[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 1067 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 1067

 To establish a Federal coordination and planning process for advanced 
                research instrumentation and facilities.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           February 15, 2007

  Mr. Baird introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
 Committee on Science and Technology, and in addition to the Committee 
 on Education and Labor, for a period to be subsequently determined by 
the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall 
           within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To establish a Federal coordination and planning process for advanced 
                research instrumentation and facilities.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Instruments are the key to the advancement of 
        scientific and engineering research and the development of new 
        and improved technologies.
            (2) The need for specialized instruments has become 
        broader, crossing scientific and engineering disciplines.
            (3) Research progress in interdisciplinary fields 
        increasingly relies on the availability of advanced 
        instruments, or systems of instruments, that require highly 
        specialized knowledge and training for their proper operation 
        and use.
            (4) A committee of the National Academy of Sciences has 
        recommended that Federal research agencies place greater 
        emphasis on developing formal mechanisms to support access by 
        researchers to advanced instruments that exceed the cost of 
        instruments that can be acquired under normal research grants 
        and that require special support arrangements for their 
        operation and use.

SEC. 2. DEFINITIONS.

    In this Act:
            (1) Advanced research instrumentation and facilities.--The 
        term ``advanced research instrumentation and facilities'' means 
        instrumentation that is used for research, including 
        collections of closely related or interacting instruments, 
        networks of sensors, databases, and cyber infrastructure and 
        that is commonly acquired by large-scale centers or research 
        programs rather than by individual investigators.
            (2) Director.--The term ``Director'' means the Director of 
        the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

SEC. 3. COORDINATION.

    The Director shall use the National Science and Technology Council 
as a forum for coordination and collaboration among Federal agencies in 
developing best practices for the support of advanced research 
instrumentation and facilities at academic institutions, and shall 
encourage the development of centralized programs for support of 
advanced research instrumentation and facilities at all Federal 
research agencies that sponsor research at academic institutions. This 
forum shall also provide advice to the Director in developing advanced 
research instrumentation and facilities policies in accordance with 
section 4.

SEC. 4. POLICY FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH INSTRUMENTATION AND FACILITIES.

    The Director shall develop and implement policies for Federal 
support for advanced research instrumentation and facilities, which 
shall include--
            (1) consistent policies among Federal agencies for the 
        support of the operations and maintenance costs of advanced 
        research instrumentation and facilities acquired in whole or in 
        part from Federal funding sources, including policies to 
        encourage and support the career development of technical 
        research support staff for instrumentation;
            (2) guidelines for the appropriate balance in Federal 
        funding for research at academic institutions between research 
        project support and the acquisition, operations and maintenance 
        of advanced research instrumentation and facilities; and
            (3) policy and procedures for support by multiple Federal 
        agencies, including joint grant solicitations, for advanced 
        research instrumentation and facilities that would be useful 
        for multiple fields of research and relevant to the research 
        goals of multiple Federal agencies.

SEC. 5. REPORT.

    The Director shall provide a report describing the coordination 
activities carried out in accordance with section 3 and the status of 
the development and implementation of policies and guidelines called 
for under section 4 to the Committee on Science of the House of 
Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and 
Transportation of the Senate not later than 1 year after the date of 
enactment of this Act.
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