Today we’re asking members of our Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) — and anyone else with an interest in seeing fundamental research and research infrastructure budgets reflect their critical importance to the long-term health of U.S. economy and quality of life — to contact their representatives in Congress and urge their support for science funding in the nearly $900 billion stimulusbill now making its way through Congress. Here’s the full text of the Action Alert we’ve sent our CRAN members:
COMPUTING RESEARCH ADVOCACY NETWORK
**ACTION ALERT**
THE SITUATION:
Congress is preparing to pass economic stimulus legislation that contains significant funding increases for scientific research (including computing) and research infrastructure. It is critical to urge your Members of Congress to support the scientific investments in the bill. (This is not the time to contact the agencies with proposals for spending these increases. There is no additional money right now. And there won’t be if we as a community fail to make our voices heard in Congress.)
BACKGROUND:
The American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act passed by the House of Representatives last week provides “catch-up” funding for NSF, DOE Office of Science, NIH, and NIST that would put those agencies back on a trajectory that would double their budgets over the next 7 years — a budget trajectory that was authorized by the 2007 “America COMPETES Act” but never funded. The House version of this stimulus bill includes:
$2 billion in science funding at DOE’s Office of Science, including $100 million for the Advanced Scientific Computing;
$3 billion for NSF, of which $2.0 billion would go into core research programs, $300 million to the Major Research Instrumentation program and an additional $200 million to academic research facilities modernization;
$100 million for NIST’s core research programs, $300 million for facilities, and another $70 million for the Technology Innovation Program and $30 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership;
$1.5 billion to NIH for grants to improve university research facilities and another $1.5 billion in new research funding.
These numbers are incredibly good for the research community and we need your help to make sure that this funding makes it through the rest of the process. The Senate version of the American Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act does NOT include all of this funding so your assistance in contacting Capitol Hill will be critical to maintaining this level of funding in the conference process.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
The most important thing you can do now is call or write your representatives in the House and Senate and urge them to support the House funding levels for science. A sample letter you can use can be found here (rich text file) — please complete it using your own information and FAX it to your Representative and Senators’ offices as soon as possible. Please also fax a copy of your letter to CRA’S Melissa Norr at 202.667.1066 — having copies of letters from our community is incredibly helpful in our advocacy activities on the Hill.
To identify your Representative and Senators visit Write Your Rep (House) and the Senate Directory
If you have any trouble figuring out your Members of Congress or their contact information, please don’t hesitate to contact Melissa (mnorr@cra.org) for help.
WHAT NOT TO DO:
Now is not the time for contacting the agencies involved with proposals for spending these potential increases. If and when these increases are realized, the agencies will put in place processes to accept proposals for funding — and CRA will keep you informed. But, until then, the agencies are sharply limited in the advice and help they can provide. Please instead focus your efforts on ensuring that your representatives in Congress have heard from you on the importance of supporting research and research infrastructure!
It is important that we generate letters from as many institutions as possible. Because the Senate has come out with sharply reduced numbers in their version of the bill, there will be temptation in the conference process to reduce or trade away big science increases for gains elsewhere in the bill. Significant participation rates in this effort will help keep the pressure on Members to continue to support science in the bill.
If you’re not currently a member of the Computing Research Advocacy Network, joining is easy!
We’ll have more updates as the process moves forward. But the community needs your support now! Update: (2/7/09) — Thanks to all who have participated so far — here are the details on the final Senate bill.
We’ve seen the House version of the 2009 stimulus bill. Now we’ve gotten our first glimpse of the highlights (though no full text) for the Senate version. As expected, the numbers in the Senate version are not as generous as the House numbers. Here is the breakdown: The Department of Energy: The Senate highlights show $40 billion for development of clean, efficient, American energy but no breakdown on how that will be spent or how much might go to basic research. The National Science Foundation: $1.4 billion for grants and infrastructure at NSF which is less than the $3 billion in the House version.
Additionally, NASA and NIH each get $1.5 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively, but NIST would not receive any additional funds in the Senate bill. A handy comparison chart is available at Inside Higher Education. We will have more here as the full text of the Senate bill is released and we can do a more thorough breakdown and comparison. Update: More detail about the final Senate bill
Forgive the CRA-centric content, but we’re looking to fill a new position here at CRA World Headquarters. Here’s the official announcement:
The Computing Research Association works to strengthen research and advanced education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policy maker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in our society. CRA is a non-profit association of over 250 members.
