ASME President quoted in 'Dear Colleague' letter to the House

In June, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., of the House Education and Workforce Committee, sent a "Dear Colleague" letter to the entire U.S. House of Representatives with the heading, "Experts Call for Incentives to Recruit Math & Science Teachers."

In it, Wilson referenced ASME President Reginald Vachon and ASME's letter of support for his bill, H.R. 438, the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Act. The bill would increase loan forgiveness for math, science and special education teachers who agree to teach in low-
income school districts.

ASME's letter can be found at www.asme.org/gric/ps/2003/03-27.html.

A day later, H.R. 438 passed the House by 417-7. Now the bill is awaiting consideration by the Senate. President George W. Bush included the loan forgiveness provision in his fiscal year 2004 budget request.

For more information, contact Patti Burgio Curtis at curtisp@asme.org or visit http://joewilson.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=727.

White House sets R&D budget priorities for fiscal 2005

The White House has released a June memorandum by White House Science Advisor John Marburger and recently departed budget director Mitch Daniels to the heads of federal agencies.

The memo outlines five broad priorities for President Bush's fiscal 2005 R&D budget request: anti-terrorism R&D, networking and information technology, molecular-level understanding of life processes, environment and energy, and nanotechnology.

Due to a "combination of limited resources and a multitude of opportunities," the memorandum noted that all program requests will be evaluated for relevance, quality and performance criteria.

In addition, clearly articulated public benefits, justifications for appropriateness of federal investment, documented industry or market relevance, and plans for transitioning the technology to industry must be included in requests for R&D programs to develop technologies addressing industry issues.

The White House R&D budget memorandum can be found at www.ostp.gov/html/OSTP-OMB%20Memo.pdf.

For more information, contact Melissa Murray at murraym@asme.org.

NCSL fiscal report sees a better outlook for states in 2004

When the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) held its annual meeting in San Francisco last month, budget cuts, tax increases and nearly three years of poor economic news formed the backdrop of the meeting.

Nevertheless, according to the latest NCSL fiscal report, "State Budget and Tax Actions 2003," the states' elected representatives believe that fiscal year 2004 will be better and revenues will rebound in their respective states. In fiscal 2003, 43 of the 49 states that are
required to balance their budgets have already done so by using their reserves, increasing specific fees and finding cost-cutting measures.

In the report, state fiscal officers are predicting that revenues will rebound in fiscal 2004, due to the expected rise of general fund ending balances and the fact that no state participating in the study is predicting a deficit at the end of this fiscal year.

The report is available at www.ncsl.org/programs/fiscal/presbta03.htm.

On a related note, ASME exhibited at the meeting, and spearheaded the engineers' and architects' joint booth. The "Engineers and Architects: Designing America's Future" booth was comprised of six engineering and architecture associations.

More than 1,400 state legislators attended the meeting. ASME staff and volunteers interacted with more than 200 of them on engineering issues, and ASME in particular. Issues included K-12 science, technology, engineering and mathematics education; homeland security, and energy. For more information, contact Melissa Murray at murraym@asme.org.

— Melissa Murray
ASME Government Relations

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