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http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement
<big>'''"My friend George"'''</big>


[https://plus.google.com/104105656721944993244/posts/34gu9y59nh2 ''Remembering the 'start-up' of the environmental movement] and the [http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Env_policy_laws_US_%27the_beginning%27_of_env_era.jpg first set of laws], a body of originating legal environmental protection precedents from green visionaries like George E. Brown in California, who passed away suddenly in 1999.  
Congressman from East Los Angeles and for three decades a leader in science and forward-looking Congressional initiatives.
:http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr


'''''"My friend George"'''''


''GreenPolicy Siterunner / SJS: George was looking forward to the 21st century and especially to the challenge of nuclear non-proliferation, his concern for decades. George was a visionary, an engineer, a vet who opposed disastrous war, and '''a leader in Congress who led from California in shaping the modern environmental movement'''. In his 'rumpled, quiet way' he moved to form coalitions few thought could be formed and garnered support for the first set of U.S. Congressional acts that served as foundation legislation for decades of green progress. His work advanced environmental air quality and clean air legislation (he attacked Los Angeles smog, some of the worst air quality of any city in the world at the time and the air standards that came out of California became models worldwide). He succeeded in clean water efforts, though rarely given credit given his quiet approach to accomplishing big picture goals. As one example, he "championed" and was a key player in legislation founding the Environmental Protection Agency, as the LA Times noted (without pomp or circumstance) in George's [http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jul/17/news/mn-56747 obit]: "He championed the creation of the federal Environmental Protection Agency". '''The EPA was in many ways his vision achieved'''... George was for decades the Congressperson out in front of "big science". He was a '''key figure in proposing, establishing, and saving the Landsat program''', the [http://www.nytimes.com/1989/03/02/us/last-civilian-photography-satellites-to-shut-down.html uniquely 'open-access' database] of imagery of Earth that's moving toward its fifth decade with [http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=10391 Landsat 9]. A leader on the House science committee for over 30 years, George legislatively engineered an array of science efforts, including one that greens look to as prescient -- he drafted legislation establishing '''the first national climate change research program''' via the [http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/National_Climate_Program_Act_Public_Law_95-367_Sept_1978.pdf National Climate Program Act of 1978]. His profound accomplishments are especially missed now in the current era as [http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_and_Space,_Politics anti-science positioning] in the U.S. Congress threatens national and global security...''
[[File:US Public Law 95-367.png]]


[[File: Environmental Protection Agency logo.png]]


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'''SJS / GreenPolicy Siterunner:'''


George brought me into politics in the mid-sixties. I was a high school debater and nuclear proliferation was the topic of the year. George was a trained engineer, who was exceptionally informed about nuclear risks and he became a leader in the anti-Vietnam war effort even as I became one of the organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee.


'''George's obituary, Born: March 6, 1920 - Died: July 15, 1999 (aged 79)'''
California during the this era was a focal point of student energy on multiple fronts.


[http://articles.latimes.com/1999/jul/17/news/mn-56747 '''Los Angeles Times, July 17, 1999''']


'''''“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system,” Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote as the Great Depression impacted the country.'''''


[[File:George's memory.jpg]]
'''''“A single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”'''''




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Many forward-looking ideas came to be and Congressman Brown led efforts to confront a host of profound challenges, from war and peace, to 'big science' (eventually as a chair of the House of Representative's science committee) and the formation of the beginnings of environmental protection laws. This era of environmental vision, establishing agencies, policies and programs were a foundation, a [http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Env_policy_laws_US_%27the_beginning%27_of_env_era.jpg first set of laws] originating legal, environmental protections and precedents from green visionaries like Congressman George E. Brown and his network, ranging from NASA to student campuses, Congress to California's first wave of green environmentalism.




'''A Conversation with George E. Brown Jr.; The Congressman Who Loved Science'''
'''Acting to Develop the Knowledge to Make Informed Policy'''


[http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/09/science/a-conversation-with-george-e-brown-jr-the-congressman-who-loved-science.html '''New York Times, March 9, 1999''']


Mr. Brown, 79, has been a crucial supporter of manned and unmanned space exploration. He was an author of legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency, a prime mover behind efforts to include ozone layer protections in the Clean Air Act...
'''US climate science action began in earnest in 1977/78.'''


