Why does he chair that committee again?

More from the “Congress doesn’t know what it’s talking about” desk, this time from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). Smith, who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, is an attorney by trade, while Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX), shaping herself up to be the chief thorn in his side, is a registered nurse (RN). You might find that information pertinent, considering what Smith’s new bill is all about.

It’s called the High Quality Research Act, which you will find hilarious shortly. It would require the following of scientific projects awarded grants or contracts by the National Science Foundation (NSF):

• that they “advance the national health, prosperity or welfare, and . . . secure the national defense by promoting the progress of science”;
• that they be “of the finest quality . . . ground-breaking, and answers questions or solves problems that are of utmost importance to society at large”; and
• that they are “not duplicative of other research projects” that receive funding from federal science agencies.

It also requires that the NSF director report to the House and Senate Science Committees on their progress implementing the above rules within a year. That’s why you’ll hear the word “politicization” being used repeatedly in reference to the effects of this legislation. The idea of members of Congress, especially one who rejects evolution, reading a report on the scientific grant process and suggesting improvements is a Daily Show sketch just begging to be written.

There’s also the matter of this bill being duplicative, as Johnson noted in a letter:

. . . NSF’s Broader Impact criterion is the right way to hold the individual grantee accountable. . . . [in] 2010, out of concern that some NSF-funded scientists did not take this responsibility seriously enough, this committee enacted a requirement for NSF to clarify and strengthen the Broader Impacts criterion. (Emphasis hers.)

You can read up on that criterion here. It doesn’t indicate that a grant or contract will be rejected unless it meets Smith’s proposed guidelines; however, it does indicate that the NSF will consider it. That’s the most he can expect from an organization that was founded to produce scientific research. And the Broader Impact criterion, which is less intrusive, had its own fair share of backlash from the scientific community. Don’t expect this to go over much better.

The real concern is that if Smith’s bill passes, it could lead to increased congressional involvement in the NSF’s operations, ultimately making the peer-review process secondary to political considerations. The short-term cost savings wouldn’t be worth it. Taxpayers aren’t the NSF’s priority – the quality and scope of American science is.

A big, scary Net tax that probably won’t happen

A federal agency is thinking about imposing a tax on your Internet access. I will now give you the requisite 15 minutes to freak out. (waits) All done? Good. So, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is looking for new ways to funnel money to the Connect America Fund, which aims to provide 19 million Americans with broadband Internet. They already carved out a $4.5 billion portion of the Universal Service Fund (USF), which aimed to expand telephone access, for that exact purpose.

But this goes beyond that. With fewer people making interstate phone calls, which is where revenue has been coming from, and instead choosing to use e-mail, the fund has been drying up. So it’s natural that the FCC is looking to the Internet, as we all have. They have proposed a fee on Internet service providers that would be passed on to the consumers, possibly to the tune of only one or two dollars a month, but enough, says consumer advocate Derek Turner, to turn people off from buying broadband services.

I personally don’t buy that. Except maybe for the hardest-core of anti-government types, a fee that size wouldn’t sway them from the economic benefits of having the Internet at home – especially those who are running businesses. I also don’t buy the FCC’s claim that this fee wouldn’t be a tax, merely “a fee that the providers choose to pass on to consumers.” A tax is a charge or levy imposed by a government, and the ISPs count as tax-paying entities. It’s a tax.

And that’s where we run into some thorny legal challenges. The Internet Tax Freedom Act of 1998 prevents governments, except 10 grandfathered states, from applying taxes to Internet access. ISPs who are supportive of the proposed tax – AT&T, Sprint and Google among them – argue that paying the single fee this way is preferable to paying it based on usage of online services. Consumers would certainly notice this more, and therefore would be more likely to avoid using them, depending on their current usage.

I have often cited low national Internet access as an economic risk factor – maybe six percent of the population isn’t much to you, but 19 million is a lot. And I don’t foresee much comparable economic risk if this fee was applied to Internet bills, assuming it was held to a couple of bucks, much less so than one of the FCC’s other ideas: a text message tax. (14-year-old girls across America have just become interested in fiscal policy for the first time.)

