110 HR 1067 IH: To establish a Federal coordination and planning process U.S. House of Representatives 2007-02-15 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

I 110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 1067 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.