DC NanoWire: Tech Policy Inside the Beltway

With all the media attention devoted to bailouts and the Senate replacement scandal, the stalled process of NNI reauthorization tends to fall under the radar. On Dec.11, however, the National Academies released an executive summary reviewing the federal strategy of risk-assessment and management related to the environmental, health, and safety implications of nanotechnology. Does the NNI have a robust strategy in place to minimize risk to society from nanotech development? Not according to the review.

One thing that's hard to appreciate if you don't live around the Beltway is the sheer number of job changes that occur in DC after a major election. Not only will the presidency change hands in 2009, but a fair number of new legislators are coming to Congress. Add to that all of the appointees of a new administration, their related hires, staffers, aides, and interns, and it's a mini population shift. This can only mean a positive change for science and technology policy.

In Harry Kroto's words, kids today live in a GYW world, an environment ruled by the three dominant applications that allow instantaneous access to a world of information: Google, YouTube, and Wikipedia. But information doesn't equal knowledge, and this easy access belies generations of innovation built on the observation of forces and processes of the natural world accompanied by repeated manipulation and experimentation.

The Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies recently released the results of their third annual phone survey about nanoawareness in the US general public. The first awareness poll, conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. and reported in 2006, indicated that only 30% of the American public had heard something about nanotechnology. So how much of an increase has there been in public awareness about nano in the past two years?

The venue for the September FDA Nanotechnology Public Meeting was almost 20 miles outside of DC, at a new satellite campus of the University of Maryland. Despite the distance and an impossibly inconvenient public transportation route, the rooms were filled with about 300 of the same suits and skirts you’d see at any downtown DC meeting. What kind of “public” is this anyway?

My overwhelming impression after sitting through a day-long session titled “FDA Nanotechnology Public Meeting” was of the excruciatingly slow pace of the regulatory process, at least as it relates to nanotechnology in the US. In October, 2006, the FDA held an initial public meeting on this same topic. So what has changed between 2006 and 2008?

Congress’s almost is. And that means a possible decision on the National Nanotechnology Initiative Amendment Act of 2008. Want a refresher on where this Act stands, and what has to happen for reauthorization?

I was at the NISE Net public engagement planning meeting in late July at the Science Museum of Minnesota. On the return flight to Boston, I had a conversation about nano with a fellow passenger that, to me, underscored the timeliness of the activities we are developing.