"From my earliest days, I was fascinated by science," Mr. Brown said in his offices on Capitol Hill, his wife, Marta, at his side. "Also by my earliest days, I was fascinated by a utopian vision of what the world could be like. I've thought that science could be the basis for a better world, and that's what I've been trying to do all these years."


The 1978 '''National Climate Program Act''' began the US government's effort to study climate change. George Brown was out in front addressing the coming challenge, George proposed the federal government's climate program and science community immediately begin to move. He became a leader in drafting legislation, overcoming objections and obstacles.... He foresaw the value of having spaced-based research satellites to monitor the earth and its atmosphere. George's vision set in motion an array of initiatives to face humankind's greatest challenges as he and science supporters looked to a future horizon of national and global security...


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<big>'''National Climate Program Act'''</big>


Recollection from 1977 - '''George Brown goes Green'''  
'''An Act to establish a comprehensive and coordinated national climate policy and program, and for other purposes'''
;95th Congress (1977-1978)


Not many U.S. Congressmen can claim to have an "integral urban district office" complete with solar heating and cooling, a lean-to greenhouse, and bee-hives. Representative George E. Brown, Jr. (D-Calif.) can, however ... because he does have just such office facilities.


Two years ago — when Congressman Brown decided that he wanted solar heating for his Colton, California office building (an old house located in a semi-residential part of town) — he asked his staff to design and install a low-cost, low-technology heating system by themselves. He told his aides that they were free to seek expert advice, but that they should attempt to do as much of the actual construction as possible.
;Authored by Rep. George E. Brown (D), Calif


So while Brown was away in Washington, his staffers outfitted the building with an air-handling, "active" solar heating setup that employs a single large wood-and-fiberglass solar collector and a bin loaded with 13 tons of rock for heat storage ... a setup that — so far — has provided virtually 100 percent of the office building's winter heating needs. (The same system can be used to provide cooling during the summer, although — because of the desert-like temperatures that hit the area during the summer months-supplemental cooling must also be used.)


In back of the aging office structure, Brown's aides built a lean-to "solar greenhouse" that furnishes the main house with additional solar heating and provides the Congressman's staff with a year-round supply of fresh vegetables.
'''The first climate program passed by the US Congress'''  


A year or so ago, Brown's staff members decided they wanted to "raise" honey as well as vegetables ... so they "coaxed" a swarm of bees into an empty hive, and within six months harvested 100 pounds of the golden sweetener!
[http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/National_Climate_Program_Act_Public_Law_95-367_Sept_1978.pdf '''National Climate Program Act''']


Because of the great amount of public interest in these and other of the Congressman's activities, Brown recently encouraged the Agricultural Division of the University of California's Cooperative Extension to apply for federal funding to open a community food preservation center in nearby Riverside, California. The application was approved.


If it has to do with living-better-for-less alternatives, chances are the honorable George E. Brown, Jr. knows about it ... or is already doing it!
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-- Linda Martin / Mother Earth News


[https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Earth_Day_Memories_on_the_50th_Anniversary '''Remembering George Brown and the first 'Earth Day' ''']


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[https://plus.google.com/104105656721944993244/posts/34gu9y59nh2 '''Remembering the 'start-up' of the environmental movement...]'''


''SJS / Siterunner: George was the man who convinced me to look at politics as a serious calling. When I was a young teenager in East LA, looking out at a larger world in which I had yet to travel, and debating nuclear proliferation, the debate topic of the year as high schools were considering why sirens were on occasion loudly going off and forcing us to crawl under our desks, the man I got to know in Monterey Park was at the beginning of his career in politics and science.''
: http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement


''For the next 35 years he was my mentor and an inspiration of what can be done to make a difference and create a better world. George was a visionary with tousled hair, a professorial look, a smelly pipe and a twinkle in his eye. He was always there for his constituents, like me, an East LA kid who grew up to be a friend and cohort as we did green work over the years. George was a real presence in Congress, in science and environmental achievements that carry on to this day.''


