Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Big News! Federal race & ethnicity collection standards have CHANGED
Monday, April 15, 2024
National Parks Week
429
That’s number of National Parks in the United States. These include national seashores, historical
sites, and recreation areas. To celebrate
them, the National Parks Service, part of the Department of the Interior, is
devoting April 20th through April 28th as National Park Week.
To kick off the week of celebration, and to showcase the
variety and grandeur of our National Park system, April 20th is a
day of no entrance fee into any of the parks.
(The NPS offers six days in the year with no entrance fees.)
Each day of National Parks Week has a different theme:
Saturday, April 20: Discovery. What will you
discover? A new place, a new interesting fact, a new activity... To kick off
National Park Week and encourage you make that new discovery, entrance fees are
waived on April 20!
Sunday, April 21: Volunteers. Use your time and
talents as a volunteer in your national parks. Find opportunities to volunteer
for a single event or long term position.
Monday, April 22: Earth Day. Join the global celebration encouraging education and stewardship of the planet's natural
resources. Many parks are hosting volunteer events. You can also find ways to
practice conservation at home.
Tuesday, April 23: Innovation. History of our
nation's innovation is preserved in national parks. Also learn about the
innovative projects happening in parks or through our programs today.
Wednesday, April 24: Workforce Wednesday. Meet our
incredible workforce of employees, interns, fellows, volunteers, contractors,
partners, and more. Consider joining our team!
Thursday, April 25: Youth Engagement. Calling the
rising generation of stewards! Learn about the opportunities for youth and young adults to get involved and see what your peers are up to.
Friday, April 26: Community Connections. Learn about
the important work our programs and partners are doing in communities across
the country both within and outside of our park boundaries.
Saturday, April 27: Junior Ranger Day. For kids (and
kids at heart), become a Junior Ranger through in-person or online activities
to learn about special places or topics. You may even earn a Junior Ranger
badge!
Sunday, April 28: Arts in Parks. Home of many arts past and present, find your muse creating arts within parks. Also learn about
preserving and practicing arts in your communities through the work of our
programs and partners.
13 of these National Parks are in Texas. They are Alibates Flint Quarries National
Monument in Fritch, Amistad National Recreation Area in Del Rio, Big Bend National Park in the big bend of the Rio Grande near Alpine, Big Thicket National Preserve in Beaumont, Blackwell School National Historic
Site at Fort Davis, Butterfield Overland Historic Trail that covers Missouri,
Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, Chamizal
National Memorial in El Paso, El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic
Trail in Texas and Louisiana, El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro National
Historic Trail in Texas and New Mexico, Fort Davis National Historic Site in Fort
Davis, Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Salt Flat, Lake Meredith
National Recreation Area in Fritch, Lyndon B Johnson National Historical
Park in Johnson City, Padre Island National Seashore in Corpus Christi, Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park in Brownsville, Rio Grande
Wild and Scenic River in Southwest Texas, San Antonio Missions National
Historical Park in San Antonio, and Waco Mammoth National Monument in Waco.
Big Bend National Park/Photo by Caleb Fisher on Unsplash
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Do You Have the Time?
Time stands still for no one. Nor is it ever the same. Because time varies so much on Earth, UTC, or Coordinated Universal Time, was defined as time at mean sea level. UTC is only a theoretical ideal. To realize it, International Atomic Time (TAI) weighs the average of hundreds of atomic clocks around the world. UTC must periodically insert “leap seconds” to keep it aligned with Earth solar days since the rate of the Earth’s rotation changes, and solar days are not always the same.
As if that isn’t complicated enough, measurement of Time in
space differs depending on where you are.
The experience of time is slower where there is more gravity, so a
second is longer on Earth than it is on the Moon. It also is different from both these places
if someone is moving through space at a high rate of speed.
Since many governments, including the United States, and
commercial entities are interested in returning to the Moon and establishing a
presence there, as well as using it as a stopping point for going to Mars,
there needs to be a standard measurement of time in space, specifically in
cislunar space (i.e. the space lying between and the Earth and the Moon
including the Moon’s orbit). The White
House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has released a directive for NASA and the Departments of Commerce, Defense, State, and Transportation to
establish and be ready to implement a unified time standard -- Coordinated
Lunar Time (LTC) – by December 31, 2026.
