176 



decision makers and to clientele from which such needs arise. Often, needs that emerge at 

 the national level have their first recognition and response at the state level. SAESs often 

 have already begun to respond before federal agencies recognize and act. 



Despite this early awareness and responsiveness that comes from grass roots involvement, 

 the SAESs lack a mechanism at the national level that allows the Administration and 

 Congress to provide highly directed resources to deal with short term emergency needs. This 

 proposal recognizes that the Cooperative State Research Service has an established funding 

 mechanism which could also be employed to meet this need. CSRS Special Grants are 

 targeted to specific purposes of recognized national importance and usually involve relatively 

 applied research. 



In this approach, a category of special grants would be established for one-time contracts 

 for highly specific products of research. Specifications would be written for the product, 

 along with a prescribed delivery schedule. The contracts would usually be of relatively short 

 duration, one to two years. The type of resejirch done would vary with the need, but there 

 would be a clearly conceived and achievable product delivered at the end of the contract. 

 While the topic for the research contract would be highly specific, it would deal with 

 nadonal needs and would be awarded competitively. Often research contracts would be 

 awarded to individual institutions, but there may be occasions when consortia of institutions 

 (sometimes including non-agricultural or industrial members) would be more appropriate 

 to assure timely response. 



Identifying the topics of research contracts would often not occur prior to the normal 

 appropriations process. Thus, it would be ideal if an appropriation could be established for 

 this purpose which does not state the precise use, but allows for identification of contract 

 topics during the budget year. The Congress could be involved in oversight of this program, 

 if desired, to assure that its intent is maintained. 



Research contracts would not replace, but augment the award of research grants by CSRS 

 and other parts of the federal system. In contrast to the contract approach, grants normally 

 draw on the creativity of the scientist(s) who make the proposal and provide more flexibility 

 in exploring avenues of greatest promise as results become available. 



12. Describe what you mean by science-based management. 



In his early comments on organization and operation of the USD A, Secretary Espy used this 

 term. It was following his early experience with the outbreak of E. coli food poisoning in 

 the Northwest. The use of modem surveillance and screening tools was an obvious part of 

 the action needed to reduce the likeUhood of such occurrences. 



In our translation of his very brief statement, we infer that Mr. Espy intends to move 

 towards assuring that all programs of the action agencies in the department will be 



15 