''Back in the early days, we would speak of the smog in LA and how we needed to clean up the air. I spoke of my asthma with George and his engineering background gave him advantages over the run-of-the-mill politicians in DC in knowing how best to address the pollution from cars, the gas engines that were becoming ubiquitous in fast-growing suburban Southern California. When I was in college at USC and getting deeply involved in politics, we spoke of the children in Los Angeles and their lung problems and scientific and medical studies that were vividly (shockingly) demonstrating the consequences of growing up in the most polluted air in the country. George worked in Congress to change all of of this. With [http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Can_our_environment_be_saved_George_Brown-Omnibus_Environmental_Bill_1969.pdf saving the environment in his sight], he moved conservative and liberal politicians in his direction. A key goal was setting up an EPA as an umbrella agency to coordinate environmental federal and federal-state efforts... George was a "first-mover" as the term has come to be known. He had a big-picture plan and set out to accomplish it. He succeeded on multiple fronts, pushing forward the idea and the vision for 'omnibus' legislation. The Environmental Protection Agency was founded and historic initial green laws and regulations for environmental protection and security were passed. Today these act as models for cities and nations around the world. California and greens moved out in front with ideas to improve quality of life and in our GreenPolicy work George's work continues.''
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''George remains with us always in his legacy of accomplishment. I miss him often but know he is still around. I feel him when I write of green ideas and look to our kids and education and our shared future...''


https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/STATUTE-92/STATUTE-92-Pg601/content-detail.html


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:'''92 Stat. 601 - National Climate Program Act'''


:Download Files
:Formats - PDF (834 KB)
:Descriptive Metadata - MODS
:Authenticity Metadata - PREMIS
:All Format & Metadata Files - ZIP file


http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Environmental_Laws
Metadata


http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/epa-order-11102
:Category
:Bills and Statutes Collection
United States Statutes at Large
:SuDoc Class Number
:Publisher (Office of the Federal Register).
:U.S. Government Printing Office Congress
:95th Congress, 2nd Session, 1978
:Dates in Session - Thursday, January 19, 1978 adjourned sine die on Sunday, October 15, 1978
:Volume Volume 92
:Citation - 92 Stat. 601
:Pages - 601 - 605
:Law Number Public Law 95-367


http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/birth-epa


http://www2.epa.gov/aboutepa/guardian-epas-formative-years-1970-1973
<big>'''National Climate Act'''</big>




-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
'''Summary of Act / Congressional Research Service'''


National Climate Program Act - Directs the President to establish a National Climate Program to develop and operate a comprehensive climate research, monitoring, analysis, and data management program, improve the reliability of predictive capability and the dissemination of climatological information and alerts, and develop a global climate monitoring system.
'''The George E. Brown, Jr. Archive at the University of California'''


http://newsroom.ucr.edu/2347
Requires the Director of the Program to establish Program policies, priorities, and Federal agency involvement. Directs the Director to establish a National Climate Program Interagency Advisory Committee to assist in such duties.


"Congressman, a visionary who championed the environment, alternative energy, human rights and education. When he died in office in 1999 at the age of 79, he left a legacy that included establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Science Technology Policy, Section 8 housing for low-income people and scholarships for veterans."
Authorizes the Director to establish other advisory committees to assist in carrying out this Act.


Details of that legacy – from his first political post as mayor of Monterey Park, Calif., to his chairmanship of the House of Representatives Science Committee – survive in 525 boxes and nine file cabinets of personal papers donated recently to the University of California, Riverside by his widow, Marta Brown...
Directs the Secretary of Commerce to establish within the Department of Commerce a National Climate Program Office to administer the program.


Authorizes the Secretary to make annual grants to the States for State climate programs. Requires the State Climate Programs to provide the National Climate Program with specified climate-related information.


[[File:George E Brown.jpg]]
Requires the Director and the Secretary to cooperate with the Secretary of State in participating in climate-related international conferences and in coordinating the activities of the Program with climate programs of other nations.


Authorizes appropriations of the Program with climate programs of other nations.


Authorizes appropriations for fiscal years 1978, 1979, and 1980 to carry out the purposes of this Act.


