Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 1, 1995 TAG: 9509290039
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"They're absolutely berserk, totally irresponsible," Cone summed up his opinion of the nation's most august legislative body.
The adjectives that he used could be applied to much of Congress' business, but what had him so riled up specifically were various proposals to dismantle the National Institute of Standards and Technology and hand it over to the private sector. The agency does all kinds of independent research, some of which is used in the development of the nation's building and fire codes.
The congressional attacks on NIST, formerly known as the Bureau of Standards, are part of an overall effort by budget-cutters to dismantle the Department of Commerce and assign to other federal departments or agencies the parts deemed worthy of saving.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, was a supporter of NIST in his former role as chairman of the House science subcommittee. Boucher said the agency's prospects of surviving congressional attacks - although with a smaller budget - are good because President Clinton is a strong supporter of its programs and of the broader role of the Department of Commerce itself.
NIST has done much more than develop measurement methods that help protect buildings against earthquakes, fires, winds and heavy loads. The agency designs standards that help U.S. industries sell their goods in the international marketplace; creates measurement tools and services important to industries such as autos and semiconductors; develops advanced measurement techniques in anticipation of industry's long-term needs; and provides measurements used in examining a number of health, safety and environmental issues.
In its own defense, the agency has developed a long and varied list of services and benefits for which it is or was responsible, including:
Calibration of watt-hour meters for the electric industry, where errors can lead to billion-dollar mistakes.
Atomic-clock timing used by communication networks, banks, and satellite and guided missile navigation systems.
Identification of auto emissions as a significant source of lead, which is especially dangerous to children.
Helping the aircraft industry understand metal failures such as the one that caused the top of an Aloha Airlines jet to rip off in flight.
Development of the FBI's computerized system for matching fingerprint evidence and a standard for DNA profiles that has been a key in their use as a law enforcement tool.
Two organizations important to the building industry, Associated General Contractors of America and the Council of American Building Officials, haven't taken positions on congressional proposals to dismantle NIST. Bob Brown, a spokesman for the building officials, said he would not characterize the agency's role in developing building codes as a major one.
But Brown may be misinformed. Jim Gross, assistant director of NIST's building and fire research lab, said his was the most important agency contributing to fire and building standards. The problem is, much of NIST's research work filters into the codes through other organizations and industry. "We don't write codes; that's true," he said.
Stafford Thornton, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, wrote congressmen last month that he knows of no entity that would be willing to buy the building and fire lab should Congress decide to make NIST private. Thornton was joined by Loring A. Wylie Jr., president of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, in urging Congress to continue funding for the lab because of the importance of its research.
Also among NIST's friends are 25 Nobel laureates in physics and the presidents of 18 major scientific societies who recently sent Congress letters supporting the agency's laboratory programs, describing them as a "national treasure."
"NIST's laboratories carry out the basic research that is essential for advanced technology," the physicists wrote. "Measurements and standards techniques from the NIST laboratories have been estimated to save the nation billions of dollars annually."
Kathleen Kingscott of IBM's government programs office in Washington is co-chairwoman of a coalition of U.S. technology companies, including DuPont and Babcock & Wilcox, that is fighting to save NIST's Advanced Technology Program. 1996 appropriation bills kill that program's funding after next year. The program - a partnership among government, universities and industry - funds long-range, high-risk research that would otherwise not be conducted, she said.
The program is only two years old; no commercially recognizable products are associated with it yet. Kingscott, however, offered IBM's research on the use of computerized robotics in hip-replacement surgery as one example of the kind of research the program is financing. The new surgical techniques could lead to savings of $100 million a year in shorter hospital stays as a result, in part, of better fits for artificial hips and less blood loss during surgery, she said.
Research on flat-panel display technology funded by the program has given the United States a jump on Japan in development of video displays that will be used on television sets and computers in the future, Boucher said.
"I think that most countries with which our country competes have something like [NIST], which encourages research and development toward commercial products," said Dr. Charles Bostian, director of the Center for Wireless Telecommunications at Virginia Tech. The agency's involvement with industrial research - which can be a valuable role for NIST - was, in a way, forced on it by Congress and President Bush in the late 1980s, he said.
The longtime standard-setting role of NIST, which is 94 years old this year, is also a valuable one, Bostian said. European industry often beats our own because it is quicker to agree on common standards, he said.
The Commerce Department is an attractive target for budget cutters because it is not big and lacks a vocal constituency, as Medicare has in the elderly, Bostian said. Some aspects of the agency may seem bureaucratic and unnecessary, but that doesn't mean everything it does is bad, he said.
Another NIST program that some in Congress would eliminate is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Extension centers, such as the A.L. Philpott Manufacturing Center in Martinsville, help bring information on new technology to businesses and then help train workers in the use of that technology.
Boucher has a similar program planned for Wytheville that would involve a consortium of five Southwest Virginia community colleges and Virginia Tech and would depend on NIST for a large part of its funding. Manufacturing extension is based on a proven model, the Cooperative Extension Service in agriculture that has helped 2 percent of American workers produce the food needed to feed the remaining 98 percent, he said.
by CNB