A
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THIS WEEK...
COUNCIL ON PUBLIC
AFFAIRS HOSTS PUBLIC AFFAIRS LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE
The ASME Council on Public Affairs (CPA)
hosted its biennial Public Affairs Leadership Conference on May 5-7, 2002
at the Hilton Alexandria Old Town in Alexandria, VA. The conference
provided training for over 150 members interested in ASME Public Affairs
programs. Workshops were held on government relations, working with the
news media, diversity in engineering and ASME, and intellectual property.
At
the Public Affairs Awards dinner, the Honorable Richard Thornburgh, former
Governor of Pennsylvania and
Attorney General of the United States, delivered the Roy V. Wright
lecture. The President's award was given to the National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST).
Dr. Arden Bement, Director of NIST, accepted the Award, and acknowledged the Institute's
long-standing relationship with ASME.
A Congressional noontime
briefing and a public policy
roundtable were held during the conference. Featured on the panel, of the
briefing entitled, "Electric Power Deregulation: Lessons Learned and New Challenges," were: Kurt Yeager,
President and Chief Executive
Officer, Electric Power Research Institute; David Owens, Vice President,
Edison Electric Institute; and,
Alice Fernandez, Director, Tariffs and Rates Division East, Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission. The public policy roundtable focused on many issues
of importance to ASME members, including federal research and development (R&D), K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), energy policy,
and standards. Richard Bendis,
President and CEO of Innovation
Philadelphia, served as moderator as participants heard from
representatives from the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White
House, the Senate Energy Committee, the Department of Education, the House
Committee on Science, the
Maryland Technology Development Corporation, and NIST.
The conference
concluded with over 150 visits to Senate and House offices by ASME members.
During their meetings, members stressed the importance of a balanced
federal R&D portfolio, especially mentioning the flat or declining
support for the physical sciences
and engineering. Members also
highlighted the poor state of math and science education in schools, and ask their members to support full
funding of the Department of Education Math and Science Partnerships.
For further
information about the conference, go to http://www.asme.org/gric/palc or
contact Reese Meisinger at meisingerr@asme.org.
HOUSE OVERRIDES
NEVADA'S GOVERNOR'S VETO OF YUCCA MOUNTAIN
Last week
the House voted 306-117 in favor of House Joint Resolution 87, legislation
to override Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn's veto of the Yucca Mountain
project. To proceed with approval, the U.S. Department of Energy now needs
approval in the Senate, before submitting a license application to the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The vote on the companion legislation,
Senate Joint Resolution 34, is expected to be much closer, and will occur after the Memorial Day
recess.
Congress is about a third of the way through a 90-day
period required in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to override Guinn's veto.
The Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee has scheduled three hearings to examine the issue.
Information about these hearings can be found at the Committee's web site
at: http://energy.senate.gov/
The
bill text of the Senate Joint Resolution can be found on the Library of
Congress's web site, http://thomas.loc.gov/ For more
information, contact Francis Dietz at dietzf@asme.org.
AEROSPACE DIVISION
ENDORSES LEGISLATION TO INCREASE FUNDING FOR AERONAUTICS R&D
ASME's Aerospace Division recently sent a letter to
Rep. John Larson (D-CT) endorsing legislation he introduced to increase
funding for aeronautics research and development (R&D). The bill,
H.R.4653, the Aeronautics Research and Development Revitalization Act of
2002, would increase funding for NASA's aeronautics R&D budget to
$1.15 billion, and to $550
million for the FAA by the year 2007. Initiatives proposed in the bill
would improve technologies to create aircraft with greater fuel
efficiency, lower emissions, and
fund rotorcraft R&D and
supersonic transport. Additionally, the bill establishes a focal point for
aeronautics R&D within NASA by re-establishing an Office of
Aeronautics reporting directly to the NASA Administrator.
Over the
last decade, funding for NASA's aeronautics research and technology program has fallen by
approximately 50%. The Administration's Fiscal Year 2003 budget request of
$541.4M for aeronautics is a reduction of $58M from FY 2002 appropriated
funding.
In recent years, the Aerospace Division has expressed
concerns that reducing federal funding for aviation research and technology will jeopardize the
nation's leadership in providing the technologies needed to develop the
next generation aircraft, improve aviation safety and security, and attracting the next generation of
aerospace scientists and
engineers.
The letter is available to review on ASME's Government
Relations website at http://www.asme.org/gric/ps/2002/02-21.html
Additional information about ASME's Aerospace Division is available online
at http://www.asme.org/divisions/aerospace/
For more information about this issue, contact Kathryn Holmes at
holmesk@asme.org.
SCIENCE SUBCOMMITTEE
APPROVES NSF DOUBLING BILL
Members of the House Science Committee recently introduced
legislation that would place the National Science Foundation (NSF) on a track to
double the agency's budget in five years. The bill, H.R. 4664, authorizes
a 15 percent increase for NSF for each of the next three years.
The proposal is similar to the bipartisan effort to double the
budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which should be
completed with the FY 2003 appropriations. While doubling the NIH budget
included support from both the Clinton and Bush Administrations, proponents
for doubling NSF's budget have yet to win over key people in the Bush
White House, including John Marburger, Director of the Office of Science & Technology Policy.
The Research Subcommittee of the Science Committee held a hearing on
this bill last week. Dr. Ioannis Miaoulis, Dean of Engineering at Tufts
University and a member of ASME
for many years, testified in favor of the bill. In his testimony, Dr.
Miaoulis concluded, "(the) proposed NSF budget increases move us in the
right direction in enhancing basic research, promoting diverse
representation in the field, and
promoting technological literacy of the citizens of tomorrow."
At
the end of the hearing, the House Science subcommittee passed the bill. A
full Science Committee markup is
scheduled for May 22. The bill's text and information about the hearing can
be found at: http://www.house.gov/science/welcome.htm
For
more information, contact Patti Burgio at burgiop@asme.org.
NEW NATIONAL
INSTITUTE OF BIOMEDICAL IMAGING AND BIOENGINEERING DIRECTOR NAMED
Ruth L. Kirschstein, M.D., acting director of the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), recently announced the appointment of
Roderic I. Pettigrew, Ph.D., M.D., as the first director of the NIH's
National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). Dr.
Pettigrew is currently Professor of Radiology, Medicine (Cardiology) and Bioengineering and Director of the Emory Center for MR
Research, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia. Dr.
Pettigrew is expected to begin his appointment in late August or early
September 2002.
More information can be found on NIBIB's web site
at http://www.nibib.nih.gov
For more information, contact Melissa Murray at murraym@asme.org.
*****************************
Melissa R. Murray Government
Relations ASME International 1828 L Street, NW, Suite 906 Washington, DC
20036 Phone: 202.785.7380 Fax: 202.429.9417 Email: mailto:murraym@asme.org
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