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_____


http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement


http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/National_Climate_Program_Act_Public_Law_95-367_Sept_1978.pdf


http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Can_our_environment_be_saved_George_Brown-Omnibus_Environmental_Bill_1969.pdf
''The National Climate Program Act (Public Law 367 of the Ninety-Fifth Congress), called for the establishment of the National Climate Program (NCP), as well as the Climate Program Advisory Committee and the Climate Program Policy Board.


http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Env_policy_laws_US_'the_beginning'_of_env_era.jpg
''These entities are to issue periodic reports and plans to "assist the Nation and the world to understand and respond to natural and human-induced climate processes and their implications. (Dessler, 2006)" The act required the secretary of commerce to establish a National Climate Program Office that would coordinate efforts and develop a series of research and climate services, drawing together the strengths of NOAA and other governmental agencies. These responsibilities were delegated to NOAA. The Department of the Interior and its U.S. Geological Survey are among the other agencies assigned specific roles under the NCP.


''The NOAA Climate Program conducts research and monitoring related to climate, climate change, and climate impact. It gathers and manages data from surface, marine, upper-air, and satellite observations; issues monthly and seasonal predictions of temperature, precipitation, and other weather indicators; predicts the impact of climate fluctuations on water resources, including fisheries, crop irrigation, and energy demands; and conducts new research.


''Five divisions of NOAA contribute to these efforts: the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; the National Marine Fisheries Service; the National Ocean Service; the National Weather Service; and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.


[[File:Env policy laws US 'the beginning' of env era.jpg]]
''Several climate projects under NOAA have yielded important results. Under the direction of the NOAA administration, the United States is part of the Group on Earth Observations, an international organization developing the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), which will collect and manage data around the world. NCP awards grants and fellowships for outside research on the Arctic, on atmospheric composition and climate, on the global climate cycle, and other topics. It also operates the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, a partnership with American universities to connect with local and regional researchers and policy makers. The Climate Program Office operates separate divisions for climate observations, research, climate assessments and services, planning, and communications and education.


''By 1984, pilot programs and new structures, including a strongly linked network of regional monitoring centers, enabled the NCP to produce and disseminate useful climate data (Gerrard, 2007). These data were essential in the growing national and international understanding of the causes and the effects of global warming.


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''As policy makers became more interested in global warming, they were unable to make use of much of the pure science that NCP was conducting, and they pressed for more information in forms that would help them draft policy. In response, in 1990 Congress created the United States Global Change Research Program to increase understanding of and response to global warming through research presented by NCP.


''References''


<big>'''Congressman Brown / Science Committee Act in 1978'''</big>
''Dessler, Andrew Emory, and Edward Parson. The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006''
 
''Gerrard, Michael. Global Climate Change and U.S. Law. Washington, D.C.: American Bar Association, 2007''


[http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/National_Climate_Program_Act_Public_Law_95-367_Sept_1978.pdf '''National Climate Program Act, 1978 / PDF''']
: The first federal program established to study and assess scientifically the issues and risks of human-caused climate change


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[http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Energy_and_Climate_Report%2C_1977%2C_National_Academy_of_Sciences.pdf '''Energy and Climate Report, 1977, National Academy of Sciences / 175 pp. / PDF''']
 
'''National Climate Program Memorandum From the President'''
 
October 31, 1978
 
Jimmy Carter
 
Memorandum for the Heads of Departments and Agencies
 
 
''I have just signed into law the National Climate Program Act (P.L. 95-367). I am pleased to commit the Nation to this Program of improving our understanding of climatic changes, both natural and man-induced...''
 


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[http://grist.org/article/a-climate-hero-the-early-years/ '''James Hansen's Warning to Congress in 1988:''']
: Ten years after the [https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg601.pdf National Climate Program Act] was drafted by Representative Brown and the legislation's passage led by the Congressman began the federal government's study of climate change, impacts and risks.


[[File:Hansen testimony WaPo front page.jpg]]
'''National Climate Program Act'''
 
House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, First Session, Report No. 95-266, May 6, 1977
 
''The purpose of the bill is to establish a national climate program which will enable the nation to respond more effectively to climate-induced problems by improving climate monitoring in order to make the government and private sector aware of fluctuations and anomalies in climate, by augmenting basic and applied research, by improving services relating to climate, and by identifying domestic and international impacts of changes and fluctuations in climate. Other contents of the report are committee actions and recommendations; committee views; oversight findings and recommendations;congressional budget act information; cost and budget data; effect of legislation on inflation; and agency comments.
 
