White House Delivers Preliminary Plan for National Earth Observations

White House Delivers Preliminary Plan for National Earth Observations

On Sept. 10, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) delivered a key report to Congress outlining a strategic approach to enhancing the nation’s capacity to observe the Earth and its interconnected atmospheric, geologic, and environmental systems. The report, Achieving and Sustaining Earth Observations: A Preliminary Plan Based on a Strategic Assessment by the U.S. Group on Earth Observations, was requested by Congress in the 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act (Public Law 111-117) and again in the NASA Authorization Act of 2010.  According the an OSTP news release, “It illustrates how the President’s FY 2011 budget enables a reversal of the decline of the nation’s Earth observation infrastructure—an infrastructure that is critical to protecting life, property, natural resources and ecosystems, and national security.”