    [House Hearing, 116 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                           ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT
                             APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2021

    _______________________________________________________________________

                                     HEARINGS

                                     BEFORE A

                               SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                             HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                          ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                                  SECOND SESSION

                        ___________________________________

                  SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT,
                              AND RELATED AGENCIES

                          MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio, Chairwoman

      PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana		MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
      DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida	KEN CALVERT, California
      ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona		CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
      DEREK KILMER, Washington		DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
      MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
      LOIS FRANKEL, Florida

      NOTE: Under committee rules, Mrs. Lowey, as chairwoman of the full
    committee, and Ms. Granger, as ranking minority member of the full
    committee, are authorized to sit as members of all subcommittees.

                Jaime Shimek, Mark Arone, Mike Brain, Scott McKee,
                        Farouk Ophaso, and Marcel Caldwell
                                Subcommittee Staff

                          ___________________________________

                                      PART 5

                                                                       Page
      Department of Energy's Role in
    Advancing Biomedical Sciences...........                              1

      Department of Energy's Fiscal Year
    2021 Budget Request.....................                             77

      Department of Energy's Applied Energy
    Programs................................                            171

      National Nuclear Security Agency......			    255

      Army Corps of Engineers...............			    321

      Office of Science and Environmental
    Management..............................			    389

                           ___________________________________

                Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations

    		    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    43-895 			  WASHINGTON : 2021

                          COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS

                                    ----------
                      NITA M. LOWEY, New York, Chairwoman

      MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
      PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
      JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
      ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
      DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
      LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
      SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
      BARBARA LEE, California
      BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
      TIM RYAN, Ohio
      C. A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland
      DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
      HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
      CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
      MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
      DEREK KILMER, Washington
      MATT CARTWRIGHT, Pennsylvania
      GRACE MENG, New York
      MARK POCAN, Wisconsin
      KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts
      PETE AGUILAR, California
      LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
      CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois
      BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN, New Jersey
      BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan
      NORMA J. TORRES, California
      CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
      ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona
      ED CASE, Hawaii

      KAY GRANGER, Texas
      HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky
      ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama
      MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
      JOHN R. CARTER, Texas
      KEN CALVERT, California
      TOM COLE, Oklahoma
      MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida
      TOM GRAVES, Georgia
      STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
      JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
      CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
      JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
      DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
      ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
      MARTHA ROBY, Alabama
      MARK E. AMODEI, Nevada
      CHRIS STEWART, Utah
      STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi
      DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington
      JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan
      JOHN H. RUTHERFORD, Florida
      WILL HURD, Texas

                     Shalanda Young, Clerk and Staff Director

                                       (ii)

              ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2021

                                  ----------

                                            Wednesday, February 5, 2020

          DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S ROLE IN ADVANCING BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

                                   WITNESSES

    DR. MARK CHANCE, DIRECTOR OF THE CENTER FOR PROTEOMICS AND
        BIOINFORMATICS, SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, CASE WESTERN UNIVERSITY
    DR. NARAYANAN ``BOBBY'' KASTHURI, NEUROSCIENTIST, ARGONNE NATIONAL
        LABORATORY
    DR. HAROLD VARMUS, LEWIS THOMAS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR, WEILL CORNELL
        MEDICINE
        Ms. Kaptur. The subcommittee will come to order and I want
    to thank everyone for coming, particularly our distinguished
    witnesses, all of whom are exceptional and precious in their
    scholarship and dedication to science and to healing. We are
    honored by your being with us today.
        We are here to discuss the topic of the Department of
    Energy's role in advancing biomedical sciences, a
    transformational role at the intersection of energy and health.
        After all, all of us are composed of a complex web of
    neurotransmitters, pulsing energy throughout our tissues,
    organs, and bones every day.
        This subcommittee has to be about more than just what we
    think of as conventional power. Indeed, the Department's long
    history and leadership in supporting basic science has resulted
    in biomedical innovations and a toolkit of advanced scientific
    capabilities that can enable future breakthroughs in health
    research, including artificial neurotransmitters, drug
    discovery, higher precision imaging to advance brain and nerve
    mapping, diagnostic technologies for cancer detection, and the
    use of technology to eliminate cancer's bad cells instead of
    adjacent good ones.
        We can think of a thousand goals beyond those. Let us first
    focus on the core of human function, the brain. For over three
    decades, Congress has funded increasingly advanced research on
    human brain function aimed at discovering and then healing
    medical conditions that alluded prior generations. Now, with
    advancing technology and the advent of supercomputing, science
    itself is maturing and combining information as evidenced by
    the wedding of biology and engineering, bioengineering, a term
    frankly that didn't exist when I went to college. And there are
    many more such examples in science. Our objective today is to
    probe where future scientific inquiry might be better directed
    to advance our understanding of human health such as better
    comprehension of brain function and then unravel incompletely
    understood brain impairments with the objective of healing.
        If I were to ask the question what does medical science
    understand and not understand about varying conditions like
    bipolar, post-traumatic stress, and CTE, brain injuries, what
    might researches tell us about physical proper and biologic
    impaired functions in each?
        Although the Department of Energy pursues research in areas
    directly pertinent to the Department's main mission of energy,
    environmental stewardship, and national security, basic
    research undertaken for one purpose often has unanticipated and
    major impacts in other areas.
        That is why it is critical to support basic science
    research at the Department and this subcommittee surely has. In
    fiscal year 2020, we increased funding to the Department's
    Office of Science by $415 million to a record level of $7
    billion. This funding is foundational for a new generation of
    discoveries at the intersection of health and energy.
        For example, in conducting basic science research for other
    purposes, Brookhaven National Lab helped pioneer the PET scan
    technology that many of our colleagues have experienced in
    their own family life.
        Additionally, while pursuing its mission-driven research,
    the Department of Energy has developed advanced scientific
    capabilities that can provide unique benefits to the biomedical
    sciences.
        The Department's x ray light sources and the nanoscale
    science research centers provide special imaging capabilities
    for the biomedical research community.
        The x ray light sources produce x rays that are billions of
    times brighter than medical x rays and have been used by
    scientists and pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs and
    treatment for neurological diseases like Alzheimer's, cancers,
    diabetes, and the development of new vaccines like the Ebola
    vaccine.
        In better understanding how drug molecules interact with
    human cells, hopefully we can start to understand better why
    some pharmacological treatments work for some patients but not
    for others. If we could more seamlessly use the scientific
    capacity of the Department of Energy to probe the medical
    unknowns, what breakthroughs could our Nation archive?
        The Department of Energy's high performance computing
    capabilities can also provide solutions to biomedical
    applications through simulation and modeling to predictive
    biology through artificial intelligence and data analytics.
    Just imagine the computing power and data analytics need to map
    billions upon billions of brain cells so we can reveal the
    brain's neurological and biochemical interworkings.
        Through the Department of Energy's isotopes program, the
    national labs and the network of universities have impressive
    capacities in producing medical isotopes that are useful in
    nuclear medicine and radiotherapy.
        As we will hear from our witnesses, advances in the science
    of energy as well as biomedicine depend increasingly upon
    integrating many other disciplines with the biological
    sciences.
        It was not so long ago that universities began offering
    programs as I have mentioned like bioengineering, two sciences
    that had remained separated on university campuses for
    generations.
        Given the unique scientific tools and personnel of the
    Department of Energy and its national labs, and the potential
    for future breakthroughs in health fields, it seems especially
    important for the Department of Energy to increase coordination
    and collaboration with the National Institutes of Health and
    other Federal agencies, including the Department of Defense.
        This will give the best chances of developing new
    innovations in biomedical sciences to unlock the hidden
    mysteries of the human brain, retool the human body when it has
    been broken, save lives, and sustain life on Earth.
        To our distinguished witnesses, we look forward to hearing
    from each of you. I will now turn to our distinguished ranking
    member, Mr. Simpson, for opening remarks who as a respected
    dentist in his home profession well knows the advances in
    technology that begin with his own profession. Mr. Simpson.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Kaptur follows:]
        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3895A.001