CRA is seeking an Executive Assistant to perform a wide variety of administrative support duties from routine to complex. While the Executive Assistant will work with all other staff members, the employee will report directly to the Executive Director. Major duties include: monitoring grants to ensure timely processing of invoices and submission of reports; monitoring websites to ensure full and accurate information; processing and monitoring reimbursements for a wide range of activities; processing membership invoices and payments; organizing, scheduling and coordinating program activities, meetings and travel arrangements; serving as a point of contact for program participants and volunteers; gathering and maintaining program data and budget information; assisting with advertising/promotion of the various activities of the organization; monitoring staff benefits such as health care.
Job Requirements: progressive experience in an administrative position (non-profit/academic experience is a plus); excellent written and verbal communication skills and ability to communicate effectively with individuals from diverse backgrounds and cultures; excellent organization skills with attention to detail; excellent computer skills with experience using MS Office applications; ability to function as a team player; well organized and able to meet deadlines and work well under pressure; ability to work without direct supervision while performing at a high level.
The position requires someone with a proven track record in:
1) assuming responsibility;
2) taking the initiative;
3) following up on outstanding tasks;
4) demonstrating reliability;
5) performing tasks in a timely manner;and
6) taking ownership of responsibilities.
For further information about CRA, see our website www.cra.org.
To apply, send your resume to employment@cra.org. The position will fill when a suitable candidate is found.
CRA’s a great place to work with a friendly staff, a highly-engaged and prominent board, and an increasing presence in Washington. So, if you think this position sounds like a perfect fit for you or someone you know, please take a few minutes to respond or pass it along.
The House Appropriations Committee has released the bill text (pdf) and the accompanying committee report (pdf) for the Stimulus and Recovery Plan released today. They provide a little finer view of what’s actually in the stimulus bill. But ultimately, the House appropriators and leadership have left some discretion to the agency management to decide how to spend the new funding, which is probably a good thing. In summary, though, this looks awfully good to us and will likely go a long way towards recharging the Nation’s innovation engine.
Here’s what we know: The Department of Energy — The Office of Science would see an increase of $2 billion under this plan. Called out specifically in the bill (but not in the accompanying report) is a $100 million increase for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program. The only other program in Science to get a specific call-out is the brand new Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), which would receive $400 million. The rest is presumably up to the Director’s discretion.
Additionally in DOE Energy Programs, the Smart Grid Investment Program, which would support efforts to add IT and other intelligence to the power grid, would receive a $4.5 billion increase under the plan. The National Science Foundation — NSF would see an increase of $3 billion overall (so, it would become an ~ $9 billion agency, for one year, at least — more on that below). Of the $3 billion, $2.5 billion would go to the Research and Related Activities Account, home of NSF’s core research efforts. Of that $2.5 billion, 300 million would go to the Major Research Instrumentation program and an additional $200 million for academic research facilities modernization. This leaves an additional $2.0 billion to be spread among the research directorates for their core programs!
NSF’s Education and Human Resources program would see a $100 million boost — $60 million for Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarships and $40 million to the Math and Science Partnerships program.
NSF’s Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction account would see a boost of $400 million to start “approved projects” or projects that are close to completing their design review, though none are named in the bill or the report. The National Institute of Standards and Technology — NIST would see a boost of $100 million to its core research programs, plus another $100 million to be split between the Technology Innovation Program (TIP – the revamped Advanced Technology Program), and $30 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. In addition, NIST would get $300 million for facilities repair and construction, so maybe they’ll actually be able to keep that $100 million for core research, instead of using it to pay for broken buildings or ATP/TIP/MEP. The National Institutes of Health — NIH would receive $1.5 billion for grants to improve university research facilities and another $1.5 billion in new research funding.
So, this all looks really good to us. However, in our meetings with congressional staff over the last couple of weeks, there has been some concern about managing expectations about the sustainability of any of this funding beyond the stimulus. There are no promises that this stimulus funding will establish a new baseline funding level for these science agencies. There is the possibility that this truly is “one and done.” The report language doesn’t speak to that directly, but seems to suggest that the idea with this influx of research funding in what was thought to be simply an “infrastructure” bill is to reestablish a trajectory towards the doubling targets in the America COMPETES Act. If that’s the case, we should expect that future appropriations bills will start with a funding level of $9 8 billion for NSF, for example (because $1 billion of the $3 billion increase is for a “one-time” infrastructure investment, while the remaining $2 billion is a research investment), and not revert back to the $6 billion pre-stimulus level. Hard to know exactly what the intent is and it’s hard to reach the appropriations staff to hear it from them directly. So what we have is the language for NSF, which is posted below for your own interpretation.
