Pork by Any Other Name Crunches As Sweetly

Memo to our Saudi Overlords: don't sweat the State of the Unitary song and dance routine.

Alternative fuel development is, as we say, under control.

Science 3 February 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5761, pp. 594 - 595
DOI: 10.1126/science.311.5761.594b

U.S. INNOVATION:
Bandwagon Builds for Energy Research
Eli Kintisch

Influential Washington policymakers have decided that bolstering U.S. technical know-how and tackling energy challenges should go hand in hand. Their solutions are featured in a series of recent legislative proposals, including the bipartisan Protecting America's Competitive Edge (PACE) package, introduced in the Senate last week. The more-than-$70-billion package, like several other bills introduced in December, includes more money for researchers and science educators funded by the Department of Energy (DOE)... New funding proposals would boost energy research for areas such as photovoltaics and inherently safe nuclear power.

Inherently safe nuclear power. Got that, beotches?

...Previewing his State of the Union address earlier this week, President George W. Bush told Bob Schieffer of CBS News that an effort "to promote and actively advance new technologies" could make the U.S. "independent from foreign sources of oil."

That rhetoric signals the demise of an era in which "congressional support of science was built on the pillars of defense and health," says former Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Charles Vest, who predicts that energy-environment, competitiveness-innovation, and health will be the new drivers of research funding.

That's right folks. Congressional support of science will now be spent on Defense and Energy. That's nukular, beotches.

But back to our story.

Some would like to recreate the excitement of the Apollo space program in the 1960s by picking a challenging technological target that could weld research with national priorities. Norman Augustine, former chair and CEO of Lockheed Martin, chaired the academies' panel, which considered a so-called National Energy Initiative. Likewise, lawmakers crafting the PACE act at one point toyed with targeting development in specific energy areas such as nuclear energy. But the "decision was to let that happen [naturally]," says PACE co-sponsor Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM).

...One proposal in several of the bills is a new DOE research agency modeled on the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Aimed at encouraging risky, high-payoff energy science, the new agency, dubbed ARPA-E, would recruit academic and industrial leaders for short periods to craft and manage innovative research initiatives. Nobelist Steve Chu, director of DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, says that such an agency would help "bridge the funding gap" that now exists between well-established yet risky science, such as fusion research, and basic work with hard-to-anticipate benefits, such as that in particle physics. ARPA-E is also part of a package of bills introduced in December by Representative Bart Gordon (D-TN), ranking Democrat on the House Science Committee, and a recent proposal by Senate Democrats. Although not mentioned by name, the approach is also endorsed in a December innovation bill introduced by Senators John Ensign (R-NV) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT).

With Nevada Reptilicans and DINOcrats like Holy Joe on board, you can bet this programs going places, alright.

Loot the Treasury, beotches!