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11.10

By IEEE-USA Staff

Congress left Washington for a campaign recess on 30 September, passing NASA authorization legislation and a budget resolution that would keep the federal government running through 3 December before departing. Unfinished business included reauthorization of the 2007 America COMPETES Act, which seeks to enhance federal support for research and development in order to encourage innovation and improve the competitiveness of the United States. The early election recess and time constraints on the anticipated post-election “lame-duck” session raise serious doubts about the prospects for reauthorization of this landmark bill.

Unlike the original America COMPETES Act, which had strong bipartisan support, the 2010 America COMPETES reauthorization has become an election-year target for partisan wrangling, starting with consideration of the House version of the reauthorization bill this spring (see Today's Engineer, June 2010).

The House version of the bill passed on 28 May after two failed attempts and much parliamentary maneuvering. The version that passed provided a five year reauthorization for research programs at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Sciences, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, keeping them on a ten year doubling path at an estimated price of $86 billion dollars. House Republicans took issue with the price tag, the five year reauthorization period, and with specific innovation programs in the bill, such as the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) and funding of energy innovation hubs at DOE.

The House bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which reported its own version of an America COMPETES reauthorization bill in late July. The Senate bill reduces the authorization period from five to three years and the overall funding levels by 10 percent from the House version in those three years. The titles of the bill relating to energy and education were referred to two other Senate committees, which had not completed their mark-ups when Congress recessed.

Follow-Up To Rising Above The Gathering Storm Report

In anticipation of the America COMPETES reauthorization, the Presidents of the National Academies asked the members of the original 2005 "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" (RAGS) Committee to prepare a follow-on report to assess what had been accomplished and what remained to be done. That report, dubbed "Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category Five," was released in September.

The report opens with anecdotal indicators of continuing decline in U.S. competitiveness since the original RAGS report was published in 2005:

• Six million more American youth have dropped out of high school

• The World Economic Forum has ranked the United States 48th in quality of mathematics and science education.

• 51 percent of U.S. patents were awarded to non-U.S. companies in 2009.

• Federal funding of research in the physical sciences as a fraction of GDP fell by 54 percent in the 25 years after 1970. The corresponding decline in engineering funding was 51 percent.

• The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation ranked the United States sixth in global innovation-based competitiveness and 40th in the rate of improvement over the past decade.

• China has replaced the United States as the world’s number one technology exporter.

• Eight of the 10 global companies with the largest R&D budgets have established R&D facilities in China, India, or both.

• General Electric, like a growing number of other firms, has relocated the majority of its R&D personnel outside the United States.

• Ninety-three percent of U.S. public schools in fifth through eighth grade are taught the physical sciences by a teacher without a degree or certificate in the physical sciences.

• The United States ranks 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science or engineering.

• The United States ranks 20th in high school completion rate among industrialized nations and 16th in college completion rate.

• Between 1996 and 1999, 157 new drug formulations were approved by the United States. In a corresponding period 10 years later, the number dropped to 74.

• Two-thirds of those receiving PhD’s in engineering from U.S. universities are foreign-born, and an increasing percentage intend to eventually return to their home countries.

The report notes that "the Gathering Storm effort as viewed in the middle of 2010, although still enjoying strong support in the White House and in both parties in the Congress, finds itself at a tipping point. The issue at stake is whether funding to help assure that Americans can compete for quality jobs will be provided on a sustained basis."

The authors warn, however, that "the budgetary pressures now faced by the nation make such investments extremely difficult; however, if not made the future consequences in terms of unemployment and related costs will likely be immense."

They continue: "In the judgment of the National Academies Gathering Storm committee, failure to support a strong competitiveness program will have dire consequences for the nation as a whole as well as for its individual citizens."

The report concludes that the two highest priority actions for the nation are ensuring qualified subject matter teachers in every classroom and doubling the federal investment in research, with an emphasis on supporting the nation’s research universities.

Congressional Hearing Focuses On "Averting The Storm"

In an effort to keep attention focused on the need for America COMPETES reauthorization, Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) convened a hearing of the House Science and Technology Committee on 29 September to hear from four co-authors of the RAGS revisited report.

RAGS Committee chair Norman Augustine noted that the follow-up report focused on what’s happened since the original 2005 report and concluded that "the members found the need to continue to support the original proposed actions even more compelling and urgent today than at the time they were initially proposed. "

In addition to noting the report’s findings and examples of declining U.S. competitiveness, Augustine went on to outline four "macro" level developments seen as significantly eroding our competitive position over the past five years. Other countries are rapidly improving their own competitiveness through a major emphasis on education, including establishment of S&T-research oriented universities and tax incentives for innovation-driven companies. America's ability to respond is hampered by the extraordinary budget pressures facing federal, state and local governments. The U.S. higher education system, which has long been the world’s gold standard for education, is severely threatened due to state budget constraints. And our national investments in the health sciences, including a doubling of the National Institutes of Health’s budget, have leveled out so that the effects of inflation are starting to eat away at our R&D in the health field.

