Committee Begins Consideration of First Act
BU IN DC
Azer Bestavros of the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering attended a Capitol Hill briefing hosted by the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group, of which he is a member, on Tuesday. He also discussed the Massachusetts Open Cloud with officials at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
The School of Law hosted a seminar on the fundamentals of banking law at the BU Washington, DC Academic Center on May 21.
COMMITTEE BEGINS CONSIDERATION OF FIRST ACT
The House Science, Space and Technology Committee began consideration of the Frontiers in Innovation Research, Science and Technology (FIRST) Act, which would reauthorize the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute for Standards and Technology, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, on Wednesday. While several amendments were approved to ameliorate some of the bill’s onerous policy riders, universities are opposed to the measure due to a proposed 22% cut to social, behavioral, and economic research at the NSF and restrictions on the types and number of grants that NSF may issue. The Committee postponed votes on several amendments and the underlying bill until next week.
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SENATOR HOLDS CAMPUS SEXUAL ASSAULT FORUM
Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) held the first of three planned roundtables on campus sexual assault on May 19, with the goal of developing legislation to clarify and streamline federal regulations on the issue. The session focused on implementation of the Clery Act, the federal law that requires universities to track campus crime, and updates made pursuant to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act last year. Participants expressed interest in increasing the penalties for universities that violate federal crime reporting law, codifying existing guidance that universities must use a “preponderance of the evidence” standard in adjudicating sexual assault cases, incentivizing states to change their laws regarding consent, and mandating campuses conduct a “climate survey” to assess the extent of sexual assault. The Senator will hold two roundtables next month on Title IX prohibitions on gender discrimination and the intersection of campus administrative processes and the criminal justice system.
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PATENT REFORM LEGISLATION STALLS
On Tuesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) removed legislation to regulate patent “trolls” who abuse the patent system from the Committee’s agenda due to ongoing disagreements between stakeholders on both sides of the issue. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a patent reform bill last year that universities and research-based companies opposed due to provisions that would make it more difficult to defend legitimate patent rights. Leahy hoped to draft a compromise measure, but his action — after months of negotiations — signals that a legislative solution to the problem of patent trolls is unlikely to move forward this year.