Funding for Consumer Product Safety

Posted on March 17, 2008 by Michael E. Heintz
On February 28, 2008 Senator Mark Pryor, along with 10 co-sponsors, introduced S. 2663, the Consumer Product Safety Commission Reform Act.  The goal of the bill, as one can infer from the title is to overhaul portions of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  In addition, the bill carves out specific funding for nanotechnology research.

The bill makes a very specific budgetary assignment to CPSC for nanotechnology research.  Specifically, S.2663 states in section 3(d), "There are authorized to be appropriated to the Commission for research, in cooperation with the National Institute of Science and Technology, the Food and Drug Administration, and other relevant Federal agencies into safety issues related to the use of nanotechnology in consumer products, $1,000,000 for fiscal years 2009 and 2010."  The action has yet to be voted on by the Senate, and if passed, would still need to pass through the House of Representatives.

While $1 million seems, to me anyway, to be a small sum for studying consumer safety  issues with regards to nanotechnology, it nonetheless shows Congress's increasing awareness of nanotechnology issues and risks.  While I don't think we'll be able to shrink the data gap with disbursements of $1 million for research, it is a start. 

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Budget Numbers

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Michael E. Heintz
The 2009 budgets for the US Environmental Protection Agency and National Nanotechnology Initiative have been released, and the numbers are interesting.  Both agencies have funds available for nano research, however note that NNI's numbers are to help that office coordinate efforts among 26 federal agencies while EPA's portion is only a small piece of the full pie. 

Key points from the $1.5 billion NNI budget include:

  • increased support for research on fundamental nanoscale phenomena and processes, from $481 million in 2007 to $551 million in 2009.
  • substantial ongoing growth in funding for instrumentation research, metrology and standards (from $53 million in 2007 to $82 million in 2009) and in nanomanufacturing research (from $48 million in 2007 to $62 million in 2009).
  • Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) R&D funding in 2009 ($76 million) is more than double the level of actual funding in 2005 ($35 million) - the first year this data was collected.
  • The steady growth in EHS R&D spending follows the NNI strategy of expanding the capacity to do high-quality research in this field.

Similarly, EPA's budget also provides funding for nano research and development, and in fact addresses nano in the context of the Resource Conservation Recovery Act (RCRA): "the primary objective is to determine the physicochemical properties controlling the movement of nanomaterials through soil and aquatic ecosystems. Research questions include the identification of system parameters that alter the surface characteristics of nanomaterials through aggregation (e.g. pH effects), complexation (e.g., surface complexation by dissolved organic carbon) or changes in oxidation state (e.g., chemical- or biological-mediated electron transfer)." 

EPA's total budget is $7.1 billion for fiscal year 2009, and nano-specific funding comes in at $14.9 million (or 0.21% of the total budget).  The funding is part of EPA Goal 4 of 5, "Communities and Ecosystems."

The fact that nanotechnology research funding is increasing is an encouraging sign, however, I'm concerned at the length of time it will take to complete the learning curve given the proportionally small amounts of federal investment into this increasingly important area.
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