In part because of failed Bush administration tech policy, the United State has not seen significant increases broadband speeds in recent years. As a nation, our current median data download speed is 2.3 megabits per second—Japan boasts 63 mbps (2739 percent higher than the United States), Korea 49 mbps (1739 percent higher), and France 17 mbps (739 percent higher). Advertisements for internet connection providers would make us believe otherwise, showing us that we can now download MP3s at rates faster than ever before.

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A new report from the Communication Workers of America provides more data on a problem we already knew about: the past seven years have been bad for broadband policy.

Mark Lloyd, Vice President of the Leadership Council on Civil Rights, explained the irony of the situation earlier this year on Science Progress, noting that our global competitors are outpacing the United States by implementing policies similar to our own from the 1990s. The Clinton administration encouraged public/private telecommunications partnerships, connected schools and libraries to the World Wide Web, and allowed competitive service providers onto the networks of the local telephone monopolies in an effort to speed up the deployment of broadband around most of the nation. Over the past seven years, the Bush administration has implemented policy increasing the number of subscriber lines, but not necessarily the locations of them.

Under Bush administration policy, the possibility of closing of the digital divide remains an impossibility. A substantial rise in subscriber lines is not a good indicator of deployment because multiple subscriber lines are used in large businesses. As Lloyd goes on to explain, Bush’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration does not even have useful indicators because it collects information with minimal geographical details. “Declaring that access is accomplished when the industry reports that one entity in that zip-code has service does not tell us who has broadband,” writes Lloyd.

Without a national broadband policy, he also notes that America grows less competitive in a global economy, and, as he argued in his “Ubiquity Requires Redundancy” report, vulnerable to and ill-prepared for real threats to our national security—another irony, as improved security was the one of the initial rationales behind U.S. government investment in the development of the Internet.

Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Bob Burnett (R- UT), Chairwoman and Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, presented the Bipartisan Electronic Voting Reform Act of 2008 (S.3212) yesterday, a negotiated bill which supports technology that will provide all voters with private, secure, and auditable voting services.

Dr. Juan E. Gilbert, Professor of Computer Science and Software at Auburn University, testified at the hearing where the bill was introduced and explained that it “provides for future innovation” by allowing “electronic records, audio, video, and pictorial records,” in addition to paper records, to serve as independent voting verification. While such technology for voters to verify their ballots does not yet widely exist, Gilbert believes this bill will make it a higher research priority for the tech community. The bill also requires that citizens with disabilities will be able to verify their ballots using the same devices as those without disabilities. “Technology and innovation are the routes to ensuring this type of access is available,” Gilbert said. Currently, disabled persons often require assistance to operate voting machines, but this strips them of the right to a confidential vote.

Professor Gilbert highlighted his own invention, Prime III, which allows voters to cast their ballots “using their voice and/or touch.” People who cannot see, hear, read, those with limited mobility, and even people without hands can privately and independently vote using Prime III’s multimodal user interface. Moreover, Prime III allows those with disabilities and those without to verify their ballots using the same uniform system. Gilbert noted government funds could enable similar research and development in voting technology. This “demonstrates the potential impact of federally funded research and the need for innovation,” he said.

The bill also provides protection for the intellectual property of technology vendors who develop new voting machines, which Gilbert said was a “great way to encourage vendors to openly participate in the improvement of software” for elections. In previous contested elections, candidates and advocacy groups have questioned the software running on voting machines. The new legislation mandates extensive software testing and certification through a full disclosure process. But with the IP protection, companies will be able to protect their investment while also disclosing their voting software to public scrutiny. Funding for pilot tests is a further provision of the bill, in order to ensure that approved products are once again inspected before heading to market.

Following the Soviet launch of Sputnik I under President Eisenhower, federal funding of R&D skyrocketed. In addition to space-related R&D, defense R&D funding also grew substantially during this period, and again during the Reagan years. Lane explains that the second jump in defense R&D funding, away from basic science research and toward applied science and product development, was due to the Mansfield Amendment enacted in 1973.

[US federal government spending on defense and non-defense R&D, FYs 1955–2007 (in billions of constant FY2007 dollars)]

The Mansfield Amendment stipulated that all defense research be correlated with military application. This led to a departure from successful basic science research partnerships between defense agencies and universities immediately following World War II. After the war, funding was mostly funneled into the development and testing of large weapons and defense systems. Lane writes that in the decades following WWII, the Mansfield Amendment reflected “the public’s desire for practical outcomes.” In his national innovation agenda, Science Progress adviser Tom Kalil is critical of this overemphasis on short-term results at the expense of high-risk, high-return research at agencies like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He points out that DARPA “is now making ‘go, no-go’ decisions about whether continue a research project a mere 12 to 18 months after its inception,” and university researchers are increasingly serving “as sub-contractors to defense companies.” As a result, they can no longer pursue long-term research projects that have the potential to yield breakthrough discoveries.

