether these partnerships work in the most effective manner 
and if the agency would benefit from new approaches to these 
partnerships. Our panel represents a cross-section of 
government, the non-profit sector, and industry. And that is 
appropriate as all three sectors must work together to provide 
the best knowledge to the scientific community.
    Today's hearing is timely. The commercial remote sensing 
industry has come a long way in a very short period of time. 
New remote sensing technologies have made images of Earth more 
accessible. The images and data made available by commercial 
providers are of great value to any number of consumers, 
whether it is public safety officials in the west managing 
forests, or farmers in Oklahoma growing crops.
    As the author of NOAA's commercial weather data buy program 
and the commercial data buy program in the space weather 
legislation passed last Congress, I have long championed the 
ability of the commercial remote sensing industry to fill gaps 
in federal earth observation abilities. To be clear, this does 
not mean that the commercial sector would replace the 
government's role, but instead complement it and provide more 
cost- effective and novel solutions. We will hear testimony 
today about how the commercial sector is helping fill this need 
as well as how NASA could increase its utilization.
    I want to thank our witnesses today for sharing their 
perspectives on this topic. I look forward to a productive 
discussion about how this Committee can ensure NASA's Earth 
Science and climate activities can be made more efficient and 
cost-effective moving forward.
    I yield back the balance of my time.

     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Ranking Member Lucas, very 
much.
     [The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]

    Thank you Chairman Beyer for holding today's hearing on 
NASA's climate change activities. I'm pleased that the Space 
and Aeronautics Subcommittee is taking a close look at NASA's 
Earth science and climate change work. Because from the 
agency's first Earth observing satellites over 60 years ago, 
NASA has been a cornerstone of the nation's Earth science and 
climate research activities.
    The Committee on Science, Space, and Technology initiated 
the Global Change Research Act in 1990, over 30 years ago. NASA 
is just one of thirteen agencies involved, but its Earth 
science and climate research efforts have been a major 
contributor to the US Global Change Research Program developed 
in response to the 1990 Act.
    A lot has happened since 1990. Based on the research and 
observations of our agencies over these last decades, climate 
change has gone from study to crisis. The work of the Committee 
on Science, Space, and Technology is now considering how our 
Nation's research and development efforts can address this 
crisis. Science must remain at the center, both in our 
continuing work to understand climate change, but also in our 
efforts to mitigate it and help communities respond to it.
    NASA also has a role in advancing innovative technologies 
and approaches to sustainable aviation. I'm pleased that the 
Biden Administration is taking aggressive steps to address the 
climate crisis. This challenge requires that we examine every 
opportunity to leverage capabilities, partnerships, and 
consider potential options for further contributions. Today's 
hearing will take an important step toward that end, and I look 
forward to our witness' testimony.
    Thank you and I yield back.

     Chairman Beyer. At this time, I'd like to introduce our 
witnesses. Our first witness is Dr. Karen St. Germain. Dr. St. 
Germain is the Division Director for NASA's Earth Science 
Division within the Science Mission Directorate. Dr. St. 
Germain received a bachelor of science degree in electrical 
engineering from Union College, a doctor of philosophy degree 
in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts. 
So welcome, Dr. St. Germain.
     Our second witness is Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Acting Senior 
Advisor in Climate Science to the NASA Administrator and the 
Director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Dr. 
Schmidt received a first-class bachelor of arts degree in 
mathematics from Oxford University and a doctorate on the 
calculation scattering and stability of topographic Rossby 
waves from University College London. I hope you're going to 
talk about those scatterings. So welcome, Dr. Schmidt.
     Our third witness is Mr. Riley Duren, a Research Scientist 
at the University of Arizona and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) 
of the Carbon Mapper, a nonprofit organization. He also 
maintains part-time employment as an Engineering Fellow at 
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Mr. Duren received a 
bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Auburn 
University. Welcome, Mr. Duren.
     And our final witness is Mr. Robbie Schingler, an 
entrepreneur, cofounder of Planet labs, and a former NASA 
Engineer and Program Manager with more than 20 years of 
experience building satellite projects. Mr. Schingler received 
a bachelor of science in engineering physics from Santa Clara 
University, a bachelor of science in space studies from 
International Space University, and a master of business 
administration from Georgetown University. Welcome, Mr. 
Schingler.
     So we will start in the order just introduced. Dr. St. 
Germain, the floor is yours for your opening statement.

             TESTIMONY OF DR. KAREN M. ST. GERMAIN,

          DIVISION DIRECTOR, EARTH SCIENCES DIVISION,

               SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE, NASA

     Dr. St. Germain. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Babin, 
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you so much for the 
opportunity to speak today on NASA's contributions as a global 
leader in Earth science.
     NASA holds a unique position as the only space agency with 
integrated end-to-end Earth observing capability from building 
and flying satellites to research, data systems, and delivery 
of science applications. Today, I'll testify on how NASA's 
Earth science expertise advances our understanding of how to 
adapt to and ultimately thrive on our changing planet.
     The science of the last 20 years has settled the question 
of whether our planet's climate is changing. What we must do 
over the coming 20 years is to better understand Earth systems, 
those interactions between land, ocean, air and ice, and human 
communities so we can improve our predictions of how our 
environment might change. Those predictions are essential for 
policymakers such as this Committee to make decisions on 
mitigation, adaption, and resilience.
     There is no better vantage point than space to collect the 
Earth data that is the foundation of our science, our models, 
and our predictive capability. Today, NASA flies 23 space-based 
observing systems in addition to the satellites we build for 
our partner agencies, USGS and NOAA.
     NASA systems measure greenhouse gases and sea level rise. 
They monitor fire weather and detect soil moisture and crop 
stress, just to name a few. We combine our observations with 
data from our strategic partners and commercial Earth 
observation companies to investigate complex questions that lay 
the foundation for modeling prediction and scientifically sound 
information. This is important because these are the models and 
information products that inform decisionmakers at every level 
on imperatives like ensuring a safe and ample supply of 
drinking water, maintaining our Nation's ability to feed 
itself, and building community resilience and safety from 
extreme weather events.
     To meet this demand for information, NASA Earth science is 
accelerating work in three key areas: observations, modeling 
and informatics, and applications and dissemination. I'm going 
to touch on each of these areas briefly.
     NASA is observing--advancing observations capabilities by 
investing in technology innovation, exploring alternative 
observation platforms, new approaches to industry partnership 
and commercial services, and expanding collaboration with our 
international partners. And I'll say more about those specific 
plans in just a moment.
     Modeling and informatics further our understanding and 
prediction of the whole-Earth system by extracting scientific 
understanding from the measurements and capturing that 
understanding in models and frameworks that span timescales 
from minutes to decades and spatial scales ranging from 
continents to individual agricultural fields.
     Finally, in applications and dissemination, we're 
dramatically accelerating the delivery and use of scientific 
understanding. We're working through open science and 
accessibility principles to ensure our data and information are 
within reach, especially to previously underserved communities. 
And we are creating scalable science applications to meet the 
needs at every level of decisionmaking.
     Returning to the topic of NASA space-based observation 
capability, the National Academies of Science laid out an 
ambitious but critical observation objectives in its 2017 Earth 
science decadal survey. NASA intends to meet those objectives 
through an array of space-based satellites, instruments, and 
missions that we're calling the Earth system observatory. These 
measurements will help us answer critical open questions about 
the Earth system. We'll observe aerosols in our atmosphere and 
how they interact with clouds, convection, and precipitation to 
tackle the largest natural uncertainty in predicting climate 
change while improving severe weather and air quality 
forecasting. We'll track minute local changes in our Earth's 
mass, which will inform drought predictions and help local 
water managers make decisions about agricultural and municipal 
water supplies. And our surface biology and geology 
observations will improve our understanding of how climate 
change affects food production and ecosystems.
     Finally, by monitoring changes in our Earth's surface, 
we'll be better--we will better predict sea level rise in 
events such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides. 
Together, these observations will capture a three-dimensional 
view of our Earth from atmosphere to bedrock, and we're now 
starting the first phase of mission planning.
     NASA is advancing not just what we're doing but how we're 
doing it. We're dedicated to open science and diversity, more 
partnership with the commercial sector, and new business models 
to rapidly onboard advances in technology.
     Around the end of this decade, almost another billion 
people will live on our planet, putting more pressure on 
Earth's resources and increasing demand for actionable 
information. Climate change demands science equal to the 
challenge it presents. NASA is moving to meet this challenge, 
accelerating our science, our international and interagency 
partnerships, and exploring new ways to do business.
     Thank you for the opportunity to discuss NASA's Earth 
science program, and I'd be pleased to respond any questions 
you might have.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. St. Germain follows:]


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     Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much, Dr. St. Germain. 
We'll have plenty of questions for you, I'm sure.
     Now, let me recognize Dr. Gavin Schmidt for his testimony.

