Mid-Year Report to the IEEE-USA
Government Fellowship Committee

The experience of being a Congressional Fellow has been among the most exciting in my life. Participating in the Legislative process and learning a little of how the country runs has been extremely interesting and educational. I wanted to describe some of the process leading up to my tenure as a Fellow to help those who plan to apply in the future as well as depicting what has happened in my first half year.

The term really begins with the two week orientation run by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in early September. There are typically about 35 Congressional Fellows from several organizations. The AAAS organizes and conducts the orientation. There are other Fellows, Diplomacy, Environmental, Executive, etc. that make up the group, about 90 total.

The two weeks consists of briefings and talks given by people from the executive, the legislative, and the judicial branches of government as well as private sector organizations that work with the government. This includes lobbyists, press, think tanks, etc. Most of the sessions addressed how science and technology are important to the process.

At the end of the two weeks, Congressional Fellows begin the process of finding an assignment. Many start in September. About 1/3, including me, started in January. The process begins by identifying which House and Senate offices have interests that appear to match yours. The AAAS has surveyed the offices previously and many respond with their requirements for a Fellow. However, this is only a start. It is necessary to research which other offices may be interested. You then leave a copy of a one page resume at the office and follow up. Those offices that are interested usually respond quickly but some require a more aggressive approach such as a phone call. Many Fellows interview more than 10 offices. Congressional Fellows are in significant demand. They come to an office looking like a year's worth of free work from some very competent people.

I had several interviews. My best interview was with Senator Rockefeller's staff. Senator Rockefeller is well known for his interest in technology issues. One of his strong initiatives is a bill to give tax credits to companies who provide broadband access to the Internet for rural areas. This has a number of technology issues associated with it. One key concern is spectrum allocation and frequency interference issues. My interview was almost exclusively focused on my previous experience with these concerns.

After the interviews more follow-up is required. Eventually, I interviewed with Senator Rockefeller's Legislative Director and was offered the position as Science Fellow on the Rockefeller staff which I accepted.

I began my year on January 8, 2001. Initially, I spent some time reviewing the Broadband Access bill. The work in that area was primarily to keep abreast of developments in spectrum allocation. During the first six months I have attended a number of briefings on Ultra Wideband communication and 3rd Generation Internet issues. I wrote memos on the briefings and noted any impact on the Broadband bill.

Early in the month of January I learned that Congressman Boehlert, the new Chair of the House Science Committee was interested in reviving a bill he and Senator Rockefeller had passed in 1989. The bill established the Noyce Scholarships. These scholarships were intended to address the shortage of qualified Math and Science teachers in the K-12 environment. Recipients were obligated to teach 2 years for every year of scholarship support. Although the bill was passed and signed by the President, it was never effective because no money was appropriated to implement it.

I brought Congressman Boehlert's interest to the attention of the Legislative Director and received encouragement to make Senator Rockefeller the sponsor of the Senate companion bill to the House bill reestablishing the Noyce Scholarships. This became one of my prime focus areas.

My initial efforts were to determine why no money was appropriated and learned that there were some procedural issues with the National Science Foundation (NSF), the administering agency. I discovered a solution to the problem and organized a meeting between the House Science Committee, the National Science Foundation, and our staff to get agreement between all parties. Following the meeting there were a number of follow up contacts. The Noyce Scholarships became one Title in a very broad bill addressing many other issues associated with the teaching of Math and Science. One of the most critical Titles was the Math and Science Partnerships that the Administration had put into their budget. This was important to establish a strong rationale for passage.

We developed a Senate version of the House bill that closely matched it but included a few differences. We then embarked on an effort to get influential co-sponsors and were successful. The bill passed the House and was introduced in the Senate in July. Our current effort is to get more co-sponsors, get the bill passed by the Senate and, eventually, to get the President's signature.

My second major focus is in the area of energy and environment. Early in the year, Senator Rockefeller was approached to support two bills providing tax credits for carbon sequestration via forest and land management techniques as a method for reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I performed some research and discovered that although the specifics of the proposed bills had some problems, there were aspects of carbon sequestration that could be used to alleviate the problems of coal-fired power plants. Since West Virginia obtains 98% of its electricity from coal-fired power plants, I was encouraged to continue the efforts to identify what legislative approaches could be used to encourage this technology.

This became one of my most time consuming tasks. It has resulted in identifying a variety of possibilities. The current situation is that everything is on hold pending resolution of budget issues between the Congress and the Administration.

One other task that I have undertaken is that every Friday I send an email to the staff on science topics. These are short descriptions of subjects I think might be of interest. They come from the IEEE Spectrum, the Internet, various magazines I subscribe to and newspapers. It has been well received since most of the staff are not very familiar with technical topics.

I expect that the next few months will be as interesting and maybe even more exciting than the previous ones since the budget issues will be everybody's concern.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - United States of America