S.Amdt. 925

1. Inserts new text wherever appropriate

   Inserts

   Inserted: TITLE --TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER

   Inserted: SEC. --01. TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER OPPORTUNITIES.

   Inserted: (a) In General.--The Secretary of Commerce shall conduct a study of technology transfer barriers, best practices, and outcomes of technology transfer activities at Federal laboratories related to the licensing and commercialization of energy efficient technologies, and other technologies that, compared to similar technology in commercial use, result in reduced emissions of greenhouse gases, increased ability to adapt to climate change impacts, or increased sequestration of greenhouse gases. The Secretary shall submit a report setting forth the findings and conclusions of the study to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House of Representatives Committee on Science within 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act. The Secretary shall work with the existing interagency working group to address identified barriers to technology transfer.

   Inserted: (b) Business Opportunities Study.--The Secretary of Commerce shall perform an analysis of business opportunities, both domestically and internationally, available for climate change technologies. The Secretary shall transmit the Secretary's findings and recommendations from the first such analysis to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House of Representatives Committee on Science within 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act, and shall transmit a revised report of such findings and recommendations to those Committees annually thereafter.

   Inserted: (c) Agency Report to Include Information on Technology Transfer Income and Royalties.--Paragraph (2)(B) of section 11(f) of the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 (15 U.S.C. 3710(f)) is amended--

   Inserted: (1) by striking "and" after the semicolon in clause (vi);

   Inserted: (2) by redesignating clause (vii) as clause (ix); and

   Inserted: (3) by inserting after clause (vi) the following:

   Inserted: "(vii) the number of fully-executed licenses which received royalty income in the preceding fiscal year for climate-change or energy-efficient technology;

   Inserted: "(viii) the total earned royalty income for climate-change or energy-efficient technology; and".

   Inserted: (d) Increased Incentives for Development of Climate-Change or Energy-Efficient Technology.--Section 14(a) of the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 (15 U.S.C. 3710c(a)) is amended--

   Inserted: (1) by striking "15 percent," in paragraph (1)(A) and inserting "15 percent (25 percent for climate change-related technologies),"; and

   Show 65 more inserted paragraphsShow less

   Inserted: (2) by inserting "($250,000 for climate change-related technologies)" after "$150,000" each place it appears in paragraph (3).

   Inserted: SEC. --02. INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND COMMERCIALIZATION.

   Inserted: (a) In General.--The Director of the National Science Foundation shall develop and implement a plan to increase and establish priorities for funding for multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research at universities in support of the adaptation to and mitigation of climate change. The plan shall--

   Inserted: (1) address the cross-fertilization and fusion of research within and across the biological and physical sciences, the spectrum of engineering disciplines, and entirely new fields of scientific exploration; and

   Inserted: (2) include the area of emerging service sciences.

   Inserted: (b) Report to Congress.--The Director shall transmit a copy of the plan to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and the House of Representatives Committee on Science within 6 months after the date of enactment of this Act.

   Inserted: (c) Service Science Defined.--In this section, the term "service science" means the melding together of the fields of computer science, operations research, industrial engineering, mathematics, management science, decision sciences, social sciences, and legal sciences in a manner that may transform entire enterprises and drive innovation at the intersection of business and technology expertise.

   Inserted: SEC. --03. CLIMATE INNOVATION PARTNERSHIPS.

   Inserted: (a) In General.--The Secretary of Commerce, in consultation with the Director of the National Science Foundation, shall create a program of public-private partnerships that--

   Inserted: (1) focus on supporting climate change related regional innovation;

   Inserted: (2) bridge the gap between the long-term research and commercialization;

   Inserted: (3) focus on deployment of technologies needed by a particular region in adapting or mitigating the impacts of climate change; and

   Inserted: (4) support activities that are selected from proposals submitted in merit-based competitions.

   Inserted: (b) Institutional Diversity.--In creating the program, the Secretary and the Administrator shall--

   Inserted: (1) encourage institutional diversity; and

   Inserted: (2) provide that universities, research centers, national laboratories, and other non-profit organizations are allowed to partner with private industry in submitting applications.

   Inserted: (c) Grants.--The Secretary may make grants under the program to the partnerships, but the Federal share of funding for any project may not exceed 50 percent of the total investment in any fiscal year.

   Inserted: (d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary such sums as may be necessary to carry out this section.

   Inserted: SEC. --04. RESEARCH GRANTS.

   Inserted: Section 105 of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (15 U.S.C. 2935) is amended--

   Inserted: (1) by redesignating subsection (c) as subsection (d); and

   Inserted: (2) by inserting after subsection (b) the following:

   Inserted: "(c) Research Grants.--

   Inserted: "(1) Committee to develop list of priority research areas.--The Committee shall develop a list of priority areas for research and development on climate change that are not being addressed by Federal agencies.

   Inserted: "(2) Director of OSTP to transmit list to NSF.--The Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy shall transmit the list to the National Science Foundation.

   Inserted: "(3) Funding through NSF.--

   Inserted: "(A) Budget request.--The National Science Foundation shall include, as part of the annual request for appropriations for the Science and Technology Policy Institute, a request for appropriations to fund research in the priority areas on the list developed under paragraph (1).