[Distribution of total annual research funding—percentage for selected federal agencies for FY2007. The figure is based on the President’s budget request, not the final appropriated amounts, however, the differences are small.]

Another result of this focus on immediate results is that the research community has changed the way it categorizes components of R&D. For example, “basic” research now includes “applied” science in the DoD budget. This change means the development of defense weapons can be categorized under basic research.

Private funding of R&D overtook federal investment in 1979 and the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act helped to widen this gap. Bayh-Dole allows universities, faculty researchers, small businesses, and nonprofits to obtain intellectual property rights covering inventions and discoveries resulting from federally funded research. This allows them to commercialize new technologies and streamlines the path to the marketplace. Although industrial support of university research is a small component of academic research expenditures, private industry now spends approximately $220 billion per year on R&D, about 70 percent of the total national investment in S&T. Because companies must demonstrate to stockholders the value of their R&D investments, they tend to focus more on short-term applied R&D, where useful results are highly probable. Together, these two pieces of legislation have long contributed to an increased focus on short-term R&D solutions and a widening gap between private and public funding of research.

[US R&D funding by source: federal government and private industry (non-federal funds) FYs 1953–2006 (in $ billions of constant FY2006 dollars).]

The effects of these policy restrictions on research funding for different priorities is apparent in the funding distribution to various federal agencies. Of the federal government’s $137.1 billion in 2007 funding allocated for the conduct of R&D, $81.7 billion was dedicated to defense-related work and $55.5 billion for nondefense R&D. Clearly then, the Department of Defense receives the most R&D funding. However, looking only at basic and applied research funding allocations, which total $54.8 billion, approximately $29 billion was set aside for the Department of Health and Human Services (and subsequently, the NIH), whereas only $6 billion in basic and applied research was set aside for the Department of Defense.

Lane argues that a reason for these funding decisions derives is the public’s desire for practical outcomes. As large returns on investment for new technologies became increasingly important to the public, the government became supportive of a funding dynamic that supported applied research. While federal agencies involved in research might govern as separate entities, they often change their focus to reflect national priorities set by the president and Congress.

Without strong presidential leadership and a White House Science Advisor who will prioritize long-term, federally funded research, Lane suggests that the United States cannot to maintain its global leadership in innovation.

Burnett recently published a letter revealing the White House and the Office of the Vice President’s off-the-record deletions to testimony in October 2007 by the Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Julie Geberding, before the Senate Environment Committee. The deletions pertained to links between global warming and public health issues such as air pollution, disease, and food and water shortages.

Boxer, alongside Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Air Resources Board, have requested over fifty times, with no success, for a waiver from federal law to be able to implement its own landmark regulations to slash greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. The California legislation not only covers greenhouse gas emissions but also expands upon gasoline regulation to alternative fuel emissions. In contrast, the Bush energy “plan” does not take into account greenhouse gases, despite Senator Boxer’s contention that a 2007 Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts v. EPA that greenhouse emissions fall under the regulatory purview of the Environmental Protection Administration

California has continually taken progressive stands on issues of global warming and scientific innovation. Their hosting of the recent BIO convention further emphasizes the state’s desire to lead the rest of the country in science and technology policy and research. With this recent revelation about the anti-science shenanigans of the Bush White House, California may finally make some headway to obtain the waiver.

The study, conducted by Aaron D. Levine of Georgia Institute of Technology’s School of Public Policy, compares data on the number of hESC-related publications appearing in peer-reviewed journals and concludes that the United States is lagging in the production of hESC-related research publications. Although still the largest single producer of hESC-related research publications, the United States is still the largest underperformer following the metric used by the analysts. One explanation is the fact that Bush Administration policy dictates that federal funds may only be used for hESC research only on cell lines derived before August 9, 2001.

According to the study, scientists in the United States produced 36 percent of worldwide hESC-related research, compared with 47 percent of RNAi-related research. Research involving RNA interference, a method used to inhibit gene expression, is much less controversial than hESC research. According to the study, “Scientists in the United States produced 36% of hESC-related research compared with 47% of RNAi-related research and 46% of research in the control set.” Thus, it is numerically apparent that America’s contribution to RNAi research publications fell more closely in line with the standard than hESC research. This is why RNAi research output becomes a suitable control with which to compare with work on hESC.

The comparison data demonstrates that the share of research from different countries related to hESC differs more from the control set than do their shares of research related to RNAi:

National polices also render France an underperforming country, despite having temporarily relaxed its laws. This makes a key component of the study clear: countries which have long histories of relentless support for hESC research are those countries which are currently over-performing.

