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Senators Bingaman and Coleman Reintroduce ACTION Act on Visa Issues
Senators Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) and Norm Coleman
(R-MN) have updated and introduced a new version
of their bill, the American Competitiveness
through International Openness Now (ACTION) Act,
which concerns travel by foreign scholars,
students, scientists and business people in the
context of U.S.
competitiveness.
FASEB thanked Senators Coleman and
Bingaman for the ACTION Act after they
introduced the prior version in the 109th
Congress:
http://opa.faseb.org/pdf/ColemanACTIONletterFINAL.pdf.
While some of the
provisions extend beyond the scope of FASEB’s
interests and concern immigration, business
travelers, etc., there are a number of
provisions that are consistent with our previous
visa policy recommendations from
2004 and
2005.
These provisions include:
-
Improving the Visas
MANTIS clearances for scientists and a
periodic review of the Technology Alert List
-
Expanding the
portability and duration of some visa
clearances and reducing their processing
time
-
Easing the transition
from student status to H1-B (employment)
visa status
-
Creating an expedited
review for “trusted travelers”
-
Permitting the renewal
of select nonimmigrant visas without
applicants’ having to leave the
U.S. beforehand
-
Enhancing consular
resources and training
-
Modifying the
non-immigration intent criteria (i.e.,
214(b), the clause that leads to the denial
of many scientist and student visas)
It is likely that the Senate will refer this
bill to its Committee on Foreign Relations, but
given the political sensitivity of the
immigration debate, it is not clear whether it
will gain much traction.
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FASEB Participates in NSABB Roundtable on Dual Use Research
As
part of the tri-annual meeting of the National
Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity (NSABB),
FASEB’s Director of Scientific Affairs and
Public Relations, Carrie Wolinetz, participated
in a roundtable discussion on outreach to the
scientific community as it relates to dual use
research issues.
NSABB is the federal body responsible for
oversight of biological dual use research, which
is benevolent science that has the potential of
misuse for harmful purposes.
Wolinetz described FASEB’s activities on
dual use research, including the work of the
NSABB Subcommittee of the Science Policy
Committee, which Avrum Gotlieb chairs, and
presented the findings of a survey of FASEB
member societies regarding dual use awareness.
Overall, awareness of dual use research
issues and the work of NSABB seems to be quite
low among FASEB societies.
Moreover, there is a fair amount of
concern that the oversight of dual use research
may result in burdensome regulations with
relatively little reduction in risk.
All participants in the roundtable, which
included other scientific societies and
institutional groups, emphasized the need for
education and a preference for guidelines over
formal regulations.
The complete agenda for the meeting and a
webcast is available
here.
Although the meeting focused primarily on
outreach and education on dual use research,
NSABB also heard a presentation on the
implementation of its draft oversight framework
from Ken Staley, the Director for Biodefense
Policy for the Homeland Security Council in the
White House.
FASEB has
commented on the NSABB proposal’s raising a
number of problematic issues, particularly
regarding the ambiguity of trying to identify
dual use research of concern.
While earlier during this week’s meeting,
NSABB had proposed a forum in the spring to gain
further input from the scientific community, it
seemed clear from Staley’s presentation that the
opportunity for feedback may have passed.
Staley stated that HHS, the Department
that oversees NSABB activities, has cleared the
oversight
framework and has sent it to other federal
agencies to begin the implementation process,
which Staley anticipates will proceed
expeditiously. NSABB
members requested an opportunity for more of an
iterative process, stating that the
recommendations were in draft form and,
therefore, perhaps not ready for implementation,
but it remains unclear how any fulfillment of
that request might work.
In any event, if the federal government
does move forward with implementing NSABB’s
recommendations for the development of an
oversight system, there likely will be
opportunities for additional input from the
research community through the Federal
Register’s public comment process.
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Spotlight on Training and Young Investigators
With the dawn of a new budget cycle, efforts to
improve peer review underway, and increasing
concern about the well-being of the scientific
workforce, the last several months have been
significant for trainees and young investigators
in the biomedical sciences.
Most recently, NIH’s
working group on peer review recommended
that the agency increase R01 support for early
career scientists, take into account
institutional commitment to these investigators
when evaluating their applications, and consider
reviewing these applications independently and
ranking them against each other.
With the goal of providing stable career
support for young researchers, the working group
also urged NIH to evaluate the total number of
graduate students, postdocs, and “soft money”
researchers it funds.
These recommendations come at a time of
heightened attention to the availability of
scientific workforce data, and they follow a
recent
Congressional mandate that NIH report on the graduate students and postdocs
it supports.
The
President’s FY2009 budget for NIH also
reflects interest in enhancing support for young
investigators.
It would support an additional 1,500 new
investigators, 25 New Innovator Awards, and 170
Pathway to Independence awards.
The budget would do little to improve
funding for National Research Service Award
(NRSA) trainees, however. With a 0.6% increase
for NRSA awards overall, NIH would add only an
additional 10 institutional and 7 individual
training awards and increase NRSA stipends,
which are currently frozen at 2006 levels, by a
mere 1%.
At $20,772 for graduate students and
$36,996 for entry-level postdocs, stipends fall
far short of NIH’s
2001
goal to provide $25,000 for pre- and $45,000 for postdoctoral
support.
While NIH struggles to
maintain support for trainees in a flat funding
environment, NSF is poised to make significant
investments in research training.
With an overall
FY2009 budget request of $6.1 billion, NSF
would allocate an additional $30.6 million to
its Division of Graduate Education, enabling it
to increase the Graduate Research Fellowship and
Integrative
Graduate Education and Research Traineeship
programs by 32.5% and 4.3%, respectively.
NSF’s Biological Sciences Directorate,
which would receive a 10% increase overall,
would fund an additional 90 postdocs and 180
graduate students.
In addition to augmenting
financial support for research training, NSF is
likely to increase its oversight of postdoctoral
mentoring.
As a result of the
America COMPETES Act, investigators who
receive NSF funding will need to describe in
their grant applications how they will mentor
postdocs their grants support.
NSF will have to evaluate these mentoring
plans under its broader impacts merit review
criteria.
Although this policy only applies to
investigators NSF funds, the
National Institute of General Medical Sciences
recently announced that it will consider
implementing a “broader aims” component of
research grant applications that evaluates an
investigator’s training, mentoring, and
diversity activities.
It is unclear how NSF and NIGMS will
implement these policies and what impact they
will have on graduate and postdoctoral training.
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CONGRESSIONAL SCHEDULE
The House and Senate are in session.
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WASHINGTON UPDATE |