        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T3895A.002

        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur. Timing is
    everything, you know. The knee replacement wasn't bad enough,
    this morning I had to go and have my annual eye checkup so my
    eyes are dilated and I can barely read this. So if I stumble
    along, I am hopeless today.
        Anyway, thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur. I know today's topic
    has long been of particular interest to you and I look forward
    to discussing these issues in more detail.
        I would like to join you in welcoming the witnesses to
    today's hearing. We always appreciate it when experts such as
    yourselves are willing to take time out of your schedules to
    come and talk to us about what you do and what it is or is
    not--and what is or is not working with current Federal
    actives.
        Over the past few decades, we have seen many exciting and
    literally life changing advances in biomedical sciences. One
    example I always found particularly interesting and maybe it is
    because I was sitting on my patio at home during the August
    break in Idaho when my phone rang and I picked it up and it was
    Secretary Perry and he was in California at Berkeley.
        He says you have got to come down here and see this. What
    are you talking about, Mr. Secretary? He says they just showed
    me an example of a thing where they could take a blood sample
    and within 10 minutes they can run a thing on it, I mean, like
    they do when they, you know, your sugar levels or whatever.
    They can tell if you have had a brain injury, if you have had a
    concussion.
        And he said think what it means to everything from our
    soldiers to people playing football. No longer do you have to
    go through the how many fingers is it and can you pronounce it
    and all that kind of stuff. That was made possible because of
    the computers at the Department of Energy.
        So there are many exciting things happening. Some of these
    advances have come about due to at least in part to the
    Department of Energy whether it is research being done at the
    DOE user facilities such as the light sources or research
    intended to advance DOE's missions that was found to have
    biomedical applications.
        DOE has been an important partner in advancing biomedical
    research. I look forward to hearing more details on how DOE can
    improve its partnerships with NIH and relevant nonfederal
    entities to make even better use of the user facilities and
    research efforts to further advance biomedical science.
        I will also like to hear how we can improve these
    partnerships in a way that maintains appropriate focus on the
    fundamental missions of the separate Federal agencies.
        Advances in biomedical science are certainly in the
    national interest, but so too are advances in energy,
    environment, and national security.
        In fact, I would offer this cautionary note. NIH funding in
    fiscal year 2020 was $41.7 billion. Funding at DOE's Office of
    Science where most biomedical related work is done was $7
    billion.
        So we need to ensure that improving collaboration between
    these agencies does not lead to diverting the already much
    smaller DOE science budget away from advancing DOE's missions.
    Better collaboration between DOE and NIH can be a win-win for
    both agencies and both missions, we just need to make sure that
    we keep that goal in mind as we look at delivering future
    efforts.
        I look forward to learning from our witness today about the
    challenges, the successes, and the ideas for improvement in
    this area and I thank Chairwoman Kaptur for calling this
    hearing.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson, very much and obviously
    we are very excited for our witnesses and to hear from them.
        I just wanted to add a sentence. What partly tripwired this
    hearing this morning was I was out at Walter Reed's Intrepid
    Center and meeting with our veterans and looking at some of the
    conditions that they are enduring.
        And we walked in one room there and I saw a machine I had
    never seen in my life called an electro machine invented by the
    Swedes. And I watched a veteran go through the imaging and then
    up on a screen very quickly they were able to go deep into the
    brain and identify the filament that caused his most recent
    stroke.
        I was completely fascinated. I felt like I was in a new
    age, I thought ``I am really in the 21st century''.
        So how do we, knowing what we do here, how do we help the
    science advance more quickly and go deeper into the human body
    and help healing?
        Our witnesses today are extraordinary. First we will have
    Dr. Harold Varmus, who is the Lewis Thomas University professor
    at Weill Cornell Medicine and a recipient of the Nobel Prize
    for studies of the genetic basis of cancer.
        He served as the director of the National Cancer Institute
    for 5 years and director of the National Institutes of Health
    for 6. Dr. Varmus also co-chaired the Secretary of Energy's
    Advisory Board Task Force on Biomedical Sciences.
        Following that, we will have Dr. Mark Chance, the director
    of the Center for Proteomics and Bioinformatics at Case Western
    Reserve University in the state that I represent, and vice dean
    for research at its school of medicine. Dr. Chance also directs
    the Case Center for Synchrotron Biosciences located at
    Brookhaven National Labs' light source. And I can recall a
    moment when the director of that lab gave me a lesson on ions
    for which I was very grateful and remain so.
        And finally, we will have Dr. Narayanan Kasthuri, a
    neuroscience researcher at Argonne National Lab who is also an
    assistant professor of neurobiology. That name didn't exist
    when I was in college, at the University of Chicago.
        Thank you all for taking the time to be here today. I want
    to thank our Members for attending. Without objection, your
    written statements will be entered into the record. Please feel
    free to summarize your remarks, although I want to hear every
    word, starting with Dr. Varmus. Welcome.

                     STATEMENT OF DR. HAROLD VARMUS

        Dr. Varmus. Well, thank you to the committee for holding
    this important hearing. Now, I think I was audible before. Let
    me start with a brief reminder. The body, as the chairwoman has
    pointed out, is made up of physical entities and the strengths
    of the Department of Energy have been reflected in medical
    science and responsible for many of the advances we have made
    in health for a century.
        Think about imaging with x rays and radioisotope and MRI
    imaging. Think about the way we monitor the heart and the brain
    with electrocardiograms and electroencephalograms. Think about
    how we analyze the blood by looking at chemicals. Think about
    how we take all that data and crunch it with computational
    tools and how we simulate with engineering tools.
        These are just a small sampling of the disciplines that
    have been championed by the DOE Office of Science, physical
    sciences, engineering, computation, that contribute to biology
    in medicine.
        Now, as the chairwoman has pointed out, I have had a number
    of Federal positions in which I have been able to observe some
    of the contributions made by DOE from a front row seat. Let me
    just mention two.
        First, the Human Genome Project, if we can have the first
    image, please, which was initiated at a DOE lab in the 1980s.
    Most of the genome of human beings and other organisms were
    determined by a small number of centers, one of which was run
    by the DOE even though the NIH was coordinating this
    international project and these shared interests persist
    through computation, the study of many other organisms, and
    through the development of faster and cheaper machines for
    sequencing DNA.
        A second example is in structural biology. And when I was
    director of NIH and Ernie Moniz was the undersecretary of
    Energy in the Clinton administration, we made a deal that
    actually transferred the money, Mr. Simpson's point, from the
    NIH to DOE, DOE cyclotrons to sustain beam lines for doing
    structural examinations of important proteins that serve as
    machines by carrying out cell function.
        The ribosome for protein synthesis, complex enzymes that
    copy DNA into RNA, membrane proteins that react with drugs or
    are responsible for the transport of water across membranes and
    these interests also persist through development of cryo-
    electron microscopy, neuron beams for pursuing the structure of
    proteins at a more refined level.
        Now, as the chairwoman alluded to, after I left the
    National Cancer Institute in 1915--2015, sorry. I'm not that
    old. I'm not that old. In 2015, Ernie Moniz, who was then the
    Secretary of Energy, asked me to join the Secretary of Energy's
    advisory group and to co-chair a working group on the topic of
    today's hearing. And we were asked to assess the opportunities
    for better coordination between the NIH and the DOE's Office of
    Science and to strengthen those relationships.
        We conducted several workshops to talk about a variety of
    disciplines that are particularly relevant to DOE's activities,
    material science, fabrication, nanotechnology, sensor
    development, radiobiology imaging, advanced computation, other
    things in the context of many of the existing initiatives at
    the NIH in Precision Medicine, the Cancer Moonshot, the so-
    called BRAIN program, microbial drug resistance, and others.
        And in the course of these hearings, we learned something
    quite important about the differences of the scientific
    cultures supported by these two agencies. The NIH traditionally
    depending on the imagination of individual investigators with
    small labs getting individual grants from the NIH. The DOE
    through its national laboratories is carrying out mission-
    driven science, developing technologies, and that fundamental
    cultural difference is an important one I will come back to.
        We recommended many ways in which these past activities
    could be enriched and fostered but we came out in addition with
    four overarching recommendations that are relevant to today's
    discussion: how we convene panels of experts to identify
    opportunities for research programs, how we share the cultures
    of the two agencies, how we establish facilities for large-
    scale, newly identified missions, and how we can report to more
    often as we are doing today to committees like this about what
    we do.
        I am going to just say a few words briefly about the
    consequences of this report that we wrote for SEAB because what
    I have found in response to the invitation to speak here today
    by talking to many officials in both agencies that the sprit
    and the letter of the report are thriving through joint
    projects, large and frequent consultations and work of
    individual scientists engaged with both agencies.
        And I am going to mention in conclusion if I can have the
    liberty of one additional moment, Madame Chairwoman, two joint
    programs that are important to me.
        One is a current initiative in the cancer domain which is
    my own area of research and as you can see, maybe you can't see
    because the type is not that large, there are a series of the
    many things going on between NIH and DOE, a set of projects
    that involve the National Cancer Institute's mission to study
    better ways to improve outcomes for cancer patients mainly
    through better use of high performance computing.
        Second, to be able to visualize in higher resolution the
    position and function of proteins that we know to be
    responsible for driving about one third of human cancers, and
    another pilot project that helps to enrich our epidemiological
    surveys.
        The second of these is actually being carried about at the
    Frederick National Lab for Cancer Research, a national lab that
    is run by the National Cancer Institute. When I was director
    there, we modeled that lab carefully on the examples provided
    by many of DOE's national lab establishing an initiative to
    study what we call RAS proteins, these proteins that drive
    cancers.
        And we now have, if we can move the slides along, an effort
    that is bearing fruit to study how RAS proteins interact with
    cell membranes in ways that I don't really have time to
    describe in detail.
        That model has been expanded to include public private
    partnerships. You can advance the slides to one more, one more.
    To include, not just DOE and NIH but University of California
    San Francisco, the academic sector, and the private sector.
        I would like to conclude with a suggestion. In our report,
    we talk about scanning the horizon for problems that we can
    solve through national labs and interactions between NIH and
    DOE. You may have seen a number of reports that talk about the
    way in which the pharmaceutical industry and the biotech
    industry are having difficulty financially and scientifically
    in coping with the spread of organisms that are resistant to
    antibiotics. Many of these commercial forms are retreating from
    the foray to try to identify new antibiotics because the
    economics don't favor that kind of investment. And there have
    been stories in the New York Times and elsewhere on this topic.
        I think it is possible to think, to consider, next slide
    please, taking an organization like that which resembles the
    molecular foundry at the Lawrence Berkeley lab and turn that
    into a place where individual NIH-sponsored students of new
    antibiotics and microbial threats could be put into a setting
    where the flexible and deep technological advances could be
    used to identify new targets for antibiotic action. To try to
    find new antibiotic molecules and use that government resource
    and the collaboration between these two agencies to meet a
    problem which WHO and NIH and many others see as one of the
    great threats to human survival in the next century.
        So, I want to thank you for having this hearing. I want to
    thank the two organizations, NIH and DOE, for their activities
    in the past to sponsor these highly active and fruitful
    collaborative arrangements and be pleased to answer any
    questions you might have. Thank you for the extra time.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Varmus follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Dr. Varmus. Thank you for your time.
    Dr. Chance.

