Government & Policy Roundup

Raymond L. Orbach was confirmed by the Senate to be the first Department of Energy undersecretary for science, a position established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Orbach, a theoretical physicist, has been director of the DOE Office of Science since 2002; prior to that, he was chancellor of the University of California, Riverside.

Environmental Defense has sent a letter to EPA arguing that engineered nanomaterials should be considered new substances under the Toxic Substances Control Act, "even if the material has a chemical structure that is identical to a substance already included in the TSCA inventory." EPA is working to determine how best to handle engineered nanomaterials.

NSF has released a master list of all federally funded R&D centers. The list includes website links to centers such as DOD's National Defense Research Institute and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Center for Nuclear Waste Regulatory Analyses. The list is available at www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf06316.