Publication Date: 1977-01-01
 
Committee on Science and Technology, Washington, DC
 


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'''Note: June 3, 2016'''


Siterunner / SJS: As a member of the Wiki community, we/GreenPolicy are presently acting to update the Wikipedia biography of Congressman George E. Brown. The following update expresses our point of view and current communications with Wikipedia.
https://www.amazon.com/National-climate-program-act-Subcommittee/dp/B003XW066A
 
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/95/hr6669
 


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'''GreenPolicy Siterunner / June 2, 2016''': I'm corresponding w a Wikipedia editor to update George E Brown's bio -- some changes are made and this one below is now under consideration - basically I want them to add the Congressman's central role in proposing/drafting key envir legis that began the modern envir movement, including drafting this statute, the beginning of the Federal climate change research program in 78, no inconsiderable accomplishment considering what is at stake -- https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg601.pdf -             


Here's a few lines that I wrote to the wiki editor
''August 2016''
 
'''''"A Facebook Post to George"'''''
 
''-- from SJS / GreenPolicy Siterunner''
 
 
''George E Brown is whispering to me. I wonder about this. Voices from beyond how, sometimes when you're working, they whisper to you. You have an idea that comes from somewhere and it's so right in the moment, your skin tingles. George has been talking, whispering to me again as he has in the past, off and on. He was alive when he first started advising on nuclear weapons. I was just debating proliferation of nuclear weapons. I told him what it felt like crawling under a desk covering my head in my hands. The siren was close to our school and when it went off back then, as the Kennedy-Krushchev missile crisis came to a head, I knew LA could be "fried". George was the local politician who got me into politics and we started a 35 yr mentoring. I didn't know the word then, but I learned over the yrs. The advice, the words, the knowledge, the whispering of his real words that came to me over and over and I set out to carry a torch, He was anti-war, anti-nuke, even tho he went on to head up big science in Congress, incl the national labs that oversaw the nuclear energy, nuclear weapons complex. George, I hear you still, I heard you today again as I wrote about [http://strategicdemands.com/end-first-use-nukes/ no first-use]. From high school debate to today, you have been accompanying me on the journey to do what we knew we should do .... and thanks, again, for being the man who proposed and wrote the first [http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:US_Public_Law_95-367.png National Climate Act]. Few knew you then, few know you now -- but what you did w the EPA, and Clean Air, and Climate Study, and Landsat Earth Science and on and on and on is alive today -- and we all have a better chance for a future as a result''
 
 
* http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr


>The Congressman served for more than 30 years on the House Science Committee. See last paragraph here, a NY Times citation - http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/09/science/a-conversation-with-george-e-brown-jr-the-congressman-who-loved-science.html


>Also note and consider this quote from the NY Times (a few months before his death in 1999) >He was an author of legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency, a prime mover behind efforts to include ozone layer protections in the Clean Air Act and an advocate of restructuring the national weapons laboratories to meet the needs of a peacetime economy.


>Also re the current Wikipedia bio wording >Among some of his many accomplishments during his service on the House Science Committee:
[[File:Landsat 50th anniv Sept 2016.jpg]]


>>Established the first federal climate change research program in the Federal Climate Program Act of 1978


>In fact George Brown was the principal author of the initial legislation and leader on this climate change/policy issue (and considering the importance of this subject, climate change, it really should be cross-linked to climate change somehow don't you think?) I will leave this to you, with your experience to decide on links and also wording, ie I'd recommend wording that is more exact -- eg, "author of legislation that established..." and adding a link to the exact Legislative Bill ie, Public Law 95-367 https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg601.pdf (ie, add the statute link to the current link to H.R.6669, the link in the bio is http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d095:HR06669:%7CTOM:/bss/d095query.html) Adding the specific language about his drafting the bill is historically important and would be much more precise than "during his service on the House Science Committee"..."established the first federal climate change program..."
* '''In Memoriam: To [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr Congressman George E. Brown] for his vision and work to launch, grow and protect the LANDSAT program.'''


