June, 2010

Please consider signing our “Petition in Support of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010” — a virtual petition that is intended to show support for passage of this milestone legislation by Congress. In addition to supporting this bill, which authorizes spending to keep our country on a basic “doubling” path for scientific R&D funding for the next five years — we also support the appropriations for the COMPETES Act. This process will take place over the next five years in separate votes for various appropriations bills.

Our community needs to show Congress that we will support the bold moves it must take in order for the U.S. to deal with changing global innovation and competitiveness frameworks.

As former Undersecretaries for Technology at the U.S. Department of Commerce — who served under Presidents from different political parties — we believe that the immediate need for increased federal support for scientific R&D investments and the adoption of effective national innovation and competitiveness policies are issues that transcend partisan goals. Our concerns are “about the economy and jobs” — we cannot afford stagnation and incoherence in our future policies or we will certainly pay a very steep price as a society. The America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010 also introduces new and innovative programs to help America compete in an entirely changed world.

We now ask that you, your associates, and any organizations to which you may belong consider signing this unique “virtual” petition. Individuals, companies, executives, universities, teachers, researchers, schools, students, businesses, entrepreneurs, unions, associations, Chambers of Commerce, civic, cultural and fraternal organizations — and all who are affected by this legislation — are asked to sign on to the petition, which will be delivered to Members of Congress by July 2010.

Please share this message. Feel free to direct questions to our special Web Site — it has been set up to handle such inquiries — at www.usinnovation.org. We can even prepare a similar “Support America COMPETES” Petition for your own organization if you wish. Simply contact rboege@comcast.net for more details.

If you agree with us, please sign this Petition electronically, today. Click on the button that says “Sign the Petition” and it will receive the information that you are being asked to provide.

Whether you choose to disclose your affiliation(s) is a personal matter, although we would like to know your place of residence to demonstrate the truly national — and global — scope of our community to Members of Congress.

Thank you for joining us in this important initiative!

This Petition Project is a joint effort of ASTRA, The Alliance for Science & Technology Research in America, and TechAmerica. For more information about ASTRA, see www.aboutastra.org and www.usinnovation.org — for TechAmerica see www.itaa.org