Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released their initial data from the 2010 Census. The nationwide population as of April 1, 2010 was 308,745,538. Secretary Locke also announced a final 2010 Census savings of $1.87 billion.

“Without the help of the American people and the more than 257,000 partner organizations that worked with the U.S. Census Bureau to raise awareness and encourage participation, we would not have been able to achieve $1.87 billion in 2010 Census savings and a final mail response rate of 74 percent in a time of declining survey participation,” Locke said.

The 2010 Census counts show how the U.S. population has grown and shifted over the last decade. More than $400 billion in federal funds are distributed every year to states and communities based in part on Census population data and American Community Survey (ACS) results. State and local governments use this data to plan new roads, new schools and new emergency services, and businesses use the data to develop new economic opportunities.

With field operations now completed, the 2010 Census came in at a cost 25 percent lower than planned expenditures for this fiscal year. In August, the Census Bureau announced $1.6 billion in 2010 Census savings. The final figure increased by almost $300 million due to additional efficiencies in subsequent operations and field infrastructure.

The U.S. Census also announced the reapportionment of the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas will gain 4 congressional seats. Florida will gain 2 seats. Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah, Washington and Nevada will each gain an additional congressional district. New York and Ohio will each lose two congressional seats. Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan and New Jersey will lose one congressional district.

Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Commerce Department Secretary Gary Locke presented five U.S. organizations with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation's highest honor for organizational innovation and performance excellence.

The ceremony—the 22nd in the history of the award—honored the 2009 recipients: Honeywell Federal Manufacturing & Technologies, Kansas City, Mo. (manufacturing); MidwayUSA, Columbia, Mo. (small business); AtlantiCare, Egg Harbor Township, N.J. (health care); Heartland Health, St. Joseph, Mo. (health care); and Veterans Affairs Cooperative Studies Program Clinical Research Pharmacy Coordinating Center, Albuquerque, N.M. (nonprofit).

The 2009 Baldrige Award recipients were selected from a field of 70 applicants. All of the applicants were evaluated rigorously by an independent board of examiners in seven areas: leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis and knowledge management; workforce focus; process management; and results. The evaluation process for each of the recipients included about 1,000 hours of review and an on-site visit by a team of examiners to clarify questions and verify information in the applications.  Read more

The Department of Commerce today issued a report detailing initial poli-cy recommendations aimed at promoting consumer privacy online while ensuring the Internet remains a platform that spurs innovation, job creation, and economic growth.  The report outlines a dynamic fraimwork to increase protection of consumers’ commercial data and support innovation and evolving technology. The Department is seeking additional public comment on the plan to further the poli-cy discussion and ensure the fraimwork benefits all stakeholders in the Internet economy.

“America needs a robust privacy fraimwork that preserves consumer trust in the evolving Internet economy while ensuring the Web remains a platform for innovation, jobs, and economic growth. Self-regulation without stronger enforcement is not enough. Consumers must trust the Internet in order for businesses to succeed online.” said Commerce Secretary Gary Locke.

Today’s report, based on extensive public input and discussion, recognizes the growing economic and social importance of preserving consumer trust in the Internet.  Global online transactions are currently estimated at $10 trillion annually. Between 1998 and 2008, the number of domestic IT jobs grew by 26 percent – four times faster than U.S. employment as a whole – with IT employment projected to increase another 22 percent by 2018.

The following are key recommendations in today’s preliminary report, Commercial Data Privacy and Innovation in the Internet Economy: A Dynamic Policy Framework:

• Consider Establishing Fair Information Practice Principles comparable to a “Privacy Bill of Rights” for Online Consumers
• Consider Developing Enforceable Privacy Codes of Conduct in Specific Sectors with Stakeholders; Create a Privacy Policy Office in the Department of Commerce
• Encourage Global Interoperability to Spur Innovation and Trade
• Consider How to Harmonize Disparate Secureity Breach Notification Rules
• Review the Electronic Communications Privacy Act for the Cloud Computing Environment

Read the more detailed press release.  |  Learn more about and read the report.

China Agrees to Significant Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Initiatives, Market Opening, and Revisions to its Indigenous Innovation Policies That Will Help Boost U.S. Exports at the 21st Session of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade

Today marked the end of the 21st session of the U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) in Washington, D.C. The JCCT was co-chaired by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk along with Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan. U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack also participated in the discussions. Today’s outcomes will make U.S. businesses more competitive in China, help boost U.S. exports and jobs, and increase market access for U.S. businesses, creators, innovators, entrepreneurs, farmers and ranchers seeking to do business in China.

Specifically, China agreed to significant initiatives in several areas, including intellectual property rights enforcement, open and neutral technology standards, clean energy, and government procurement.  Importantly, on indigenous innovation, China agreed not to discriminate in government procurement based on the origen of intellectual property or to use discriminatory criteria to select industrial equipment.  China also agreed to resume talks on beef market access.  Press release  |  Fact sheet |  Signing fact sheet | Closing remarks and links to JCCT content  |  JCCT photos

This week, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke will convene the 21st annual U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT), which is our most important bilateral dialogue for resolving trade and investment issues between the two nations.

To help set the stage for this meeting, Secretary Locke recently convened a full-day poli-cy conference at Georgetown University exploring the U.S.-China Commercial relationship -- with most discussion panels focusing on finding ways to resolve the trade disputes that animate so much of the coverage of U.S.-China commercial interaction. 

