SSTI Digest

The following is a sampling of the more than 60 events included in the SSTI Calendar of Events webpage: http://www.ssti.org/calendar.htm

Webcast on 21st Century Agriculture R&D Priorities On May 22 and May 23, the Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources of the National Research Council will hold a web-based workshop Opportunities in Agriculture: A Vision for USDA's Food and Agricultural Research in the 21st Century. Listen in free via live audio Webcast and submit questions to participants using an email form; both are accessible with an agenda and more information on the project's webpage, http://nationalacademies.org/banr/active_projects/agopps

President Bush intends to nominate P.H. Johnson to be Federal Co-chairperson of the Delta Regional Authority. He currently practices law with the firm of Johnson Bobo in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Bill Shipp has been promoted to president and general manager of the Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory. Currently laboratory director, Shipp will take his new position August 1. Mr. Shipp also serves as Science & Technology Advisor to Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne. Jackie Norton, director of the Arizona Department of Commerce for the past five years, has announced she will be leaving the position this summer. Anita Balachandra, formerly in charge of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Technology (EPSCoT) in the U.S. Department of Commerce, is now working with the Maryland Technology Development Corp.

President Bush intends to nominate P.H. Johnson to be Federal Co-chairperson of the Delta Regional Authority. He currently practices law with the firm of Johnson Bobo in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Bill Shipp has been promoted to president and general manager of the Idaho National Engineering & Environmental Laboratory. Currently laboratory director, Shipp will take his new position August 1. Mr. Shipp also serves as Science & Technology Advisor to Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne.

Jackie Norton, director of the Arizona Department of Commerce for the past five years, has announced she will be leaving the position this summer.

Anita Balachandra, formerly in charge of the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Technology (EPSCoT) in the U.S. Department of Commerce, is now working with the Maryland Technology Development Corp.

SSTI welcomes Anulet Jones to our team as a Research Assistant. Ms. Jones has an engineering degree from Georgia Tech and is working on her MBA at Capital University in Columbus, Ohio.

Governor Tom Ridge’s $90 million plan to create a series of life science research/commercialization centers would be the largest, single technology initiative ever proposed in Pennsylvania, according to a recent press release from the Governor's office. The Life Sciences Greenhouse Initiative would be a network of innovation centers in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg closely connected to university research activities. To be seeded with a $90 million investment from a one-time surplus of tobacco settlement funds, the centers would be sustained by grants from the ongoing settlement. The initiative hopes to capitalize on increased private and federal research investment as well as the state's 30 percent growth in employment in life-sciences industries over the last five years -- double the rate of overall job growth in that same period. The Life Sciences Greenhouse network would be a university-industry-state partnership for research and commercialization of life science technologies.

The National Journal’s Technology Daily reported Wednesday that the Senate has approved an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act reauthorization bill (S.1) that would authorize up to $100 million for the Community Technology Centers program. The amendment, introduced by Senator Barbara Miluski of Maryland and passed by a 50-49 vote, also keeps the popular program within the Department of Education. President Bush’s FY 2002 budget had requested the program be moved to the Department of Housing and Urban Development which has a series of computer access centers in its public housing projects. Return to the top of this page

With the National Conference of State Legislatures saying 23 states already feel the pinch of a slowing economy and large state tax cuts made during the late 1990s, at least one group says the situation will only worsen with the pending federal tax cut. Basing its analysis of the President's original tax cut proposal, Citizens for Tax Justice estimates states stand to lose potentially $35 billion dollars a year in revenues by 2012. As much as $15.2 billion would be lost through the repeal of the federal estate tax. Currently, according to the group, each state gets almost 26 cents of each dollar the federal government receives from estate taxes paid by residents of that state. The revenue sharing accounts for 1-3 percent of states' total tax revenues. The group points out as well that, according to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, another effect of the estate tax repeal is an additional $16 billion in lost state income tax revenues annually by 2012.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released Federal Science and Engineering Support to Universities, Colleges, and Nonprofit Institutions: Fiscal Year 1999 (NSF 01-323). The data presented in the 33 tables cover all categories of direct federal science and engineering (S&E) support to institutions of higher education in the United States. The 18 agencies listed in these tables provide virtually all of the Federal funding for S&E research and development (R&D) at U.S. universities and colleges. Data also are reported on these agencies' obligations to nonprofit institutions. In FY 1999, the 18 agencies reported obligations to 1,088 universities and colleges, 35 academic system offices, and 1,038 independent nonprofit institutions. Statistical tables presenting the information by state include:

Arkansas The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that Fayetteville city officals are looking at alternative locations to create the Arkansas Research and Technology Park since a wetlands has grown to consume 80 of the 289 acres originally purchased for the park in 1994. A possible front-runner site, according to the paper, is an area that would closely link the park to the University of Arkansas Engineering Research Center, the Genesis Technology Incubator, and the High Density Electronics Center. State, federal, and private funding sources currently are being investigated for the technology cluster-based economic development project. Georgia