                TESTIMONY OF DR. GAVIN SCHMIDT,

                SENIOR CLIMATE ADVISOR (ACTING)

               AND DIRECTOR OF GODDARD INSTITUTE

                    FOR SPACE STUDIES, NASA

     Dr. Schmidt. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Babin, Members 
of the Subcommittee, my name is Gavin Schmidt, and I'm the 
director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and 
the Acting Senior Advisor on Climate to the NASA Administrator.
     Today, I would like to share with you the breadth and 
depth of NASA's work on climate, covering pure scientific 
research, technology development, applied science, education, 
as well as the efforts to reduce the agency's own emissions and 
build greater resilience.
     NASA is the lead agency for civil aeronautics research and 
for scientific research that can be productively studied from 
space, acknowledging that practical benefits for society are 
always an important measure of success. NASA is specifically 
tasked with ensuring public access to accurate data on global 
warming.
     Since the late 19th century, global surface temperatures 
have risen more than 1 degree Celsius, 2 degrees Fahrenheit. 
Sea level has risen by about 12 inches since 1900 and 3 
millimeters per year right now. These broad changes are already 
having a direct impact on communities in the United States and 
internationally.
     We track most of the factors driving climate change and 
investigate the processes that underlie the emergent patterns 
of climate variability. My colleague Dr. Karen St. Germain has 
already expanded on these topics in her testimony today.
     Research connections on climate also include NASA's 
Heliophysics Division and the Planetary Science Division under 
the broad umbrella of Astrobiology. NASA's climate portfolio 
also encompasses research into sustainable aviation and space 
technology transfer focused on clean energy and environmental 
modeling--monitoring.
     NASA is investing in industry partnerships that will 
develop the next generation of single-aisle aircraft that will 
be at least 25 percent more fuel-efficient by the early 2030's. 
We will award contracts for the first-ever high-powered hybrid 
electric propulsion system for large transport aircraft by the 
end of summer 2021 with flight demonstrations of an electrified 
powertrain expected as early as 2023.
     NASA is also providing solutions to the challenge of all 
electric flight through development and flight tests of the X-
57 airplane. A 2018 competition developed in partnership with 
the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, focused on an aerosol 
monitor that could be used both on the International Space 
Station and in urban polluted environments. Another NASA prize 
competition, the CO2 Conversion Challenge, seeks to 
create a carbon-neutral manufacturing system that can be used 
in space, as well as on Earth.
     NASA has partnered with local government entities. For 
instance in New York, NASA input into the city's climate change 
panel has been important in helping set new standards and 
planning guidelines.
     NASA also partners with other agencies such as the 
Department of Energy and NOAA and through the USGCRP (U.S. 
Global Change Research Program) to help coordinate global 
change research across the Federal Government. NASA is 
participating in the White House's National Climate Task Force 
and the Climate Innovation Working Group.
     Internationally, NASA has partnerships with space agencies 
across the world to develop, launch, and maintain platforms and 
instruments for long-term climate data. NASA's GLOBE (Global 
Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment) and 
AERONET (Aerosol Robotic Network) programs and SERVIR, a joint 
NASA and USAID (United States Agency for International 
Development) initiative, collectively have a presence in nearly 
125 countries.
     NASA recognizes that rising sea levels and increasing 
hurricane activity along the Gulf Coast will have significant 
impacts on our ability to fulfill our mission and that we must 
implement protective measures in order to reduce our risks. 
Center master plans now include sustainability as a key goal. 
And, since 2008, NASA has seen a consistent downward trend in 
its own greenhouse gas emissions.
     For education and outreach, NASA's Science Activation 
program enables NASA science and experts to--and content to 
engage learners of all ages. NASA reaches upper elementary-aged 
children through ClimateKids.NASA.gov while Climate.NASA.gov is 
a top public website with almost 10 million annual visitors.
     Recently, NASA has convened the Climate Strategy Working 
Group to develop a more integrated approach to the agency's 
climate portfolio and to address the Administration's priority 
for a governmentwide approach in response to the climate 
crisis. Additionally, we are creating a climate action plan to 
further build resilience and educate management on the need to 
embed climate change mitigation and adaptation into our 
decisionmaking procedures.
     NASA has long recognized that climate science is a 
fundamental part of our mandate. With the increasing evidence 
for serious impacts and the elevation of this topic by the 
Administration, it is time for a renewed focus on all aspects 
of climate change and a commitment to ensure that this data and 
understanding will continue to accumulate and be used for the 
benefit of society. Thank you very much.
     [The prepared statement of Dr. Schmidt follows:]


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     Chairman Beyer. Dr. Schmidt, thank you very much.
     Now, I would recognize Mr. Riley Duren for your testimony.

       TESTIMONY OF MR. RILEY DUREN, RESEARCH SCIENTIST,

          OFFICE OF RESEARCH, INNOVATION, AND IMPACT,

                     UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA;

          CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, CARBON MAPPER, INC.

     Mr. Duren. Thank you, Chair Beyer, Ranking Member Babin, 
Members of the Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to 
contribute today. This is really an important discussion. And 
I'll start by saying that simply by convening this hearing, 
you're already taking, I think, an important step in 
highlighting a persistent gap in U.S. climate policy 
discussions.
     Satellite observations and data in general are critical 
not only for basic climate research but also enabling science-
based decisionmaking by a broad cross-section of society. So 
NASA and its partners absolutely belong in these discussions, 
and thank you for highlighting this topic.
     As lawmakers consider investments in the Nation's physical 
infrastructure, it's also important to recognize the urgent 
need to address gaps in critical data infrastructure that can 
inform efforts to minimize climate impacts and improve overall 
environmental resiliency in United States and the world. As an 
example of data gaps and opportunities for improvement, I'd 
like to describe a new public-private partnership that's 
leveraging NASA science and technology to deploy a global 
decision support system for quantifying, tracking, and 
supporting mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions.
     In recent years, there has been a growing number of public 
and private sector actors that have signaled an interest in 
reducing their methane and carbon dioxide emissions, including 
ambitious decarbonization targets by some of the world's 
leading economies and major oil and gas companies. Notable 
field studies over the years by many groups have conclusively 
identified the existence of so-called methane super-emitters 
where a relatively small fraction of infrastructure is 
responsible for a disproportionate amount of emissions.
     My own NASA-funded research team used advanced remote 
sensing aircraft to conduct the first comprehensive economywide 
survey of methane emissions in California. We found that less 
than .2 percent of the infrastructure in the State is 
responsible for over 1/3 of California's entire methane 
inventory. Many of these super-emitters are highly 
intermittent, they're widely dispersed over the landscape and 
they're difficult to find typically with conventional surface 
measurements.
     If you can cue the movie, please. Great, thanks.
     [Video shown.]
     Mr. Duren. So our recent airborne surveys with NASA 
aircraft over the Permian oil and gas basin and other regions 
around the United States add to this body of evidence. What 
you're seeing here is a false color movie taken from a NASA 
aircraft at 18,000 feet looking at methane plumes. And this 
offers a vivid illustration that these super-emitters are 
broadly distributed across the landscape almost like invisible 
wildfires, and they mostly go unseen even by operators who are 
otherwise motivated to fix leaks to avoid product loss.
     So oil and gas companies that have reviewed our data 
indicate that at least half of the methane super-emitters were 
detected are the result of leaks and malfunctions that were 
previously unknown. So this suggests low-hanging fruit if you 
will for near-term progress. The idea here is that a high-
fidelity constellation of satellites could offer daily 
facility-scale methane monitoring over key regions globally to 
alert operators and regulators of leaks for more timely and 
cost-effective repairs.
     However, in practice, this means confronting both 
technical and institutional barriers. No single organization 
today has the mandate, resources, or even the culture to field 
this kind of decision support system, at least not quickly or 
affordably at scale. In this case, the challenges are the 
necessary remote-sensing technology is currently unavailable 
outside of NASA. NASA itself lacks the capacity to launch large 
constellations of satellites. There's no existing government 
program to finance the buildout of such a system. Sustaining 
these systems once you establish them is difficult, given 
shifting Federal priorities. And purely commercial services may 
lack the transparency needed for global public trust and 
adoption.
     So to confront these challenges, we've established a new 
nonprofit organization called Carbon Mapper and a public-
private partnership that includes remote-sensing technology 
transfer from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Planet's agile 
aerospace approach to deploying constellation, science 
leadership from the University of Arizona and ASU (Arizona 
State University), policy expertise and data transparency 
enabled through California and our nonprofit partners, all 
powered by philanthropy. Philanthropy is paying for the startup 
of this program.
     I know speak for other partners in thanking Dr. St. 
Germain from NASA and Mr. Schingler from Planet and their teams 
for their vision and support in establishing this program.
     And in closing, effective responses to climate change and 
other environmental challenges require action by a cross-
section of society, including governments, businesses and 
private citizens. And the same applies to generating robust 
data and shared awareness to inform those actions. We don't 
have time as a species for delayed action or false starts 
because of incomplete data or monolithic approaches. We need 
the best possible science and systems engineering creativity of 
organizations like NASA to enable new innovative efforts to 
deliver action climate data. And we need the help of Congress 
in helping us support and recognize these efforts. Thank you 
very much.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Duren follows:]

