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the SBIR Program? Do you see some of that in the STTR Program? 

 Can you just expand upon that a little bit, Mr. Little? 



Mr. Little. I think it exists in any research arena. The more 

 basic you are, usually the longer it takes to get you to a commercial 

 product. So, it gets to the specific topic of interest. We have had 

 projects where we were looking at space-based neutral particle 

 beams and it was really difficult to get that one down to Earth. So, 

 that gives you an example, as opposed to we have recently bid on 

 a topic which is a DOE topic to improve a machine that we cur- 

 rently make, in effect, or to make a next generation machine. That 

 is a real topic. At the end of that program, we will have a product. 



Chairman TORKILDSEN. Mr. Rezendes from the GAO, in your tes- 

 timony you mentioned about technical assistance not being imple- 

 mented, yet you did not identify that as a problem. Is that provi- 

 sion — and it is not mandatory, but it is a possibility — is that redun- 

 dant from your perspective? Is that just not necessary? 



Mr. Rezendes. Basically, from the five agencies we have talked 

 to, I think the consensus there was, yes, I think they basically feel 

 that way, that the award which was relatively so small compared 

 to the number of people who they would have to be giving them 

 to, would be an administrative burden to monitor them. 



Plus, as I mentioned earlier, they view the technical aspects of 

 the proposal an important part in scoring, whether it should re- 

 ceive an award or not. That if an applicant came in with request 

 for technical assistance, that that would be sort of viewed as some- 

 thing is wrong or deficient in the application. 



Chairman TORKILDSEN. Mr. Little and Mr. Bassilakis, would you 

 concur that that technical assistance provision really is not rel- 

 evant because what you are offering to these agencies are a certain 

 degree of technical proficiency to begin with? 



Mr. Little. I think that is a good point and I would not argue 

 against it. $5,000 is not a lot of support anyhow, so it may not be 

 worth the effort to structure something for a $5,000 contribution. 

 But yes, we are the experts. 



Chairman TORKILDSEN. Mr. Bassilakis. 



Mr. Bassilakis. I agree with that position. Our experience 

 gained while attending the national SBIR conference and the other 

 SBA's seminars has provided us with more than enough back- 

 ground and knowledge on how to submit proposals and negotiate 

 contracts. I would like to see the support funds converted into more 

 SBIR funds for conducting basic research. 



Dr. Barish. Mr. Chairman, if I could elaborate on the redun- 

 dancy that Mr. Rezendes mentioned. That is certainly true, but 

 there are actually two provisions concerning discretionary technical 

 assistance in the legislation. One is technical assistance which I 

 agree 100 percent is redundant. The other is — and I am reading 

 out of the law — developing and commercializing new commercial 

 products and processes resulting from such SBIR projects. Now 

 that is something that is sorely needed. However, the way the law 

 is written it is very difficult to implement, and that is why none 

 of the agencies have thus far chosen to implement it. 



Chairman TORKILDSEN. Let us expand on that. What are the dif- 

 ficulties in implementation from an agency perspective? 



