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News item: Important Hearings on Homeland Security S&T Program
I thought this might be of interest.
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FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science
Policy News
Number 29: March 11, 2004
Important Hearings on Homeland Security S&T Program
Although the Department of Homeland Security's Science
and Technology Directorate is less than a year old, it
is the eighth largest R&D budget in the federal
government. And while most other R&D agencies have FY
2005 budget requests ranging from cuts to increases of
a few percentage points, the directorate's request is
up 13.9%. The amount of funding in this year's budget
allocated to basic research is 15.0%, with the
dministration seeking a decrease in the proportionate
share of funding for this research in FY 2005 to 8.4%
of the total budget.
Within the last two weeks, Charles E. McQueary, Under
Secretary for Science and Technology for the
Department of Homeland Security, has testified before
a House authorization committee and the Senate
Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. At
both hearings the reception he was given was friendly
and supportive. The common message to McQueary in both
of these hearings was similar: do it now.
The senators and representatives on these committees
are acutely aware of the terrorist threat facing the
United States, as they go to work every day on an
increasingly fortified Capitol Hill. If there was any
complaint about the directorate's programs, activities
or budgets, it was that not enough is being done
quickly enough to deploy new systems.
Committee members' questions reflected this attitude.
They wanted to know about systems to protect cities
against biological attacks, inter-operational
communication systems for first responders, defeating
shoulder-fired missiles fired at commercial airliners,
protecting industrial facilities such as chemical
plants, port security, border integrity, border
inspections and information sharing.
During the February 25 hearing of the House
Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Science, and Research &
Development, McQueary was asked about the percentage
of his budget devoted to basic research. He
acknowledged that basic research funding would drop
from the current $117 million to $80 million in FY
2005, from a proportionate share of 15.0% of the
directorate's budget to 8.4%. He said that "overtime
[this budget] will evolve into more fundamental
research," adding the words "appropriately so." His
written testimony elaborates on this point:
"In the 11 months that this Department has been in
existence, the Science and Technology Directorate has
focused its initial efforts on near-term development
and deployment of technologies to improve our nation's
ability to detect and respond to potential terrorist
acts. However, we recognize that a sustained effort
to continually add to our knowledge base and our
resource base is necessary for future developments.
Thus, we have invested a portion of our resources,
including our university programs, toward these
objectives. . . . Our initial expenditures in basic
research are heavily weighted by our investments in
university programs. These university programs will
not only provide new information relevant to homeland
security, but will also provide a workforce of people
who are cognizant of the needs of homeland security,
especially in areas of risk analysis, animal-related
agro-terrorism, bioforensics, cybersecurity, disaster
modeling, and psychological and behavioral analysis.
We expect to gradually increase our total percentage
of basic and applied research to the level needed for
sustaining our role as a research, development,
testing and evaluation (RDT&E) organization."
Regarding university and fellowship programs, McQueary
testified that the first University-based Center of
Excellence was established at the University of
Southern California. Its mission, he stated, is to
"assess the level of risk associated with various
terrorist scenarios, in particular the potential
economic consequences." Two more centers are to be
established, centering on Foreign Animal and Zoonotic
Disease Defense and Post-Harvest Food Protection and
Defense. The directorate has also awarded 100
scholarships and Fellowships selected from
approximately 2,500 applicants. FY 2005 funding has
been requested for 100 additional Scholars and Fellows
Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) asked McQueary why the
administration requested a 50% cut in funding for the
fellowship program. Byrd noted that the
appropriations committee wants the university
community to play a major role in homeland security
research. McQueary explained that there had been
"considerable internal debate" about this decision,
and that it reached a point, he said, where "it was
time for me salute and say 'yes sir" . . . and [then]
do the best we can." Most of the increase that the
administration has requested for next year is for
biological countermeasure systems for cities
identified for being at highest risk.
McQueary will appear before the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Homeland Security, chaired by Rep.
Harold Rogers (R-KY), on March 30.
###############
Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi@aip.org http://www.aip.org/gov
(301) 209-3094
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""A fanatic is one who cannot change his mind and won't change the subject." Winston Churchill
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com
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