>Go here for a verification citation from bio info from Brown's Chief of Staff at this time 77-78 >During this earliest period of Mr. Stiles’ service on Capitol Hill, Congressman Brown was the author of legislation in 1977-78 that established the first federal program of research on climate change (Public Law 95-367). http://www.wetlandswatch.org/Portals/3/WW%20documents/veabio.pdf
 
Rep. Brown, as a leader on the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, was a key supporter of the LANDSAT program and its 'open' satellite imagery, science and data that sparked multiple new economies, industries and new ways of seeing and applying science to real-world mapping and rising environmental, eco-nomic challenges.
 
When the LANDSAT program was threatened with dissolution, Congressman Brown led efforts that succeeded in maintaining the pioneering earth science of this first generation of earth study, measuring and monitoring.
 
: [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Landsat_data_users_handbook LANDSAT data users handbook]
 
: [https://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasa-usgs-begin-work-on-landsat-9-to-continue-land-imaging-legacy/ LANDSAT 9, gsfc.nasa.gov]




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http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Landsat_data_users_handbook
SJS: Looking back now, a h/t to our mutual friend, collaborator, and believer in California being "out in front" on environmental security, and space ;- Hat tip and green appreciation to Jerry Brown.
 
: [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Governor_Jerry_Brown California green leadership, Governor Jerry Brown]
 
: [https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/California_out_in_front_in_a_Green_future California out in front of a green future]
 
 
http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article120928688.html
 
 
'''December 2016 / Sacramento Bee'''


''Brown warned against proposed budget cuts under the new presidential administration that could effectively eliminate earth-observing satellite programs.''


http://www.greenpolicy360.net/mw/images/Landsat_band_imagery.png
''He reminded the scientists that he earned his nickname, Governor Moonbeam, in his first governorship for proposing that the state launch its own communications satellite, and even had an ex-astronaut on his payroll as a space adviser. “I didn’t get that moniker for nothing.”''
 
''“And, if Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite,” he added. “We’re going to collect that data.”''
 
''He said if the federal government “starts messing with” the state’s renowned science facilities, such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, “I am the president of the Board of Regents. I am going to say, ‘Keep your hands off. That laboratory is going to pursue good science.’ ”''
 
''Later, he jabbed at former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who before becoming Trump’s pick for Energy Department secretary tried to poach jobs from California. “Rick, I got some news for you,” Brown said. “California is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas. And we’ve got more sun than you have oil.”''
 
 
 
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Latest revision as of 21:34, 23 April 2020


"My friend George"

Congressman from East Los Angeles and for three decades a leader in science and forward-looking Congressional initiatives.

http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr


US Public Law 95-367.png


SJS / GreenPolicy Siterunner:

George brought me into politics in the mid-sixties. I was a high school debater and nuclear proliferation was the topic of the year. George was a trained engineer, who was exceptionally informed about nuclear risks and he became a leader in the anti-Vietnam war effort even as I became one of the organizers of the Vietnam Moratorium Committee.

California during the this era was a focal point of student energy on multiple fronts.


“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system,” Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote as the Great Depression impacted the country.

“A single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”


Many forward-looking ideas came to be and Congressman Brown led efforts to confront a host of profound challenges, from war and peace, to 'big science' (eventually as a chair of the House of Representative's science committee) and the formation of the beginnings of environmental protection laws. This era of environmental vision, establishing agencies, policies and programs were a foundation, a first set of laws originating legal, environmental protections and precedents from green visionaries like Congressman George E. Brown and his network, ranging from NASA to student campuses, Congress to California's first wave of green environmentalism.


Acting to Develop the Knowledge to Make Informed Policy


US climate science action began in earnest in 1977/78.


The 1978 National Climate Program Act began the US government's effort to study climate change. George Brown was out in front addressing the coming challenge, George proposed the federal government's climate program and science community immediately begin to move. He became a leader in drafting legislation, overcoming objections and obstacles.... He foresaw the value of having spaced-based research satellites to monitor the earth and its atmosphere. George's vision set in motion an array of initiatives to face humankind's greatest challenges as he and science supporters looked to a future horizon of national and global security...