                      STATEMENT OF DR. MARK CHANCE

        Mr. Chance. Good morning Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member
    Simpson, thank you so much for the opportunity to talk today.
    My testimony, I hope, is very simple. DOE science facilities
    are critical to America's basic biomedical science, drug and
    device development and public health goals of the Nation. With
    positive effects on the health and welfare of all American's
    and saving many lives.
        What is my evidence? Well, I would like to focus on new
    drug development where over 90 percent of the newly approved
    drugs result from projects that use DOE facilities,
    specifically synchrotron methods to see the structure of the
    drugs target.
        This site allowed the drugs to be developed more quickly as
    well as resulting in safer and more effective medicines.
        In the first slide, we can dig a little and explore these
    DUE facilities called synchrotrons. There are five of them
    across the country. They are large physics facilities producing
    very intense x rays for a wide range of scientific
    applications. Material science, chemistry, physics and biology.
        With the help of Brookhaven National Lab, we did some
    research for this hearing and found there are 42 dedicated
    biomedical beamlines currently at the synchrotrons around the
    country, 3,000 biomedical or about 4,000 biomedical science
    users among the 12,000 users overall of the synchrotrons. Dr.
    Varmus alluded to the Nobel Prizes in biology and the users
    published 1,200 papers last year and enabled 100 companies to
    move their research forward.
        We can go to the next slide. I want to introduce the Center
    for Synchrotron Biosciences. As Chairwoman Kaptur noted, it is
    located at Brookhaven National Laboratory. I established the
    center many years ago to make collaboration between the NIH and
    its funded users, academia, and the DOE easier. To provide a
    platform to develop collaborations, to bring in technologies
    and most of all, in terms of that cultural piece that Dr.
    Varmus referred to, to invent new uses of x rays and other
    light beams to see the structures of drug targets and other
    biomolecules in novel ways to speed medications to patients.
        The results have been very gratifying for myself and my
    colleagues. Over the years, we have built 10 beamline
    instruments. Hundreds of institutions have participated,
    thousands of users, 2,500 publications so far.
        The funding to build and operate these facilities has come
    from the NIH and the NSF. And we have made key technology
    partnerships with various organizations to move things forward.
    One of our most recent partners is the NIH and the Cancer
    Institute and the RAS program which Dr. Varmus referred to. If
    I could have the next slide.
        So, one of the things we did and Dr. Varmus referred to it,
    is we stepped up the rate of structured determination. We
    partnered between the NIH and the DOE and we built beamlines
    that could allow us to see these drug targets, many more of
    them. And I think the results are pretty good.
        There were fewer than 10,000 protein structures before we
    started this collaboration. There are 160,000 now. And they are
    coming out at a phenomenal rate. And these structures were
    determined at DOE synchrotrons and also around the world where
    these synchrotrons are considered very important. Just to add,
    there are probably 100 synchrotrons under construction or in
    operation around the world right now.
        So, what is the data? Well, if we looked at the 210 new
    drugs that were approved between 2010 and 2016, 93 percent of
    them relied on protein structure information provided by DOE's
    and other synchrotrons. That was about a rate of a 30 per year.
    We are now, the last 3 years, we are at 50 a year. And you know
    why that is, at least to me, or which might be plausible, there
    is a delay between the time you finish the structure and you
    get the FDA approval. And you see that curve, 10 years ago was
    on a very steeply rising part of that curve.
        So, I would argue we are on the cusp as we bring in machine
    learning, artificial intelligence and the computational power
    of the DOE to accelerate this process dramatically. If I could
    go to the last slide.
        What is coming? New facilities, new beamlines to solve new
    challenges. And the Center for Synchrotron Biosciences is in
    the forefront. We have completed a new beamline at Brookhaven
    to solve important medical challenges. The number one we have
    just solved is we solved the structure of the human nuclear
    receptor. That is going to be important for tamoxifen-resistant
    breast cancer which develops.
        Nobody knew what that molecule looked like before and it
    was really hard to drug and it was really hard to approach
    without seeing. Because seeing means understanding. We are also
    solving structures of proteins important in Alzheimer's and Mad
    Cow Disease and very important to today, we are studying virus
    structures.
        Just last week, Perdue scientists were at the Argonne
    Synchrotron looking at forms of coronavirus that match the
    Wuhan strain to try to rush vaccines and drugs into
    development.
        So again, I thank you so much for the opportunity to speak
    today. In conclusion, I want to thank you, the appropriators.
    Your investments are paying off and thousands of Americans
    lives are going to be changed as a result of it. I would be
    happy to answer any questions. Oh, do we have one more slide,
    do we have The Shoe? With your permission, Madam Chairwoman.
        Ms. Kaptur. Oh, please proceed, Dr. Chance, yes.
        Mr. Chance. So, we were thinking to try to illustrate to
    the committee the scale of these facilities. They are
    expensive, right? So, I thought let us give an image which many
    in Ohio know. That is Ohio stadium, The Shoe. And I had a side
    bet that the National Synchrotron Light Source II was bigger
    than The Shoe. And as you see, a half one. The Shoe is taller,
    on top, and there is the National Synchrotron Light Source.
    NSLS is bigger so the bet was a push, nobody won.
        But thousands of people, 100,000 of people are entertained
    on a Saturday in The Shoe and thousands of the Nation's
    researchers are served yearly at the National Synchrotron Light
    Source II. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Chance follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Dr. Chance, very much. Dr. Kasthuri.

