SSTI Digest

On June 18, the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship will markup S. 1233, a bill to reauthorize and expand the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Both programs are within weeks of expiring on July 30.

The bill was introduced June 10 by committee chair Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and co-sponsored by ranking minority member on the Committee, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) became a co-sponsor on June 15. Additional senators in both parties are expected to join the list of co-sponsors as the bill encompasses a compromise many analysts see as palatable to address some of the thorniest issues for SBIR's reauthorization.

A new Pew Charitable Trusts report finds far-reaching national benefits to the growth of the clean energy sector. Between 1998 and 2007, clean energy jobs grew by 9.1 percent, while total jobs grew by only 3.7 percent according to data collected by Pew. While the industry is still in infancy, its growth rate over the past decade has outpaced other emerging technology sectors that have been the focus of TBED efforts, including biotechnology.

The Pew report addresses the challenge of defining what the clean energy economy is and what types of jobs can be categorized as green jobs. They define the clean energy economy as being comprised of five categories:

Gov. Deval Patrick announced last week a venture funds competition providing seed money and mentoring to support new business development, adding to a growing number of states seeking to boost entrepreneurial efforts during the economic downturn (see the March 5, 2009 issue of the Digest).

Supported through a $100,000 planning grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's John Adams Innovation Institute, the MassChallenge Venture Funds Competition will solicit startup plans from academics and professionals around the world and select winners to receive funding for immediate launch, according to a press release. Selected companies must be headquartered in the state, create at least five jobs, and secure matching investment funds.

Gov. Bob Riley signed a bill last month extending tax credits and incentives to knowledge-based industries and green employers to encourage growth and expansion in these fields throughout the state.

Touted by the governor's office as a recruitment tool to influence the location decision for thousands of new jobs, the bill extends capital credits and tax abatements currently offered to new and expanding manufacturers to corporate headquarters, R&D facilities, and producers of electricity or natural gas from biomass or renewable energy resources, cellulosic biofuel producers, and other green employers. The bill also extends Alabama's 20-year credit period existing under the corporate income tax Capital Credit program to 30 years and updates the base wage requirement to $15 per hour.

On Monday, legislation was introduced in a special session of the Kentucky Legislature to amend several of Kentucky's economic development incentive programs. Additionally, HB 3 contains language to secure funding and land for a proposed lithium-ion battery manufacturing complex (see the April 22, 2009 issue of the Digest) in Hardin County.

Proposed changes to the economic development incentive programs include:

Competing priorities, lack of funding, and inflexible negotiation strategies are among the challenges the Government Accountability Office found for the Department of Energy's efforts to transfer technology out of the DOE labs.

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 requires DOE to establish goals for technology transfer and provide Congress its implementation plan no later than February 2006.  After consulting with officials at 17 national laboratories, however, GAO concluded, "DOE cannot determine its laboratories' effectiveness in transferring technologies outside DOE because it has not yet established department-wide goals for technology transfer and lacks reliable performance data."

With the release of advance 2008 and revised GDP statistics by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), SSTI has prepared a table showing real GDP per capita (in chained 2000 dollars) for every state and the District of Columbia for the five-year period from 2004 to 2008. The table also includes:

The complete description of this opportunity and others are available at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.

On June 24 from 9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. in Washington, DC, SSTI is co-hosting a meeting with officials from the Technology Innovation Program (TIP) and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) that we encourage you or one of your colleagues to attend. TIP and MEP are two of the most market-driven programs operated by the federal government. Both programs have launched new investments and innovative services in the last year. The meeting will give you a chance to learn about:

• New federal funding opportunities;
• New resources to support early-stage research;
• New products and services to expand manufacturing;
• New tools to help foster growth and innovation in companies you work with;
• New models to accelerate technology commercialization and translation; and,
• New ideas about ways to integrate state, local,and federal investments.

Who should attend?

Earlier this year, Congress and President Obama, seeing an opportunity to stimulate the economy while improving the nation's digital infrastructure, set aside $7.2 billion for broadband programs in the 2009 Recovery Act (read SSTI's analysis of the Recovery Act in the February 19 issue). Citing the need for a modernized digital infrastructure to ensure U.S. competitiveness, the act included funding for broadband mapping and deployment to help make sure that all Americans have access to high-speed Internet services. A controversy, however, has grown in the wake of the Recovery Act over how that money should be spent.

Seven emerging research universities in Texas would receive funding and incentives to help advance their status to nationally-recognized tier one schools following passage of HB 51, awaiting Gov. Rick Perry's signature.

The bill would create three funding pools and establish methods to achieve tier one status, which generally is referred to as a high-performing research university having at least $100 million in federal research grants annually, selective admissions, and low student-faculty ratios. The following funds would be established under the bill and require the universities to increase research, raise private funds, and meet benchmarks required for tier one distinction:

During the last week of the legislative session, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman signed two bills into law - one dealing with R&D tax credits and the other authorizing the development of a statewide biotechnology strategic plan. The biotech plan, as outlined in LB 246, calls for the creation of a nonprofit corporation to provide research assistance and recommendations to the Legislature's Natural Resources Committee by June 30 of next year. A finalized plan must then be presented by the committee to the Legislature.