In other news, the “pre-conferencing” — or the bulk of negotiations between the Senate and House over differing priorities — for the FY 2009 omnibus appropriations bill is done, but the leadership is holding off moving it until after the stimulus is finished. We’re getting mixed signals on that one, too. While it’s likely the FY 09 Omnibus will include funding for science above the FY 08 levels (which were flat or a cut compared to FY 07), it might not be as much as either the House or Senate appropriations committees have separately agreed on in early versions of the bill because of the need to pay for other significant disagreements elsewhere in the bill. A dispute over what the Senate percieves as a $500 million shortfall in funding for the U.S. Census in the House version of the bill is one such sticking point that could impact science funding levels.
And then there’s the matter of the FY 10 budget, which will be released in skeletal form in early February and then fleshed out significantly by the new Administration in April. If the FY 10 budget numbers use the stimulus-increased numbers as the new baseline — if they ignore the FY 09 approps numbers, which were marked up pre-stimulus, in other words — then we really will be on the trajectory to realize the promise of COMPETES. If, however, they use the FY 09 approps levels as the baseline for FY 10, then it will mean that the stimulus funding for research was just a one-time bump, and we’ll likely have a near impossible task getting anywhere near those numbers again in FY10.
In any case, that’s what we know from a couple quick reads of the bill and report and conversations with congressional staff over the last week or so. None of this is a done deal until the ink is dry, and there will be much fighting about the final program levels before this is passed sometime between President’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day…. but it’s a very very nice place to start.
More detail as we learn more. Oh, and the NSF report language follows after the jump.
The House Democratic leadership has released an official stimulus summary and it looks great. It includes $10 billion in new spending for science, including $3 billion in new money for NSF — “including $2 billion for expanding employment opportunities in fundamental science and engineering to meet environmental challenges and to improve global economic competitiveness, $400 million to build major research facilities that perform cutting edge science, $300 million for major research equipment shared by institutions of higher education and other scientists, $200 million to repair and modernize science and engineering research facilities at the nations institutions of higher education and other science labs, and $100 million is also included to improve instruction in science, math and engineering” — and $6 billion for broadband deployment.
Here is a PDF of the summary and we’ll have more details on this as it begins moving forward.
According to Science Magazine’s Eli Kintisch, physicist John Holdren, from Harvard’s Kennedy School and director of the Woods Hole Research Center, will be nominated Science Advisor to the President by president-elect Barack Obama on Saturday.
Here’s some background from Science:
Holdren is well known for his work on energy, climate change, and nuclear proliferation. Trained in fluid dynamics and plasma physics, Holdren branched out into policy early in his career. He has led the Woods Hole Research Center for the past 3 years and served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceInsider) in 2006.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) spoke of their intent to increase federal support for science at Princeton University yesterday as part of the universitys Innovation Agenda roundtable. Both Pelosi and Holt have been vocal in their support of basic science research in the past but under the Bush Administration have struggled to translate that support into appropriations levels that match the America COMPETES authorization levels. Its a potential problem moving forward as well as Pelosi stated:
“I have said over and over again, if you want to know the agenda for this new Congress, remember four words: science, science, science and science,” Pelosi said. However, referring obliquely to current crises, she warned there would be competition for resources in the coming months and that supporters of science must become active advocates for science research funding.
Holt, a physicist and former Princeton staff member, pointed out the economic importance of research, stating:
“We should make a commitment as a nation to research and development,” said Holt, a physicist and former assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. “Science and scientific research,” he continued, “are not luxuries to be engaged in in plush times, but rather they are the basis for economic growth, economic prosperity and quality of life.”
Princeton has a press release with more details on the event here.
Carnegie Mellon CS Chair (and CRA Government Affairs Chair) Peter Lee and Berkeley’s Randy Katz have been doing some thinking about the sorts of problems in computing it might be useful for a future DARPA Director to understand. Their inspiration comes from a book written by Katz’s colleague, Richard Muller, called Physics for Future Presidents, which describes the “science behind the headlines — the tools of terrorists, the dangers of nuclear power, and the reality of global warming.” Katz and Lee want to know: “Shouldn’t there also be a computer science (or, more broadly, an IT) version of this book?”
