More Money For Nano, Advocates Tell Senate

By Doug Brown
Small Times Correspondent

May 23, 2002 -

WASHINGTON – Arguing that national security and economic vitality are at stake, scientists and officials urged lawmakers during a Senate hearing Wednesday to dramatically increase government investments in nanotechnology and to double the budget for the National Science Foundation.
"In the coming years, nanotechnology research funded by the National Science Foundation could aid the development of electronic circuits and devices from a single atom or molecule," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space. "Who knows what potential that may have for medicine, for technology, even for homeland security?"

The hearing set the stage for what promises to be a summer of debates in both houses of Congress about the degree to which the federal government should be investing in basic science research.

President Bush’s budget calls for boosting federal investment in research and development by about 8 percent, to $112 billion, with much of the increase going toward homeland defense and national security. The National Science Foundation (NSF) budget is expected to get a 5 percent rise, to $5.036 billion. Bush’s budget also calls for increasing National Nanotechnology Initiative funding by 17 percent, to $679 million.

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