August 22, 2014
Greeting from Nome, Alaska. Secretary Pritzker and NOAA
Administrator Sullivan are meeting with local business leaders and Commerce
employees, touring the fast-growing Port of Nome, and highlighting the ways the
Department helps keep Alaska “Open for Business.” In addition to supporting the
state’s businesses and exports, the Department supplies critical environmental
intelligence to Alaska. By providing data, research and monitoring services,
Commerce helps with sustainable fisheries management, weather prediction, and
dealing with the economic and other wide-ranging effects of a changing climate.
Around Commerce this week, NIST is contributing to
forensic science, BEA rolled out a new statistical product, and NOAA is taking
on the challenge of restoring polluted former government sites.
In honor of Labor Day next week, we’ll skip our Week at a
Glance roundup, but we’ll return on September 5th with our latest
news.
Best,
Wendy
Secretary Pritzker: Commerce Department Helps
Keep Alaska Open for Business
- Secretary Pritzker met with business leaders in Anchorage to discuss
challenges and opportunities facing the business community in the state and
resources for Alaska businesses that are looking to grow. Among the roundtable
participants were representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, as well as the
transportation, logistics, and travel and tourism industries.
Commerce and NOAA Data Provide Critical
Environmental Intelligence to Alaska - Secretary Pritzker visited the Alaska Weather, Water and Ice Center
which is the National Weather Service’s (NWS) main operations center in
Anchorage. The Center is also among the largest consolidated NWS operations
centers containing four specialized operational units. No other forecasting
operation is positioned to deliver such integrated information services – from
marine weather and sea ice to hydrology to public and aviation forecasts –
making it incredibly beneficial to Alaskan and Arctic decision makers.
Measuring
Health Insurance Coverage - Census Director John H. Thompson wrote
about his participation in an event hosted by the Census Bureau and the
National Center for Health Statistics on federal statistics regarding health
insurance coverage.
NIST
to Establish Research Center of Excellence for Forensic Science - The
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced a competition
to create a Forensic Science Center of Excellence dedicated to collaborative,
interdisciplinary research. The center’s mission will be to establish a firm
scientific foundation for the analytic techniques used in two important
branches of forensic science, pattern evidence and digital evidence.
Recent
Findings on Trends in U.S. Entrepreneurship — The Census Bureau’s Ron
Jarmin writes that the rates of new firm start-ups have been declining since
the early 1980s. Even though this trend is not of great concern, young
entrepreneurial businesses are an important source of job creation in the U.S.
economy. The churn of firms in the economy and the associated reallocation of
resources are critical components of productivity growth.
North
Carolina Develops Mobile App to Enhance Preparedness - Many states and
territories are looking to use new technologies and applications to share information
with the public during disaster situations. North Carolina is one of those
states. The North Carolina Department of Public Safety launched a new
application called ReadyNC at an opportune time: just days before a major
winter storm that shut down schools and businesses across the state for several
days this past January.
Census
Bureau Provides Informed Picture of the State of the U.S. Auto Manufacturing
Industry - The Annual Survey of Manufactures provides insight into the
changes in this industry in the years between economic censuses. It provides
sample estimates for manufacturing establishments with one or more paid employees,
including measures of industry outputs, inputs, and operating status. Automobile manufacturing is defined as any
establishment that is primarily engaged in either manufacturing complete
automobiles or manufacturing automobile chassis only.
On
the Chesapeake Bay, Overcoming the Unique Challenges of Bringing Restoration to
Polluted Military Sites - Transformations are taking place at more than 10
government facilities, mostly owned by the Department of Defense, across the
Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. These properties typically include large,
relatively undisturbed natural areas, which often serve as key habitats for
endangered fish, birds, and wildlife. Yet the same federal facilities also have
become Superfund sites, slated for cleanup under CERCLA, with pollution at
levels which threaten the health of humans and the environment.
What
is the most common Compliance Alert that affects your AES compliance rate? As
a filer to the Automated Export System (AES), it is important to review the
information in your monthly AES Compliance Report that is emailed to the account
administrator. Filers need to make sure that the company is maintaining a
compliance rate as close to 100% as possible. So, what situations generate
compliance alerts that go against a filer’s rate?
The Bureau of Economic Analysis wrote about their new
prototype statistic Quarterly
Gross Domestic Product by State, 2005–2013 on their blog this week.
Building
permits in July 2014 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of
1,052,000, up 8.1 percent from the revised June rate and up 7.7 percent from
July 2013. Housing starts in July 2014 were at a SAAR of 1,093,000, up 15.7
percent from June and up 21.7 percent from July 2013.
Commerce Data in the News: USA Today cites residential construction statistics from the Census
Bureau and HUD to say that builders broke ground on new homes at their fastest
pace of the year in the article, Home Building Heats Up as Starts Surge 15.7%.
CBS News cites
historic and current Census Bureau income and poverty statistics to show that
the poverty rate in almost all of Ferguson, Missouri’s neighborhoods increased
from about 5 percent a decade ago to above 20 percent now in the article, Hit by Poverty, Ferguson Reflects the New
Suburbs.
Data
from a Bureau
of Economic Analysis report on regional price parities are mentioned in a
recent item from NBC News: This
State Offers The Most Bang for the Buck, or $100.
Data Releases Next Week: New Residential Sales: July
(Census); Advance Report on Durable Goods: July (Census); Gross Domestic
Product (Prelim): 2014 Q2 (BEA); Personal Income: July (BEA)
On Monday, EDA Assistant Secretary Jay Williams will
deliver keynote remarks at the National Association of Development
Organizations (NADO) training conference in Denver, CO.
On Tuesday, Acting NIST Director Willie May will give
opening remarks at the NIST Workshop on Standards for the Advancement of
Optical Medical Imaging at NIST headquarters in Gaithersburg, MD.
Starting on Wednesday, Deputy Secretary Bruce Andrews
will participate in the NETMundial Initiative for Internet Governance
Cooperation and Development steering committee meeting to advance our support
for the multistakeholder model of Internet governance at a conference hosted by
the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Geneva, Switzerland. Assistant Secretary for
Communications and Information and National Telecommunications and Information
Administration (NTIA) Administrator Larry Strickling will also participate.
Also on Wednesday, Deputy Under Secretary for
International Trade Ken Hyatt will travel to Brazil to deliver opening remarks
at the August 27 SelectUSA Roadshow in São Paulo. The event in São Paulo is
part of a three-city tour for economic development organizations and investment
service providers.
Secretary Pritzker and NOAA Administrator
Sullivan survey
a map of Alaska upon arrival.
President Obama explains what makes Africa an
attractive place for trade and investment [37 seconds].
U.S.
Automobile Manufacturing — The Census Bureau’s latest release from the 2012
Economic Census features the U.S. automobile manufacturing industry. This
graphic shows changes in the number of employees, the average payroll, cost of
materials and value of shipments from the last economic census in 2007 to the
latest.
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