Agency Watch
An Overview: What is Happening at the Federal and State AgenciesDelaying Transportation System Overhaul
By Alec MacGillis
(Washington Post, June 26, 2009) After rejecting criticism that it is taking on too much, the Obama administration has identified one area where ambitious reforms will have to wait: overhauling the nation’s aging, congested and carbon-emitting transportation system. The current six-year, $286 billion transportation spending plan expires in October, and House members have worked for months to produce a 775-page, $500 billion bill that would create a new fund for road repairs, increase funding for rail and public transit and include reforms meant to wean the country from fossil fuels. [Read more...]
Government Opportunities
Current Funding and Procurement OfferingsArmy: Vision Research Program (VRP)
The Vision Research Program was established in fiscal year 2009 (FY09) to provide support for scientifically meritorious research. Investigators continue to assess new technologies and therapies to address the ocular issues of service members. Current research targets the causes, effects and treatment of eye damage and diseases that, despite their different mechanisms and pathogenesis, all have a common end result: degeneration of the critical components of the eye and impairment or loss of vision. In order to implement therapeutic strategies to prevent or treat visual problems common to combat soldiers, the military wants to develop and validate compounds and strategies. [Read more...]
Powerful Partnerships
Success Derived from Leveraging Government OpportunitiesSatellites for the Military
By Andy Pasztor
(Wall St Journal, July 1, 2009) A clutch of former Pentagon brass is helping to start a company that offers a new service: satellites intended solely for military communications that would be built, launched and owned by private investors. The new company, called U.S. Space LLC, attempts to meet a need that the U.S. military has struggled to fill. As U.S. forces deploy to out-of-the-way regions, the Pentagon frequently needs more satellite capacity for communications and distribution of video surveillance than it can get its hands on. [Read more...]
Related News
Articles of Interest in the Science & Technology ArenaThe State of the Plastics Industry
All plastics businesses have been hit by the recession; some will recover better than others
By Alexander H. Tullo
(Chemical & Engineering News, June 22, 2009) It wasn’t too long ago—about a year for most materials—that the plastics industry was flying high. Demand was strong, supply was tight, and profits were fat. That changed abruptly. By the end of 2008, the economic climate became more than the plastics industry could bear. Consumer demand started to crumble. Oil prices tumbled from record highs of nearly $150 per barrel in July to less than $50 in December. Industrial customers, expecting polymer prices to fall in kind, stopped buying, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Compounding the problems, banks stopped lending and extending credit. Companies throughout the supply chain had to liquidate inventories to generate cash to survive. [Read more...]