NASA will also coordinate with the countries who have signed the ArtemisAccords. Time standardization is necessary for safety purposes, as well as
economic development and international collaboration. According to the OSTP policy memorandum:
“The approach to establish time standards consists of the
definition, development, and implementation of a distinct reference time at
each celestial body and its surrounding space environment. Each new time
standard developed will include the following features:
1. Traceability to Coordinated
Universal Time (UTC);
2. Accuracy sufficient to support
precision navigation and science;
3. Resilience to loss of contact
with Earth; and
4. Scalability to space
environments beyond the Earth-Moon system
Federal agencies will develop celestial time standardization
with an initial focus on the lunar surface and missions operating in Cislunar
space, with sufficient traceability to support missions to other celestial
bodies.”
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy was
created by the National Science and Technology Policy, Organization, andPriorities Act of 1976. The OSTP heads
the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) and its Subcommittee on
Cislunar Science & Technology. The Subcommittee
developed the National Cislunar Science and Technology Strategy on which
the new policy memorandum builds.
White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Releases Celestial Time Standardization Policy
Thursday, March 28, 2024
It's Complicated: Modernization Requires Legal Statute(s)
Monday, March 18, 2024
Junk Fees to be Scrapped
Everyone – students, families, Democrats, Republicans, Representatives, Senators, the President, even universities and colleges themselves – agree that higher education is too expensive. Both the legislative and executive branches have pledged to implement policies that lower those costs. Last Thursday, theBiden-Harris Administration announced their plans to help in this area with strategies to “crack down on junk fees.” These junk fees include non-refunded meal account funds, bank fees associated with using a college-sponsored credit card or banking account, automatic charges for textbooks and supplies included in tuition, and finance charges for taking out a student loan.
Colleges and
universities often partner with banks for disbursement of financial aid through
credit or debit cards. Unfortunately,
many of these bank cards include excessive and/or hidden fees that can cost
students significantly. Problems with
these fees have recently been reported to Congress by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and were reported by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) as far back as 2014.
Another, often
hidden, fee students and parents incur is the loan origination fee. This administrative fee can be from 1 to 4
percent of the amount of the loan and is frequently added to the loan amount
and, therefore, continuously incurs interest throughout the life of the
loan. According to the Biden-Harris
Administration “These fees are a relic of an era when the government
compensated private lenders to issue these loans. Today, this fee is
nothing more than a tax imposed on students by the government, costing
consumers more
than $1 billion annually.”
Colleges and universities are not on board with all the
Administration’s plans, however. For
instance, universities would now be required to return all unused “flex dollars”
in the students’ meal plan accounts.
Moreover, students would have to opt-in to include textbook fees into
their tuition charges. The
Administration and the Department of Education say this will allow students to
be aware of what prices they pay for textbooks and allow them to find cheaper
sources for materials. Universities contend that this will impede their ability to provide students with materials
at below market prices on the first day of class.
These announced strategies build upon regulations released in late 2023 which include investing
in the Open Textbooks Pilot Program to lower textbook costs, requiring
universities to adhere to more stringent requirements of transparency on all
college costs, requiring universities when they act as lenders to adhere to federal consumer financial protection
laws, and preventing colleges from withholding transcripts of courses
paid for with federal money.
Monday, March 11, 2024
While not quite ready to rival McDonalds' number of hamburgers sold yet
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Soldiers of the Houston Riot of 1917 Finally Receive Some Justice
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Want to Help the Future Farmers of America?
During the Depression of the 1930’s, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created to invigorate the economy, create paying jobs so Americans could live and support their families, and, in response to the agricultural situation caused by the Dust Bowl, revitalize farmland across the country. Today’s farmers and ranchers again face economic difficulties and climate change realities, including devastating droughts. Hence the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has created another corps for today’s problems – the Working Lands Climate Corps.
The Working Lands Climate Corps falls under the umbrella of
the American Climate Corps which was founded by the Biden-Harris administration
to “to train young people in high-demand skills for jobs in the clean energy
economy. The American Climate Corps will put a new generation of Americans to
work conserving our lands and waters, bolstering community resilience,
advancing environmental justice, deploying clean energy, implementing energy
efficient technologies, and tackling climate change. American Climate Corps
members will gain the skills necessary to access good-paying jobs that are
aligned with high-quality employment opportunities after they complete their
paid training or service program.”