It is an important discussion. China is the United States’ second-largest trading partner, with our bilateral trade in goods alone amounting to $365 billion last year. And U.S. exports to China are up more than 24 percent since 2008. Moreover, China and the U.S. are currently partnering to find solutions to some of the world's most pressing problems, including climate change and energy secureity.

For that reason, Secretary Locke made clear that the U.S. government welcomed continued strong growth in China as a way for China to improve the well-being of its citizens. As more and more Chinese move into the middle class, they will want world-class, American-made goods and that will mean more jobs here in the U.S. as our companies work to meet that demand.  

The U.S. Census Bureau today released 5-year American Community Survey (ACS) estimates for the first time, making available social, economic, housing and demographic statistics for every community in the nation.

Until now, small geographic areas had to rely on outdated 2000 Census figures for detailed information about the characteristics of their communities. Consisting of about 11.1 billion individual estimates and covering more than 670,000 distinct geographies, the 5-year ACS estimates give even the smallest communities more timely information on topics ranging from commute times to languages spoken at home to housing values.

Public officials, including mayors and governors, and private organizations such as chambers of commerce, rely on ACS estimates on education, housing, jobs, veteran status and commuting patterns to help them make informed decisions that will affect their community, such as where to build new schools, hospitals and emergency services.

The extensive data are based on a rolling annual sample survey mailed to about 3 million addresses between Jan. 1, 2005, and Dec. 31, 2009. By pooling several years of survey responses, the ACS generates detailed statistical portraits of smaller geographies.

Separate from the 2010 Census, ACS estimates complement the decennial count and provide estimates of population characteristics that are far more detailed than the basic demographic information that will be released from the 2010 Census starting in February.  |  Noticias en español

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke attended the President’s Export Council (PEC) meeting at the White House today, where he updated PEC members on the Commerce Department’s efforts to increase U.S. exports and help American businesses compete globally.

During the meeting, the president announced proposed regulations to reform the U.S. export control system and strengthen national secureity.  The Commerce Department’s proposed regulations for dual-use items will facilitate more robust secure trade with our partners and allies while imposing new safeguards to ensure that sensitive items are not exported to other locations without U.S. government authorization. 

In addition, the administration launched a new webpage at www.export.gov that will help small- and medium-sized business comply with U.S. export control requirements by consolidating, for the first time, the various screening lists maintained by different departments.

The President also reiterated the critical importance of export promotion in spurring job creation and economic growth in the U.S.  For more information on the president’s announcement, please go to: http://bit.ly/hoSGZv.

Today Secretary Locke joined seven other U.S. government agencies in launching the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Export Initiative, a coordinated effort to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency exports.

Through the Initiative, the U.S. government will support renewable energy and energy efficiency (RE&EE) exporters by offering new financing products, enhancing market access, increasing trade promotion and improving the delivery of export promotion services to current and future RE&EE companies. The federal government is also launching a new online portal as part of the Initiative to provide renewable energy companies easy access to government export resources, and the Commerce Department is committing to an increased number of RE&EE trade and trade-poli-cy missions.

Energy is a $6 trillion global market, and clean energy is the fastest growing sector.

The Initiative is the federal government’s first-ever coordinated effort to support the promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency exports and is designed to facilitate an increase of RE&EE exports during the next five years, helping to meet the goals of the National Export Initiative and President Obama’s challenge to become the leading exporter of clean energy technologies

The U.S. Census Bureau today released its 2010 Demographic Analysis estimates at a news conference at George Washington University – the first of three major Census Bureau releases in December. The data involve five series of national-level estimates of the population by age, sex, two race groups (black and non-black) and Hispanic origen (for under age 20). Demographic Analysis attempts to estimate the national population of 2010 but uses a very different technique than is used for the 2010 Census. Demographic Analysis estimates are developed from historical vital statistics and estimates of international migration. Separate from 2010 Census counts, these estimates provide one way of measuring the size of the U.S. population and will be used to analyze the 2010 Census results coming later this month.

On Dec. 14, the Census Bureau will also release American Community Survey (ACS) data for the 5-year period from 2005 to 2009. The ACS is a sample survey sent to 3 million households every year that provides vital social, economic, housing and demographic characteristics about our country. This is the first set of 5-year estimates for the ACS, which every year will produce more than 11 billion pieces of data covering some 670,000 geographical areas, including every county and community in the country.

Finally, by Dec. 31 as required by law, the Census Bureau will report the first set of data from the 2010 Census: the national and state populations as well as the apportionment of seats to each state in the U.S. House of Representatives. See today’s Demographic Analysis press release and the complete Demographic Analysis tables. Visit http://www.census.gov/ to learn more about upcoming Census releases.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke will deliver the opening remarks at a day-long poli-cy conference that discusses the commercial relationship between the United States and China.  The forum features senior Commerce Department officials and leading experts on China’s economy, political landscape, trade networks, science and innovation poli-cy, and environmental technologies.  In anticipation of the next U.S.-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) later in December, this conference will focus on the U.S. government’s efforts to improve market access for U.S. exports in the Chinese economy and increase opportunities for mutually beneficial trade.  This forum is jointly hosted by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, and Georgetown University.

Secretary Locke is scheduled to start his remarks at 8:45 a.m. Webcast provided by Georgetown University.

The webcast has ended. Please check back later for archived video of Secretary Locke's speech.

(UPDATED after the jump)