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National Climate Program Act

An Act to establish a comprehensive and coordinated national climate policy and program, and for other purposes

95th Congress (1977-1978)


Authored by Rep. George E. Brown (D), Calif


The first climate program passed by the US Congress

National Climate Program Act


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Remembering George Brown and the first 'Earth Day'


Remembering the 'start-up' of the environmental movement...

http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Environmental_movement


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https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/granule/STATUTE-92/STATUTE-92-Pg601/content-detail.html

92 Stat. 601 - National Climate Program Act
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Metadata

Category
Bills and Statutes Collection

United States Statutes at Large

SuDoc Class Number
Publisher (Office of the Federal Register).
U.S. Government Printing Office Congress
95th Congress, 2nd Session, 1978
Dates in Session - Thursday, January 19, 1978 adjourned sine die on Sunday, October 15, 1978
Volume Volume 92
Citation - 92 Stat. 601
Pages - 601 - 605
Law Number Public Law 95-367


National Climate Act


Summary of Act / Congressional Research Service

National Climate Program Act - Directs the President to establish a National Climate Program to develop and operate a comprehensive climate research, monitoring, analysis, and data management program, improve the reliability of predictive capability and the dissemination of climatological information and alerts, and develop a global climate monitoring system.

Requires the Director of the Program to establish Program policies, priorities, and Federal agency involvement. Directs the Director to establish a National Climate Program Interagency Advisory Committee to assist in such duties.

Authorizes the Director to establish other advisory committees to assist in carrying out this Act.

Directs the Secretary of Commerce to establish within the Department of Commerce a National Climate Program Office to administer the program.

Authorizes the Secretary to make annual grants to the States for State climate programs. Requires the State Climate Programs to provide the National Climate Program with specified climate-related information.

Requires the Director and the Secretary to cooperate with the Secretary of State in participating in climate-related international conferences and in coordinating the activities of the Program with climate programs of other nations.

Authorizes appropriations of the Program with climate programs of other nations.

Authorizes appropriations for fiscal years 1978, 1979, and 1980 to carry out the purposes of this Act.


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The National Climate Program Act (Public Law 367 of the Ninety-Fifth Congress), called for the establishment of the National Climate Program (NCP), as well as the Climate Program Advisory Committee and the Climate Program Policy Board.

These entities are to issue periodic reports and plans to "assist the Nation and the world to understand and respond to natural and human-induced climate processes and their implications. (Dessler, 2006)" The act required the secretary of commerce to establish a National Climate Program Office that would coordinate efforts and develop a series of research and climate services, drawing together the strengths of NOAA and other governmental agencies. These responsibilities were delegated to NOAA. The Department of the Interior and its U.S. Geological Survey are among the other agencies assigned specific roles under the NCP.

The NOAA Climate Program conducts research and monitoring related to climate, climate change, and climate impact. It gathers and manages data from surface, marine, upper-air, and satellite observations; issues monthly and seasonal predictions of temperature, precipitation, and other weather indicators; predicts the impact of climate fluctuations on water resources, including fisheries, crop irrigation, and energy demands; and conducts new research.

Five divisions of NOAA contribute to these efforts: the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service; the National Marine Fisheries Service; the National Ocean Service; the National Weather Service; and the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.

Several climate projects under NOAA have yielded important results. Under the direction of the NOAA administration, the United States is part of the Group on Earth Observations, an international organization developing the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), which will collect and manage data around the world. NCP awards grants and fellowships for outside research on the Arctic, on atmospheric composition and climate, on the global climate cycle, and other topics. It also operates the Regional Integrated Sciences and Assessments program, a partnership with American universities to connect with local and regional researchers and policy makers. The Climate Program Office operates separate divisions for climate observations, research, climate assessments and services, planning, and communications and education.

By 1984, pilot programs and new structures, including a strongly linked network of regional monitoring centers, enabled the NCP to produce and disseminate useful climate data (Gerrard, 2007). These data were essential in the growing national and international understanding of the causes and the effects of global warming.

As policy makers became more interested in global warming, they were unable to make use of much of the pure science that NCP was conducting, and they pressed for more information in forms that would help them draft policy. In response, in 1990 Congress created the United States Global Change Research Program to increase understanding of and response to global warming through research presented by NCP.