Specifically, the Working Lands Climate Corps will train
young people to help farmers and ranchers use climate-smart agricultural
practices that are also economically beneficial. The members of the Working Lands Climate
Corps will learn practical skills and create a pathway to a career in
agriculture. The first cohort will
contain 100 people.
Farmers, ranchers, and rural communities are often left
behind by government programs, yet the impact of climate change
disproportionately affects them. The
goals of the USDA are to transform America’s food system into a more equitable
one whose workforce is representative of the nation and who can compete fairly
in new and existing markets. The agency
wishes to emphasize local and regional farms and ranches that are more
resilient and can provide safe, healthy, and nutritious food to all Americans
using climate-smart food and forestry practices. The agency has pledged to provide historic
investments in infrastructure and clean energy capabilities to rural communities
to accomplish these goals.
Interested organizations can submit grant proposals to host workers of the WLCC cohort. These host organizations can be “nonprofit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) U.S. organizations, Tribal governments, units of state or local government, and special district governments. Applicants must have an active SAM.gov registration.” The hosts will provide the WLCC workers training in “climate-smart agriculture practices, conservation and resilience planning, environmental justice, outreach with farmers and rural communities, leadership development, and more.”
The organization and running of the WLCC program will include cooperation among such government and non-profit agencies such as USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), AmeriCorps, The Corps Network and the National Association of ConservationDistricts (NACD). The NACD will be a major contributor to the effort because of their relationships with “conservation districts” that go all the way back to the days of the CCC.
Monday, January 29, 2024
Library of Congress Creates Covid-19 Oral History Project
Oral histories, which record the intimate perceptions of
people who have gone through a significant event, are a very important part of understanding
history. The goal of oral history
projects is often to record the experiences of a group of people affected
before they all pass away. Some examples
of these are the Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers'
Project, 1936-1938 collected by the Federal Government during the Depression, The
Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive held at United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum which collects testimonies of Jews, Roma, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals,
political prisoners, liberators, collaborators, witnesses, and rescuers, and
the Vietnamese American Heritage Foundation oral history collection of
a series of interviews from 2011 called "500 Oral Histories
Project" (the Houston area interviews are housed at Rice University’s
Woodson Research Center in Fondren Library).
However, the closer the collection of stories can be to the
time the events took place the better for time always affects one’s perspective
on events. Therefore, the Library of
Congress has recently partnered with the non-profit company StoryCorps to
create an archive of stories from anyone effected by the recent Covid-19
pandemic in order to record these stories as soon as possible. These stories will become part of the
American Folklife Center collections and will be made available through
StoryCorps archive. Stories may be recorded at
the Covid-19 Archive Activation website.
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden stated “Curators and
specialists at the Library of Congress are skilled at documenting history as it
happens. Recording the voices and stories of Americans’ experiences with the
COVID-19 pandemic for our national collections will honor this history and
ensure these stories will not be forgotten. We are proud to collaborate with
StoryCorps on this important work to build this archive of oral histories.” Nicole Saylor, director of the American
Folklife Center at the Library of Congress says “We are particularly interested
in doing this work through people’s stories, as storytelling is a crucial
medium of communication and central to the work of the American Folklife
Center.”
The collection is meant to commemorate and honor those lost
to the illness, those whose lives were unalterably affected by the pandemic and
those who worked the front lines during the crisis. Moreover, preserving the stories will be an
essential primary source to future generations attempting to analyze and
understand the events on a national level.
Anyone and everyone are encouraged to participate in the
project, for a variety of voices with a variety of experiences and a variety of
perspectives will create the fullest resource from which historians,
researchers, and others interested in the events can draw.
Monday, January 22, 2024
No More Driving With Cake
However, soon you will no longer be able to see these
signs. In the recently updated manual of
the U.S. Federal Highway Administration , guidelines were published banning
them. Electronic signs with
"obscure meanings, references to pop culture or those intended to be
funny" are required to be phased out within the next couple of years and
all signs must be "simple, direct, brief, legible and clear," to
"relay important information."
