Chet Edwards For Congress

Fighting for Other Key A&M Programs:

• $1.2 million for the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT). The ALERRT program, administered by Texas State University in conjunction with Texas A&M University trains law enforcement officers (who are typically the first to respond to acts of violence in our schools, hospitals, shopping malls or other heavily populated public places) to act quickly in an effort to save lives and prevent injuries.




• $984,000 for biofuels development to support research on sorghum for biomass production in Texas and the South. It would also assist the development of production practices to produce, harvest, and transport billions of tons of biomass which will be a sustainable fuel for energy independence.




• $470,000 for Project Protect to train school administrators, community resource personnel, teachers, and students the skills necessary to prepare for, prevent, respond to, and recover from terrorist activities and violent acts in the school environment.




• $705,000 for robot teams for a Mars-Lunar exploration program that will develop new technologies that enable multiple robots to collaborate in exploration and construction activities for NASA exploration plans.




• $15 million to Texas A&M for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program. Through this project, scientists from Texas A&M will begin examining cores from deep below the seafloor. This has the potential to be one of the biggest federal programs at A&M over the next few years and is one of the university's top priorities.




• $1 million to Texas A&M Space Engineering Institute to continue engineering outreach in conjunction with NASA.
  
  
  
• $600,000 in additional funding for the Offshore Technology Research Center at Texas A&M for research and development of technologies to access energy sources in deep water.
  
  
  
  



• $900,000 for Institute for Science and Technology Policy at the Bush School at Texas A&M. The Institute is part of the Bush School and works to balance economic and environmental policy dealing with climate change.
  
  
  
  
• $400,000 for the Rural Health Care Initiative at the Texas A&M Health Science Center. This project is aimed at improving health care access and quality in rural areas.
  
  
  
  
• $57.92 million for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), to allow for a timely acquisition and outfitting of the new Scientific Ocean Drilling Vessel. IODP is the successor to the highly-effective Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), which examined sediments and rocks far below the seafloor for nearly 20 years.
  
  
  
  
• $300,000 for Juvenile Justice Program at Texas A&M University. Texas currently confines nearly 10,000 juvenile offenders in its 15 state-operated juvenile institutions, 9 state-operated halfway houses and 23 private residential programs at a yearly cost of over $240 million. It is unknown with any degree of certainty why some youths who serve sentences in youth facilities successfully reenter conventional society while others remain involved in crime. Texas A&M will to systematically monitor youths released from a sample of facilities in the state of Texas to identify the profiles of circumstances that produce socially beneficial re-entry outcomes. This information will be used to develop a program design that will specify what kinds of programs in conjunction with what kinds of circumstances (pre-entry and post-incarceration) work to reduce recidivism among previously institutionalized Texas youth.