I am really pleased to be here and be part of the opening of this meeting. One of the things we have learned during this administration is that support for science and technology is fairly broad among the society.
People think science and technology is good.
They couple it with economic growth, thanks to Alan Greenspan, who speaks often about the role technology has played in the growth of the economy during this last decade. However, we have also learned that there is a limit to how much Congress will appropriate for science and technology, especially if our requests are articulated as increases for physics, chemistry, engineering or other disciplines. If we want really large increases in funding for science and technology we have to relate those increase to initiatives. We actually got that increase. Another important initiative is nanotechnology.