Friday, September 26, 2008

Policy Tracker

Hockfield: More fed R&D funding is key to progress

MIT President Susan Hockfield urged Congress last week to sharply increase federal funding for energy research, saying such a move could help unleash an “energy revolution” capable of resolving several of America’s problems at once.

“We stand on the verge of a global energy technology revolution,” Hockfield said in testimony before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming in Washington. “The question before us is: Will America lead it and reap the rewards? Or will we surrender that advantage to other countries with clearer vision?”

At the hearing, Hockfield said boosting federal energy research could simultaneously help address the problems of a shaky economy, geopolitical instabilities linked to energy consumption and security, and the growing evidence of climate change.

Chaired by U.S. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., the select committee was created last year to address issues related to the urgent challenges of oil dependence and climate change. In addition to Hockfield, the committee heard testimony from Stephen Forrest, vice president of research at the University of Michigan; Jack Fellows, vice president of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research; and Daniel Kammen, professor at UC-Berkeley.

While federal funding for energy research has helped power the economy in the past, Hockfield noted, it has dwindled alarmingly in recent years, from 10 percent of the federal research budget in 1980 to just 2 percent today. At the same time, corporate R&D by energy companies has also plummeted, she said, to less than one-quarter of 1 percent of revenues, compared to the 18 percent invested by pharmaceutical companies.

“Congress funded the basic research that spawned the information technology revolution and the biotech revolution,” she said. “Today, to spark an energy revolution, Congress must lead again.”

 

Source: MIT