CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The National Bureau of Standards (NBS). was established by the Congress on March 3, 1901 (31 Stat. 1449). This law, referred to as the organic act, initially placed NBS in the Treasury Department, but in 1903 it was transferred to the Department of Commerce. As part of Commerce, NBS reports to the Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology. The organic act, as amended, authorizes NBS to undertake the following: --Developing, maintaining, and disseminating standards of physical measurements. --Determining physical materials' properties and physical constants. --Developing test methods for materials, mechanisms, --Establishing standard practices in cooperation with --Providing advisory services to Government agencies. The NBS Director, testifying before the Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology in February 1980, pointed out that NBS had three major roles: 1. 2. 3. Serve as the Nation's central reference laboratory for the development and provision of measurement standards and methods; standard reference materials; and data on the properties of matter, materials, and physical phenomena. Address national problems through the application Work to enhance the technological and scientific Because the organic act, as amended, does not impose mandatory requirements on NBS and provides broad authority, NBS has considerable discretion under the act in determining its scientific activities. Numerous other laws, however, have been enacted which direct that NBS carry out certain activities. For example, the Consumer Product Safety Act (86 Stat. 1207) requires the Consumer Product Safety Commission to utilize NBS' resources and facilities to, among other things, perform research and analyses related to injury risks associated with consumer products. NBS has three major organizational units responsible for its scientific and technical programs: the National Engineering Laboratory, the National Measurement Laboratory, and the Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology. The goals of these major units are shown in appendix I. Additional research is performed at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) in Boulder, Colorado--under NBS' National Measurement Laboratory. JILA operates under a 1962 agreement between NBS and the University of Colorado--NBS and other Federal agencies fund most of its scientific research. JILA operations are discussed more fully in chapter 4, and an organization chart is shown in appendix VIII. Also, NBS has two major administrative organizations. The Associate Director for Programs, Budget, and Finance is responsible for planning, developing, and evaluating NBS-wide programs; developing and carrying out policies on programmatic, budgetary, and financial matters; and developing and executing the budget. Most other NBS-wide administrative functions are the responsibility of the Director of Administration. In addition, some of the Laboratory/Institute staffs carry out administrative and management functions for their respective major operating organizations. The NBS appropriation for fiscal year 1980 was $92.6 million. During fiscal year 1980, about 44 percent of the work NBS performed was for and funded primarily by Federal agencies. This work totaled about $72.4 million. Also, according to an NBS July 1980 analysis of its research projects underway at that time, about 92 percent of the research was considered to be applied research and about 8 percent basic research. As a result of its research, NBS held about 180 unexpired patents as of October 31, 1980. About 10 new patents have been obtained annually over the past 5 years. Since 1959 the National Research Council, under a contract between the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and NBS, has continually evaluated NBS functions and operations. In discharging this responsibility, the National Research Council selects and appoints members to a series of evaluation panels. Members usually serve for 3 years but not longer than 6 years. The scientific disciplines of the members encompass almost all physical science fields. In appointing members to the panels, the Council attempts to get about 50 to 55 percent of the members from industry and the remaining members from government and academia. Usually, the Council attains this objective or takes action to correct an imbalance. The NBS organic act provides for the Secretary of Commerce to appoint a five-member Statutory Visiting Committee. The committee is required to visit NBS at least once a year and report to the Secretary on the efficiency of NBS' scientific work and the condition of its equipment. Committee members are prominent individuals from industry and academia and are appointed for a 5-year period. OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY Our review was made pursuant to a January 23, 1980, request from the Chairman, Subcommittee on Science, Research and Technology, House Committee on Science and Technology. We reviewed certain aspects of NBS focusing on (1) the specific questions in the subcommittee's request and (2) matters in which the subcommittee chairman's office orally expressed interest during the review, as follows. --Changes, if any, needed in the organic act to enable --Resources needed to meet NBS goals. (See ch. 2.) --A comparison of NBS' current role with that of other --Potential new NBS roles in innovation and productivity. (See ch. 3.) --Resources used to carry out legislative mandates and nonstatutory tasks. (See ch. 2.) --Nonstatutory assignments' impacts on performance of --NBS' competence-building program, including (1) the basis used to determine the areas in which competence rebuilding is necessary, (2) if the program received funding at the expense of mission programs, and (3) competence funding allocated to basic research, applied research, and other activities since the program began. (See ch. 5.) --Information on JILA, including (1) how it fits into --Information on NBS research grants, including grant In addition to information on the above matters, the subcommittee requested orally that we provide any other information which we thought would be useful to them during planned hearings. Accordingly, this report contains information on certain matters which we believe the subcommittee may wish to explore with NBS during the hearings. (See pp. 24, 39, and 54.) One of these matters concerned the research and services NBS' customers were obtaining from NBS and whether the research and services were available elsewhere. (See p. 25.) In this regard, we made analyses of responses, other than those reported 1/ previously, to three of the four questionnaires sent in 1979 to a sample (838) of NBS' customers. NBS could not identify the universe of users of its services. Therefore, we sampled a variety of sources, such as mailing lists, members of a professional organization, and other sources. The questionnaire results cannot be projected to the total universe of users of NBS services. However, we have no reason to believe that the responses would be different from those of a statistical sample of all such users. 1/The results of the questionnaires were included in our February 1980 report (see p. 6). We reviewed various Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), Congressional Research Service (CRS), and National Academy of Sciences evaluation panel reports concerning NBS' mission and/or functions. Some of the issues discussed in the reports are included in this report. Our work was performed at NBS headquarters and main laboratories in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in Boulder, Colorado. We interviewed key NBS officials and program managers, such as the NBS Deputy Director; Associate Director, Office of the Associate Director for Programs, Budget, and Finance; the Directors of the Planning, Budget, and Program Offices; a former NBS Director and a former Deputy Director; division chiefs; and Colorado University faculty members who were associated with the Joint Institute, one of whom was the former Institute chairman. We also reviewed various operating procedures and documents including the overall NBS long-range plan and the 5-year Laboratory plans; interviewed Commerce officials including the Assistant Secretary for Productivity, Technology, and Innovation; several NAS scientists and officials; NAS/NBS evaluation panel members; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials, including an office director; a member of the NBS Statutory Visiting Committee; and the Director, Center for Science and Technology Policy, New York University. We also interviewed several persons from private industry including a consultant from Mitre Corporation; the executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and the chief scientist, IBM. In addition, we reviewed the NBS organic act and other specific acts which directly affect NBS operations. To obtain information on the quality and usefulness of JILA research and the "joint institute" concept as a method of performing research, we interviewed 9 of the 15 NAS evaluation panel members that reviewed JILA operations during the past 5 years--we were unable to contact the other 6 panel members. (See p. 44.) We believe that the information obtained through interviews, combined with our analyses of questionnaires and our review of NBS' records, reports prepared on NBS by others, and various legislative requirements, accurately describes those aspects of NBS' operations addressed in this report. We coordinated our work with OTA. Also, we coordinated with CRS in connection with its current efforts to |