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     Chairman Beyer. Mr. Duren, thank you very much. We really 
appreciate that fascinating overflight.
     And now let me recognize our final witness, Mr. Schingler, 
for your testimony.

               TESTIMONY OF MR. ROBBIE SCHINGLER,

         CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF STRATEGY OFFICER, PLANET

     Mr. Schingler. Chairman Beyer, Ranking Member Babin, 
Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the 
Subcommittee, I'm honored to appear before you today to discuss 
the important role that commercial companies are playing in 
supporting NASA's Earth science and climate change mission and 
the opportunities NASA has to better leverage the commercial 
enterprise to meet their scientific and climate goals.
     I had the privilege to join NASA during my undergraduate 
studies. It forged my professional life with 9 years of service 
that set the conditions for my founding role at Planet. I'm 
proud to be inspired, trained, and influenced by NASA.
     Now, everyone knows the big new rockets being developed 
today, but few people are aware of the renaissance occurring in 
satellites that orbit our planet. It's a bit like the 
transition from the mainframe computer to the desktop computer, 
putting the power of knowledge about the Earth into the hands 
of more of society. And over the last decade, this has resulted 
in a 1,000-fold increase in capability per dollar.
     This dramatic improvement means more data for more 
applications. For example, Planet captures an image of the 
entire landmass of the Earth every day, powered by the world's 
largest constellation of Earth observation satellites in 
history. This data set accelerates our understanding of land-
use change, biodiversity, and climate science, while also 
helping farmers increase agricultural yield, companies monitor 
supply chains, and governments prepare for and respond to 
natural disasters.
     I'm convinced that only the American market-based risk 
capital ecosystem could create Planet 10 years ago. Congress 
and this Committee has been instrumental in that proud history. 
Given the urgency to make strides in climate science, the 
benefit of massive investment from capital markets in the 
satellite industry, combined with innovation and a lasting 
foundation of U.S. Government systems, I'm confident we can 
work together to make an even brighter future.
     To that end, I respectfully offer a few recommendations 
for your consideration. This Committee can support NASA and the 
commercial U.S. remote-sensing sector by bringing the 
Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program into statute in 
the next NASA authorization bill.
     In 2017, under the leadership of Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA, 
OMB (Office of Management and Budget), and Congress saw the 
potential of value that U.S. commercial remote-sensing 
companies could bring to Earth and climate scientists. They set 
out to understand the scientific viability of these new data 
sets, and it led to the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition 
Program. This is a huge success from my perspective, and NASA 
is actively bringing on new commercial companies and expanding 
the scientific user community with Federal civilian agencies.
     Investments in commercial remote-sensing capabilities 
fused with government-operated sensors drive innovation, power 
job creation, and lead U.S. universities and researchers--
research centers on a path to excellence. I urge this Committee 
to bring in the Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program 
into statute in the next NASA authorization bill and robustly 
fund the program to reflect the growth and value it is 
demonstrating in the scientific community.
     As NASA is creating their next flagship missions, 
including the Landsat Next program, NASA should incorporate the 
planned viable commercial capabilities into their procurement 
strategies and see commercial capabilities as a forethought 
rather than an afterthought.
     Now, let me be clear. Commercial constellations do not 
replace national systems. They complement, improve, and enable 
national systems to more affordably push the scientific 
frontiers. When there are reliable commercial Earth observation 
systems, the national systems can stretch even further to 
enhance our understanding of the planet.
     Finally, we advocate for a whole-of-civil-government 
approach to commercial data buys. Embrace a whole-of-civil-
government approach to making scientifically accurate and 
factual Earth observation data available. Put another way, you 
can't manage what you can't measure, and this community has the 
information to bring us to a common operating picture to better 
manage our society. These efforts to purchase commercial data 
for both scientific and operational use cases across all 
civilian agencies could be led by NASA in partnership with NOAA 
and USGS.
     So as I conclude, allow me to thank the Committee for 
including a voice from the U.S. commercial sector in this 
important hearing. As Congress and the Biden Administration 
look to focus on climate programs, this conversation is well-
timed to highlight the important role that remote-sensing 
satellites, both national assets and commercial constellations, 
have in providing the data needed to empower better decisions 
by Federal agencies, State and local governments, communities, 
companies, and individuals.
     Planet is a committed partner to NASA and will provide 
innovative commercial services to equip America's Earth-
observing community with the tools to lead in this increasingly 
competitive international landscape. You can be confident, as I 
am, that U.S. remote-sensing companies deliver new data sets 
and novel tools to enable governments, societies, and 
businesses to make better decisions and guide humanity toward a 
more secure and sustainable future.
     Thank you, and I look forward to your questions and our 
exciting future ahead.
     [The prepared statement of Mr. Schingler follows:]

