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"Presidential science adviser John Holdren found himself in some hotter-than-usual water today during a congressional hearing on the Administration's proposed 2011 research budget. Legislators from both sides of the aisle pressed Holdren to explain several recent Administration decisions that they felt had failed to take into account sound science. And their ire was fueled by Holdren's confession that a report on how to improve scientific integrity among federal agencies is almost 8 months overdue. In March of last year President Barack Obama directed Holden to develop guidelines "designed to guarantee scientific integrity throughout the executive branch." The exercise was a reaction to several celebrated incidents during the Bush Administration in which scientists had been muzzled, documents altered, and information withheld from the public. Due in July, the proposed guidelines are still being vetted by senior officials at several agencies. "

Three weeks into his job as head of the White House Office of Science and Technology, presidential science adviser John Holdren has laid out clear positions on myriad issues facing the Obama Administration. Speaking this morning with ScienceInsider, Holdren discussed why he thinks the United States doesn't need to design and build any new nuclear weapons. He warned of likely delays beyond 2015 in replacing the space shuttle after its 2010 retirement and the possibility that U.S. astronauts, in the interim, might arrive at the international space station aboard a Chinese vehicle. He shared his concerns that reporting requirements for spending stimulus money could shackle U.S. scientists. And he lamented the recent decision by the Texas state school board to modify science standards in ways that might undermine the teaching of evolution, warning that it was a "step backwards."

According to Eli Kintisch of Science Magazine and ScienceInsider, President-elect Obama will nominate Dr. John Holdren to be Science Advisor to the President and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Holdren currently serves as the director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program and the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, as well as Director of the Woods Hole Research Center.

The White House science adviser on Thursday acknowledged that the US likely would build new nuclear power plants, but added that challenges to embracing nuclear power remain. "We are probably going to see some new nuclear power plants in this country," said John Holdren, the President Barack Obama's science adviser and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Those new plants will be of a new generation and have better safety characteristics, Holdren told an annual science policy forum that the American Association for the Advancement of Science held in Washington.

President-elect Barack Obama's next senior science adviser, Harvard academic and vociferous climate change advocate John Holdren, is a proponent for clean coal and advanced nuclear energy, according to his previous speeches and policy work. But the types of coal and nuclear generation that Holdren advocates is years away from commercial development, and it's questionable whether he will encourage near-term private-sector expansion of the two sectors. Obama Saturday named the head of the Harvard Kennedy School's Science, Technology, Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as his next Assistant to the President for Science and Technology.

One of the world's top climate scientists has written a personal new year appeal to Barack and Michelle Obama, warning of the "profound disconnect" between public policy on climate change and the magnitude of the problem. With less than three weeks to go until Obama's inauguration, Professor James Hansen, who heads Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, asked the recently appointed White House science adviser Professor John Holdren to pass the missive directly to the president-elect.