Craig Barrett used his testimony to highlight an industry response to the original RAGS report recommendations on improving STEM teaching at all levels. Barrett is one of the co-chairs of "Change the Equation," a partnership between more than 100 companies which seeks to align corporate efforts in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education "to ensure that they add up to real, measurable growth in the achievement and STEM fluency of our nation’s young people."  Rather than proposing new STEM education programs, Change the Equation is working to focus industry support for featured programs such as Dean Kamen’s FIRST Robotics Competition and the Intel Math Competition.

In his testimony, Charles Holliday, chair of the American Energy Innovation Council and Chairman of Bank of America Corporation, made a pitch for energy-related innovation as a focal point for enhanced federal investments to create jobs and benefit our overall competitive standing.

The fourth panelist, former University of Maryland Engineering Dean Dan Mote reminded the committee that "if we believed that delivering high quality, high paying jobs for Americans depends on our competitiveness in innovation, science and technology, S&T competitiveness would have very high priority today."

In a post-hearing release, Rep. Gordon noted "Our marching orders are clear. We must continue what we started and recommit ourselves to the ideals we laid out in the original COMPETES Act. If this report tells us anything, it tells us that the worst thing we can do is let our efforts at reauthorization languish. "

What’s Next?

The programmatic and spending authority granted to federal research agencies under the 2007 America COMPETES Act expired on 30 September 2010. With the end of the fiscal year, Federal agencies are currently funded by a continuing budget resolution that sustains authorized S&T programs at previously funded levels through 3 December or until Congress can pass new authorizing and appropriations legislation.

With election politics holding sway in Washington, and with projections of a likely change in political control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2011, prospects for significant S&T legislation during the expected post-election "lame-duck" session are not favorable.

Congress will have to look at passing either an omnibus budget appropriation or continuing resolution to keep government running into the New Year. In addition to America COMPETES, Congress has allowed other important budget authorizations and tax breaks to expire, requiring stop-gap actions to keep the Department of Defense, as well as key federal highway/transportation and aviation programs operating. That’s enough legislation to fill a full session, much less an abbreviated lame-duck, especially if Republicans have an incentive to push Democratic initiatives into 2011 and a Republican-controlled House.

Once the budget is taken care of, several other issues will vie for what’s left of Congress’ time. These include controversial proposals for extension of the Bush Administration tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 for middle and upper-income tax payers, extension of unemployment benefits, and consideration of the “Dream Act,” which would grant conditional permanent resident status to undocumented people who entered the United States before their 16th birthday and are pursuing higher education or are part of the military.

Although a long shot, Hill watchers suggest America COMPETES could still pass if House and Senate differences can be quickly resolved and agreement reached on where to find the funding needed to offset the proposed increases in S&T expenditures. However, prior to the election recess, some Democratic Senate supporters were proposing to draw from revenues received from BP for Gulf oil clean-up to support S&T investments. Key Republicans oppose this approach, pointing out that these funds were promised to the Gulf Coast for clean-up and recovery efforts. Prospects for identifying alternative funding sources in the current budget environment are grim.

Despite these obstacles, a hard push to pass America COMPETES during the "lame-duck" session is anticipated. Several broad coalitions of industry, academic and professional groups including IEEE-USA will be urging Congress to take action. There is some reasonable prospect that a slimmed down version of the America COMPETES Act could pass by year end, perhaps by providing a legislative vehicle for Congress to move energy and other popular legislative riders extracted from other stalled legislation.

One reason for the year end push is that prospects for passage of a reintroduced America COMPETES in the new 112th Congress are also uncertain. New Members of Congress elected on platforms of budget austerity and cutting back government will find it difficult to support increases in S&T funding, despite the efforts of bipartisan S&T champions such as U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.). The bill is also losing a key champion in the U.S. House of Representatives, as Rep. Bart Gordon will retire from Congress at the end of this session.

In related news, the American Association for the Advancement of Science reported that the Republican leadership’s “Pledge to America,” which calls for cutting government spending to “pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels” would result in a 7.1 percent reduction in federal R&D spending, and a net downward swing of 12.3 percent from the R&D funding levels requested in the President’s FY 2011 budget.

To Read More

Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America For a Brighter Economic Future, Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century: An Agenda for American Science and Technology, The National Academies (October 2005)
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463

Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5, Members of the 2005 "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" Committee, The National Academies (September 2010)
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12999

Averting the Storm: How Investments in Science Will Secure the Competitiveness and Economic Future of the U.S., Hearing, House Science and Technology Committee (29 September 2010)
http://science.house.gov/publications/hearings_markups_details.aspx?NewsID=2919

Change the Equation
http://www.changetheequation.org/

Comments may be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.