But until they figure out a way to get around the 1998 law, it’s a non-starter. And with a House as hostile to any new taxes than this one, it’s a double non-starter. So you may now cease freaking out.

We may be off the right track

Are you worried about Google and Facebook suffering from lower profits? Of course you aren’t. Well, they are, and that’s why they’re joining other Internet companies in lobbying against a “Do Not Track” option pursued by the White House. I know at least a couple of my readers who are wary about any clandestine attempt to obtain their personal information, even the least relevant, have already said yes to the aforementioned option. But don’t say anything yet.

I wish I could tell you how “Do Not Track” would work, but they haven’t even figured that out yet:

To privacy advocates, it is halting data collection so a consumer can surf the Web without any prying eyes collecting information about their online activities for economic gain. To the industry, however, it means not targeting ads to a consumer based on their Web viewing history, but data collection would continue for other purposes. (WHAT other purposes? – JC)

Most web browsers already have Do Not Track options, but are not legally compelled to comply with them, which is what the White House would prefer. I knew my Internet surfing was being tracked when two things happened: 1. The little banner ads in Gmail became uncomfortably similar to the content of messages I had just read or sent. 2. After searching for an unnamed consumer product, I saw ads for it everywhere. Creepy? Yes. Threatening? Not really.

The anti-Do Not Track lobby pointed out that they generate a lot of revenue from the sale of user data, and this can spare the user the annoyance of traditional advertising (she said as she closed the same goddamn Netflix pop-up for the millionth time). This perhaps is the only argument in favor of voluntary compliance. Their other options would be to implement paywalls, which nobody likes, or to worm their way onto your Internet bill somehow. Who wants that?

However. Regardless of the website’s official story, it is entirely possible that some employee with access to the data collected can glean information they shouldn’t be gleaning from it. Besides, the advertising industry has survived for years without having to monitor consumers’ daily activities. They go where you’re likely to be and hope for the best. There is no reason Internet advertisers can’t do that, too, save the ability to go deeper – which, of course, is no excuse.

So should the federal government mandate compliance? No, that’s outside their purview. Such demands should come from users – and shareholders, who are much likelier to be in these companies’ faces at least once a year. Anything to get that recipe for Ginger Spam Salad away from my Gmail.

Put the pedal to the metals

In Canada, an organization known as the Ethical Oil Institute has been running ads advising businesses and governments to choose oil from Canada’s tar sands over that produced in Arab countries. After all, by buying the latter, you’re fueling governments with highly dubious (to say the least) records on human rights and counterterrorism. Environmentalists aren’t buying it, but if you’re going to use oil at all, you might as well choose the kind that hasn’t been tainted by terrorists. The same argument could be applied to rare earth elements.

Seventeen elements on the periodic table are considered rare earths: the 15 in the lanthanide series, plus scandium and yttrium. While they occur quite often in the Earth’s crust, they are only accessible in a very few areas, hence “rare.” They are used heavily in electronics of all kinds, plus magnets, lasers and metallurgical implements. The city of Ketchikan, Alaska, has been named as a possible location for a very lucrative rare earth mining industry.

Granted, if I were to choose a new American industry myself, mining would not be my first choice, but mostly for aesthetic reasons. While I have never traveled to Alaska (in fact, I haven’t been as far west as California since I was a baby), TV has taught me that the entire state, especially the mountainous parts, are absolutely beautiful. I wouldn’t want to see that marred by mining if we could get away with it.

But the economic counterargument is far stronger. The current world leader in rare earth production is, yes, China. This is one area in which America can compete with the Chinese without using monetary policy or trade revision to do it. More importantly, more private-sector mining jobs in Alaska could mean less dependence on federal largesse for its citizens.

This is how to grow the economy the old-fashioned American way: find something that promises long-term development and future sales (secure as long as we keep needing electronic things), and have private sources invest in it before the government does. That’s what’s poised to happen right now. The only catch worth complaining about is that permits in Alaska can take up to three years to obtain. Any measures that can cut this time ought to be taken, although I would not skip the step of an environmental impact assessment, just to be nice.

