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2016–2017 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow Report
Dr. Smith Goes
to Washington
Kirstin L. Neff
As the 2016–2017 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow, I
arrived in D.C. for orientation and placement in September 2016,
just two short months before the presidential election that took
most of America and the world by surprise. I began my placement
in the office of Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), where I am work-
ing on water, space, science, and technology issues, at a time
when many staffers had taken leave to go work on campaigns
across the country. With the national focus on the campaign, I had
ample time to settle into the process and culture of “the Hill.”
After the election, congressional offices quickly filled with staff- Mexico Supreme Court case on the Rio Grande and the develop-
ers returning to a very different political reality than most had
expected, and the final work period of the 114th Congress took on
the high-strung nature of what is called a “lame duck session.”
It’s easy to arrive in D.C. with the optimism that your unique
perspective can shake up the system, not unlike the titular charac-
ter of the classic film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Instead, I’ve
learned that an understanding of the system and how to operate
within it is critical to getting anything accomplished in
Washington, where process and procedure rule.
It didn’t take long for my own idealism to be confronted with
a legislative moment seemingly perfectly designed to bring me
down to reality. In December, in the last hours of the 114th
Congress, the House of Representatives seemed poised to pass a
version of the Water Resources Development Act of 2016 that
represented years of bipartisan work and compromise, led by
Senate Environment and Public Works Chairman James Inhofe
(R-OK) and Ranking Member Barbara Boxer (D-CA). The bill
would be Boxer’s final piece of legislation before retirement
after 34 years in Congress, the last 24 of which were in the
Senate. Assuming responsibility for the water portfolio in my
office, I was excited to be involved in eleventh-hour, late-night
votes so soon in my tenure. However, as the Senate prepared to
vote on the House-passed legislation, renamed the Water
Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act, or WIIN Act, it
became clear that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Rep. Kevin
McCarthy (R-CA) had inserted what Boxer called a “poison pill”
rider that she argued would undermine protections for the Delta
smelt, an endangered native fish species in the Sacramento–San
Joaquin Delta in California, which has long pitted environmen-
talists against Central Valley farmers in search of more water for
irrigation during a historic drought.
Having moved to D.C. from California, I was well aware of this
issue and was torn over the vote. Our office, along with a biparti-
san coalition representing states along the San Juan River in the
Four Corners region, had succeeded in lobbying for our bill to
compensate communities along that river that had been affected
by 2014’s Gold King Mine spill to be included in the WIIN Act.
Our office wanted to make sure our constituents would get
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compensation for the damages caused by the release of acid mine
drainage into their river, and we therefore supported the bill. The
WIIN Act passed after a 1:00 a.m. vote, and I returned home in
the wee hours with a new appreciation for the difficult compro-
mises necessary to pass legislation in this political climate.
While votes tend to make the headlines, I’ve found that a major-
ity of the work I do as a legislative staffer never makes it to the
Senate floor. This work includes meeting with constituents and
interest groups who have a stake in federal programs or legisla-
tion, conducting oversight of the executive branch, and advocating
for our constituents with federal agencies. In water resources,
there is a complex web of interactions between federal, state, and
local authorities. My work includes facilitating federal dam opera-
tions, tracking interstate water issues like the Texas vs. New
ment of drought contingency plans along the Colorado River, as
well as helping small water providers in rural New Mexico get the
funding they need to comply with Safe Drinking Water Act regu-
lations. Without a legislative win to point to, it can be hard to eval-
uate the job you are doing, but in the end what matters is serving
the Senator’s constituents in whatever way you can.
One of the great strengths of the Congressional Science
Fellowship is that the GSA-USGS Fellow receives training in sci-
ence policy and communication along with other fellows, spon-
sored by a number of different scientific societies. Through the
experiences of my fellow Fellows, I have gotten exposure to many
different science policy avenues throughout Capitol Hill and the
administration. My colleagues hosted in executive branch agen-
cies have had a front seat to a presidential transition, and under-
standing that branch of government and its processes has helped
me to be a more effective congressional staffer. The opportunities
I’ve had to collaborate with my congressional colleagues, includ-
ing recently on the Scientific Integrity Act, have shown me the
power of having not just one, but a cadre, of scientists working on
the Hill. As I sit here six months into my fellowship, I’m excited
to continue developing my skills as a representative of the geosci-
ences community and as an effective congressional staffer.
The manuscript is submitted for publication by Kirstin Neff,
2016–2017 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow, with the
understanding that the U.S. government is authorized to repro-
duce and distribute reprints for governmental use. The one-year
fellowship is supported by GSA and the U.S. Geological Survey,
Department of the Interior, under Assistance Award Number
G16AP00179. The views and conclusions contained in this docu-
ment are those of the author and should not be interpreted as
necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or
implied, of the U.S. government. Neff works in the office of Sen.
Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and can be contacted by e-mail at
Kirstin_ Neff@heinrich.senate.gov.
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