Mid-Year Report to the
IEEE-USA Government Fellowship Committee

Martin M. Sokoloski, Ph.D.

July 2004

I have spent six months in the office of U.S. Representative Rush Holt, 12th District in New Jersey. Representative Holt is a former AAAS congressional fellow from the American Physical Society and assistant director at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. Being a physicist, Representative Holt has deep roots in the science, engineering, and technical (SET) community and has their interests in mind whenever SET issues and legislation arises. He is a member of the Select House Committee on Intelligence and the House Education and the Workforce Committee. Representative Holt, although being a physicist, is not unknowledgeable about politics, -- his mother was Secretary of State for the State of Virginia, and his father was elected to the U.S. Senate at the record-setting age of 29.

I have formulated, organized and managed the Congressional Research and Development Caucus. This relatively new bipartisan Caucus is co-sponsored by Representatives Rush Holt and Judy Biggert (R-Il-13). The first caucus briefing was held in 2003 on “The Electrical Grid” and was sponsored by the IEEE-USA. In 2004, we have held a total of six highly successful Caucus briefings sponsored by professional societies such as the Federation of American Scientists, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the R&D Tax Credit Coalition, the Federation of Materials Society, the Optical Society of American, the International Society of Optical Engineering and, of course, the IEEE-USA. The July briefing was titled, "Point Counter-Point: the Status of the Science and Engineering Workforce." This heavily attended briefing was extremely important to all in the Science, Engineering and Technology sectors because it questioned recent findings of the National Science Board on predictions of worker shortage, which members of the IEEE are painfully aware. This briefing was so engaging that more than 75% of participants remained after the briefings to ask questions. The Caucus web site, which is also new, is at http://www.researchcaucus.org/.

I also collaborate and help plan the House Biomedical Research Caucus of which Rep. Holt is a member. This Caucus has been in existence for over a decade.

Representative Holt is attempting to restore the capabilities of the old Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). From 1974-1995 OTA analyzed everything from pest control to missile defense, presenting reports specifically designed to help Congress make policy decisions in the face of competing information and short deadlines. During the Republican control of Congress under Newt Gingrich funds for the OTA were cut out, ostensibly to save money, but only saved $20 million. Though the official reason for the demise of OTA was budget cutting, the organization had found itself in the gun sights of conservative Republicans, who complained of political bias. Even a decade later, passions flare at the mention of OTA.

For the past three years, the General Accounting Office (GAO) has been doing technology assessment studies on a very small scale. They have conducted pilot studies to see how well it could handle the sort of in-depth, big-picture studies that OTA used to undertake. Two of these studies looked at cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection and the use of biometrics to enhance border security. An independent evaluation of the study on biometrics contended that the GAO had done a good job given the limited time it had to do the study. Because of this, I wrote an amendment to the Legislative Appropriations bill to add $30 million to the Government Accountability Office budget next year to expand its ability to do technology assessment. Unfortunately, the amendment failed to pass.

I also wrote bill, H.R. 4670, which along with a similar one by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M), S. 2556, would give the GAO, whose abilities and neutrality are respected by both parties, the mandate and resources to study the impact of technology on matters of public concern, including implications for economic, national security, social, scientific, and other national policies and programs. H.R. 4670 has 16 co-sponsors, including Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Science Committee. The bill has been referred to this committee and scheduled for hearings in September 2004. CSTA would answer to a board of 12 members of Congress, with membership evenly divided between the two main political parities and between the House and the Senate. Any member of Congress would be able to ask the CSTA to investigate and report on "any matter relating to scientific and technical assessment" though requests made by both the House and Senate or by members of both parties would get priority. The balanced board membership was crafted to have bipartisan appeal.

We are also tasked in writing” Dear Colleague” (DC) letters that are sent to members of congress urging them to sign on to a particular cause. I was responsible with Rep. Vernon Ehlers [the other physicist in the House] staff for a DC signed by over 140 members of Congress urging that the National Science Foundation (NSF) be funded at the highest possible level in the FY 2005 budget since it supports the education of scientists and engineers as well as the workforce of tomorrow—a workforce in which all workers, from office assistants to rocket scientists, will require basic math and science skills. We also signed on a DC, "Support Funding for the Semiconductor Industry" and sent a letter to Elias Zerhouni Director of NIH urging him to use discretionary funds that are available to him to assist the NIBIB in FY 2004 and to work with the Congress to develop a longer-range budget plan to provide the resources that the Institute needs to fulfill its expansive mission. I also worked to get Rep. Holt on H. RES. 550, expressing the sense of the House of Representatives relating to the extraordinary contributions resulting from the Hubble Space Telescope to scientific research and education, and to the need to reconsider future service missions to the Hubble Space Telescope. He was one of 76 co-sponsors.

Finally, because of Representative Holt’s filled calendar, I have addressed various groups, such as the Council of Scientific Society Presidents, on the role of the federal government in areas of science, engineering and technical policy.

Finally, I am writing a Chapter for Rush Holt entitled, "How Should Government Regulate Stem-Cell Research? Perspective of a Scientist-Legislator" for inclusion in the book, The Grand Bargain: Ethics and the Pharmaceutical Industry in the 21st Century. The Chapter deals with the fact that governments are often faced with the difficult task of legislating on bioethical issues upon which many scientific, philosophical and religious leaders are unable to reach unified consensus or closure. Identifying and making governmental guidelines and regulations that protect important values without understanding our ability to explore and research potentially life-saving technologies is a difficult balance to strike.

I look forward to the remaining six months of my fellowship.
 

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers - United States of America