                  STATEMENT OF DR. NARAYANAN KASTHURI

        Dr. Kasthuri. Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member Simpson,
    members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to
    appear before you to talk today. My name is Bobby Kasthuri and
    I am a neuroscientist in the U.S. Department of Energy's
    Argonne National Laboratory and an assistant professor in the
    Department of Neurobiology at the University of Chicago.
        And what I would like to talk to you about today is that we
    stand at a pivotal moment in our centuries' long quest to
    understand the brain. It is actually a moment when multiple
    scientific worlds are colliding. The worlds of computer
    science, bioimaging and microscopy, and neuroscience are now
    colliding.
        My research specifically leverages the capabilities of the
    national lab system to accelerate that collision. Specifically,
    by mapping brains at the finest scales and analyzing the
    resulting enormous datasets. It is from this perspective that I
    present to you my testimony today.
        As you heard, one of the great intellectual challenges of
    the 20th century was our understanding of the genetic basis of
    life. And the Human Genome Project is perhaps the pinnacle of
    that effort. It is important to remember that the Human Genome
    Project was born out of the collaborative efforts of the
    National Institutes of Health and the DOE.
        It is perhaps one of the first and most successful big data
    and healthcare collaborations ever and its impact continues to
    reverberate through biology and medicine. It is also, for the
    purposes of this hearing, an example of how the DOE and the
    national labs are uniquely suited to play a similar role in
    tackling the great intellectual challenge of the 21st century
    which is mapping and understanding the human brain.
        And it is the enormity of the human brain that requires
    this collaboration. The human brain, your brains, contain about
    100 billion brain cells or neurons. Each of which makes on
    order 10,000 connections with each other. One way to think
    about that is a single brain contains more connections that
    there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And the complexity of
    this intricate communication web cannot be overstated.
        As neuroscientists, we believe that making a map of these
    connections can provide answers to some of the fundamental
    questions about how brains work. Such a map, which we call a
    connectome, is a map of everything about you: your skills, your
    memories, your fears, and your personality. Disruptions or
    alterations in this map, miswirings if you will, between
    neurons are the basis of many neurological and psychiatric
    disorders.
        Using facilities like Argonne's advanced photon source and
    high-performance computers, we plan to map the normal brain
    which will allow us to treat diseases like Autism Spectrum
    Disorder, schizophrenia, concussion-related neuropathies, and
    dementia. To kind of give you an idea of what is capable, if we
    could play the first video please. What you are looking at is
    based on work I started as a postdoc. It is the first map of a
    human brain connectome by teams at Harvard University and
    Google.
        You are seeing the individual processes and connections of
    millions of neurons in the human brain traced by AI algorithms
    developed by Google. And for the first time, you will see
    three-dimensional models of connections in the human brain.
    Each of those is one of the many neurons of the human brain.
        But even this effort, which tests the resources of bleeding
    edge researchers represents much less than 1 percent of the
    volume of the entire human brain. The raw data of the atlas of
    human connections, i.e., the human connectome would you require
    approximately 1 trillion gigabytes, a zettabyte, and could not
    fit in the memory of any computer today.
        The entire Human Genome Project requires maybe a few
    gigabytes. Another way to say this is that all the written
    material in the Library of Congress, all the movies and audio
    that humans have produced since the dawn of civilization, would
    be just a small fraction of the data of one human connectome.
        Thus, the interdisciplinary capabilities of the DOE
    national laboratories and their world-class user facilities
    like computing, are our best chance to transform the way we
    understand the brain. Scientists from Argonne National Lab and
    the University of Chicago in collaboration with researchers
    across the United States, including Case Western, are already
    working towards a human connectome by mapping smaller brains of
    other animals such as mice.
        But for most neuroscientists, the tools they require to map
    the brain, particularly the computer, are too expensive and
    require investments in physics, engineering, and computer
    science. Not only beyond the scope of individual laboratories
    but probably entire universities. These barriers prevent the
    neuroscience community from asking the best questions about the
    brain and limit the type of collaborations that drive
    innovation.
        We need to democratize this widening gap between the small
    fraction of laboratories developing and utilizing the most
    advanced technology and the majority of neuroscientists. A
    collaboration between DOE and NIH could provide these maps and
    the tools to make these maps to the national neuroscience
    community.
        A revolution awaits us when we understand how human brains
    acquire knowledge from experience, how we find patterns in our
    senses, and how we plan things and make decisions and act. When
    we know exactly how these processes work, we can connect
    prosthetic limbs to the paralyzed, design rational medical
    treatments for brain diseases, and ultimately try to reverse
    engineer human cognition into our own computers.
        As I said, we stand at a pivotal moment in the history of
    our country. Understanding the brain will help provide U.S.
    leadership in neuroscience in the coming decades the way the
    moon landing in 1969 and the Human Genome Project contributed
    to U.S. technological and scientific leadership.
        The national laboratories, the source of some of our most
    powerful scientific tools, combined with the research and
    development of the NIH can revolutionize our understanding of
    the brain to develop better treatments for millions of people
    worldwide affected by neurological disorders.
        And perhaps most importantly, the DOE and NIH together can
    achieve generational science. Removing boundaries between
    fields of science and creating these transformative moments
    that shape society for generations to come.
        Thank you for your time and attention today. I welcome any
    questions you have.
        [The prepared statement of Dr. Kasthuri follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Dr. Kasthuri and all of
    our witnesses. We appreciate your statements and they will be
    placed in the record along with any other materials you wish to
    submit to us.
        Since this is the first hearing of the year, I would like
    to remind Members about our hearing rules. For those Members
    present in the room when we gaveled in the beginning of the
    hearing, I will recognize you for questions in order of
    seniority alternating between majority and minority until all
    who arrived prior to the gavel have asked questions. For those
    who arrive after the hearing has started, I will recognize
    those Members solely in order of arrival and again alternating
    between majority and minority. Last thing, I intend to try to
    observe the 5-minute rule for questions and answers, and we
    will now begin questioning under our normal rules.
        Dr. Kasthuri, I wanted to begin with you. One of my own
    deep interests is understanding the function and impaired
    function of the human brain to advance diagnosis and treatment
    for those who suffer from neurological and biochemical brain
    imbalances. If one looks at the last--back at the last 5 years
    in our Nation, we have witnessed some troubling trends. The
    number of individuals, particularly young men between the ages
    of 15 and 35, who are taking their own lives. Also, we know we
    have large numbers of afflicted warriors, wounded warriors
    experiencing brain trauma and post-traumatic stress.
        We have an opioid crisis with tens of thousands of harmful
    self-medicators and there are harm perpetrators in our society
    taking the lives of others at a very troubling rate. Most have
    needed brain-centered medical help but it was either not
    available locally nor if diagnosis was accurate, a proper
    healing course of treatment was not effective.
        Because we are Members of the House, we experience these
    individuals at ground level. And it becomes part of our
    responsibility to meet that human need. I believe improved
    diagnosis of neurochemically brain-centered medical conditions
    to be a significant national priority. Medical science needs
    even better imaging as part of the solution.
        One of the first types of brain scan or neuroimaging
    occurred in 1927. It was called the cerebral arteriogram. But
    it took about 3 decades until a computerized tomography emerged
    to benefit medical diagnostics.
        A little later, magnetic resonance imaging was developed by
    researchers. I can still remember as a young member of the
    Veterans Committee when I first arrived, when at one of our VA
    centers turned it on and anything that was metal attached to
    it. And the nurses were running down the hallways. And so, you
    know, we have witnessed this in our lifetime.
        This technology identifies atoms by how they behave in a
    magnetic field. A highly useful, noninvasive procedure for
    imaging internal bodily structure and advancing medical
    diagnostics well beyond where the technology had previously
    existed.
        Existing imaging technologies have transformed medicine
    forever. But we ask ourselves, what are the next horizons? I
    mentioned my experience at Walter Reed Intrepid Center where
    the researchers and doctors are trying to help veterans who
    present with a whole range of conditions based on their
    military service and having been wounded in theater.
        Dr. Kasthuri, what can we do to advance technological
    research faster to improve imaging technologies or other
    technologies you would all recommend to better capture deep
    brain tissue and neurochemical function and to identify
    malfunction? How can we better brain imaging more precisely to
    map neurochemical dysfunction that may be occurring as well as
    understanding reactions to pharmacological or other treatments
    to improve patient outcomes? I know that is a mouthful. But if
