NY Times — House and Senate Democratic leaders struggled Thursday to stitch together pieces of a final health care bill as rank-and-file Democrats demanded more information about the contents of the bill and its cost. Leaving a meeting of the House Democratic Caucus, lawmakers said they had received few details about what would be in the legislation, on which they may be asked to vote in the next week or two.
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Unlocking the Secrets of the Genome: The Future and Ethical Considerations of Genetic Testing
Weekly Online Science Policy Seminar
Featuring:
Dr. Sherri Bale
President and Clinical Director
GeneDx
Dr. Sherri Bale, a board-certified Ph.D.-Medical Geneticist, is currently the President and Clinical Director of the company GeneDx, based out of Gaithersburg, MD. GeneDx specializes in “genetic testing for rare hereditary disorders,” primarily via DNA sequencing technologies. The company’s mission is "to make clinical testing available to people with rare genetic conditions and their families." Dr. Bale will be answering questions prepared by the interns of the Spring 2010 SEA Genetic Privacy Committee, and those of seminar participants. Dr. Bale's Q&A session will take place after a group viewing of a video introduction to the technologies, process, and ethical issues of genetic testing presented by SEA's Genetic Privacy Fellow Catherine Vrentas, Ph.D.
RSVP for the live seminar on Tuesday, March 16. Join us at 7:30 PM, Eastern Time, for a live video seminar with Dr. Sherri Bale followed by a Q&A session with Dr. Bale after her talk. Please contact Brielle Welzer if you have any questions about this event.
Science Policy News for March 14, 2010
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Democrats Struggle to Finish Health Bill
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Tags: congress, health care
House Bill Seeks to Codify President’s Stem Cell Order
Patient Docs — Representative Diana DeGette (D-CO) has introduced legislation (H.R. 4808) that would amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human embryonic stem cell research. H.R. 4808 would codify President Obama’s Executive Order 13505, which permitted federal funding of research conducted with human embryonic stem cell lines. In Rep. DeGette’s press release, the Congresswoman said the Stem Cell Research Advancement Act would “ensure a lasting ethical framework overseeing stem cell research at the National Institutes of Health.”
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Tags: congress, research, stem cells
House bill targets Internet censorship
Federal Computer Week — The National Science Foundation would have to set up a foundation to award prizes and grants for programs to defeat Internet censorship worldwide under a bill in the House. That organization, the Internet Freedom Foundation, would award grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts to industry, universities and other organizations to “defeat Internet suppression and censorship.”
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Tags: censorship, congress, internet
House Aides Mull Plans to Overhaul, Codify NOAA
Greenwire — Aides from the two House committees with jurisdiction over the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are working together to draft legislation to overhaul and authorize the agency for the first time, according to House Science Chairman Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.). Gordon wants to advance a NOAA organic act this year. The bill would give a congressional directive to the science and oceans agency, which has gone without any authorizing bill for 40 years.
Obama Reiterates Support For Finishing ACTA
National Journal — President Obama Thursday reiterated his administration’s commitment to enacting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, aimed at curbing global piracy, despite a vote by the European Parliament this week calling for greater transparency in the deal’s negotiations. But the ACTA negotiations have been criticized by public interest groups and some lawmakers for lacking transparency. They have pointed in particular to the fact that a public draft of the agreement has not been released.
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Tags: copyright, intellectual property, president
FCC Commissioner rips ISPs on broadband prices, competition
Ars Technica — Federal Communications Commissioner Mignon Clyburn solidified her role as the agency’s tail gunner on Wednesday with a warning to the big ISPs that the FCC’s patience with rising broadband subscription rates is wearing thin. “When prices rise across the industry, and where there are only a limited number of players in the game, we have to ask ourselves whether there is any meaningful competition in the marketplace,” Clyburn declared in a public statement.
‘Terminator’ asteroids could re-form after nuke
New Scientist — If a sizeable asteroid is found heading towards Earth, one option is to nuke it. But too small a bomb would cause the fragments to fly apart only slowly, allowing them to clump together under their mutual gravity. Simulations now show this can happen in an alarmingly short time. “The high-speed stuff goes away but the low-speed stuff reassembles [in] 2 to 18 hours,” says Don Korycansky of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Learning to Keep Patients Safe in a Culture of Fear
NY Times — over the last decade, hospitals have increasingly made patient safety a priority. Incorporating the lessons learned in high-risk industries like aviation and nuclear energy, medical centers across the country have begun promoting protocols, procedures and checklists to prevent health care errors. Chief among these initiatives has been a push for greater disclosure and transparency — and less fear.
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Tags: communication, health, patients
FCC launches broadband test site for consumers
ComputerWorld — he U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has added tools to the Broadband.gov Web site to help users measure their broadband speeds or report that they do not have broadband available. The FCC announced Thursday that it has added new features called the Consumer Broadband Test and the Broadband Dead Zone Report to Broadband.gov.
Congress debates new satellite plan
USA Today — The Obama administration plans to reorganize and more than double the annual budget for a troubled weather satellite program that is five years behind schedule and more than $7 billion over its original cost estimate. The administration first must convince a skeptical Congress that its plan will be enough to fix the project. Lawmakers need to approve a White House request to increase the program’s yearly budget by more than $678 million to $1.1 billion in 2011.
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Tags: congress, satellites, weather
SEA will host students from across the country to visit policy experts in Washington, DC and learn about careers in science and engineering policy. 
SEA is currently working on rolling out a completely new website redesigned from the ground up to be better looking and to help our visitors quickly find what they came here for. We'll be adding new features on a daily basis, so 
Teryn Norris, Director of Americans for Energy Leadership (AEL) will delve further into the specifics of RE-ENERGYSE, touching on experiential learning opportunities, fellowships, and new higher education programs that are specifically designed to prepare students for careers in clean energy technology.
Scientists & Engineers for America (SEA) promotes evidence-based decision making at all levels of government. The esteemed SEA leadership team includes Nobel Laureates, students, policy makers, professors, industry leaders, and (of course) scientists & engineers. 
SEA's National Student Coalition brings together small, focused groups of student leaders to engage their peers in science and engineering policy through concrete projects such as weekly newsletters, community outreach, hosting speakers, and election tracking.
Our democracy deponds on "one person, one vote," and the idea that we each have an equal chance of having our ideas represented in all levels of government. Yet, advances in computing and mathematics have enables computer-enhanced gerrymandering in many states. The resulting districts, while equal in number of people, favor those in power over challengers in ways never before possible.