These changes were released by the U.S. Department of Transportation
on December 19, 2023 and published in the Federal Register on the same
day. (The Federal Register daily publishes
changes to the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.) The regulations went into effect on January
18, 2024.
Although these new regulations may make your driving
experience less entertaining, the Houston Chronicle has reported that when
electronic traffic signs report information other than current traffic situations
or weather conditions, such as the number of fatalities on Texas roads up to a
certain date, risk of traffic accidents increases.
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
GovInfo Reaches Record Number of Hits
Since 1994 the Government Publishing Office or GPO (formerly the Government Printing Office) has been providing trustworthy government information online for free to anyone. The GPO is a government agency falling under the legislative branch of government and by law provides free access to government documents produced by all three branches of government. Until the onset of electronic access, the only way to accomplish this was through the Federal Depository Library Program whereby documents are sent to designated government libraries across the country. Now, in conjunction with the FDLP, government information is widely available online through the site GovInfo.gov.
Last year a record number of 1.15 billion retrievals were accessed through GovInfo. This is an
increase of 32% over 2022 and an increase of 215% over 2018! The most popular
source of information in 2023 was the Federal Register (the Federal Register is
a daily compilation of documents produced by the Executive branch including
changes to federal regulations, notices from federal agencies, executive orders
and other presidential documents).
The GPO’s electronic dissemination of information began in
1994 with the creation of GPOAccess. In
2009 the next generation system, the Federal Digital System (FDsys), was introduced. In 2016, the current site GovInfo was
launched. But the GPO is not only
assigned the duty of spreading government information; it is also given the responsibility
to preserve government documents for future posterity, including those
documents born digital. In 2019 GovInfo
was the first US digital depository, and the second in the world, to be certified
as having the “highest global standard of excellence possible” in providing access
and preservation to these important materials.
Thursday, January 04, 2024
Transition to EVs
On this date in 1996, GM announced the production and sale of it’s first mass produced electric vehicle, the EV1. The EV1 would be produced from the fall of that year until the fall of 2003. However, it was available only in Arizona and California and only as a lease vehicle.
The EV1 was not the actual first electric vehicle. Clara Ford, the wife of Henry Ford, herself
drove a 1914 Detroit Electric, which got 80 miles a charge, until the mass production
of gas-powered engines led by her husband drove the burgeoning electric vehicle
industry out of business.
Since 2003, all electric vehicles and hybrid gas/electric
vehicles have grown in popularity in large part due to federal support of the
industry. Several US departments are
involved in the funding of and financial incentives for electric vehicles and the
infrastructure needed for them. These include,
the Department of Transportation (USDOT), the Federal Aviation Administration
(FAA), the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), the Federal Transit
Administration (FTA), the Maritime Administration (MARAD), the Department of Energy
(DOE), the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA), the Small Business Administration (SBA), the Department of
Commerce (DOC), the Department of Labor (DOL), the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Some agencies may seem only tangentially connected to the
shift to electric vehicles. For example,
the FAA is in charge of implementation of use of vehicles and creation of
charging stations at airports while MARAD has the same responsibility at marine
ports. The USDA works with agricultural
communities to transition to electric vehicles.
The FTA works specifically with transitioning public transportation,
such as buses, including school buses, to EVs.
Other agencies indirectly affect the use of electric
vehicles through the support of business and commerce. The DOC supports innovation and competition
among companies in general while the SBA specifically supports small businesses
in creating and supporting technology for EV infrastructure. The DOL supports
research and development for the workforce in larger facilities with more
workers. HUD eases the expense of
purchasing and installing chargers for renters, homeowners, and multifamily
property owners. And, of course, the IRS
administers tax incentive programs for the purchase of EVs.
Cooperation among the agencies directly involved in creation
and maintenance of the infrastructure needed for implementation of a complete
transfer to low or zero emission vehicles is essential and was the impetus
behind the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) which created the Joint Office of Energy and Transportation, a collaboration of USDOT and DOE. The FHWA also works with these agencies on EV
infrastructure across the US highway system.
Finally, the EPA, through its ENERGY STAR Program, develops energy efficiency
specifications for charging equipment and helps the States with the purchase of
ENERGY STAR certified chargers.
Information on the laws and regulations for incentives and
tax credits for EVs may be found here.
Environmental Statutes and Executive Orders Relevant to EVInfrastructure