With any luck, someone will later find massive deposits of tin and tantalum so America can have a supply of truly conflict-free metal. These aren’t nearly as rare, but are used for many of the same purposes and rely more heavily on slave labor. Someone in Congress can lead here.

The government is too big to fail

I admit that my optimism for green energy and technology has waned somewhat in the past year. For anyone out there who finds themselves in the same position, just remind yourself that the energy generation hasn’t been completely proven, nor has a sufficient number of companies come up with smaller-scale, high-tech green products for substantial manufacturing growth. Even then, the Solyndra scandal doesn’t do much to keep our spirits up.

A number of factors are leading House Republicans to take a much more investigative tack when it comes to federal alternative energy loans: the unusually high speed by which it went through; the presence of doubts about Solyndra’s finances before it received its $535 million loan; and, to a lesser extent (the right loves this one), the fact that Obama donor George Kaiser was a major Solyndra investor. They’ve asked the Department of Energy for its 18-strong portfolio of existing loans. Solyndra is less willing to disclose anything.

The most obvious problem I see in this story is the number of unanswered questions present: Are there any reasons for Solyndra’s bankruptcy that have nothing to do with economics, and if they are, why won’t they own them? I have reminded countless people that the worst PR move to make in a crisis situation is to appear secretive or arouse further suspicion in any way. If Solyndra can still afford to pay a communications staff, they are clearly giving the wrong advice and should cease receiving their paychecks.

However, a look over the loan application form reveals that there is no space to disclose any political affiliations that, should the company fail, may put both it and the government in an embarrassing position. While the vetting process surely has more involved than that, it is unclear whether or not it was a question made to Solyndra. It’s best to be open about that sort of thing early.

What we’re seeing is renewed wariness surrounding the government acting in the role of venture capitalist, as opposed to a funder of shovel-ready projects, which have more immediate impact on the economy and job creation. Private venture capital, by nature, is less risky because it doesn’t involve massive amounts of taxpayer money. In the future, the government might have to wait for better times before it takes that gamble.

In short, to put the American people back to work, they need the opportunity to make things we already know are worth making. Once green tech meets that standard, and once it can afford to do so, the government can get more involved. But this isn’t the best use of deficit spending.

Bureaucracy is the crazy aunt of invention

An assignment in my first-year advertising class required us to write a commercial for something that didn’t exist. My group “invented” a reverse microwave: If your food was too hot, it would cool it down to just the right temperature within seconds, so you wouldn’t have to stick it in the fridge and be hungry for another five minutes. Did you come up with that before we did, last October or thereabouts? If so, don’t sue Kevin. (It was his idea!) Congress hates that.

The Senate is considering the House version of a bill intended to stem the ever-flowing tide of patent litigation. It would provide annual dedicated funding to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which is an expenditure most of them seem to accept. It would also create a review process for challenges to bad patents before they go to litigation. Finally, it would issue patents to the first inventors who apply, without requiring them to prove the idea was theirs.

As much as I think the backlog of patent and intellectual property litigation can be solved in 30 seconds by locking the Whine-klevoss twits in a closet for all eternity, two out of three elements of this legislation are sound. The only people who like endless amounts of lawsuits, after all, are trial lawyers. The review process would, hopefully, stop that before it starts even more. In addition, consistent funding for patents would be one of the few worthy job creation measures we’ve seen yet.

I say “hopefully” because we can’t expect the review process to be flawless (this is the government we’re talking about), which is why the third element of the legislation is distinctly unsound. Suppose a few bad patents do end up being granted. In fact, suppose a lot of bad patents are granted. Not only does the real inventor sue the recipient, but the office. How much funding will cover a big pile of that?

Even if nobody goes to litigation in this situation, the backlog in the review stage could be even worse than it is at the application stage. The need for efficiency at the patent office should extend to the long term, and not trump the need for applications that are legally solid the first time they’re filed. It’s not too much to ask the inventors of America that they prove their legitimacy. This is an essential ingredient in sustained economic growth.

