Over the past month, the draft report of the National Assessment Synthesis Team (NAST) has completed a second round of reviews by a select panel of experts chosen by a sub-panel of the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST) and has been reviewed separately by the federal representatives to the interagency Subcommittee on Global Change Research. Revisions are expected to be completed by mid-May and the draft report will then be made available over the Web for a 60-day public comment period. Both the Overview Report, which totals about 120 pages, and the 18 chapters of the Foundation Report that provides more detailed materials have been reviewed, are being revised, and will be available for public comment. The public comment period will begin June 12 and the report is going to be able to be accessed at http://www.gcrio.org/NationalAssessment/. The Synthesis Team will be meeting May 31 and June 1 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington DC to review progress on the report and make plans for completion and publication of the report later this year.
 

Progress also continues on the regional and sectoral reports. At the regional level, the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Mid-Atlantic regional assessment reports have already been prepared, reviewed, published, and distributed. The draft reports of several other regions are undergoing review by those involved in the assessment, by local stakeholders, and by nearby regions (interest in participating in the technical review of any of the regional report drafts should be conveyed to the team leaders for the particular region). The drafts of the agricultural, coastal, human health, and water resources underlying papers and reports are all at various stages in the review process, with publication expected over the next several months. The forest report has been submitted as a set of papers to appear in the peer-reviewed literature and the papers are at various stages along the way toward publication.