Four top overperforming countries were identified: the United Kingdom, Israel, China, and Singapore. While there was no clear relationship between underperformance and the policy environment, countries categorized as underperforming in hESC-related research lacked permissive policies, complementary government support, or both. The study also provides an interesting insight into the relationship between hESC and RNAi performance. As the figure below demonstrates, only the United Kingdom and China demonstrate a slight significant RNAi overperformance. None of the hESC overperforming countries have underperformed in the number of published papers on RNAi research:

Despite last week’s move by California regulators to halt operations for direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies until they could verify various compliance requirements, California’s powerful advocate for scientific innovation, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, declared Wednesday at the BIO Convention that California “is the biotech capital of America, the biotech capital of the world.” Wishing the audience well in finding “a cure for what the Lakers had done yesterday,” Governor Schwarzenegger made one of his two main points of discussion California’s “promise of a carbon-free world.” Along with biotech development, he emphasized the importance of energy research, and said that he wanted to “reduce our dependence on dirty, expensive oil.”

The second component of his talk offered policies similar to the $1 billion Life Sciences Initiative passed in Massachusetts on Monday. The legislation, spearheaded by Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA), funds biotechnology research, building on and strengthening biotech industries in Massachusetts. Schwarzenegger and Patrick both aim to attract the top scientists and companies to their state. Schwarzenegger reached out to biotech scientists and entrepreneurs stating that, “California is the place to set-up shop.” He touted $73 billion in annual revenue for the California biomedical industry, which he added, “excludes the sales of Botox, which of course are due to Joan Rivers.” He noted that California Proposition 71, which created the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and funds stem cell research, gave out half a billion dollars to California institutions. He also discussed developing a tax credit to attract top companies to the state. Venture capital investment in life sciences companies in the state is projected to increase to $4.3 billion in 2008, up from from $3.2 billion in 2007.

Massachusetts also benefits from a strong biotech collegiate environment, and the Massachusetts Bio-Technology Council, composed of Massachusetts life science companies and institutions, played a pivotal role in passing the $1 billion life sciences bill. Massachusetts has some other advantages. Boston is already “a major medical cluster” containing two world renowned universities, four medical schools, 20 teaching hospitals and over 500 life-sciences companies. Before heading off to the San Diego convention, Patrick announced that his plan contained $250 million in tax incentives to encourage companies to expand, $250 million in grants for research, fellowships for workforce training, and $500 million for infrastructure, including a stem cell bank at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The bill has already proven successful in enticing biotech firms. Privately held Organogenesis Inc, a specialist in regenerative medicine, said publicly that the Life Sciences Initiative bill was a reason they will expand, opening a site in Massachusetts. In addition, Patrick said that this investment in Massachusetts biotechnology hub will create 250,000 jobs over the next ten years.

This simultaneous commitment through financial investment in biotechnology research and state economic growth will feed the healthy competition between the two states.

Tomorrow, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science and Technology will host a hearing on H.R. 4174: The Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act (FOARAM) Act. Representative Thomas Allen’s (D-ME) sponsorship of this bill follows Senator Frank Lautenberg’s (D-NY) parallel legislation, S. 1581: FOARAM Act of 2007, proposed almost exactly a year a go today. However, it was just recently that Lautenberg’s S.1581 was placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar for a Senate vote.

The FOARAM bills in the House and Senate take into account the imminent and long-term threats of greenhouse emissions and industrial pollution; an increasing amount of carbon dioxide is being absorbed by the oceans. The bills take the first step to building a larger movement on ocean acidification awareness; they establish outreach activities, educational opportunities, and an incentive-based monitoring system of acidic levels in the ocean. They also establish grants for research projects to explore many of the unknown effects of ocean acidification. Under the direction of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, FOARAM requires federal agencies to collaborate on strategic ocean research with public and private organizations.

Acidification monitoring will help curb faster paced increases in acidity and potential consequences for the ocean’s vast natural resources. Scientists can monitor reef habitats that protect marine ecosystems and prevent their destruction by hurricanes and tropical storms. Organisms being monitored for their environment’s acidification fluctuations will help researchers understand species-specific physiological responses and develop strategies for what can be done to prevent harm to wildlife.

Bi-partisan support the Senate and House versions of FOARAM brings an auspicious vision for future congressional resolutions on water policy. Last year Amy Carroll, a Republican aide with the House Science and Technology Committee, commented (subscription) during the Capital Hill Oceans Week: “This is a good year, and a good Congress for oceans issues.” Amy Fraenkel, senior Democratic counsel for the Senate Commerce Committee, said, “The House is becoming more active on these issues…the administration is also stepping up in this Congress in a way they haven’t before.”

The panelists at tomorrow’s hearing will address the above issues and beyond. Dr. Scott Doney of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution will discuss how the current and future research on ocean acidification can lead to increased marine source management efforts. Mr. Brad Warren, a policy with the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership and technical advisor for many seafood suppliers and producers, will discuss the effects ocean acidification on the world’s seafood industry. With America boasting the world’s third largest seafood industry, Congress has another reason to pay special attention to FOARAM. Whether or not the natural resource losses caused by acidification will force Congress to move on this issue is unclear, but this threat is too long-lasting to stall another year.

Image: flickr.com/sam_and_ian