CRA Government Affairs

Lots going on today. The House Science Committee will hold the first of its hearings on the FY 2006 Science Budget today at 11 am. Scheduled to appear are:

John Marburger, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy;

Samuel Bodman, Secretary of Energy;

Arden Bement, Director of the National Science Foundation;

Charles McQueary, Undersecretary for Science and Technology, Department of Homeland Security; and

Theodore Kassinger, Deputy Secretary of Commerce.

It’s always a little depressing to listen to directors of the science agencies forced to defend the lean budgets they’ve been saddled with, but for those who want to watch, the hearing will be webcast starting at 11 am today. Here’s the hearing charter (pdf).
Also happening today is a press conference hosted by the Task Force on the Future of American Innovation — a coalition of industry and academic groups advocating for support of the physical sciences and engineering. The Task Force is releasing a series of benchmarks for measuring U.S. global competitiveness in research and innovation. Scheduled to appear at the press conference today at 1 pm are:

John Engler, President, National Association of Manufacturers

Craig Barrett, Chief Executive Officer, Intel

Nils Hasselmo, President, Association of American Universities

Deborah Wince-Smith, President, Council on Competitiveness

Burton Richter, Paul Pigott Professor in the Physical Sciences and former Director, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University

Diana Hicks, Chair, School of Public Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology.

All will make the case for strengthening federal investments in science and engineering research, emphasizing the impact of those investments on long-term economic growth and prosperity.
The strength of this particular coalition, as can be seen above, is the strong participation of the high-tech companies and industry associations — who have some influence in the current administration — along with the academic groups (CRA is a member of the task force).
I’ll have more coverage of the benchmarks, as well as some other comments after the event this afternoon.
Update: (2/16 6:30pm EST) – The Task Force press conference was remarkably well-attended — the 70-person capacity room was filled, with people lining the walls. It appears a good number of attendees were actually press, too. I’ll be posting links to coverage of the event here as I come across them.
For now, here is the official Benchmarks report (pdf). And the accompanying press release (pdf).
Reuters is already out with the story.

Computerworld has a story today that, I think, helps contribute to the common misunderstanding in some policy circles that “IT funding” is the same as “IT R&D funding.” The story combines budget news about the president’s proposed increases in federal IT funding — in this case, funding for IT procurement — with news about some aspects of the president’s science and technology budget. Here’s the first few paragraphs:

FEBRUARY 14, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) – President George Bush’s proposed budget for the federal government’s 2006 fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1, includes an increase in IT spending, despite significant cuts elsewhere.
The plan also asks Congress to permanently extend a research and development tax credit while terminating a program to develop high-risk, high-payoff technology.
The 2006 Bush budget cuts back or eliminates 150 government programs while calling for a 7% increase in government IT spending, to $65.1 billion. About 55% of IT-related funding would go to defense and domestic security programs. At the same time, the plan raises IT funding for the National Science Foundation by nearly 26%.
Separately, Bush’s science and technology budget would drop from an estimated $61.7 billion in fiscal 2005 to $60.8 billion in 2006. The science and technology budget includes programs such as space exploration, renewable energy and agricultural research, as well as technology-related research and development at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
…
The Information Technology Association of America (ITAA), an industry trade group, praised the IT budget plan.
“America must pick up the pace in science, math and engineering,” ITAA President Harris Miller said in a statement. “Countries around the world have clearly signaled their intent to challenge U.S. leadership in technology. Our economic well-being depends on answering this challenge.”

The conflation in the article of IT procurement issues –buying IT for uses within the agency — with science and technology funding issues aimed at supporting researchers working on the next generations of technology might lead the reader to conclude that IT R&D funding did well under the budget request. Indeed, the line about the 26 percent increase in funding at NSF, as well as Harris Miller’s (ITAA) quote about the need for America to “pick up the pace in science, math and engineering,” and the bit about the extension of the research and development tax cut seem to reinforce that.
Of course, that’s not quite the case. IT R&D funding overall would decline 7 percent under the President’s plan. NSF funding for IT R&D would increase agency-wide, but only slightly — $8 million or 1 percent over FY 05.
The irony is that the very important message conveyed in Miller’s quote argues for much more robust IT R&D funding, which despite NSF’s increase in IT procurement, isn’t happening.

USACM’s David Padgham has a good post on House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner’s “Real ID Act,” a bill inteded to disrupt terrorist travel and bolster U.S. border security.