References

Dessler, Andrew Emory, and Edward Parson. The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change: A Guide to the Debate. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006

Gerrard, Michael. Global Climate Change and U.S. Law. Washington, D.C.: American Bar Association, 2007


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National Climate Program Memorandum From the President

October 31, 1978

Jimmy Carter

Memorandum for the Heads of Departments and Agencies


I have just signed into law the National Climate Program Act (P.L. 95-367). I am pleased to commit the Nation to this Program of improving our understanding of climatic changes, both natural and man-induced...


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National Climate Program Act

House of Representatives, Ninety-Fifth Congress, First Session, Report No. 95-266, May 6, 1977

The purpose of the bill is to establish a national climate program which will enable the nation to respond more effectively to climate-induced problems by improving climate monitoring in order to make the government and private sector aware of fluctuations and anomalies in climate, by augmenting basic and applied research, by improving services relating to climate, and by identifying domestic and international impacts of changes and fluctuations in climate. Other contents of the report are committee actions and recommendations; committee views; oversight findings and recommendations;congressional budget act information; cost and budget data; effect of legislation on inflation; and agency comments.

Publication Date: 1977-01-01

Committee on Science and Technology, Washington, DC


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https://www.amazon.com/National-climate-program-act-Subcommittee/dp/B003XW066A

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/95/hr6669


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August 2016

"A Facebook Post to George"

-- from SJS / GreenPolicy Siterunner


George E Brown is whispering to me. I wonder about this. Voices from beyond how, sometimes when you're working, they whisper to you. You have an idea that comes from somewhere and it's so right in the moment, your skin tingles. George has been talking, whispering to me again as he has in the past, off and on. He was alive when he first started advising on nuclear weapons. I was just debating proliferation of nuclear weapons. I told him what it felt like crawling under a desk covering my head in my hands. The siren was close to our school and when it went off back then, as the Kennedy-Krushchev missile crisis came to a head, I knew LA could be "fried". George was the local politician who got me into politics and we started a 35 yr mentoring. I didn't know the word then, but I learned over the yrs. The advice, the words, the knowledge, the whispering of his real words that came to me over and over and I set out to carry a torch, He was anti-war, anti-nuke, even tho he went on to head up big science in Congress, incl the national labs that oversaw the nuclear energy, nuclear weapons complex. George, I hear you still, I heard you today again as I wrote about no first-use. From high school debate to today, you have been accompanying me on the journey to do what we knew we should do .... and thanks, again, for being the man who proposed and wrote the first National Climate Act. Few knew you then, few know you now -- but what you did w the EPA, and Clean Air, and Climate Study, and Landsat Earth Science and on and on and on is alive today -- and we all have a better chance for a future as a result



Landsat 50th anniv Sept 2016.jpg



Rep. Brown, as a leader on the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, was a key supporter of the LANDSAT program and its 'open' satellite imagery, science and data that sparked multiple new economies, industries and new ways of seeing and applying science to real-world mapping and rising environmental, eco-nomic challenges.

When the LANDSAT program was threatened with dissolution, Congressman Brown led efforts that succeeded in maintaining the pioneering earth science of this first generation of earth study, measuring and monitoring.


LANDSAT data users handbook
LANDSAT 9, gsfc.nasa.gov


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SJS: Looking back now, a h/t to our mutual friend, collaborator, and believer in California being "out in front" on environmental security, and space ;- Hat tip and green appreciation to Jerry Brown.

California green leadership, Governor Jerry Brown
California out in front of a green future


http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article120928688.html


December 2016 / Sacramento Bee

Brown warned against proposed budget cuts under the new presidential administration that could effectively eliminate earth-observing satellite programs.

He reminded the scientists that he earned his nickname, Governor Moonbeam, in his first governorship for proposing that the state launch its own communications satellite, and even had an ex-astronaut on his payroll as a space adviser. “I didn’t get that moniker for nothing.”

“And, if Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite,” he added. “We’re going to collect that data.”

He said if the federal government “starts messing with” the state’s renowned science facilities, such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, “I am the president of the Board of Regents. I am going to say, ‘Keep your hands off. That laboratory is going to pursue good science.’ ”

Later, he jabbed at former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who before becoming Trump’s pick for Energy Department secretary tried to poach jobs from California. “Rick, I got some news for you,” Brown said. “California is growing a hell of a lot faster than Texas. And we’ve got more sun than you have oil.”


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