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     Chairman Beyer. Mr. Schingler, thank you very much, all 
fascinating. And now we'll begin our round of questions. I get 
to go first by virtue of this Chairmanship, so let me begin 
with Dr. St. Germain.
     We just heard from both Mr. Duren and Mr. Schingler about 
all that is happening on the commercial side in terms of data, 
Planet having more satellites tracking what's going on Earth 
than anyone else. How do you feel about and what are your 
thoughts about this ever-growing possible partnership between 
our public NASA and our commercial companies?
     Dr. St. Germain. Thank you for the question. I couldn't be 
more excited--I just muted. There we go. I think we're back. I 
couldn't be more excited about the possibilities enabled by all 
of the growth in commercial Earth observation in both 
directions. I think, as Robbie said, the capabilities that the 
commercial sector is bringing to science are very exciting. 
They absolutely complement our government systems, and they 
expand the scope of the science we can do. And in the other 
direction, Riley talked about bringing NASA technology out into 
the commercial sector to enable future commercial capabilities, 
and I think that is just as exciting. So I am thrilled and 
really looking forward in this position to exploring new ways 
of partnering with the commercial sector. Thank you.
     Chairman Beyer. Great, thank you. And, Riley, you talked 
about, you know, the super-emitters, the methane with that 
great flyover and that only 1/3 of the--2/10 of 1 percent of 
the infrastructures were responsible for 1/3 of the State's 
methane emission. How does that compare to the other greenhouse 
gas emissions from transportation, from buildings, from 
manufacturing? Is methane just a tiny piece of this or if you 
can fix those flares, can you make a significant difference?
     Mr. Duren. Yes, great question. What I like to say about 
greenhouse gases, like many things on the planet, is it's a 
mixed bag. Methane tends to be leaky in the way it manifests, 
and the best way I can describe it as if you have a sprinkler 
system in your yard, you're eventually going to have a leak. 
That doesn't mean that the sprinklers are necessarily spraying 
water all over the place, but when it happens, you know, you 
find out when you look your water bill. If you're lucky, you 
see the geyser shooting up, you know, in the front yard. So 
that tends to be the nature of methane associated with human 
activity, whether it's the energy sector, the waste management 
sector, or even agriculture. It's very--it tends to be very 
leaky, and therefore, it can occur randomly and it's difficult 
to predict.
     That's different generally speaking than some of the other 
greenhouse gas emissions but in particular CO2 
emissions from the transportation sector. Imagine that being 
spread out over freeway systems or through other transportation 
vehicles.
     And so I guess what I would say is your mileage varies so 
to speak, and it is--it's very different by sector. And the 
technology I talked about addresses one part of the greenhouse 
gas monitoring challenge. It really focuses on these leaky 
point sources for methane and CO2, for example, 
stationary power plants. We need a broader constellation of 
systems or system of systems as we like to say in NASA system 
engineering world, to address the full landscape, and that's 
part of what we have between what we talked about with Carbon 
Mapper, NASA's existing program, and programs with other 
international space agencies, as well as commercial actors with 
instruments on the ground, not just space.
     Chairman Beyer. Cool, very cool, thanks. Mr. Schingler, 
you talked about NASA's Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition 
Program. As you probably know, the Senate folded NASA's 
reauthorization into its Endless Frontiers Act last week. Did 
that include the Small Data--Smallsat Data Acquisition Program?
     Mr. Schingler. To my knowledge, Chairman, that does not 
include this--the NASA Smallsat Data Acquisition Program in its 
current form.
     Chairman Beyer. So we still have a ways to go, OK, great, 
because we're about--hopefully later this year we will take up 
NASA reauthorization.
     And then, Dr. Schmidt, one of the things you talked about 
was the many, many different players you have, and in your new 
role on the Climate Task Force, how do you coordinate all these 
people that want to be part of providing information on climate 
change?
     Mr. Schmidt. Thank you very much for the question. Yes, 
no, that's a real challenge, and as I've stepped into this new 
role, that has really been the dominant theme of what we've 
been doing. We've been bringing together all of the people who 
are working with external partners, and we're trying to collate 
that information and we're going to make that more visible and 
then we'll be able to see I think where the gaps are, where the 
successes are, and where we may be able to roll out a broader 
use of the information and data that NASA provides.
     Chairman Beyer. It sounds like the invasion of Normandy, 
but good luck, so----
     Mr. Schmidt. Thank you.
     Chairman Beyer. Well, my time is up. Let me now recognize 
our Ranking Member, Dr. Brian Babin.
     Mr. Babin. OK, thank you very much, Chairman Beyer. I want 
to say thank you to our witnesses as well. I appreciate you 
being here.
     Mr. Schingler, your testimony highlights issues with the 
Landsat architecture in a recent instrument study pre-
solicitation. Please allow me to read from your testimony. 
``Unfortunately, the commercial community is receiving mixed 
messages from the Landsat Next program at NASA and USGS. 
Recently, material and unexplained changes and inconsistencies 
between the Landsat Next instrument study pre-solicitation 
published on February the 18th, 2021, and the Landsat Next RFI 
published on October 13 of 2020 suggests that rather than 
looking for novel new approaches to meet and exceed the Landsat 
Next mission requirements, the NASA Landsat Next team has 
predetermined the constellation and instrument structure for 
Landsat Next. In the most recent instrument study, NASA 
included requirements that respondents to the study assumed 
prescribed and specific orbital attitude and minimum swath 
width that favor a more traditional and expensive architecture 
toward large satellite designs. Such prescriptive requirements, 
particularly in the early study, will limit innovation in the 
Landsat Next architecture, constraining what NASA may learn 
from the instrument study and may ultimately restrict the 
Landsat Next mission to coarser spatial resolution and lower 
revisit rate. These outcomes are likely to negatively impact 
the Landsat user community and result in an inefficient use of 
U.S. taxpayer resources. The effect of such requirements during 
an instrument study could be to limit the possible responses or 
offerors and predetermine the instruments and architecture for 
the Landsat Next system,'' unquote. Can anything be done, Mr. 
Schingler, to ensure an unbiased solicitation, or will it 
require legislative action? Thank you.
     Mr. Schingler. Thank you for the question, and I think by 
highlighting the benefits of what has already happened with 
NASA on the commercial side with the Commercial Smallsat Data 
Program and the scientific utility that's coming out of that, I 
think it can better inform the program office in how they come 
about procuring the next generation of systems for Landsat. And 
for the Committee to recognize, this is something to be 
launched later on this decade. We do need to think about 5 
years ago what was available and what can be available 5 years 
from now.
     As we are seeing also with the European Union Copernicus 
program and their planned upcoming constellations, we should be 
thinking about these, as Riley was saying, as a system of 
systems, which is what are the needed data gaps that allow for 
these free and open data sources provided by governments to be 
interoperable with one another. It is no one sensor that is 
necessary for us to have the data necessary for climate action, 
but it--instead, it is something that is about interoperability 
and looking for reference data sets that other data sources can 
be available for.
     And so at this early stage of a procurement strategy, we 
do urge this Committee and NASA and USGS to open up the 
aperture and to consider more novel and innovative approaches 
toward the next-generation Landsat Next program.
     Mr. Babin. OK. One more question for you, Mr. Schingler. 
Your testimony also mentions the commercial remote-sensing 
regulatory process. Since you also sit on the advisory 
committee for commercial remote-sensing, what can NASA do to 
aid the Department of Commerce in the interagency process that 
reviews new remote-sensing technologies?
     As noted in the last advisory committee meeting, despite 
the new streamlined regulations, American companies are still 
forced to be second place in many areas of commercial remote-
sensing and prohibited from offering anything not on the market 
without significant, often crippling conditions being placed on 
their operations, real quickly, please.
     Mr. Schingler. Yes, the advisory committee for commercial 
remote-sensing met a couple of weeks ago, and there was an 
excellent briefing from a national geospatial intelligence 
agency colleague who articulated a leaderboard across all the 
remote-sensing capabilities globally. And if you play it back 
over time, you could see how other nations are accelerating in 
taking over leadership for commercial remote-sensing 
capabilities.
     Last year, NOAA did a great job in shifting a bit of the 
approach toward regulatory process. There's still more to be 
done. It should be more than just what is commercially 
available today but forecasting where things are going so that 
American competitiveness can continue to excel in the global 
marketplace.
     Mr. Babin. OK. I see my time's expired. I had one for Dr. 
St. Germain, but we will submit it in writing then. So with 
that, Mr. Chairman, we will yield back. Thank you.
     Chairman Beyer. Dr. Babin, thank you very much.
     Mr. Babin. Yes, sir.
     Chairman Beyer. I now recognize the Chair of the House 
Administration Committee, Ms. Lofgren from California.
     Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for this 
wonderful hearing, which I think is instructive to all of us.
     Dr. St. Germain, it's my understanding that the Earth 
Science Divisions Applied Sciences Program used to have a 
dedicated wildfire program, wildland fires program, and that 
