US drops security regulation proposal on foreign scientists

In a significant move, the Bush administration has dropped a proposed security regulation that would have prevented foreign-born researchers, including from India, from using certain available equipment in American laboratories even if they had become citizens.

Stressing that it did not want to make research enterprise "less productive", the Department of Commerce has withdrawn the proposed rule following protests from individual scientists, universities, industry and even government
laboratories.

A formal notification to this effect has been issued in the Federal Register.

The administration has stayed away from a proposed regulation that would have made scientists from "countries of concern" like India, Pakistan, Russia and China obtain a license to use certain equipment in American labs especially if there were military applications.

The federal government, at one time, insisted on applying the proposed rule to the country of birth rather than the country of citizenship.

It has been pointed out that at one time the universities believed they were exempt from the rules and that it basically confined only to the industry.

But the commerce department clarified that the proposed regulation was applicable to centres of learning as well.

According to the latest notification, a 12-person committee is being formed to look into issues of laboratory security. 

According to David McCormick, the under secretary of commerce for industry and security, the committee will include experts in academia, industry and security, to examine the issue of laboratory security.

The group will have a mandate to examine "fundamental issues to do with deemed export policy".

The implications of the tightened regulations since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, have not gone unnoticed in the scientific community and the Council of Graduate Schools had reported in 2004 of plummeting graduate student enrollments in American institutions from countries like India and China.

The enrollment of Indian students is said to have dropped 20 per cent since 2003.

Scientific researchers, it was pointed out, were having difficulty in getting visas and in some cases had to go through a full security process if a clearance had been given more than a year ago.

In some cases visas were never granted, the scientific community had complained.

The delays in granting visas were especially bad for scientists coming from countries like India, China and Russia because their papers had to be vetted through the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.