'Gathering Storm' Report Urges Strong Federal Action to Save US Science and Technology Leadership

A National Academy of Sciences study warns that without strong steps to improve federal support for science and technology, the quality of life in the US is threatened.

For several years the reports have been stacking up in offices throughout Washington, DC. One is by the Council on Competitiveness, another is by the Electronic Industries Alliance, and still another is by the Business Roundtable. There are more than a dozen similar reports, all carrying the same basic message: The US is losing its competitive edge because of a lack of investment in education and research.

So when Norman Augustine, the retired chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp, sat down before the US House of Representatives' committee on science on 20 October to present the new National Academy of Sciences report on the US losing its competitive edge because of a lack of investment in education and research, he knew he wasn't telling the committee members anything they didn't already know. But as Augustine spoke there was a sense in the hearing room that the 150-page document, "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," was more than just another report. Augustine and the 19 other scientists, academic leaders, and business executives who put the report together in a mere 10 weeks presented it almost as a warning.

"It is the unanimous view of our committee that America today faces a serious and intensifying challenge with regard to its future competitiveness and standard of living," Augustine said. "Further, we appear to be on a losing path."

Creeping crisis

If the US does not respond quickly, he said, the consequences will be predictable and straightforward. The US will lose quality jobs to other nations, and without such jobs, "our citizens will not have the purchasing power to support the standard of living which they seek, and to which many have become accustomed; tax revenues will not be generated to provide for strong national security and healthcare; and the lack of a vibrant domestic consumer market will provide a disincentive for either US or foreign companies to invest in jobs in America."

William Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering, told the committee that the US failure to invest in science and technology, particularly basic research, and in education, is a "creeping crisis" caused by a "pattern of short-term thinking and a lack of long-term investment." That pattern, he said, "presumes that we in the United States are entitled to a better quality of life than others and that all we have to do is circle our wagons to defend that entitlement."

The report was requested by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), with the endorsement of Representatives Sherwood Boehlert (R-NY) and Bart Gordon (D-TN), and received prompt hearings in both the House and the US Senate. The senators asked that the report state what actions "federal policy makers could take to enhance the science and technology enterprise so that the United States can successfully compete, prosper, and be secure in the global community of the 21st Century."

The authors of the report, including physics Nobel laureates Steven Chu and Robert Richardson, were blunt and specific in their responses. The "scientific and technical building blocks of our economic leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are gathering strength," the report says. "We fear the abruptness with which a lead in science and technology can be lost, and the difficulty of recovering a lead once lost, if indeed it can be regained at all." The US must respond to the problem with "great urgency," the report says.

Twenty actions

There are four recommendations that contain twenty specific actions the authors believe the government should take. The first recommendation calls for annually recruiting 10 000 science and mathematics teachers by awarding four-year scholarships of up to $20 000 per year to college students studying the physical or life sciences, engineering, or mathematics "with concurrent certification as K–12 science and mathematics teachers." In exchange for the scholarships, the students would commit to five years of teaching in public K–12 schools. Those who worked in underserved schools in the inner cities or rural areas would get an annual $10 000 bonus for the five-year period.

Other actions call for creating state and regional summer institutes to upgrade the skills of as many as 50 000 practicing math and science teachers each year and developing incentives that would increase the number of high-school-level advanced placement and international baccalaureate math and science students from 1.2 million to 4.5 million.

The second recommendation calls for strengthening the US commitment to long-term basic research by increasing the federal investment in such research by 10% a year over the next seven years. That can be done through reallocation of existing funds or the investment of new funds, the report says. It also recommends new research grants, each of $500 000 a year for five years, to 200 of the most outstanding early-career researchers.

The report committee also proposed that at least 8% of federal research agencies' budgets be dedicated to discretionary, "high-risk, high-payoff research." To deal with the nation's long-term energy problems, a special agency should be established in the US Department of Energy to support "creative, out-of-the-box transformational generic energy research that industry by itself cannot or will not support."

The third recommendation calls for making the US more attractive to the best and brightest students from here and abroad. The government should provide 25 000 new undergraduate scholarships of up to $25 000 annually to US students in math or science at US schools. For advanced foreign math and science students in the US, visa extensions, automatic work permits, and expedited residence status should be considered, the report says.

The final recommendation is aimed at enhancing intellectual property protection to ensure that the US is not at a disadvantage in investing in S&T manufacturing and marketing. It also calls for a stronger R&D tax credit to encourage more private investment.

Worrisome indicators

The report includes "worrisome indicators" intended to drive home the importance of the recommendations. "For the cost of one chemist or one engineer in the United States, a company can hire about five chemists in China or 11 engineers in India," the report says. "Chemical companies closed 70 facilities in the US in 2004 and have tagged 40 more for shutdown," the report continues. "Of 120 chemical plants being built around the world with price tags of $1 billion or more, one is in the United States and 50 in China."

The concern on Capitol Hill is how to get the report's recommendations, which cut across the jurisdictions of many different House and Senate committees, included in funding bills. The debate in recent weeks has been whether to introduce the proposals in a single bill or to break them up, submit them to the appropriate committees, and hope some are funded. In an appendix near the end of the report, the authors give cost estimates for implementing all of the recommendations. The low estimate is $500 million, the high more than $5 billion.

"I've been worried about this [competitiveness] problem for 15 years or more," said Augustine, who chaired the report committee. "But given the budget problems, the report is sailing into a strong headwind."

Request product info