Gordon Lays Out New Tech Agenda
A new govt. IT agenda began to emerge as officials laid out policy positions Tues. at the Computer & Communications Industry Assn. Washington Caucus. It includes mainstays like removing trade barriers and increasing math & science education spending, along with new points like energy independence. Speakers heavily emphasized bipartisanship in crafting the policy.
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The most ambitious agenda came from Chmn. Gordon (D- Tenn.) of the House Science & Technology Committee. He cited a study by the National Academies of Science that says the U.S. tech industry is “in a race” and “on a losing track,” and touting math & science education and energy independence as ways to pull ahead. He proposed: (1) Funding for a bipartisan math & science work force working to improve educational standards and keep engineering jobs in the U.S. (2) A DARPA-style project for energy independence, with “the same methodology used to design the Internet” -- the govt. taking the lead, with many contributions from business, especially technology companies.
Communications interoperability is essential to solving the health care crisis, Gordon said. He said he will use the Committee to prod NIST to develop test beds for interoperability standards. E-911 and E-waste are high on Gordon’s agenda, he said, and will see action soon. Company and association 3rd-party verifiers with no “axe to grind” greatly help get legislation passed, he said, though. But there are “some jurisdictional problems on the Senate floor” over the issue, Gordon said.
Gordon was asked by tech players in the audience about “patent ambush,” in which the power of overbroad patents is so strong there’s no incentive to participate in the standards-setting process. While he mostly deferred to the Judiciary Committee on patent issues, he did point to the recent Vonage case as an example of patent enforcement potentially stifling innovation and participation.
The U.S. doesn’t have to pick between improving trade and security, especially in the tech industry, said Christopher Padilla, asst. secy.-export administration, Dept. of Commerce. Though business must recognize the need to exert “unilateral control” over technologies like “high- powered computers used in the making of nuclear weapons,” the real concerns lie elsewhere, he said. “We're less interested in people coming here for telecom” than for cutting edge chemistry that can be used in biological weapons and the like.
Padilla said Commerce will publish a list of liberalization suggestions for certain technologies moving between the U.S. and select countries in a way that opens trade for U.S. companies. “It makes no sense to control [technologies going] to China that the Chinese can make themselves,” he said.