GM Research Labs Host AIP Corporate Associates, OSTP Director Bromley Speaks
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GM Research Labs Host AIP Corporate Associates OSTP Director Bromley Speaks The annual meeting of the American Institute of Physics Corporate Associates convened in early October at the General Motors Research Laboratories just outside of Détroit, Michigan. The first of two days was devoted to the thème of "Creating New Materials: Physics with an Economie Perspective." Numerous technical présentations, some formai and others from selected research laboratories, highlighted a wide range of primarily materials research areas of interest to General Motors. Examples of successful in-house development of discoveries into économie fruition were featured in talks by Jan Herbst on the rare-earth-iron-boron magnet materials and by Gary Tibbetts on graphite fibers from natural gas. Other members of the GM Laboratories' staff reported on such ongoing research activities as polymer/ liquid crystal films, diamond films, compound semiconductors, high température superconductors, and surface chemistry for catalytic reactions. The second day of the meeting focused mainly on issues of science and technology policy. The keynote speaker was D. Allan Bromley, who has a dual rôle as the Assistant to the Président for Science and Technology and as the newly confirmed director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Bromley defined his OSTP responsibilities as rwofold—to provide the best technical information and évaluation [his emphasis] to the administration for décisions on current scientific issues, and to establish a wide ranging policy for the support of science and technology within the United States. To help address thèse missions he is strongly encouraging Président Bush to appoint four associate directors of OSTP. Thèse positions were authorized in the 1976 law that created OSTP but hâve yet to be filled. The names of candidates for two of thèse associâtes, for Life Sciences and for Policy and International Affairs, hâve been submitted to Congress for confirmation. The other two names, for Physical Sciences and Engineering and for Industrial Technology, will likely be submitted within six weeks. To consolidate the ideas and considérations of the many fédéral agencies and U.S. industries, Bromley advocated the création of a Présidents Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PCAST),
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which would meet periodically in the White House. PCAST would consist of représentatives from government and nongovernmental science and technology communities, and would function both as an advisory and a coordinating committee. Bromley discussed several spécifie areas of immédiate concem. Global environmental issues such as acid précipitation, stratospheric ozone, planetary warming, and air pollution "are at the top of the agendas of ail major nations in the West," he said. Working with the science ministers of thèse countries Bromley hopes to obtain international consensus and action to alleviate thèse problems. Energy is closely linked with many of thèse as it is with other U.S. concerns. Bromley f
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