‘Gathering storm’ gains momentum

When Norman Augustine, the former chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp, oversaw the 10-week effort to put together the US National Academy of Sciences’ “Gathering Storm” report, he was worried that the broad scope of the report’s four recommendations and the high cost of implementing them could doom the study to gather dust like so many reports before it. The report, which calls for spending several billion dollars to rejuvenate US science and research, “is sailing into a headwind,” Augustine said in October (see Physics Today, December 2005, page 25 ).

But the report’s warning that the US economy is at serious risk because the government has failed to properly fund and support science research and education has gotten the attention of legislators and members of the Bush administration. NAS staff members said the administration has been receptive to the report’s recommendations.

The NAS report and an earlier US Council on Competitiveness report raised concerns within science and industry advocacy groups that the reports’ recommendations would become mired in congressional infighting because they involved so many different committees. Based on the legislation introduced or anticipated in both the US Senate and the House, the science reform recommendations have avoided the “gathering dust” problem.

As of mid-December, the NAS and Council on Competitiveness reports had triggered the following actions:

• ▸ Senators John Ensign (R-NV), and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) introduced the National Innovation Act, which would nearly double NSF’s research budget by 2011 and would set up a grant program to encourage federal agencies to spend 3% of their R&D budgets on high-risk research. The legislation would also provide new money to support master’s degree programs in science and engineering. The legislation was in the works before the NAS study was completed and is based on the Council on Competitiveness report.

• ▸ Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), both strong supporters of science, are developing legislation, based on the NAS report, that calls for increasing federal funding for basic research, recruiting 10 000 science and math teachers, and providing 25 000 new scholarships for undergraduates who study science or math.

• ▸ Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), the ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, introduced three bills based on the NAS recommendations. The first is called the “10,000 Teachers, 10 Million Minds Science and Math Scholarship Act” and is designed to improve K–12 science and math education. Another bill, the “Sowing the Seeds Through Science and Engineering Research Act,” calls for increasing federal basic research funding by 10% each year over the next seven years. His third bill would create the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, which is intended to speed the commercialization of energy technologies and reduce US dependence on foreign energy by 20% in 10 years.

Several other legislators, including Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), chairman of the House Republican high-tech task force, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL), and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), are developing legislation based on the NAS study. “We’re obviously very happy,” an NAS staff person said.