   Inserted: "(B) Authorization.--For fiscal year 2008 and each fiscal year thereafter, there are authorized to be appropriated to the National Science Foundation not less than $25,000,000, to be made available through the Science and Technology Policy Institute, for research in those priority areas.".

   Inserted: SEC. --05. ABRUPT CLIMATE CHANGE RESEARCH.

   Inserted: (a) In General.--The Secretary, through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, shall carry out a program of scientific research on potential abrupt climate change designed--

   Inserted: (1) to develop a global array of terrestrial and oceanographic indicators of paleoclimate in order sufficiently to identify and describe past instances of abrupt climate change;

   Inserted: (2) to improve understanding of thresholds and nonlinearities in geophysical systems related to the mechanisms of abrupt climate change;

   Inserted: (3) to incorporate these mechanisms into advanced geophysical models of climate change; and

   Inserted: (4) to test the output of these models against an improved global array of records of past abrupt climate changes.

   Inserted: (b) Abrupt Climate Change Defined.--In this section, the term "abrupt climate change" means a change in climate that occurs so rapidly or unexpectedly that human or natural systems may have difficulty adapting to it.

   Inserted: (c) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary $60,000,000 for fiscal year 2008 to carry out this section, such sum to remain available until expended.

   Inserted: SEC. --06. NATIONAL CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND RESILIENCE PROGRAM.

   Inserted: (a) Establishment.--The Secretary of Commerce shall establish a National Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience Program to evaluate and make recommendations about local, regional, and national vulnerability and resilience to impacts relating to longer-term climatic changes and shorter-term climatic variations, including changes and variations resulting from human activities.

   Inserted: (b) Consultation.--In designing the Program, the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shall consult with Federal agencies participating in the United States Global Change Research Program established under section 103 of the Global Change Research Act of 1990 (15 U.S.C. 2933) and any other appropriate Federal, State, or local agency.

   Inserted: (c) Office of Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience Research.--The Secretary shall establish an Office of Climate Change Vulnerability and Resilience Research within the Department of Commerce, which shall--

   Inserted: (1) be responsible for managing the Program; and

   Inserted: (2) in accordance with the design of the Program, coordinate climatic change and climatic variation vulnerability and resilience research in the United States.

   Inserted: (d) Vulnerability Assessments.--The Program shall include--

   Inserted: (1) evaluations, based on historical data, current observational data, and, where appropriate, available predictions, of local, State, regional, and national vulnerability to phenomena associated with climatic change and climatic variation, including--

   Inserted: (A) severe weather events, such as severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes;

   Inserted: (B) annual and interannual climate events, such as the El Nino Southern Oscillation and the North Atlantic Oscillation;

   Inserted: (C) changes in sea level and shifts in the hydrological cycle;

   Inserted: (D) natural hazards, including tsunamis, droughts, floods, and wildfires; and

   Inserted: (E) alterations of ecological communities as a result of climatic change and climatic variation; and

   Inserted: (2) the production of a vulnerability scorecard, in cooperation with State and local institutions including university researchers and programs, that assesses the vulnerability and capacity of each State to respond to climatic change and climatic variation hazards.

   Inserted: (e) Preparedness Recommendations.--Not later than 2 years after the date of enactment of this Act, the Office shall submit to Congress a report that--

   Inserted: (1) includes the vulnerability scorecards produced under subsection (d)(2); and

   Inserted: (2) identifies, and recommends implementation and funding strategies for, short-term and long-term actions that may be taken at the local, State, regional, or national level--

   Inserted: (A) to minimize climatic change and climatic variation threats to human life and property;

   Inserted: (B) to minimize negative economic impacts of climatic change and climatic variation; and

   Inserted: (C) to improve resilience to climatic change and climatic variation hazards.

   Inserted: (f) Vulnerability Research.--In addition to other responsibilities under this section, the Office shall--

   Inserted: (1) apply the results of available vulnerability research to develop and improve criteria that measure resilience to climatic change and climatic variation hazards at the local, State, regional, and national levels;

   Inserted: (2) coordinate the implementation of short-term and long-term research programs based on the recommendations made under subsection (e)(2);

   Inserted: (3) measure progress in increasing the capacity of each State to respond to climatic change and climatic variation hazards, using the vulnerability scorecards produced under subsection (d)(2) as a benchmark; and

   Inserted: (4) not less than annually, review and, if appropriate due to the availability of additional information, update the vulnerability scorecards and the recommendations made under subsection (e)(2).

   Inserted: (g) Information and Technology Dissemination.--The Secretary shall--

   Inserted: (1) make widely available appropriate information, technologies, and products to assist local, State, regional, and national efforts to reduce loss of life and property due to climatic change and climatic variation; and

   Inserted: (2) coordinate the dissemination of the information, technologies, and products through all appropriate channels.

   Inserted: (h) Authorization of Appropriations.--There is authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary to carry out this section $10,000,000.

   The amendment doesn't say where this goes; the clerk decides.

   Original wording

   At the appropriate place, insert the following:

Read automatically from the Congressional Record. Check the original before relying on it.

As printed