    you were to sort of point the ship in the right direction, what
    can you add to your formal testimony to guide us?
        Dr. Kasthuri. Chairwoman Kaptur, thank you. That is an
    excellent question. I will try my best to give my version of
    it. Many of the things you mentioned, I am not an expert in
    personally, some of the other techniques. I work specifically
    on the very finest resolution reconstructions of the brain, at
    the level of how every neuron collects to every other neuron.
    Since, as neuroscientists, we know that is likely the basis of
    both our normal behavior and our aberrant behavior, getting
    those maps will be the first steps to sort of understanding how
    the physical circuitry underlies these behavioral defects. So I
    think there is a lot of technological advancement that we can
    make.
        But I think the second point that I would like to emphasize
    is that there is a lot of technology already currently
    available. A lot of technology is being developed thanks to
    funding from committees like you and other committees for the
    BRAIN initiative, et cetera. I think a real problem that we
    could solve right away is giving access to that technology to
    the broadest set of scientists possible. And I think that this
    is a place where DOE user facilities combined with neuroscience
    questions can add immediate impacts on distributing technology
    that is already available. In terms of how do we get to future
    technology, I think the answer is more money will always help
    for the future, but for now, I think there is an opportunity to
    take the technology we already have and distribute it as widely
    as possible.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Would any other witnesses like to
    comment on that question? Dr. Varmus.
        Dr. Varmus. There is a useful analogy here with the human
    genome project where we begin the project not knowing whether
    it was technically feasible but we had a pretty good idea of
    how we would use the data once we got it because we knew that
    genes encode proteins, proteins carry out certain functions. I
    think in the BRAIN initiative we are taking a more adventurous
    step and one that, I think, is going to have remarkable
    dividends, but is one we undertake not knowing what we will
    make of the connectome once we describe it. So the technology
    is developing; it is very important to do this; but we have to
    do this recognizing that we are taking on a remarkable
    revolutionary adventure, one that is incredibly important to
    the survival of our species, and one that is going to have
    tremendous dividends, but we have to undertake it recognizing
    that simply having the connectome is not going to tell us how
    these diseases arise. And we are in this for a very long haul
    and I hope we will be there.
        Ms. Kaptur. Are we properly organized in terms of the
    connectome to really advance the science quickly?
        Dr. Kasthuri. So it is hard for me to say are we properly
    organized at a national scale. My suspicion is no because it is
    so recent, it is such a new technology, and a new capability
    that, I think, we have an opportunity to organize at this
    moment and I think it is the right moment to think about
    national organization of these efforts. I think Dr. Varmus
    would know how to organize at a national scale. I will let him.
        Dr. Varmus. Well, I would just point out again an analogy
    with the genome project. That began by looking at the genome,
    not of human beings, but the genome of bacteria, of worms, of
    flies, and, indeed, part of the connectome of the fruit fly,
    the traditional model organism for experimental biology has
    just been published. And I think we can, by observing what
    happens with those preliminary incomplete connectomes and model
    organisms, we will learn what is needed to bring the right
    people together around the table to try to interpret just as we
    have brought people together from a variety of medical fields
    to interpret some of the early genomes that were deciphered.
    So, I think, there are models here to look at to try to figure
    out the best way to organize the right people to deal with
    these tremendous datasets. But DOE should certainly be among
    those folks involved.
        Ms. Kaptur. Well, we obviously would benefit greatly by
    your thinking through how best to organize that inquiry and
    what DOE's role might be, and where that might be housed, or
    which places it might be, but what we might do to help you
    advance knowledge there.
        Dr. Varmus. It is a question worth posing to some of the
    panels that are currently meeting between DOE and NIH to talk
    about how the two organizations work together in other domains
    where the rules are, perhaps, better understood. I think you
    already have people who are sitting down on a very regular
    basis to talk about what brain research has been done, about
    genomic research, about cancer research, about research on
    antimicrobial organisms, antimicrobial drugs. I think there are
    places where you could get very good information about how to
    organize a larger effort to understand these very rich datasets
    will be coming from research of the kind Dr. Kasthuri was
    describing.
        Ms. Kaptur. Where was the fruit fly connectome, where was
    that done?
        Dr. Varmus. It was done mainly by, organized by Howard
    Hughes Medical Institute, at Janelia Farm, and in collaboration
    with NIH-sponsored investigators. I am sure that by consulting
    with people from both agencies that are working within the
    domain of the BRAIN initiative, you can identify the right
    people.
        Ms. Kaptur. Dr. Chance.
        Mr. Chance. I would just like to add one point. I agree
    completely with my colleagues and I just want to emphasize why
    it is important. Because in mental health diagnoses or pain, we
    do not generally have independent ways of seeing if you are
    getting better. We ask you. And it is just not that precise.
    But if we could have a meter that was unbiased and quantitative
    for some of these things, then we can really see if the pills
    or the behavioral interventions or the other things we are
    doing are really making a difference for the patient. We lack
    that unbiased measure as opposed to how are you feeling today?
        Ms. Kaptur. I have to put this on the record because I have
    worked on it for almost 20 years and this relates to returning
    veterans who have all sorts of conditions. And I will just take
    my own State. We work with our National Guard and, actually,
    Case Western to collect, along with several of the universities
    around the country working with our National Guard, DNA
    specimens voluntarily given from veterans. So to try to
    contribute to a bank of DNA that one could then study why did
    the veteran have this condition versus that condition, and we
    worked with scientists at Case, and why would someone develop
    PTS and someone else not. But as the scientists worked, their
    conclusions had nothing to do with the brain, directly with
    what we are talking about today, but, rather, that you would
    develop a condition because you had experienced violence prior
    to enlistment in the military and that wound remains. And then
    if you get in a situation where there are other stressors that
    happen, you would develop it faster than someone else.
        I was very gratified for the conclusion they came up with,
    but I say to myself we have this mammoth set of DNA samples,
    where does this fit in? Where does the diagnostics for this fit
    in?
        And I just point that out to you, Dr. Chance, because if
    you go visit the Walter Reed Intrepid Center you will see what
    we are trying to do there to help our returning veterans. And I
    know this isn't the Veterans Committee, but the machines that
    are used and the technologies that we are engaged with, some of
    them came out of the field of energy. We really have a very
    poor understanding of what is going on.
        And so my question really is, if you could go back to Case
    and take a look at who has the DNA bank that has been
    developed, does it fit anywhere in medical research? They have
    certainly attempted to work with the Department of Defense on
    this, but they are not the places that are inventing,
    necessarily, the kind of technologies that you are. But for a
    Member, it is frustrating to have this rich bank, but it's
    underutilized in terms of research. So I just point that out.
    Maybe other members have other experiences, and I will turn
    this over to Mr. Simpson now for his questioning. But it just
    seems to me to be hard to get your hands around, what can we do
    to move this field faster and to get better diagnostics? Thank
    you. Mr. Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur. Dr. Chance, I am
    shocked that after just having my knee replaced and going into
    the doctor when they say what pain level are you at today, and
    they have those 10 faces, that that is not a scientific
    analysis of my pain level.
        Mr. Chance. That is about as scientific as we have got
    today.
        Mr. Simpson. That is about right. I sit there and they say
    what pain level are you at, and I kind of go, I like that guy.
        Mr. Chance. So you see how hard it is to really know if our
    interventions are working because it is based on how you are
    feeling, all of the things that are integrating into you as a
    person and maybe it is just the knee we care about for this
    visit, right.
        Mr. Simpson. That is right. Anyway, thank you for coming
    today, all of you, and for your testimony. What you do is
    vitally important to this country and the people of this
    country. I have always been a fan of NIH. I served on the
    Labor-H Committee; and whenever I get depressed--it seems more
    frequently lately--but whenever I get depressed, I go out to
    NIH because it is fascinating I always walk away from there
    amazed. I do the same thing when I go to our 17 national
    laboratories and the work that is being done at those
    laboratories, I walk away, I don't understand any of it, but I
    know it is amazing.
        But we are the Appropriations Committee, and the question I
    have is--could you go back to Dr. Chance's first slide, just
    out of curiosity? Yeah, you just had it. OK, you talked about
    the impact of those DOE light sources on biomedical research.
    Who pays for that? What is our role as the Appropriation
    Committee with the Department of Energy, what do we pay for?
    The drug companies that get the benefit of that research and
    stuff, how much do they pay for? I am trying to figure out how
    I could determine what an appropriate level of appropriation is
    and what I am going to get out of that appropriation without
    interfering with the role of what those laboratories are. And I