They believe there should and have proposed one that
summarizes key IT technology trends that most urgently affect the national defense,
analyzes IT technology roadmaps that are nearing their end, and the consequences of that end, and
attempts to identify areas of possible “technological surprise” that is, soft points in the defense IT research portfolio.
They’ve generated some interest in such a project from the agency and are looking for further input from others within the community.
I think this is a great idea and hope you’ll visit Lee’s blog and add your thoughts. The time to produce something that might be useful to the new administration is very short, obviously, but the opportunity to get the attention of the new agency leadership (whomever it may turn out to be) focused on important, compelling issues in computing makes it worth the effort.
Google hosted a town hall style panel discussion today at its Washington, DC office. The discussion was based on technology policy in 2009 with a new Administration and Congress but focused almost exclusively on broadband deployment and a smart electric grid. The panel had six speakers: Gigi Sohn (President, Public Knowledge), Jennifer Canty (CEO, Dyscern), Ben Scott (Policy Director, Free Press), Stephen Ezell (Senior Analyst, ITIF), Harry Wingo (Policy Counsel, Google), and Michael Oldak (Senior Director, Edison Electric Institute). Questions were taken from a moderator, from the audience, and from online submissions through Google Moderator.
The consensus seemed to be that broadband availability needs to improve throughout the country but that broadband adoption by consumers was also a large issue that needed to be tackled. Additionally, regulations need to be implemented to keep the Internet as an open system without false controls.
The other topic discussed was the need for a smart, efficient electricity infrastructure that uses alternative, renewable energy sources and that has the ability to regulate energy use during peak times.
The discussion was recorded and is supposed to be available on YouTube, however, it does not seem to have been posted yet. Well provide the link when it becomes available.
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Action Alert!: Urge Your Representatives to Support Science in the Stimulus!
/In: Action Alerts, Economic Stimulus and Recovery, Funding, FY09 Appropriations /by Peter HarshaToday we’re asking members of our Computing Research Advocacy Network (CRAN) — and anyone else with an interest in seeing fundamental research and research infrastructure budgets reflect their critical importance to the long-term health of U.S. economy and quality of life — to contact their representatives in Congress and urge their support for science funding in the nearly $900 billion stimulus bill now making its way through Congress. Here’s the full text of the Action Alert we’ve sent our CRAN members:
It is important that we generate letters from as many institutions as possible. Because the Senate has come out with sharply reduced numbers in their version of the bill, there will be temptation in the conference process to reduce or trade away big science increases for gains elsewhere in the bill. Significant participation rates in this effort will help keep the pressure on Members to continue to support science in the bill.
If you’re not currently a member of the Computing Research Advocacy Network, joining is easy!
We’ll have more updates as the process moves forward. But the community needs your support now!
Update: (2/7/09) — Thanks to all who have participated so far — here are the details on the final Senate bill.
Senate Stimulus Highlights Released
/In: Economic Stimulus and Recovery, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrWe’ve seen the House version of the 2009 stimulus bill. Now we’ve gotten our first glimpse of the highlights (though no full text) for the Senate version. As expected, the numbers in the Senate version are not as generous as the House numbers. Here is the breakdown:
The Department of Energy: The Senate highlights show $40 billion for development of clean, efficient, American energy but no breakdown on how that will be spent or how much might go to basic research.
The National Science Foundation: $1.4 billion for grants and infrastructure at NSF which is less than the $3 billion in the House version.
Additionally, NASA and NIH each get $1.5 billion and $3.5 billion, respectively, but NIST would not receive any additional funds in the Senate bill. A handy comparison chart is available at Inside Higher Education. We will have more here as the full text of the Senate bill is released and we can do a more thorough breakdown and comparison.
Update: More detail about the final Senate bill
CRA Wants You!
/In: CRA, Misc. /by MelissaNorrForgive the CRA-centric content, but we’re looking to fill a new position here at CRA World Headquarters. Here’s the official announcement:
CRA’s a great place to work with a friendly staff, a highly-engaged and prominent board, and an increasing presence in Washington. So, if you think this position sounds like a perfect fit for you or someone you know, please take a few minutes to respond or pass it along.
