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June 20, 2014
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CONGRESS
AND THE BUDGET
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'minibus' Stalls; end of smooth ride
for appropriations
 Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid yanked a yanked a package of three spending
bills from the floor this week in a dispute with Republicans over the
vote threshold required for amendments. He insisted on 60; they wanted
a simple majority. Meanwhile, Senate Appropriations Chair Barbara
Mikulski (D, Md.), left, and Dianne Feinstein (D, Cal.), who chairs the
panel's energy subcommittee, halted
action
on the energy-water spending bill, to which GOP leader Mitch McConnell
(R, Ky) planned to attach what Feinstein called a killer amendment. The
two incidents signaled that this year's appropriations process won't
escape election-year fights that have paralyzed much of Congress. The
"minibus" halted by Reid contained Commerce-Justice-Science
(with NSF, NIST, and NASA); Agriculture; and
Transportation-HUD. Each funds substantial university research.
ENERGY bill
KEEPS BASIC SCIENCE FLAT: While
not generous, the Energy-Water spending bill now trapped in committee
would fund the Office of science at close to $5.1 billion, a slightly
more than it's currently getting, and provide $3.9 billion for applied
research and development of a range of energy technologies. The latter
amount includes $280 million for ARPA-E, the Energy Department's
high-risk, high-reward research agency.
According to a summary,
it contains $125 million for water-resources studies; $151 million
(drawn from the Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security
Administration) for exascale computing, due to by deployed by 2022; and
$304 million for cybersecurity. ScienceInsider reports
that the Senate numbers are slightly higher than the House's.
SENATORS SPARE FULBRIGHT: Appriopriators
refused to go along with the Obama administration's bid to cut some
$30.5 million from the Fulbright Program, which falls within the State
Department's budget. Altogether, the Senate panel proposed $590.7
million for Educational and Cultural Exchanges.
house passes DEFENSE MONEY BILL; research hit: Altogether, appropriators trimmed 6.4
percent from basic research in the FY 2015 defense
spending bill, whereas the Pentagon had proposed cutting 6.9
percent. The Association
of American Universites registered dismay. Before the measure
cleared the full House today, 340-73, lawmakers made a
number of small increases to various specific kinds of
health research, ranging from Alzheimer's to breast and prostate
cancer. At the same time, the House adopted an amendment that
"prohibits funding for green energy programs" and another that would
bar "funding for the administration's climate change agenda,"
including the National Climate Assessment, the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change report, the United Nations Agenda 21 (sustainable
development) and the Social
Cost of Carbon, an interagency assessment of "the benefits of
regulations that would limit emissions of carbon dioxide," according to
the World
Resources Institute. According to ScienceInsider,
"academic scientists get about one-half of the roughly $2
billion the Pentagon spends on basic research," and DoD "provides about
one-half of the research funding in many engineering fields, one-third
in computer science, and one-fifth in math and physics."
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DATA
POINTS
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NSF RESEARCH FUNDING BY THE NUMBERS
The charts below are included in
the National Science Foundation's merit-review
report for fiscal 2013.
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THE
ADMINISTRATION AND RESEARCH AGENCIES
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I-CORPS
EXPANDS: The White House
says the Innovation
Corps program launched in 2011 by the National Science Foundation
"has
already generated promising results and created the intellectual
framework for an evidence-based approach to research
commercialization." Now I-Corps is taking on a new dimension with
a partnership between NSF and the National Institutes of Health
on commercialization of biomedical inventions. NIH will allow
participation in I-Corps by startups that have already received Small
Business Innovation Research - Technology Transfer
funding."Additionally, NIH will help scale up I-Corps by allowing
existing NIH-funded programs — including NIH Centers for Accelerated
Innovation (NCAI) and Research
Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH), which focus on
academic researchers with technologies that have not yet led to the
formation of a startup or have been licensed by an existing company —
to apply to become new NSF I-Corps sites." See this account
in R&D
CHECK OUT .
. . the latest White House climate
report, this entitled, "Our Changing Planet: The U.S. Global Change
Research Program for Fiscal Year 2014."