    am one who believes that collaboration and using things to
    their best uses is vitally important. Do you understand my
    question? I am not sure I do.
        Mr. Chance. Yes. So there are many stakeholders who come to
    the table and have paid for those beam lines. There is some
    money from DOE. There is some money came from the National
    Institutes of Health. There is the money from the National
    Science Foundation which was used to build the beam line I
    operate correctly, and the universities are putting in money,
    the companies are putting in money, foundations are putting in
    money. So it is quite shared.
        And so those 42 beam lines, you did not have to pay for all
    of them, right. That is, you put some table stakes up, right,
    and then everybody said yeah, I am in. This is consistent with
    my mission; I want to play; I want to be involved. And so that
    is how we attract investment to your sort of base support you
    provide for the DOE. So as a university researcher, I am out
    looking for collaborators, grants, so I can bring money, ideas,
    and partners to the facility to get the job done.
        So what is the right mix? That is a very hard question, and
    we have issues of, you know, agencies have missions and OMB
    does not like lane jumping, I have heard.
        Mr. Simpson. Yeah, believe or not, yeah.
        Mr. Chance. Yeah, believe it or not. So how do we sort of
    be intelligent about that to encourage collaboration with that?
    And we do not want lane jumping either, right. You do not want
    to be paying two or three times for the same thing. So how do
    we do it efficiently? And by enabling the different
    stakeholders to get--I think Dr. Varmus laid out the steps,
    right, the four: we need to convene; we need to understand
    cultural differences; we need to make sure the facilities are
    operating at peak technology and in terms of numbers; and we
    need to tell you about it and get your feedback.
        Dr. Varmus. Just to comment briefly on this because as I
    alluded to in my testimony, in the 1990s, when Ernest Moniz was
    the undersecretary, we worked out an agreement by which certain
    NIH institutes, based on the grants they were giving to
    structural biologists who were working at Brookhaven and other
    national labs, we made an agreement that we would pay for a
    certain fraction of the total cost for maintenance of the
    synchrotrons that were produced in those beam lines. And that
    has continued over the years, and being adjusted according to
    use.
        I think we actually have made, by bringing in other
    potential funders, particularly good use of the infrastructure
    initially provided mostly by DOE with supplementation from NSF,
    as Dr. Chance has pointed out. I think that has been quite well
    managed, but it would be useful for you to bring in some people
    who are responsible for those allocations and check out whether
    they are in accord with your principles as appropriators.
        Mr. Chance. I would like to make two additional quick
    points, and one is National Science Foundation, what are they
    doing developing drugs? Well, they recognized the important
    basic biomedical science that would be enabled by these beam
    lines, and they are OK if other good stuff happens.
        The second thing is the industry. Is the industry paying
    their fair share? So DOE thinks a lot about this, and they call
    them user facilities for a reason. Everybody should have a
    chance to be a user, but if you are willing to publish in the
    open literature and make all of your results available, we will
    give you beam time based on an evaluation of your technical
    expertise and project goals, and peer review. If your company
    then wanted to develop and patent some drugs, DOE calculate the
    full cost recovery and charges you for it in advance. I know
    that because I am an owner of a biotech company in my outside
    interest, and we use the synchrotron, and they are very picky
    about making sure our funds clear before the beam time starts,
    OK. And they do work very hard to make sure that we are
    allocating the resources, appropriately that way, and I laud
    them for that.
        Ms. Kaptur. Dr. Kasthuri.
        Dr. Kasthuri. Thank you. I just wanted to respond to one
    part of your question, Mr. Simpson, which is what do you get
    out of it or what do appropriators get out of it? And we have
    had a lot of good slides about the immediate effects and
    numbers, but I would like to add one more thing, which is that
    a lot of these big science investments or big science projects
    wind up inspiring people in ways that is real, but very hard to
    calculate. And the way I tell the story is that in 1969, 50
    years ago, and a few months from now, from today, when we
    landed on the moon, the average age of a NASA scientist was
    about 29 years old. I am not sure what the average age is now,
    but it is older than 29 years old. And that number sticks in my
    head because in 1962, when President Kennedy announces that we
    are going to the moon at Rice University, many of those NASA
    engineers are 22 years old. They are in college or just out of
    college. And something about this idea of a national effort
    inspires them. And, I think, there is an argument to be made,
    was the moonshot a success? When I was young, I looked forward
    to moon bases when I was an adult and travelling to the moon
    for holidays. None of which happened.
        So in one sense, you could imagine that the moonshot was a
    failure, but in another sense, I suspect that the reason we
    have satellite technology and telecommunications and many of
    the things that we have now is because we inspired a generation
    of students to enter space. And, I think, perhaps, when you
    think about appropriations, this is something worth thinking
    about that there are inspirational value that has real benefits
    to this country that is hard to quantify, but I would argue is
    very real.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you for that. I appreciate that and I
    agree with you. I guess one of the challenging things is, you
    know, there is never enough money. You have an appropriation
    and there is viable needs that need to be appropriated, and
    what I am trying to figure out is how do I determine whether we
    have $50 million here, where is our best investment, and how do
    I determine what we are getting for that investment? And that
    is the challenge, I think, this committee has. But I do
    appreciate everything you do and look forward to working with
    you on these. I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. When you look at the
    additional funds that have been given to the Department, passed
    by Congress and signed by the President, for fiscal year 2020,
    and you think about the fields in which you have devoted your
    lives, trying to communicate to the outside world about a
    moonshot-type effort, in this field, gets lost. I remember when
    we had Members from Massachusetts who fought so very hard for
    Sil Conte, being one of them many, many years ago, for the
    original work that we did on the BRAIN initiative. And after
    the first announcement, it kind of goes out there and the road
    markers are not clarified as it moves forward. Then you have
    the Human Genome Project, and you hear about that. I think it
    needs better road signs as we move forward to the extent one
    can so that people continue to be engaged, Doctor. But even
    myself, I know how frustrating it is for me trying to express
    this to an audience. It is a little murky; and we know that as
    science is developing, obviously, it would be. But then people
    lose focus.
        So I just would encourage you to think about that and how
    one would organize going down this road collaboratively among
    interested departments and agencies. I think the public would
    welcome it, but I don't think from a messaging standpoint we
    necessarily do the best job. So just wanted to put that on the
    table. Congressman Pocan.
        Mr. Pocan. Thank You, Madam Chairman. And thank you to the
    panel very much for being here. Very interesting. Let me try a
    couple areas if I can get it in my 5 minutes, but one in
    particular, Dr. Varmus, you mentioned isotopes. In my district,
    we have a couple companies that were fortunate to get some
    partnership with the Department of Energy to manufacture the
    isotope Moly-99 and we were not as successful in getting as
    much funding for domestic production as we would have liked to.
    We are hoping to try to make that case this year and I thought
    maybe you could help me make the case because as we understand
    the domestic production where this is currently produced has
    been dwindling. I think the last area was in Canada, on this
    continent, and that is why they put the grants out a number of
    years ago. A couple of these now have had successes.
        Can you just talk a little bit about how important it is
    for that funding to find the domestic source to be able to
    produce something like this and what that means other than just
    a company producing it, but why we need to have domestic
    production of this type of an isotope?
        Dr. Varmus. Well, I have to do something that I do not like
    to do, which is to admit my ignorance about this particular
    substance. In general, I do think it is good for us to be
    producing our reagents in this country. It makes access easier
    and cheaper, but on this particular isotope, I really cannot
    comment. Maybe my colleagues know something about this.
        Mr. Chance. I do not. Is this is a diagnostic reagent,
    Molybdenum-99, for imaging?
        Mr. Pocan. Yes, exactly.
        Mr. Chance. Yes. Well, these isotopes, it is a tough market
    for a small company, right? You know, you have got a few. So, I
    don't know, the DOE is very good at enabling technology
    development and companies, but we need these isotopes to see
    the stuff we need to see and each one has sort of a different
    niche of imaging that uniquely provides important capabilities.
    And, you know, your folks at Minnesota and others and Wisconsin
    are using these isotopes a lot and there are tremendous
    research centers there.
        Mr. Pocan. Thank you. I think when you mentioned a few
    things really hit things out here in the district, you know.
    People are concerned about autism. You mentioned autism,
    Alzheimer's, depression, and mental illness, when you talk
    about other benefits something like, at least 30 percent of the
    people who are incarcerated are there because they have mental
    illness, right? Those three areas, please talk about some of
    what we are seeing in developments and, like, be promising in
    autism, Alzheimer's, and depression and mental illness.
        Dr. Kasthuri. Yes, so, broadly, I think in neuroscience
    there is a lot of progress being made in these fields. Some of
