the amended act need improvement. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my remarks. I would be happy to answer any questions you or the Subcommittee may have. Mr. VALENTINE. Thank you, sir. Mr. Wisler, as far as you can determine, are the agency and lab personnel do you think that they are sufficiently aware of the responsibilities under this Act and what the Congress intended and what's expected of them? Mr. WISLER. Mr. Chairman, I think that certainly there is widespread awareness at the top of the agencies, but there is a considerable amount of variation in the vigor with which the Act has been implemented. So it takes more than just awareness and we do see a lot of variation in the degree of implementation. The same can be said at the laboratory level. Even in those cases where the agencies have communicated the information to the laboratories, there still are occasions where there isn't a great awareness yet of the requirements of the Act and the need to foster technology transfer. Mr. VALENTINE. Do you have an opinion which you would care to express, which you would express to us as to whether or not the Department of Defense has taken significant steps to implement the legislation since the last hearing? Mr. WISLER. Well, that is a little hard for us to answer because the-our data base is not very complete with respect to the Department of Defense, and if I may just say a few words about that. As we began to work last year with the various agencies and labs, the Defense Department had considerable concerns about our data collection effort and we met with them a number of times, but when the instrument finally went out in November, we were not getting very much cooperation. Indeed, at one time, the Department of Defense ordered the laboratories not to respond to our request for information. That situation has changed and the returns are coming in, but not with complete information. So, to sum it all up, I'm not sure that we're going to be able to say as much as we need to say about the DOD agencies and laboratories with respect to technology transfer, but I just cannot give you much of an answer at this time because that data has been late in arriving and, as I say, is fairly incomplete. Mr. VALENTINE. So it would be better for-perhaps for me to ask you for the to submit an answer for the record on the question which I was going to pose to you next. That is, if you were able to judge other agency compliance and if you could tell us-if we could go into the nonrespondents to the questionnaire and any comments you'd have to make as to who they were and why they acted as they did. Mr. WISLER. Okay. I can certainly give you overall information on the number of nonrespondents and we can submit a list for the record. Now, I will not be able to say as much about why they didn't respond, although we'll do what we can in that regard. Across agencies, we have, at this time, six nonrespondents and roughly 30 or more at the laboratory level in terms of nonrespondents and we will provide for the record a list of those nonrespondents at this time. |