February 11, 2013, 2:01 pm
By Paul Basken
Washington — Back in 2011, as Republicans in the House of Representatives threatened to force a default on government debt in order to make President Obama accept deep budget cuts, the Northrop Grumman Corporation was showering them with campaign donations.
The defense contractor and its employees handed out $3.4-million in 2011, mostly to Republicans. Its leading beneficiary in Congress was Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon of California, part of the Republican majority that blocked a debt-ceiling extension and then voted for a “sequestration” measure threatening deep, across-the-board budget cuts.
On Monday, in a sign of how anxious universities have become about the threat of sequestration, the heads of two major university groups joined the head of Northrop Grumman in pleading with Congress to reconsider.
The pending cuts in areas affecting education, including scientific…
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November 28, 2012, 2:30 pm
By Paul Basken
The U.S. Energy Department on Wednesday announced a new round of grants, totaling $130-million, for research into breakthrough energy technologies.
The recipients include more than two dozen universities, including Colorado State University, which will be working on ways of genetically engineering crops to make them more useful for biofuel production; Cornell University, which is developing an “algae-fuel reactor” that distributes sunlight more efficiently for use in algae-fuel production; and Stanford University, which is developing a coating for the rooftops of buildings and cars that helps them cool by reflecting sunlight.
The projects are being financed through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, a division of the Department of Energy that began operating in 2009 with the goal of applying cutting-edge research to pressing energy problems.
The Obama…
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