had been created because of an identified need, but it was 
concluded in 2017 because it didn't have enough money to keep 
going. Now, we have an increasingly prolonged wildfire season 
in the United States, certainly in my State of California, but 
not just in California, all over the United States. And we've 
got devastating wildfires that are being experienced. Is it 
important or valuable to have dedicated programs to tackle some 
of our biggest climate challenges and targeted appropriations 
to support this work in your judgment?
     Dr. St. Germain. Thank you for the question. Today, we 
provide a lot of support for wildfire, both prediction and 
disaster response. We support that through two of our programs. 
One--both out of our Applied Sciences Program. One is the 
Ecological Forecasting Program, and the other is the Disasters 
Program. And just to give you a sense, in 2020 we supported six 
Disasters activations in support of wildfires in the Western 
United States.
     I think there are a number of ways that we can manage 
these things, and there are always choices, right, and those 
choices have an impact on the synergies we can take advantage 
of. I'm always open to looking at alternative ways of managing 
the--our programs and continually reevaluating them in the 
context of their effectiveness.
     Ms. Lofgren. Well, you are all the scientists, not us, but 
I'm interested in making sure that we are making the 
appropriate investments in wildfire R&D (research and 
development) work. And if it's not a specialized division, 
then, you know, what other portfolios need to be enhanced? You 
know, right now, there are people being evacuated down in the 
Los Angeles basin. We had--you know, a number of people lost 
their lives in Paradise, California, in Doug LaMalfa's district 
last year, so I'm just interested in what needs to be enhanced 
in terms of prediction. And also, as you probably know, the 
Governor of California just announced a big investment in fuel 
reduction, but it seems to me that the preventative efforts 
could be greatly enhanced through this whole observation 
program. What are your thoughts on that?
     Dr. St. Germain. The--let's see. Today, we work--when--in 
our wildfires work, we work very closely with our interagency 
partners, NOAA, for example, as well as responders on the 
ground. We had--as I said, we can always look at ways to do 
that better, and I'd like to actually give that some thought 
and take the question for the record and come back to you with 
some ideas.
     Ms. Lofgren. I would appreciate that very much because 
obviously there's fighting the fires, but this is not--this 
drought that we have is not going to--it's not a temporary 
situation. This is a permanent situation, and the steps that 
we're going to need to take to prevent the catastrophic spread 
of fires is something that needs to get our attention not only 
at a State and county level but at a Federal level, so I would 
appreciate that advice.
     And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
     Mr. Schingler. Congressman--woman, may I respond to that?
     Ms. Lofgren. Oh, that would be lovely, thank you.
     Mr. Schingler. Excellent. Yes, so there is a fantastic 
program that's called the California Forest Observatory that 
was launched last year, and it is a combination of aerial lidar 
data with Earth observation data from----
     Ms. Lofgren. Yeah.
     Mr. Schingler [continuing]. Space to quantify--and weather 
data to then understand wind patterns and quantify the fuel 
load. What this does is it allows for Cal Fire (California 
Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) to be able to 
understand where the risk is and forecast where things can go. 
This is just a pilot project, as it is right now. It is working 
and operational, but it is--the technology behind it is 
scalable to the rest of the country.
     In addition to that, there are some other government 
sensors that detect infrared signatures that are extremely 
useful not just for national security, which is its primary 
purpose, but also for understanding fire, fire spread, and 
hotspots. And being able to have that data more easily 
accessible to our firefighters on the ground is something that 
would be really welcome.
     Ms. Lofgren. That's great information. Maybe the two of 
you can talk after this hearing, and I'm--I don't want to abuse 
my time, Mr. Chairman, so I yield back.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Ms. Lofgren, very much.
     I now recognize the Ranking Chairman of the Full 
Committee, Mr. Lucas.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
     Mr. Schingler, your company has been around for a decade, 
and you've partnered with NASA and other Federal agencies 
during that period. How has NASA's approach to commercial 
providers changed over that time or has it?
     Mr. Schingler. Thanks for the question. Yes, thank you for 
the question. And honestly, it might be a bit of my heritage, 
but NASA is the most forward leaning of all the government 
agencies in partnering with commercial companies.
     You can see this picture behind me is actually taken from 
an astronaut from the International Space Station in 2014 when 
we first launched our first fleet of 28 satellites. And over 
time, as we mentioned with the Commercial Smallsat Data Pilot 
Program now hopefully an upcoming operational capability is 
extremely promising.
     And then also, as Riley was mentioning with the Carbon 
Mapper program, we are at the scale and support right now that 
we are looking to transfer some of the cutting-edge technology 
from NASA that can then be applied for an operational 
capability, and that's what Carbon Mapper is all about.
     So NASA is only accelerating with its adoption and 
partnership with all that America has to provide in not only 
solving additional climate change challenges but then also 
bringing it to the rest of society.
     Mr. Lucas. Well, continuing down this vein, how can the 
Committee help spur increased partnerships between NASA and the 
commercial data providers in the future?
     Mr. Schingler. Well, my main recommendation is to--for 
this Committee in particular is to put into statute for the 
Commercial Smallsat Data Acquisition Program and to robustly 
fund it. There are many companies just like Planet. There are 
about a half-dozen or so that are operational and about two 
dozen or so that are coming up. The more that governments can 
partner with emerging commercial players, they--those 
commercial players, if they have a customer, they listen to 
them. They want to please them, and they will upgrade their 
services to meet their needs. And so I think by creating that 
program and then opening up the aperture to allow for NASA 
scientists to find scientific utility rather than to prove it 
from a procurement strategy is part of how we can think through 
creating new program offices.
     Mr. Lucas. Continuing with you, Mr. Schingler, NASA has 
for years partnered with other agencies. I think of USGS and 
NOAA on Earth observation activities. Currently, those 
partnerships consist of NASA developing new satellites and 
instruments, which are then operated by the other agencies. Do 
you still view this as the most productive and cost-effective 
model?
     Mr. Schingler. I think there are definitely scientific 
signatures that need to be collected that can only be done by 
national labs and that are necessary not just for science but 
also for commercial. You know, we use some of the signatures 
that we get from NASA and NOAA satellites for interoperability 
for our data sources. However, many of our legacy programs can 
be upgraded to go further out and to do the harder thing and to 
allow for operational services to then be provided by 
commercial players such as Planet and others. So I do think 
that there's a great opportunity to look at program offices not 
just for the specific data that they're trying to do but what 
is that signal that they're actually sending to the market in 
order to stimulate innovation and to think about it across 
industry, academia, and government programs together.
     Mr. Lucas. Well, along that line, from your perspective, 
what kind of adjustments in the model that we're using now--
mechanically, what do we need to look at on this Committee to 
improve that model along the lines of what you were discussing?
     Mr. Schingler. Well, I have two suggestions. One--besides 
putting into statute the Commercial Smallsat Data Program, one 
suggestion is to have a portion of that that allows for a NASA 
scientist to innovate with whatever is out there. And so that 
is one way to accelerate that. And the second is to partner 
with prototypes. Instead of doing operational missions and 
science-grade PI- (principal investigator-) led programs, to 
think through and expand the in particular Earth Science 
Venture program to allow for there to be public-private 
partnerships that then allow for much more of these hosted 
payloads to happen on the--not just about once every 2 years 
and a new mission once every 2 years but to allow for that 
happened on the order of 6 months. The industry is there to 
ready to partner with NASA on this, and this is something that 
NASA and this Committee should consider.
     Mr. Lucas. Thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, my time is 
about to expire. I yield back.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Lucas, very much.
     I now recognize the gentleman from Florida, Governor 
Charlie Crist.
     Mr. Crist. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 
witnesses for being with us today.
     Under the Biden Administration, NASA's science missions 
will play a critical role in informing the Federal Government's 
efforts to combat climate change. One of the most significant 
climate change impacts that Florida faces is the increasing 
frequency of severe weather, specifically, hurricanes and as 
well as other tropical storms.
     Dr. St. Germain, could you discuss the role that NASA's 
Earth observations play in weather forecasting, and could the 
prediction of these observations be used to improve weather 
prediction on capabilities?
     Dr. St. Germain. Thank you so much for the question. So of 
course, as you know, NASA partners with NOAA to build NOAA's 
operational weather satellites, and we also partner with NOAA 
and other agencies to advance modeling and data assimilation. 
That happens primarily through the Joint Center for Satellite 
Data Assimilation. We augment those observations and 
capabilities with smallsat technologies like CYGNSS (Cyclone 
Global Navigation Satellite System), RainCube, TEMPEST-D 