More Detail on 2009 House Dem Stimulus and Recovery Plan
/In: Economic Stimulus and Recovery, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaThe House Appropriations Committee has released the bill text (pdf) and the accompanying committee report (pdf) for the Stimulus and Recovery Plan released today. They provide a little finer view of what’s actually in the stimulus bill. But ultimately, the House appropriators and leadership have left some discretion to the agency management to decide how to spend the new funding, which is probably a good thing. In summary, though, this looks awfully good to us and will likely go a long way towards recharging the Nation’s innovation engine.
Here’s what we know:
The Department of Energy — The Office of Science would see an increase of $2 billion under this plan. Called out specifically in the bill (but not in the accompanying report) is a $100 million increase for the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program. The only other program in Science to get a specific call-out is the brand new Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), which would receive $400 million. The rest is presumably up to the Director’s discretion.
Additionally in DOE Energy Programs, the Smart Grid Investment Program, which would support efforts to add IT and other intelligence to the power grid, would receive a $4.5 billion increase under the plan.
The National Science Foundation — NSF would see an increase of $3 billion overall (so, it would become an ~ $9 billion agency, for one year, at least — more on that below). Of the $3 billion, $2.5 billion would go to the Research and Related Activities Account, home of NSF’s core research efforts. Of that $2.5 billion, 300 million would go to the Major Research Instrumentation program and an additional $200 million for academic research facilities modernization. This leaves an additional $2.0 billion to be spread among the research directorates for their core programs!
NSF’s Education and Human Resources program would see a $100 million boost — $60 million for Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarships and $40 million to the Math and Science Partnerships program.
NSF’s Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction account would see a boost of $400 million to start “approved projects” or projects that are close to completing their design review, though none are named in the bill or the report.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology — NIST would see a boost of $100 million to its core research programs, plus another $100 million to be split between the Technology Innovation Program (TIP – the revamped Advanced Technology Program), and $30 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. In addition, NIST would get $300 million for facilities repair and construction, so maybe they’ll actually be able to keep that $100 million for core research, instead of using it to pay for broken buildings or ATP/TIP/MEP.
The National Institutes of Health — NIH would receive $1.5 billion for grants to improve university research facilities and another $1.5 billion in new research funding.
So, this all looks really good to us. However, in our meetings with congressional staff over the last couple of weeks, there has been some concern about managing expectations about the sustainability of any of this funding beyond the stimulus. There are no promises that this stimulus funding will establish a new baseline funding level for these science agencies. There is the possibility that this truly is “one and done.” The report language doesn’t speak to that directly, but seems to suggest that the idea with this influx of research funding in what was thought to be simply an “infrastructure” bill is to reestablish a trajectory towards the doubling targets in the America COMPETES Act. If that’s the case, we should expect that future appropriations bills will start with a funding level of $
98 billion for NSF, for example (because $1 billion of the $3 billion increase is for a “one-time” infrastructure investment, while the remaining $2 billion is a research investment), and not revert back to the $6 billion pre-stimulus level. Hard to know exactly what the intent is and it’s hard to reach the appropriations staff to hear it from them directly. So what we have is the language for NSF, which is posted below for your own interpretation.In other news, the “pre-conferencing” — or the bulk of negotiations between the Senate and House over differing priorities — for the FY 2009 omnibus appropriations bill is done, but the leadership is holding off moving it until after the stimulus is finished. We’re getting mixed signals on that one, too. While it’s likely the FY 09 Omnibus will include funding for science above the FY 08 levels (which were flat or a cut compared to FY 07), it might not be as much as either the House or Senate appropriations committees have separately agreed on in early versions of the bill because of the need to pay for other significant disagreements elsewhere in the bill. A dispute over what the Senate percieves as a $500 million shortfall in funding for the U.S. Census in the House version of the bill is one such sticking point that could impact science funding levels.
And then there’s the matter of the FY 10 budget, which will be released in skeletal form in early February and then fleshed out significantly by the new Administration in April. If the FY 10 budget numbers use the stimulus-increased numbers as the new baseline — if they ignore the FY 09 approps numbers, which were marked up pre-stimulus, in other words — then we really will be on the trajectory to realize the promise of COMPETES. If, however, they use the FY 09 approps levels as the baseline for FY 10, then it will mean that the stimulus funding for research was just a one-time bump, and we’ll likely have a near impossible task getting anywhere near those numbers again in FY10.
