WASHINGTON — U.S. engineers and their allies descend on the nation's capital this week to lobby for "balanced" federal funding for research and development. The two-day lobbying effort that begins Wednesday (March 3) comes against a backdrop of record unemployment among U.S. engineers.
The IEEE-USA said more than 200 engineers, scientists and business leaders will meet with federal research officials to lobby for increased federal R&D spending at a time when corporate research spending is either declining or shifting to application-oriented research.
The Bush administration's fiscal 2005 budget request proposes spending $132 billion next year for basic research. High-profile efforts such as nanotechnology development would receive big increases that would drive annual spending on the technology to $1 billion in 2005.
The Defense Department would also receive a substantial increase in R&D funding under the Bush proposal. The Pentagon's proposed 7-percent spending increase in fiscal 2005 includes a nearly $4.3 billion increase in research and development programs.
Engineering and scientific groups said they would seek a federal research budget that balances economic and national security concerns. "Now more than ever, the federal commitment to science and technology is crucial to our economy and national security," said Kevin Marvel, deputy executive officer of the American Astronomical Society.
The long-standing tension in the U.S. between civilian and military research has grown as the high-tech sector struggles to recover and more engineering jobs move off shore. The IEEE-USA reported in February that the unemployment rate for U.S. engineers averaged a record 6.2 percent in 2003, a 2 percent increase over the previous year.
The findings were based on statistics compiled by the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"The continuing high levels of engineering unemployment are not surprising considering the trend toward outsourcing of high-tech jobs overseas," IEEE-USA President John Steadman said. "This offshoring of high-paying jobs may look good on the bottom line of a quarterly financial report, but it's certainly not good for the skilled technical professional who can't find a job."
The jobs issue is likely to be center stage in the upcoming presidential campaign, observers said. Federal research funding could be one way to prime the employment pump as several industry sectors begin to emerge from a prolonged slump.
The research issue is not limited to the United States. Earlier in the week in Paris, scientists and engineers called on the French government to boost federal spending on research and development. Spending for basic research has been declining steadily in France and other European countries as budget deficits grow.