(Temporal Experiment for Storms and Tropical Systems--
Demonstration). These are all small demonstration missions that 
brought additional data to bear and are particularly 
interesting for tropical cyclones and point to a path of more 
affordable observations.
     In addition to that, about 1/3 of our 45 disaster 
activations last year were associated with weather and in 
particular tropical cyclones. So--and then all of that of 
course is underpinned by our Research and Analysis Program in 
weather and atmospheric dynamics. So across our whole Earth 
Science Division from technology to science to exploratory 
science to applied science, we are supporting the advancement 
of weather prediction and warning capability.
     Mr. Crist. Thank you. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season 
was the most active and the fifth-costliest Atlantic hurricane 
season on record. Again to you, Dr. St. Germain, given the 
increase in frequency of severe weather events and the 
resulting risk to human life and infrastructure, can you 
discuss what the next generation of sensing and imaging 
capabilities looks like, especially as they relate to weather 
prediction?
     Dr. St. Germain. Yes. So, of course, as you know, NOAA is 
formulating its next generation of weather observation 
capabilities, particularly in geostationary orbit, and NASA's 
future observing systems will be aligned with the 
recommendations from our decadal survey, which of course 
characterize the most important observations to make to achieve 
both climate change--advance climate change understanding, as 
well as weather-related understanding. So the primary missions 
associated with the decadal survey are, of course, the aerosols 
convection--clouds convection and precipitation observations. 
Those will be looking to move forward on to answer some of 
those really fundamental questions. And actually I think 
probably Dr. Schmidt may have something to say on this topic as 
well.
     Mr. Crist. Doctor?
     Mr. Schmidt. No, I think you actually covered it pretty 
well----
     Dr. St. Germain. OK.
     Dr. Schmidt [continuing]. Sorry.
     Dr. St. Germain. OK.
     Mr. Crist. Would any of the other panelists like to 
comment on this?
     Mr. Schingler. When it does come to increasing our 
understanding of extreme weather, it is a combination of a 
variety of data sets. Different types of microwave sounders 
from space, also ground-based and in addition to land 
monitoring systems, so Landsat models are included in that, and 
that is something that NOAA should look at, which is including 
in other types of land monitoring data sensors to allow for us 
to have better models.
     The other thing that is extremely promising about this is 
the power of cloud computing and machine learning on top of 
these aggregate disparate data sets together that allow for us 
to have a better understanding for what's about to happen. So 
as these data are all activated and interoperable with one 
another, we will be able to better anticipate what's about to 
happen not just for weather but also for other types of land-
use change.
     Mr. Crist. Great, thank you very much. I appreciate that. 
I see my time is about to expire, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I 
yield back.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Congressman Crist.
     And now let me recognize the Congressman from Cape 
Canaveral, Mr. Posey.
     Mr. Posey. Thank you very much, Chairman Beyer, and I 
appreciate you holding this hearing on the current roles and 
future opportunities for NASA's Earth science.
     Mr. Schingler, China is aggressively pursuing remote-
sensing capabilities and offering them on the commercial 
market. I'm just wondering what we can do to ensure that we 
remain the leader in commercial remote sensing.
     Mr. Schingler. Thank you for the question. Over the last 5 
years, as I've mentioned in my testimony and my verbal 
statement, there is a renaissance that's happening in Earth 
observation, and it has been led by U.S. companies and 
companies across Europe. Over the last 4 years, that has been 
eclipsed by a number of Chinese companies that are very well-
funded and very well-supported across academia and the Chinese 
Government.
     We are competing in a global marketplace, and what makes 
American entrepreneurship great is that we look for global 
products in market-making industries, bring them to society, 
and then we upgrade them. And it's trusted. So I do think that 
the foundation that we have inside American industry will 
thrive and grow this new frontier economy, but it definitely is 
a challenge.
     Some of the things that are being brought up right now is 
to really embrace U.S. commercial industry and purchasing the 
services that exist today, knowing that there's a partnership 
for it to be upgraded over time. And this is something that 
that we have not seen fully embraced inside the DOD (Department 
of Defense) and the IC (intelligence community) community.
     And I can say again that NASA has been an early adopter 
into this, and we look forward for this to expand, but that's 
the main thing is to partner, is to be a lighthouse customer, 
not the only customer, but to be a customer of U.S. commercial 
industry, and they will rise up, and they will solve the needs 
of tomorrow.
     Mr. Posey. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Schingler.
     Dr. St. Germain, I'm particularly worried about China, as 
many of us are, through state-owned enterprises investing in 
new private climate satellite companies in order to influence 
the information they receive. Can you tell us how NASA might 
not only validate the new data coming from these nongovernment 
satellites but also any intentional or unintentional biases 
that can emerge from it?
     Dr. St. Germain. Thank you for the question. So NASA 
doesn't have any direct bilateral collaboration or work 
underway with China, but we do have a lot of multinational 
partnership work underway and in fact we lead multinational 
organizations such as the Committee on Earth Observations, and 
our primary focus in those leadership roles is to expand and 
really underscore open science and the trust and transparency 
that goes into the--understanding those measurements and their 
scientific integrity.
     And so I think where we can really contribute here is 
leading in that international arena, along with our commercial 
partners, to underscore the importance of transparency and 
trust in the data that we're using and create that expectation 
internationally.
     Mr. Schmidt. Might I add something to that answer?
     Mr. Posey. Absolutely.
     Mr. Schmidt. One of the key issues with any new source of 
data is that every new source of data has its own special 
characteristics. One might call it bias, but they all have 
special characteristics as a function of their orbits, their 
instruments, and how often they're reported. When you put that 
into a data assimilation system, the physics that's been 
embedded within that system tells us whether things are 
consistent, whether things are coherent. And so these systems 
will tend to reject data that is too biased, that doesn't fit 
into how the estimations is thinking that things should work, 
and we can--we are able to detect instruments that are 
malfunctioning. We are able to detect instruments that are not 
properly calibrated by embedding them within a larger data 
assimilation system. And that would be true for data from any 
source.
     Mr. Posey. Thank you very much. I see my time is expired. 
I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you, Mr. Posey. And, Mr. Posey, I'm 
going to ask a second round of questions if you care to hang in 
for that, so you're most welcome to.
     Mr. Posey. OK.
     Chairman Beyer. So let me--Mr. Duren, you wrote that 
there's a real problem in data latency, that you have these 
wonderful people collecting data, and it takes one to three 
years until it's delivered and published in time. How do we get 
over that? You say we need more streamlined frameworks to 
effectively support decisionmaking but that data latency is an 
obstacle.
     Mr. Duren. Yes, sir. Of course, you know, things vary, but 
it's generally the case that when it comes to greenhouse gas 
emission estimation in general, that current frameworks fall 
into one of two buckets. Bucket one is conventional greenhouse 
gas inventories that are compiled by--typically by nation 
states but increasingly some subnational jurisdictions, and 
those methods use fairly tried and true publicly available data 
that we call activity data, things like how many vehicle miles 
traveled, how many cows, how much coal is bought and sold, and 
then these regulatory agencies like the Environmental 
Protection Agency, apply emission factors that generate an 
annually aggregated, nationally aggregated accounting of all 
greenhouse gas emissions by sector and by gas. As you can 
imagine, that process takes time. In many cases those 
inventories lag by a couple of years, and so they're trying to 
get it right but they're not necessarily fast.
     And the other bucket are experimental advanced science-
based measurements using atmospheric measurements from a 
variety of techniques, not just satellites but surface 
measurements. And NASA and many other agencies, NOAA, and 
experts from around the world in academia are advancing that. 
NASA's own carbon monitoring system is pioneering that, many 
projects that are advancing that, but these are experimental in 
nature, and to the extent that they do produce data more 
quickly, they don't do it for very long. They typically last 
about 3 years, these pilot projects. And they also tend to be 
very focused in individual areas. So the need to operationalize 
climate data, in particular greenhouse gas data, means also 
addressing this latency problem. And there are ways to 
accelerate it mainly by providing some engineering and machine 
learning and automation and software engineering to speed these 
processes up and, most importantly, sustain them so they're not 
just one-off research programs. So we need to expand the 
research to operations gap.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much.
     Mr. Schingler. Chairman----
     Chairman Beyer. Mr. Schingler----
     Mr. Schingler. Yes, please.
     Chairman Beyer. Yes, go ahead, please.
     Mr. Schingler. May I comment on this?
     Chairman Beyer. Yes.
     Mr. Schingler. So the latency is really all about speed to 
information, helping people make better decisions. And, I mean, 
we are so connected here and we get pushed information 
constantly. And really if you unpack that infrastructure that's 