ENGINEERS NAMEd TO SCIENCE BOARD: The
two are: John Anderson, president of the Illinois Institute of
Technology, a professor of chemical engineering, former provost at Case
Western Reserve and engineering dean at Carnegie Mellon; and Sethuraman
"Panch" Panchanathan, senior vice president in the Office of Knowledge
Enterprise Development at UCLA, where he is also a
foundation chair in computing and informatics and director of the
Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing. He's a former chair of the
computer science and engineering department at Arizona State. 
Cybersecurity
webinar: NSF's
Computer and Information Science and Engineering directorate and the
Intel Labs University Collaboration Office are holding a webinar
on a recent solicitation. The aim is a community to advance research
and education at the confluence of cybersecurity, privacy, and
cyber-physical systems.
CROSS-CUTTING
INITIATIVES planned at NSF
include chemical and bio-engineering that explores the
water-food-energy nexus, its interactions and interdependencies; and
bio-manufacturing --use of biological systems or the products of
biological systems to generate new materials and devices. A quick
search for previous efforts in these areas turned up this 2013 workshop
on advanced biomanufacturing, a Dear
Colleague, and 10 presentations at an NSF-funded workshop on the
energy-water nexus. At least one paper also addresses food.
PAPER CHASE:
Read the NSB's "Reducing
Investigators' Administrative Workload for Federally Funded Research."
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NATIONAL ACADEMIES
DEADLINES APPROACHING . . . for the
NCFRP Highway
IDEA
program (Sept. 1), seeking "innovative concepts for highway design and
construction, materials, operations, maintenance, and other areas of
highway systems"; and the Safety IDEA program
(Sept.16), seeking "innovative ways to improve railroad safety and
performance.
COMING OUT
SOON: The National Research Council's Review of
Specialized Degree-Granting Graduate Programs of the Department of
Defense in STEM and Management.
AND COMING UP: The PeaceTech Summit:
Engineering and Technology for Enduring Peace. June 26.
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PUBLIC
POLICY AND HIGHER
ED
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NATURAL GAS - WHAT'S NEXT? John
Curtis, professor emeritus at the Colorado School of Mines, will
moderate a Capitol Hill panel looking at what geology tells us about
future production; U.S. natural gas in the global market; liquified
natural gas exports, and environmental impacts. Speakers include Adam
Brandt of Department
of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford.
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ASEE
& COMMUNITY NEWS
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 PASSING THE
GAVEL: This week's ASEE conference in
Indianapolis began the year-long presidency of Nicholas J. Altiero, at
left, science and engineering dean at Tulane. Joseph J. Rencis, at
right, dean at Tennessee Tech, is the new president-elect. ASEE's
outgoing president, Vanderbilt professor Kenneth Galloway, below right,
will continue service as immediate past president. 
‘PROFILES’
IS OUT: ASEE's
eagerly awaited 540-page Profiles of
Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges has been
published. Call ASEE (202-331-3500) to order a copy.
JUDGES NEEDED! Volunteer
judges are
needed at the National Technology Student Association (TSA) Conference,
Gaylord
National Resort & Convention Center, National Harbor, MD on
Saturday, June
28, Sunday, June 29, or Monday, June 30. For more details or to sign
up, go
to www.tinyurl.com/2014nationaljudge.
Every judge will receive free lunch and a token of appreciation. Once
you sign
up, a confirmation will be sent with the rules and coordinator’s
information.
ASEE DIVERSITY
COMMITTEE NEWSLETTER: The
spring edition of the semi-annual newsletter is now
available. ASEE Past President J.P. Mohsen discusses a proposed
Year of
Dialogue on Diversity and details on safe zone ally training at the
annual
conference are posted, among other items.
VIDEOS
OF
THE PPC: View sessions from February's Public
Policy Colloquium of the Engineering Deans Council dealing with
advanced manufacturing, federal R&D, and K-12 engineering.
STAY
UP TO DATE
on ASEE's Retention Project by
clicking here
for updates.
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EDITOR: Mark Matthews; CONTRIBUTOR:
William E. Kelly
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