Report of the UCGIS Policy and Legislation Committee
Nov. 9, 1998
The responsibilities of the Policy and Legislation Committee as set forth
in the bylaws are as follows:
This committee identifies, acquires, analyzes, and reports to UCGIS member
universities any geographic information science related policies or
legislation being adopted or considered by local, state, federal, or
international law bodies that might be relevant to the goals set forth in
Article III or otherwise affect the research and teaching programs related
to geographic information science. The committee shall propose and develop
legislation if needed in support of the goals of Article III, propose and
draft responses to proposed legislation that may be adverse to or support
the goals set forth in Article III, and develop approaches for
communicating with legislators, agency personnel, and other policy makers.
A Roundtable on Policy and Legislation Initiatives was held from 1:00 PM to
4:00 PM, Sunday November 8, Room W 110, Convention Center.
Among the items discussed and recommendations arising from that meeting
include the following:
- Results of the membership survey relating to Policy and Legislation
Committee matters indicate that the goals of this committee remain high
priorities for the organization. The committee should retain a primary
focus on expanding university funding for advancement of geographic
information science and engineering on a nation-wide basis.
- The Policy and Legislation Committee recommends that our primary
activitiy in Washington DC this year should be in conjunction with the
Geodata Policy Forum to be held June 7 - 9.
- At least one representative from each university or national research
lab is highly encouraged to attend the Geodata Policy Forum.
- The P&L Committee will supply a draft letter for university personnel
to send to their members of Congress prior to the Forum. The letter should
indicate that they will be in DC for the Forum and that while in town they
would like to meet with the member of Congress to discuss a few issues.
- The P&L Committee will provide packets to drop off to members of
Congress and a series of talking points for the visits. UCGIS members are
encouraged to invite others from their state to accompany them when they
make their congressional office visits, such as members of NSGIC or the
commercial sector.
- Because major efforts relating to GI Science research are ongoing
within NSF and within the federal agency establishment, we recommend that
UCGIS not initiate any independent legislation this year. Rather we will
be developing opportunities to support those other efforts - such as
placing support statements in the packets delivered to members of Congress
and providing testimony at hearings.
- At the upcoming summer assembly, the planned mimi-symposium on a
Science of Geographic Information should be highly supportive of the
internal efforts at NSF. At the upcoming summer assembly, the planned talks
and breakout groups on identifying the limitations of geographic
information technologies in key application domains should be highly
complementary to the applications which are the focus of the
Community/Federal Information Partnerships (C/FIP) funding program being
coordinated by OMB. (Note: Norman Gunderson provided an extensive
briefing on the C/FIPs initiative to the Committee)
Additional Discussion / Activities:
- The U.S. Government Accounting Office should be asked by a Chair of a
Congressional Committee to carry out a study on the extent of GI activities
and expenditures within and outside of government. The UCGIS P&L committee
should investigate how this might best be achieved.
- When legislation with potential adverse effects on the geographic
information community arises in Congress, the Chair of the P&L Committee
and the President of UCGIS have been drafting response letters addressed to
appropiate members of Congress. These drafts have been circulated by
e-mail to the membership and the Board for comment and a vote taken by the
Board prior to sending the letters. In some instances when deemed
appropriate, the Chair of the P&L Committee has drafted letters to members
of Congress and encouraged others to write similar letters to their members
of Congress in their own states. Our intent is to continue this procedure.
- Although significant trepidations were expressed, there is probably
some merit in exploring whether UCGIS might become more informed about
proposed bills in Congress potentially affecting the funding of research by
working with MAPPS or other organizations rather than relying primarily on
volunteer efforts by our membership and our more informal networks.
- Arranging for briefings by selected agencies in Washington DC to the
UCGIS membership was thought to be a very good idea. The purpose of the
agency briefings would be to discover:
- the extent and nature of geographic information technology and science
activities in which the agency is involved,
- the shortcomings, difficulties or limitations that agency personnel may
be experiencing in using geographic information technologies,
- the extent and nature of mission-focused research in geographic
information science and technology that currently is accomplished by the
agency and the extent to which the research is accomplished by agency
personnel, universities or the commercial sector,
- the full scope of university funding currently being supported by the
agency across all branches and areas of responsibility of the entire
agency, and
- procedures by which university personnel might work with agencies in
seeking solutions to geographic information technology and science
limitations of mutual interest.
Agencies that we would be most interested in hearing from are those that
are using geographic information technologies to accomplish missions that
relate to major application domains, such as public health, crime,
agriculture, transportation, housing, ecosystem management, emergency
management, defense, etc.
It was felt that such briefings should be held in Washington DC in
conjunction with the annual Congressional activity. However, we should not
pursue this activity this year due to other events in DC surrounding the
GeoData Forum.
- Due to the responses on our membership survey, it was suggested that
UCGIS might want to "require" all of our members to visit Washington DC at
least once per year to help the organization build relationships with
agencies and members of Congress. A suggested alternative was that UCGIS
should consider having two meetings per year ... one in Washington DC
during the first week of February and the other in the summer.
ANYONE THAT WOULD LIKE TO BECOME A MEMBER OF THIS COMMITTEE, PLEASE FORWARD
YOUR NAME AND ADDRESS TO onsrud@spatial.maine.edu