Congress has asked the National Research Council to conduct a study on information technology workforce needs over the next decade. See for project details and regional open session dates. [Jay Vegso , CRA Bulletin, 07Jan00.]

President Clinton's 2001 budget request on 07Feb00 will include a major new initiative in science, calling for a "balanced research portfolio" and fundamental research, rather than Gingrich Republican-opposed technology funding and corporate aid through NIST/ATP. Industry R&D is up sharply -- due to economic prosperity, driven largely by advances in science -- and there is a consensus that the government should support basic research. "The unified message delivered by scientific societies over the past three years has sunk in." [Robert L. Park, WHAT'S NEW, 07Jan00.]

----- "It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem." -- G. K. Chesterton. -----