There are only four programs in the Treasury Department that SSTI monitors for the tech-based economic development community. Similar to the Administration's FY 2006 budget request, all are slated for termination or phase out in FY 2007. Congress restored 98.9 percent of the funding in its final FY06 appropriations.
The Administration's FY 2007 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) budget request is $7.3 billion, a 4.07 percent decrease from the FY 2006 appropriation*. The agency's science and technology programs would receive $788.3 million, a 7.86 percent increase over the FY06 appropriation. However, funding for research would decrease by $19.9 million.
The FY 2007 budget request for NASA totals $16.8 billion, a 1 percent increase from FY 2006. Included in the FY07 request is $5.3 billion for the Science Mission Directorate, an increase of 1.5 percent from FY06. However, funding for Aeronautics Research decreased 18.1 percent, totaling $724.4 million for FY07.
The Administration’s FY07 NSF budget request of $6.02 billion reflects an increase of $439 million or 7.9 percent from the FY06 appropriation.
There are three federally established regional commissions and authorities that are dedicated to improving the economic opportunities within specific geographic regions. The Appalachian Regional Commission and the Delta Regional Authority are dependent on annual appropriations. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the oldest and largest of the three, generates its budget primarily through power generation revenues. TVA still requires the government to approve or set its annual spending level.
The Administration requests $624 million in FY 2007 funding for the Small Business Administration (SBA). Comparison with FY 2006 is challenging due to the disaster loans added to the SBA's authority in FY06. Tech Daily quotes an SBA official as saying the FY07 request "basically would be a straight-line" comparison to the FY 2006 appropriation.
Over the last year, there has been increased public and government attention on issues involving tech-based economic development. For much of the year, Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat has dominated the New York Times bestseller list. A series of reports from the AeA, Council on Competitiveness, and the National Academy of Sciences call for increased action by the federal government.
During his 2006 State of the Union Address, President Bush outlined a decade-long $50 billion American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI) for R&D, education and entrepreneurship. The FY 2007 downpayment on ACI is $5.9 billion, which is accomplished by shuffling priorities within a shrinking federal discretionary budget environment to find $1.3 billion in new funding and $4.6 billion in R&D tax incentives. Specifically, ACI calls for:
Perennially a favorite target for Congressional earmarks, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) budget, at $92.8 billion, is nearly $3 billion below the FY 2006 level of anticipated expenditures. More than three-fourths of the USDA budget outlays for FY 2007 are dedicated to mandatory spending programs such as nutrition assistance, conservation, export promotion and farm commodity programs. The remaining balance of $21.5 billion, $1.7 billion or 7.3 percent less than the FY06 outlay level, is for discretionary programs.
Earlier this month, the Canadian Minister of Industry announced the establishment of 11 new Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs) to pursue multidisciplinary work in the areas of environmental science, natural resources and energy, health and life sciences, and information and communication technologies. This $163 million investment joins a $105 million investment last year that created seven other CECRs across Canada.
With the goals of reducing crude oil consumption by a whopping 72 percent and identifying clean energy sources to cover 70 percent of the state’s energy needs by 2030, Hawaii has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to figure out exactly how to get the job done under the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative.
Transforming as many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as possible into globally competitive firms is a challenge, as most TBED practitioners know. The complexity of combining all of Europe into a single market makes the work even more daunting.
To simplify the process for SMEs in more than 40 countries, the European Commission recently launched a consolidated Enterprise Europe Network. The network consolidates the older Euro Info Centres and the Innovation Relay Centres.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich unveiled a $25 billion capital plan supporting, in small part, several energy and technology projects, while at the same time eliminating funding in his fiscal year 2009 operating budget for several TBED-related programs within the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity (DCEO).
This year's edition of the Angel Capital Association's (ACA) Angel Group Confidence Report reveals that angel investors are "cautiously optimistic" about their opportunities in 2008, despite recent predictions of a slowdown for the overall U.S. economy. In a survey of ACA members, nearly 55 percent predicted that the number of angel investments made by their group and the total dollars invested will increase this year.
Across the nation, policymakers, business leaders, private foundations and nonprofit groups are investing in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduates to maintain a competitive U.S. workforce. From middle school math and science labs to engineering-centered summer camps and tuition reimbursement for undergraduates who pursue these fields, there is widespread support for STEM graduates.
The best path to breaking the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next is a college degree, according to a new Brookings Institution report. Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America reveals 41 percent of degree-holding people whose parents’ income placed their families in the bottom 20 percent of the population, or quintile, now have incomes placing them among the top 40 percent.
Analysts Say Request Going Nowhere
The last budget request of a lame duck administration rarely musters much attention from Congress as its focus is turned toward the next administration and, for entire the House of Representatives, its own re-election. Not one of the previous seven budgets of the Bush years has been passed on time, so no one in Washington expects this one to be the exception.
During the past two months, five reports have highlighted grim news for state budgets in fiscal year 2008, FY 2009 and beyond, brought on by declining revenues, the crisis in the housing market, increased oil prices, a potential national recession, and structure issues with state finances.
According to the latest index from JointVenture Silicon Valley, 2007 looks like a pretty good year compared to 2006 when you look at many standard measures of economic performance. There were 28,000 new jobs created, a 1.5 percent increase in population, and 21 percent growth in solar and wind energy installations. Water use also dropped 6 percent, venture capital investments were up 11 percent, median household income rose, and city revenues were up 37 percent.
The agricultural states that lie east of the Rocky Mountains are at the center of an escalating decline in population, far exceeding that of other regions of the country. Of particular concern is the effect of population loss among young, educated workers on the states’ economies, resulting in a brain drain that could leave the region lagging the rest of the nation for many years to come.
In recent years, Iowa, like many midwestern states, has experienced a boom in ethanol production. Iowa's natural competitive advantage in growing and processing corn has helped it to move to the forefront of the emerging biofuels industry. The state provides numerous incentives and assistance programs through its Department of Natural Resources to help spur the creation of ethanol-related companies and jobs.
The North Carolina Board of Science and Technology, for a long time serving mostly in an advisory capacity to Gov. Mike Easley, increasingly is more involved in the direct delivery of technology-based economic development programs. The latest addition to its growing portfolio of programs is a $1 million Green Business Fund to help small businesses commercialize promising green and alternative energy technologies.
New Mexico’s 2008 legislative session wrapped up last week, resulting in no final action on several TBED-related bills and leading Gov. Bill Richardson to call a special legislative session to address his health care reform agenda.
Research-based companies draw much of their advantage in the market from their investment in technology development and the knowledge capital they have accumulated over time. Since this knowledge represents potential revenue, many companies jealously guard their intellectual property (IP) with non-compete clauses and other legal contracts with their employees. No company, however, can completely stop the outward flow of information.
A consistent claim in many competitiveness reports and economic development strategies is the need to increase the number of scientists and engineers in a given geographic area. But are there other factors, when coupled with the presence of scientists and engineers, that influence local long-term employment growth more than others?