    it is trying to figure out are there predispositions in your
    genes, or et cetera, that allow you to get these diseases more
    easily than other people? That is the first.
        I think, second, there is a lot of progress in being made
    about how we diagnose or define these diseases because many of
    these diseases are not exactly one particular disease, they are
    a spectrum of diseases, and the better we understand where a
    patient falls on the spectrum, the better we can treat them. I
    think these are broadly happening. It is not the work that we
    do.
        The work that I am particularly interested in is that for
    many of the diseases, for example, autism, it is this idea that
    it is an inappropriate wiring between neurons. Maybe those
    neurons are making too many connections with each other, not
    enough connections, and that is the fundamental basis of the
    disease. And so, while these other advances are happening in
    the therapy and how we define it and how we diagnose it, we are
    interested in giving the sort of deep fundamental physical
    basis. And once we can collect enough data in that world, are
    there new therapies that we have not thought of because now
    that we understand the biology at some physical level, and that
    is what we are hoping for as well.
        Mr. Pocan. That is true of depression, too, right?
        Dr. Kasthuri. Absolutely.
        Mr. Pocan. The connections, because I know that another
    company in our district got some funding recently for
    psilocybin research actually trying to do new connections for
    people with depression and it just seems to keep resurfacing in
    a lot of our conversations.
        Dr. Kasthuri. Yes, and I think it will keep resurfacing
    until we can have a definitive answer on it. And I think the
    interesting thing about definitive answers is that some things
    no longer surface that we used to think were relevant and new
    things now surface that we never thought of.
        Mr. Pocan. Got you. Great. No, I appreciate, again, we just
    have with the University of Wisconsin clearly a lot of
    offshoots working in all these areas and we are fortunate to
    get a lot of funding with the Office of Science as well and we
    want to make sure that continues. And I really appreciate your
    time today. I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Congressman Pocan. Congressman
    Fleischmann.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I
    want to thank you and the ranking member for having this
    hearing today. It is educational, it is insightful, and it is
    optimistic and I appreciate that. Gentlemen, you will find that
    this subcommittee I would say, like most of the subcommittees,
    not all on the Appropriations Committee, we work well together
    whether it is with our national labs. Mr. Foster and I, we have
    debates about other things, but when it comes to national labs,
    and he has a distinct scientific edge over me, but I still root
    for ORNL. But it is truly wonderful the job that you are doing
    and I think I can speak for the entire subcommittee that we are
    pleased to fund this research and I am really thoroughly
    impressed by the discourse today.
        It seems that there is a wide variety, a wide spectrum of
    maladies and conditions that we are looking at, and the
    question that I want to ask, and it is a little bit broad, but
    I am interested in all three of your perspectives. It seems as
    we fund this--and, Dr. Varmus, you alluded to it with your
    earlier research, the genetic basis for cancer, particularly
    breast cancer. My mother passed of breast cancer when I was
    very, very young and I am so proud of the strides that we have
    made to combat that horrific disease. But my general question
    is for each one of you. Is it genes, is it environment, and/or
    does it depend on the malady or condition, and how will our
    funding help narrow those questions and those gaps?
        Dr. Varmus. Just briefly, it is, of course, conversations
    both of environments and behaviors as well as genetic
    inheritance and it does, as you point out, vary from disease to
    disease. Right now, in the case of the neurological diseases we
    have been talking about, we probably know more about the impact
    of behaviors on how those diseases are treated, diagnosed, and
    evaluated.
        In the case of cancer, the one place where the Genome
    Project has made a major contribution that probably is not as
    well appreciated by the public as it ought to be, to go back to
    your remarks, Madam Chairwoman, but we know that the diagnoses
    are based on saying this is a patient with breast cancer who
    has mutations in the PI 3-kinase gene and the P-53 gene. That
    makes a difference in deciding what therapies to use because we
    now have drugs that inhibit the mutant forms of the PI 3-kinase
    protein. So, that is a major advance and we understand some of
    the new immunotherapies based on what we know is happening in
    the genome.
        Those mutations are in general, not exclusively but in
    general, not inherited mutations. Those are changes that have
    occurred because either of the randomness of the mutational
    process or, in the case of many diseases, by the exposure to
    certain mutagenic agents. For example, the agents that you
    inhale when you smoke a cigarette, we know what kinds of
    changes occur. We can look at the DNA of a patient's cancer and
    say, this patient was probably exposed to tobacco products,
    because we can see the signature of those products by our
    reading of the entire genome present in an individual's cancer.
        So, the link between genetics and environment becomes very
    profound and there is no longer a dichotomy between saying I
    believe in the environmental causes of cancer and I believe in
    the genetic causes. They are merged in the action of
    environmental agents on our genome.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. Gentlemen.
        Mr. Chance. So, the answer is your genes or environment can
    help with your disease progression or they can hurt with your
    disease and we are learning a little bit about how those are
    plus or minus risk factors, if you will. But, you know, I don't
    want to offend Dr. Varmus. It would be bad for my career.
        Dr. Varmus. I have no influence over your career.
        Mr. Chance. But we made progress in cancer. I think we made
    progress in cancer a little bit because cancer is almost like a
    foreign thing and if we just got rid of it, you know, then the
    sort of conception is that it would help. But the brain, you
    know, it is broken in a way and it has to be fixed and he does
    not agree with me, but that is OK. But the regulation of the
    cells and the control is directed by genes and environment and
    we need to get back to--we need to know what a normal set point
    looks like so then we can know if we have gotten back to it
    when we get an intervention.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you.
        Dr. Kasthuri. It sounds like it is lose-lose whoever I
    agree with for me, but I will try my own version somewhere in
    the middle. I think this idea of genes versus environment when
    it comes to brains is as old as maybe as philosophy. Before we
    knew about genes it was nature versus nurture and after the
    discovery of it. And I think it is a very useful exercise to go
    back and forth to think it is nature or to think it is nurture,
    but in reality it is probably some complicated loop where
    nature informs nurture and nurture informs nature. And the
    problem that biologists have, at least I have, when there is a
    loop, is that is very hard to describe what causes what in a
    loop. If A and B are in a loop, did A cause B? Well, B also
    caused A. And I think that this will only continue to happen,
    this sort of loop idea and how we talk about causality, the
    more we appreciate the complicated nature of a complicated
    organ like the brain. Did I do a good job in between?
        Mr. Fleischmann. I think we are all in between. And I want
    to thank the gentlemen and I think it is great sometimes that
    we can have that difference of opinion. I think that is how we
    move forward. I think sometimes this body would learn from it
    as well, but I thank you and I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will just
    ask the committee's indulgence because this topic is a tiny bit
    personal for me. Some of you may know that I am a breast cancer
    survivor. In December I celebrated my 12th year as a survivor.
    I was 41 years old when I was diagnosed, and not to really get
    deep in the weeds on what I went through, when I was diagnosed
    it was because I found a lump in my breast about 3 months after
    my first mammogram when I turned 40 years old. And it was kind
    of miraculous that I found it because it was less than half a
    centimeter and my mammogram had been clean so there was no
    reason to suspect that I needed to be looking for anything. I
    was very fortunate.
        But I did not find my lump out of luck, I always say. I
    found it because of the knowledge and awareness that I had that
    I needed to pay attention to my breast health. However, and
    thankfully I was diagnosed at Stage 1A, very early breast
    cancer, but subsequently, when I went through all the processes
    that you go through when you have a breast cancer diagnosis or
    any cancer diagnosis, is when I sat with the nurse educator and
    we went through the whole family tree process of the cancer in
    my family and I had a lot of cancer in my family, but not
    really breast cancer.
        She suggested that because I was young and because I am an
    Ashkenazi Jew, a Jewish person of Eastern European descent for
    those of you that do not know what that is, and the amount of
    cancer I had in both sides of my family, that I may want to
    have a genetic test. So, then she proceeded to tell me that as
    an Ashkenazi Jewish woman I was 5 times more likely to have the
    BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 genetic mutation and that gave me an 85
    percent chance of having breast and ovarian cancer and smaller
    chances of having other kinds of cancer over the course of my
    lifetime, but particularly before I was 50 years old.
        Since I already had breast cancer and I had been a State
    legislator, was immersed in the fight against breast cancer,
    passed breast cancer legislation in my State legislature, I
    thought I was pretty knowledgeable about my risk, about
    people's risk. You know, one out of eight women in our country
    will get breast cancer at some point in their lifetime, but I
    did not know that as an Ashkenazi Jewish woman I was that much
    more likely to carry the gene. And I had the test, went through
    the process of genetic counseling and all of that and about a