put in place across cell towers and so forth, that 
infrastructure is now going up into space, right? So we will 
have over the next few years real-time connectivity via space-
based orbiting assets. We will have satellites that then in 
space take pictures of the Earth and tap into that so that you 
have a real-time understanding of what's happening.
     The other major trend that's happening is something that 
is in the Internet of Things world or edge computing, which is 
where you collect information you do some compute right where 
it is so for things that happen that have some public interest, 
so, for instance, in Riley's program at Carbon Mapper, if there 
is a methane leak, which is really toxic for public health, 
that could be detected on board and immediately informed to 
first responders.
     And so these are some of the things that are happening 
today across infrastructure that's going into space that allows 
for real-time understanding of the planet at the speed of 
decisionmaking for public health but then also for commerce.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much. And, Dr. St. Germain, 
lots of talk about all the different data. What's NASA's policy 
on NASA-supported Earth science data in terms of archiving, in 
terms of free and open access, and availability to the public, 
including raw data? And how do you maintain that policy, 
including conformance to the World Meteorological Organization 
data policies with our non-Federal partners?
     Dr. St. Germain. Thank you for the question. Yes, NASA has 
a full and open science data policy. All of our data are freely 
available, and we are really pushing to advance that with not 
just availability but real discoverability and putting the data 
in the same ecosystem as the computation capability and the 
models and the applications. So that's all part of our plan to 
accelerate our delivery of actionable information.
     In the context of commercial data, of course, we negotiate 
with the commercial data provider on the terms of a user 
license, and that can--in the early going, in the NASA 
Commercial Data Pilot Program, that was limited to NASA users 
only. But of course when we're talking about open science, we 
want to make sure that other non-NASA-funded scientists and 
other agencies have access, so we're working to standardize a 
set of options for user licenses that can allow us to 
distribute that data more broadly.
     Chairman Beyer. Great, thank you very much.
     Mr. Posey, the floor is again yours for questions.
     Mr. Posey. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 
appreciate a second round.
     Dr. St. Germain, a real fear is I believe that private 
satellite companies could possibly target facilities, 
industries, competitors, whatever, while ignoring other areas 
and then selectively release information. What would prevent 
these companies from cherry-picking observations to gain an 
upper leg over others that puts their interests first and 
skewing the data that decisionmakers receive and the public 
receives?
     Dr. St. Germain. Let's see. So for the data that NASA 
acquires and----
     Mr. Posey. No, we're going back to China, back to the 
China [inaudible]. I'm sorry.
     Dr. St. Germain. OK. So I think that is a question that is 
probably more--would be more important for operational agencies 
that are--that could make use of Chinese data, but as I said 
earlier, we at NASA don't have--we don't buy Chinese data, and 
we don't have any ongoing bilateral arrangements to use Chinese 
data.
     Mr. Schingler. Representative Posey, it is----
     Mr. Posey. Do others want to weigh in here?
     Mr. Duren. Can I answer that? So I think--yes, 
Congressman, I think this is why Robbie and I and others and I 
know our NASA colleagues would agree that it's important to 
have a global system of systems that's not limited to a 
unilateral actor. Environmental data from Earth observations is 
too important [inaudible] wrong either intentionally through 
bias or by getting it wrong because the science or the 
technology is wrong.
     So I think we are on the verge of seeing an emergent 
global observing system of systems that includes observations 
not just by NASA but also of their international partner 
agencies in Europe and Japan and not just China and also in 
commercial space.
     And so I think the best way to tackle the question you're 
raising is really for an open-skies policy with multiple 
independent observations that can crosscheck and validate each 
other and build public confidence that no single system is 
introducing bias either intentionally or otherwise. And I think 
a good question for this Subcommittee is what's the right role 
of NASA and Federal agencies to help enable that to make it 
work?
     Mr. Posey. Well, listen, I appreciate the good answers. 
Dr. Schmidt, do you want to weigh in?
     Mr. Schmidt. I think that that's very--I mean, what Riley 
said was good. Multiple use of the same place and time from 
multiple instruments gives us a coherent and consistent story 
about what's happening, and that needs to be multi-instrument, 
multi-platform, and multi-companies and multi-sources of that 
data. And I think that the more that we build an infrastructure 
that allows that data to all be kind of part of one thing, then 
we will be able to see things in real time that are anomalous 
or not.
     Mr. Schingler. And, Congressman, to--the commercial 
systems out there are also critically important for that 
overall multi-data source observation that is secure. So, for 
instance, GeoAssurance, what this is called inside of the 
geospatial intelligence community, and if you have problems of 
how you built your satellite and putting it up into space, you 
know that it's quite secure, that connection can also be 
secure. And to have pixel-level providence builds trust that 
what you're capturing is truth.
     And as a commercial company that abides by jurisprudence 
and the rule of law, getting all of society on a common 
operating picture so that bad actors can be seen and light can 
be shown, it allows for the fourth estate, media, think tanks, 
and science organizations to actually validate and hold truth 
to power for those who are doing things that are different from 
what they're saying.
     So there is something that is really, really powerful 
about our sector in remote sensing to provide that level of 
transparency to allow for us to have a more secure and 
sustainable world.
     Mr. Posey. Like the news really, we want it to be as 
accurate as possible, and that's not always the case.
     Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for holding this 
hearing, very interesting, good information. Thank you, 
witnesses, for your input. We really do appreciate it. Thank 
you.
     Chairman Beyer. And thank you, Congressman Posey.
     I'm going to--since we have these wonderful people and we 
don't want them to go to lunch, I'm going to fire one more set 
of questions at them, which you are welcome to stay if you'd 
like, but I understand you have other meetings, too.
     So, Dr.--to Robbie Schingler, you spoke specifically about 
U.S. Federal agencies prioritizing commercial data buys, and I 
guess frustrated with DOD and the IC, but you also talked about 
remote-sensing regulations, launch payload regulations, orbital 
regulations, spectrum regulations all play a critical role in 
our commercial sector's ability to participate internationally. 
Do you think those--that we are overregulated, the regulations 
have gone too far, the commercial industry does not have 
sufficient input in the development of those regulations? Have 
we right-sized it yet?
     Mr. Schingler. Thank you, Chairman Beyer. There are two 
questions in there, the first one around the U.S. Defense 
Department and the intelligence community. I think it's 
important to note that the National Reconnaissance Office more 
or less created Earth observation, and they created 
extraordinary technologies in space that allowed for our Nation 
to understand what's happening in an offset that other people 
did not know how they actually did it, just extraordinary 
stuff, so I do not want to state anything otherwise.
     However, what has happened is that when you have a 
disruptive capability, which Planet and others are a part of, 
it isn't the way in which people are used to the performance of 
the system but a new axes can come out, so, for example, 
timeliness, looking for the unknown unknowns, and those types 
of activities is just not the way that it's been tooled up.
     So there--yes, there has been some frustration on our part 
because we want the government to lean in and find mission 
utility and to actually be a partner for us to upgrade those 
services to support them.
     So I just want to more or less state is that we're doing 
the best that we can as a commercial partner. And also I do 
believe that the government program offices are also doing the 
best they can within their constraints. And that's where 
oversight can come in, to really help see are there any blind 
spots that we have in our overall strategies? So that's No. 1.
     No. 2 about regulation, regulation is--I actually said 
this at a conference a couple of years ago, but it's actually 
like a really hot place to be in because you're shaping 
markets. You don't want to go too far out in front, but you 
also don't want to hold back innovation. And so it's something 
that allows--that is a constant dialog, so having these 
advisory committees really does support and help.
     But of the biggest challenges that we have today, it is 
going to be RF, remote frequency challenges, sharing of that, 
as well as orbital debris. And we do need, as a global 
community--and it could be led by the United States--a space 
traffic management capability that allows for freedom to 
operate and space security. This is going to be a challenge 
over the coming decades, and it's something that we should not 
wait in order to come up with, with a good solution.
     So I would say in some cases there are some constraints 
around industry, probably for some very good reasons, but some 
might be for legacy reasons, and so that's where the advisory 
committees can come in to try to show those blind spots to the 
regulators.
     Chairman Beyer. Great, thank you very much. Mr. Duren and 
Mr. Schingler, the importance of free, unrestricted, and open 
data sharing as part of the Federal Government's research and 
development activities is paramount, so is your data, the raw 
data in your agreements, in contracts with NASA either through 
the Commercial Small Data--Smallsat Data Acquisition Program or 
