Bipartisan US Senate Committee Completes Protecting America's Competitive Edge (PACE) Act. (January 26, 2006)

    Just before Christmas TFW reported on legislation, introduced by a bipartisan group of senators in the US Congress, The National Innovation Act of 2005. Now a bipartisan group of nineteen US Senators worried about U.S. innovation have offered a package of bills that hold closely to recommendations of a report by the National Research Council of the National Academies which calls for the U.S. government to double spending on basic research in the physical sciences and to bolster science education at all levels.

The Protecting America's Competitive Edge (PACE) Act is the third such legislative package in the past month to address the issue. Science lobbyists hope that following on the previous bills, the group will "create irresistible momentum for action".

ScienceNow reports the latest package of bills calls for "yearly increases of 10% for basic research funding at the departments of Energy and Defense, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and NASA. It calls for 8% of basic science funds at these agencies--plus the National Institute of Standards and Technology--to be used for high-risk research directed by program managers. The bills repeat calls for new scholarship programs at the undergraduate and graduate level, as well as programs to train new and existing teachers. Tax incentives, visa policy changes, and patent reform are offered as a way to spur corporate innovation."

PACE includes starting provisions designating US$9.5 billion in 2007 and increasing gradually over 7 years as recommended in the National Research Councils report.

Of course as is the case with the legislation preceding PACE its passage will be ineffective without concurrence from the committees that actually allocate annual spending levels for each of the agencies.

The next move is up to President George W. Bush, whose 6 February budget proposal to Congress will set the tone for the debate over 2007 funding levels.

Whatever the faults of the executive/legislative/judicial system as practiced in the United States, it does show up the sheep-like behaviour by parliamentarians engendered by Australia's brand of the Westminster system.