That said, excuse me while I stick some of this hot food in the MicroVerse to cool it down before I feed it to the twits. They must be starving in that closet.

But is there a smoking raygun?

With China holding so much leverage over the U.S. when it comes to the debt, and trade between the two countries disproportionately benefitting their economy, I wonder why President Obama is seeking to deepen the ties between the two countries further. That China has gained more from this relationship would continue to be true if those ties are deepened in space. Unfortunately for himself, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) hasn’t proven that this has happened to a concerning extent yet.

Because John Holdren, the White House’s Chief Science Adviser, met with his Chinese counterpart twice in May, Wolf says he has engaged in “technological cooperation”; a clause in this year’s budget legislation prevented this with China, on the grounds that it “steals U.S. industrial secrets and launches cyberattacks against the United States.” His “only response” to this transgression is to cut the Holdren’s budget by 55 percent. Their budget is a grant total of $6.6 million at the moment; the cut would reduce it to $2.9 million. 

Policy-wise, the advantage of collaboration to the U.S. would be the ability to learn more about China’s plans for its manned space program, which happens to be dominated by their military. It would also open up American space-related products to Chinese customers, although widening trade channels in that arena might not be so good for American employees of those producers. And, of course, China would probably expect details of the U.S. program in exchange.

Wolf, “a fierce critic of Beijing,” has not described the particulars of those meetings, thus we’re not sure if actual collaboration has taken place. His distrust of China, for which you can’t blame him, and his party’s desperation for slashable items in the budget, may have melded together into a somewhat shaky accusation. Holdren might want to show us some memos if he wants to prove that Wolf is wasting his time.

In addition, if this is Holdren’s mistake and it has security implications, Wolf’s cause might be better served by transferring this matter to the Oversight Committee. Holdren’s office, small as it is, could be the source of the U.S.’s next biggest success in the science and technology field. While I personally think setting a goal for a cure for cancer would be better than almost anything to do with space, the office would have a role to play in either.

Of course, I don’t think Wolf has a vendetta against technological progress or even the Obama administration – just a vendetta against China that may misdirect him. If anyone in Congress does, it’s this woman.

The most organic synthetic material you’ve ever seen

I realize now is the absolute worst time to be talking about something the federal government ought to invest more money in, but bear with me. I’m tired of the deficit/debt, and this is very exciting. A press release from last week outlined efforts by Sprint and Samsung to use more environmentally friendly plastics in their newest phones. I bring this up because this gives credibility to the economic opportunity that exists in the emerging field of bioplastic.

For those who have never heard of such a thing, bioplastic is a form of plastic made from organic materials, as opposed to petroleum. This allows some, though not all, to biodegrade as opposed to languishing intact for hundreds of years. Most are made from starches such as corn and peas, but others are made from cellulose, and some are made from various polymers that I can’t spell offhand. From 2000 to 2008, worldwide use of bioplastics grew by 600%. 

You have seen me repeatedly endorse green innovation as the cause of America’s next economic boom. Before, I had mostly been thinking in the context of renewable energy and transportation. But that pales in comparison to something that could revolutionize every industry that has ever depended on plastic. A combination of government investment and shareholder advocacy could make it happen, with the right amount of will.

The potential of bioplastic hit me when Adam and I were discussing a book I’d bought for him. I was explaining to him that, yes, Israeli business culture did factor in the environment, but not just out of concern for the planet. If they can take the lead in weaning the world off petroleum, it would cripple the economies of every Arab nation that considers it its lifeblood. For them, it’s as much about national security as it is about the environment.

But what would this do for the all-powerful petroleum industry in the U.S.? No doubt some who benefit greatly from its patronage will accuse proponents of bioplastic of wanting to kill American jobs and businesses. Not so – we just want to add different ones that would compete with oil. I should think the oil industry wasn’t afraid of a little battle every now and again.