arrangements for Carbon Mapper available to the public freely, 
openly, no restrictions?
     Mr. Duren. Yes, I'll start and then I'm sure Robbie can 
chime in. So Carbon Mapper is a nonprofit, and we have a public 
good mission to make methane and CO2 data freely and 
publicly available globally. And so the approach that we've 
established is that Carbon Mapper will stand up a global data 
portal that maintains a running stream of methane and CO2 
data to the public that includes the best possible quality 
control and uncertainty quantification that is also underpinned 
by independent validation by the California Air Resources 
Board.
     We didn't talk about it in detail, but California's role 
in our public-private partnership is they will get access to 
all of the methane CO2 data collected over 
California immediately, and they'll send people out in the 
field to do ground-based follow-up on it if you will to help 
certify it and validate it so that it has broader trust 
globally and ideally adoption.
     The other thing to understand about the public-private 
partnership and the way that our vision of how to monetize the 
buildout and sustainment of the system is that it is dual use, 
so there is a commercial arm to this, and it's enabled by the 
NASA technology. The imaging spectrometers that were designed 
by NASA JPL actually cover the full spectral range from the 
visible wavelengths through the shortwave infrared, and that 
allows us not just to detect and quantify methane CO2 
emissions, there are dozens of other environmental indicators 
on the land and in the oceans that Planet is free to 
commercialize. And so it's this dual-use program where Planet 
can commercialize other applications while serving Carbon 
Mapper's public good mission and actually sustain the program 
through a revenue share back to the nonprofit is part of what's 
innovative about this, and we think it will help address one of 
the challenges we face with Federal programs, and that is 
continuity. How do you keep these observations going once you 
start them?
     I guess I'll now hand it over to Robbie and maybe you can 
add.
     Mr. Schingler. Yes, I'm super excited about this program. 
It is a really unique public-private partnership, and so hats 
off to Riley and to Karen for actually pulling this together.
     It's not just continuity, but it's upgradability, right? 
It's collecting the needed information that's needed not just 
for today and that we know of but also where things are 
actually going. An example of this around open data versus 
commercializable data are a couple of programs that we've 
pioneered in the last couple of years, and it's under a broad 
rubric that we called digital public goods.
     And so one example is what we've done with Norway. So 
Norway has been a longtime supporter of a U.N. program to 
reduce submissions of deforestation. And we entered into a 
project with them after 4 years of validation that opens up a 
monthly cloud freebase map of 64 tropical countries around the 
world that's available to the forest reprograms inside all of 
those countries to allow for people to be on a common operating 
picture to curb deforestation and, importantly, it allows for 
those nations to get access to payments from the World Bank for 
not chopping down their forests. And so this is a good example 
of--it's all based on our commercial data. We created a higher-
order data product and then a specific license to allow for 
public benefit to happen while we also still had the ability to 
sell similar types of data, put it into a different format, 
then to serve those to our over 600 enterprise customers that 
we have around the world.
     So that's one specific example that we have done 
successfully, and that model came into the formulation of 
Carbon Mapper as a nonprofit where we deliver the data to 
Carbon Mapper, and then they deliver a higher-order data 
product, almost like a weather service for methane and CO2 
emissions to the public as a digital public good.
     Chairman Beyer. Thank you very much, very, very 
encouraging.
     So let me wrap up with one last question for Dr. Schmidt, 
although you're welcome to add to that, too. You are the 
supervisor on climate for the NASA Administrator, the very 
pinnacle of our climate change efforts. Is there any hope? Do 
you have any shot at keeping at 1.5 percent centigrade by 2050 
or the end of the century?
     Mr. Schmidt. One and a half degrees centigrade, that's a 
very hard question. There are pathways that would keep us below 
that by the end of the century. There aren't that many pathways 
that prevent us from going above that in the short term because 
of the inertia in the--both the climate system, the oceans, and 
in our societal responses.
     But, you know, there are a lot of activities going on, and 
there are a lot of very, very promising activities at all 
levels, the Federal, regional, local, and international level 
that are pushing us in that direction. The targets and the 
plans that people have put in through the Paris Agreements for 
their nationally determined contributions to cutting emissions 
are getting closer to the 2 degrees target, and the ratchet 
mechanism that was built into the Paris Agreement seems to be 
working. People are seeing what can be achieved and then trying 
to look into doing better.
     And so I don't think it's totally hopeless, but I think it 
is clear that we do need to prepare for more climate change to 
come. The exact number, speaking personally, the exact number 
that we end up with is not--you know, nothing particularly 
terrible happens if you go from 1.5 to 1.55 or 1.6, but what we 
know is that the impacts are ratcheting up, and they are 
increasing exponentially as we continue to warm the planet. And 
so we're always going to be in a situation where we could be 
doing better, but it's never the case that we should be giving 
up on making better decisions.
     Chairman Beyer. Mr. Duren?
     Mr. Duren. I just wanted to chime in quickly. We get this 
question a lot, especially on the greenhouse gas mitigation 
topic, you know, is it too late. What I would say is there is 
still time and an urgent need to act quickly. The window is 
closing, and you can look at the Biden Administration's recent 
commitment to cut, you know, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 
50 percent by the end of this decade. We're well into this 
decade already.
     I do think that it is an all-hands-on-deck moment for not 
just the Federal Government but all government branches, 
private sector, and civil society. And it's not too late to 
act, but I think we could do a lot more as a society to take 
advantage of all the resources at our disposal.
     And I know we've been talking in this hearing mainly about 
our Earth observations and NASA data, but I want to add another 
aspect of NASA that is part of the Federal capability, and that 
is NASA's engineering and program management capability. You 
mentioned in your opening statement moonshot. That's brought up 
frequently in regards to the climate response of this country 
and others, and I think that that is a minimum an analogy of 
what kind of effort mobilization is needed. And I think there's 
that can and should be done in engaging all of the resources of 
the Federal Government that right now are constrained by 
institutional limitations. NASA fits over here in this part of 
the ecosystem and the other agencies do that. And I realize 
that it's unrealistic to call for a whole-scale reorganization 
of government, but I think there is creativity needed and 
resources that are still untapped within agencies like NASA 
that can do more than deliver satellites. And so I--that's 
something probably beyond the scope of this hearing, but I just 
want to throw that out there is there's more we could and 
should be doing.
     Mr. Schingler. And to echo on that, Chairman Beyer, this 
is an opportunity for the U.S. Government to provide leadership 
across the entire Federal Government, just like what Riley is 
saying. We have the National Space Council. That should have a 
strong voice for climate. It should encourage the Office of 
Space Commerce within the Department of Commerce, the climate 
envoy, and commercial players to be part of this overall 
solution. It is a system of systems. NASA has a systems 
engineering approach to it. NASA has been playing with this 
data, understanding climate as it has happened, and that 
technology can really be useful for us to understand what we 
can do about it.
     The most encouraging thing I see in tackling the problems 
of today is the fact that Larry Fink, who is the CEO of 
BlackRock, who has over $6 trillion under management in his 
last three statements have said that climate risk is investment 
risk. If we take a look at the global markets and the amount of 
money that is going toward so-called ESG funds or 
environmental, social, and governance funds, the market is 
shifting. We do--and we need to ride that wave and shift it in 
order for us to live sustainably on this planet.
     So this is an all hands on deck, and it's not just 
government. It is industry. That--those are the incentives that 
will actually drive consumer behavior and corporate behavior. 
So I'm encouraged by it, but we do need to accelerate our 
activities.
     Chairman Beyer. I think for anyone who's listened to the 
last hour and a half plus, they have to be encouraged by the 
capabilities of our four witnesses today and all the things 
that you're doing, so thank you very, very much for being here. 
Thank you for your good work on behalf of all of humanity, and 
we hope you will come back to talk with us often.
     So let me just say that the record will remain open for 
two weeks for additional statements from the Members and for 
any additional questions the Committee may ask of the 
witnesses.
     So if there is no objection, the witnesses are excused, 
and this hearing is now adjourned. Thank you, and have a great 
day. We'll see you soon.
     [Whereupon, at 12:36 p.m., the Subcommittee was 
adjourned.]

                                Appendix

                              ----------                              


                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions




                   Answers to Post-Hearing Questions

Responses by Dr. Karen M. St. Germain


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Responses by Dr. Gavin Schmidt


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Responses by Mr. Riley Duren


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Responses by Mr. Robbie Schingler


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