In any case, that’s what we know from a couple quick reads of the bill and report and conversations with congressional staff over the last week or so. None of this is a done deal until the ink is dry, and there will be much fighting about the final program levels before this is passed sometime between President’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day…. but it’s a very very nice place to start.
More detail as we learn more. Oh, and the NSF report language follows after the jump.
Read more →
Initial Stimulus Summary Released
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Economic Stimulus and Recovery, Policy, Research /by MelissaNorrThe House Democratic leadership has released an official stimulus summary and it looks great. It includes $10 billion in new spending for science, including $3 billion in new money for NSF — “including $2 billion for expanding employment opportunities in fundamental science and engineering to meet environmental challenges and to improve global economic competitiveness, $400 million to build major research facilities that perform cutting edge science, $300 million for major research equipment shared by institutions of higher education and other scientists, $200 million to repair and modernize science and engineering research facilities at the nations institutions of higher education and other science labs, and $100 million is also included to improve instruction in science, math and engineering” — and $6 billion for broadband deployment.
Here is a PDF of the summary and we’ll have more details on this as it begins moving forward.
Science: Physicist John Holdren to be Named Science Advisor
/In: Policy /by Peter HarshaAccording to Science Magazine’s Eli Kintisch, physicist John Holdren, from Harvard’s Kennedy School and director of the Woods Hole Research Center, will be nominated Science Advisor to the President by president-elect Barack Obama on Saturday.
Here’s some background from Science:
We’ll have more as we learn more….
Pelosi, Holt Reiterate Support for Science
/In: Economic Stimulus and Recovery, Funding, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by MelissaNorrSpeaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ) spoke of their intent to increase federal support for science at Princeton University yesterday as part of the universitys Innovation Agenda roundtable. Both Pelosi and Holt have been vocal in their support of basic science research in the past but under the Bush Administration have struggled to translate that support into appropriations levels that match the America COMPETES authorization levels. Its a potential problem moving forward as well as Pelosi stated:
Holt, a physicist and former Princeton staff member, pointed out the economic importance of research, stating:
Princeton has a press release with more details on the event here.
Great DOD S&T Video on the Importance of Basic Research
/In: General /by Peter HarshaGreat tagline… “The Science of Victory”
(via Defense Tech)
Computer Science for Future DARPA Directors?
/In: Research /by Peter HarshaCarnegie Mellon CS Chair (and CRA Government Affairs Chair) Peter Lee and Berkeley’s Randy Katz have been doing some thinking about the sorts of problems in computing it might be useful for a future DARPA Director to understand. Their inspiration comes from a book written by Katz’s colleague, Richard Muller, called Physics for Future Presidents, which describes the “science behind the headlines — the tools of terrorists, the dangers of nuclear power, and the reality of global warming.” Katz and Lee want to know: “Shouldn’t there also be a computer science (or, more broadly, an IT) version of this book?”
They believe there should and have proposed one that
They’ve generated some interest in such a project from the agency and are looking for further input from others within the community.
I think this is a great idea and hope you’ll visit Lee’s blog and add your thoughts. The time to produce something that might be useful to the new administration is very short, obviously, but the opportunity to get the attention of the new agency leadership (whomever it may turn out to be) focused on important, compelling issues in computing makes it worth the effort.
Google Talks: Tech Policy
/In: Events, Misc., Policy /by MelissaNorrGoogle hosted a town hall style panel discussion today at its Washington, DC office. The discussion was based on technology policy in 2009 with a new Administration and Congress but focused almost exclusively on broadband deployment and a smart electric grid. The panel had six speakers: Gigi Sohn (President, Public Knowledge), Jennifer Canty (CEO, Dyscern), Ben Scott (Policy Director, Free Press), Stephen Ezell (Senior Analyst, ITIF), Harry Wingo (Policy Counsel, Google), and Michael Oldak (Senior Director, Edison Electric Institute). Questions were taken from a moderator, from the audience, and from online submissions through Google Moderator.
The consensus seemed to be that broadband availability needs to improve throughout the country but that broadband adoption by consumers was also a large issue that needed to be tackled. Additionally, regulations need to be implemented to keep the Internet as an open system without false controls.
The other topic discussed was the need for a smart, efficient electricity infrastructure that uses alternative, renewable energy sources and that has the ability to regulate energy use during peak times.
The discussion was recorded and is supposed to be available on YouTube, however, it does not seem to have been posted yet. Well provide the link when it becomes available.