Ralph Wyndrum, the newly elected IEEE Vice President in charge of the TAB --Technical Activities Board, gave a presentation to the CPMT Board of Governors in November.
He mentioned that one of the purposes for the IEEE-USA was to influence policy at the national level. An example of new U.S.A. policy is the $1B nanotechnology bill passed this year. IEEE-USA was one of the major professional organizations that gave guidance to the law makers.
It is not easy for non-profit organizations to be heard on Capitol Hill. This year IEEE_USA started earlier in educating congressional staff -- in June. Seven position papers were written on technical and professional issues. Numerous visits to the staff and congressional chairs of committee were made throughout the year. An example of enlightened influence is the adoption into law of some of IEEE key communication standards.
Ralph warned that as a profession Electrical Engineers still have a long way to go before we are as effective in presenting our views as other more experience lobbyists such as the AARP. It was interesting to note that the majority of the CPMT Board was also card carrying AARP members.
IEEE-USA is playing a company neutral role in advising Congress about Protection of the critical infrastructures within the Homeland Defense Theme. A second request for IEEE professional expertise is on the decreasing reliability in delivering Electrical Energy since the U.S. deregulated the power industry. One IEEE-USA team addressed Gigabit Ethernet as applied to the Internet; this is part of the national desire to accelerate broadband deployment beyond what DSL, satellite or wireless seems able to offer.
One of the hot-potato issues is the distribution while being protected of individual health records. Congress must decide on implementations that may involve "smart card" technology or having a centralized national database.
The balance of funding in the last few decades has shifted from the physical sciences (read EE) to the medical sciences (read cancer, AIDs, genome). However, IEEE-USA supports the high rate of growth for NSF funding and for basic research not just application development based on yesterday's R&D.
IEEE-USA was also requested to apply system engineering analysis to various problems in aviation safety. Perhaps the most volatile issue that your fellow engineers are lobby is the Copyright issue; both the technical capabilities of preventing copying and the balance between contributing to public domain richness versus CEO wealth. This is part of the "Congressional Technology Assessment" process.