When the U.S. is in a position to resume strategic investment for the purpose of job creation (10 years? 20?), they ought to take a good, hard look at bioplastic. Any state with a lot of agricultural waste and manufacturing space would certainly reap its rewards.

A price above carbon

This week, Adam and I discussed an outline I wrote, on the spur of the moment, for his first book. The environment is his primary interest – when it comes to politics, he’s a specialist whereas I’m a general practitioner – and that’s what the as-yet-untitled book will cover. His thesis statement is that green energy and technology will be the basis of the next economic boom worldwide, which I definitely agree with. He will also endorse carbon pricing, which the Breakthrough Institute does not.

Proponents of carbon pricing will tell you that doing so, in the form of either a straightforward carbon tax (which Adam prefers) or a much more complex cap-and-trade program, will create national Superfunds that can be used to fund various green projects. Opponents say this wealth redistribution is no way to spur nations to act on climate change, and they must instead focus on technology innovation and investment. Of course, with so much residue from the recession, what will they have to invest? It’s essentially a chicken-egg debate when you boil it down.

As I see it, no responsible company would refuse to, literally, clean up its act if its operations have any negative externalities. By doing so, they’d likely save money in the long run, and it would improve their reputation. Companies that do not do this would be most at risk of a carbon tax. If we become able to measure any possible environmental damage in a unit, they can truly be held accountable for harming land, water and air.

That’s the kind of carbon tax I can see more people supporting. At this point in time, simply using fossil fuels is pretty tame when you consider that clean energy is still very costly. Using them cavalierly is something else, as the Alberta oil sands continually demonstrate to us. A general externality tax would go beyond carbon to protect the environment. Of course, in the United States, it would only be implemented by states.

Even then, an externality tax without providing the framework for new methods would be the worst unfunded mandate. The BI writers propose subsidizing research instead of “uncompetitive” technologies, competitive bidding for green projects and allowing the relevant intellectual property to be shared. They also claim the UN is the wrong starting point for this. I haven’t seen much evidence to the contrary.

If governments succeed in spurring demand (and thereby lowering prices) for green energy and making it status quo, we can start talking about carbon pricing. Until then, it will likely be seen as too punitive to bother with. But Adam remains optimistic.

The nation needs the intarwebz

While a few members of Congress debate overhauling an FCC fund originally designed to provide universal landline telephone service, first-year students in my communications program have been informed that they will be the first-ever class to require a smartphone and an external hard drive for their assignments. Clearly, this program in a vocational college in Winnipeg, which is only 150 students strong at a maximum, is way ahead of the curve.

The FCC itself has recommend overhauling the National Service Fund to the extent that it would develop broadband access as opposed to landline access. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, wants to take it a step further by providing wireless phone service, which he says would have aided in the aftermath of this year’s mine explosion and would be especially useful for natural disasters. I’m always comforted when I see corroded wooden phone poles being taken down during a storm.

The Internet, meanwhile, continues to grow in importance. Going back to our program, we PR students have never proposed anything that doesn’t involve some use of the Internet, especially social media. Not only is it good for businesses, specifically those who cannot afford professional PR services, it’s good for politicians who need to prove that they are willing to connect with their constituents. It is especially helpful in poorer rural and tribal areas of the country.

By all measures, overhauling the National Service Fund for these purposes is the wise course. So why are we discussing it?

. . . [the FCC's] ability to remake the fund unilaterally is in doubt, especially since a federal appeals court ruling in April upended the commission’s legal rationale for regulating broadband access.

That ruling also stated that the FCC has no authority to establish net neutrality principles, which would prevent cable companies from charging extra for specific websites. Advocates for net neutrality believe that broadband is a “common carrier” network that should fall under the same rules of nondiscrimination as landlines. Indeed, the World Wide Web was created to be a free, fast, and open exchange of information for individuals. Cable companies ought not have more control over what they can see than they do, especially not for the sake of profits.

I wrote earlier in the year that the FCC would be taking too much authority by mandating an increase in Internet speeds. These elements of its broadband plan should be given the utmost support, with a small expansion of their authority of necessary.