    month later got the results. And when I opened the door to walk
    into the doctor's office, there were may too many people in the
    room for the result to be negative so I didn't really have to
    open the folder. I knew that I was BRCA positive and I have the
    BRCA 2 genetic mutation.
        My question is focused on this. You know, it can be
    challenging for most people to wrap their minds around the
    notion of biomedical research and development and people's eyes
    glaze over when you are talking about oncogenes. And for me and
    so many others around the world, the work that DOE and NIH do
    together and separately is very personal. And I always say when
    I tell my story that if I didn't know as much as I knew about
    breast cancer about my risk and that awareness, and we have had
    a lot of awareness that we have all focused on, attending so
    many breast cancer functions and events. We have an entire
    month that is dedicated to it. We have a color that has been
    completely identified with breast cancer. But if I didn't know
    about my risk, and I can tell you countless, countless,
    countless women at risk do not know.
        Can you, all of you, explain how DOE and NIH projects, like
    the Human Genome Project, for example, and subsequent projects,
    not only lead to the genetic tests that ultimately allowed me
    to be able to be more aware of my risk, the reason it was so
    important that I be aware of that risk, and know that I was
    diagnosed with that gene? Because of my diagnosis at Stage 1A,
    my initial course of treatment was to have a lumpectomy and
    radiation and then I would be done. But because I was able to
    have the genetic test and knew how much higher risk I was, I
    had a double mastectomy. I had seven surgeries over the course
    of a year. I had prophylactic oophorectomy, meaning I had my
    ovaries removed at 41 years old. I mean, thank God I had all
    the kids we had planned to have. But if I had gone with the
    prescribed course of treatment and not been able to get that
    genetic test, I probably would have been dead or I would have
    been diagnosed at a much later stage.
        So, actualizing in a personal and simple way, the
    incredible result of the research we have been able to do and
    the unlocking of the human genome, can you talk a little bit
    about how we can make sure that we have wide public benefit and
    awareness of the development and incentivization of the
    technologies that you research while also making sure that
    scientific discovery is not stifled? You have a lot of work
    that you are doing that might seem like it has little practical
    import, but can later lead to world-changing technologies,
    which has resulted in me being able to sit here to ask you this
    question. So, thank you, Madam Chair, and I know I went over in
    my asking of my question and I hope you understand my question.
        Dr. Varmus. Well, I am not sure I completely understand the
    question.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The question really is, very simply,
    that a lot of this is mumbo jumbo to most people and we spend
    billions of dollars on this research that is critically
    important, but the awareness of the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genetic
    mutation was out there for many, many years and someone as
    aware as I was had no idea about my potential risk.
        Dr. Varmus. No, I mean, you tell a story very powerfully
    and I sympathize with the things you had to go through. Getting
    information of this kind, which is complicated to the public in
    an efficient and useful manner is difficult. I know from my
    experience at the NCI and NIH generally and from working. I was
    the president of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for
    10 years and I know that getting these messages out in a
    digestible fashion is a problem.
        One ancillary problem that is not widely appreciated is the
    scarcity of genetic counselors who specialize in this
    information. We have genetic counselors who are very abundant
    in advising you about your pregnancy, but we have not trained a
    cadre of similar counselors who can provide not just you once
    you have had your diagnosis, but people who are unaware of the
    need of what is entailed in having genetic counseling.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Can I just interrupt? I am sorry,
    Madam Chair.
        Dr. Varmus. Sure.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. For example, all three of my
    children are now at risk of carrying the genetic mutation.
        Dr. Varmus. Absolutely.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. My twins are 20 years old. My
    youngest daughter is 16. And my oldest daughter has said, well,
    I am just going to go right away to 23andMe. And, you know, and
    23andMe now can tell you whether you carry that genetic
    mutation.
        Dr. Varmus. Of course they can.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But having that information without
    that genetic advice is really----
        Dr. Varmus. Yes, that is a big problem.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I mean, to find that out at your
    kitchen table with the entire enormity of what that means is--
    we cannot allow that to happen.
        Dr. Varmus. It is a totally different question when you
    have had your children and you are willing, your attitude
    toward the surgical reduction and risk.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Yes.
        Dr. Varmus. Which that is what you did. You reduced your
    risk of breast and ovarian cancer nearly entirety. That's
    right.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Exactly. And if I were younger,
    getting guidance on should I have my eggs extracted?
        Dr. Varmus. Right. So, these are the difficulties created
    by knowledge that we are glad we have because facing facts is
    what we want to do as a society. But the burdens that we create
    are significant and we don't have clear answers. And, you know,
    we like to say that these are decisions that patients have to
    make for themselves, but they need guidance because the issues
    are complicated. The risks are not 100 percent, as you pointed
    out. They are high and they vary from individual to individual
    depending upon the mutation that you found inherited. Now, you
    probably--you may have--I am 100 percent Ashkenazi, so I know
    the story.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Me, too.
        Dr. Varmus. And if you have the mutations that are
    characteristic of people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, we
    probably know a lot about those mutations. But there are also
    individuals who have fairly novel mutations in these genes.
    They are discovered when companies like 23andMe or your local
    genome center, as we have in New York, discovers the mutations
    and maybe very little known about them because every mutation
    carries a different risk. So, these are subtleties that we are
    beginning to appreciate because of the vast amount of work that
    is being done by DOE and by NIH to look at as many genomes as
    possible.
        At the New York Genome Center, where I also work, we are
    particularly concerned about minority populations. Ashkenazi
    Jews are also a minority, but there are other minority
    populations that have not received the same level of scrutiny.
    And discovering the variance that are inherited that may
    predispose to risk of cancer or neurological diseases or others
    will only be appreciated if we include everybody in these
    genetic analyses that do predict risk of very serious diseases.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. And, Madam Chair, the
    investments--and I raise this because the investments that we
    have to make beyond just in this research so that we can have
    it result in these discoveries, help women like me and others
    and minorities that haven't had the application of these
    technologies applied just yet. The decision I had to make was I
    could go with the course of treatment based on the diagnosis
    that I had. But if I did that, then the decision I had to make
    is: have an MRI every 6 months for the rest of my life and be
    waiting, constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was
    in the stage of my life where thankfully, I got married young.
    We had our children. I had breastfed my children. You know,
    those were all the decisions that I had to make in a very short
    period of time because I had cancer. And we need to make sure
    that we are--there is a lot of results and impact that we have
    from the discoveries that we make that affect real people and
    we need to be making investments as appropriators to try to
    make sure that they can deal with the ramifications of the
    results of these incredible discoveries. So, I appreciate you
    indulging me for going over my time. I yield back.
        Mr. Chance. Can I make a brief comment, Chairwoman Kaptur?
        Ms. Kaptur. Dr. Chance.
        Mr. Chance. Mrs. Wasserman Schultz, thank you so much for
    sharing your story. I think the willingness of people to share
    stories and patient advocacy has been so important to moving
    the needle forward.
        I want to echo Dr. Varmus' comments. We are discovering
    this stuff. But if there aren't people in the medical system
    who can explain it to you, patients won't get the benefit. And
    genetic counseling, we have genetic counseling training
    programs at Case and around the country, but often
    reimbursement is a problem. Genetic counseling is not
    necessarily reimbursable in many plans. As more complicated
    genetic information comes in, it is going to be a little more
    expensive and a little more challenging, you know, to bring
    that information to patients. But those are the professionals
    in the healthcare system who could really help us.
        Ms. Kaptur. I just want to say, Congresswoman Wasserman
    Schultz, you could have as much time as you want and we admire
    you very much for your courage and your continued service.
    Congressman Newhouse?
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair and Mr. Simpson, for
    having this hearing today. It is truly an important subject to
    discuss. I want to thank Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz for
    sharing her testimony today and that helps us understand the
    significance of what you are working on. I will not extrapolate
    a lot, but this kind of work impacts almost everybody. And let
    me tell you as someone who held the hand of my first wife as
    she fought breast cancer, even though you are coming up with
    new things all the time, let me just tell you, it isn't fast
    enough when you are in the situation where a loved one is
    facing something like this. So, anything we can do to
    accelerate your ability to come up with these things, not just
    in cancer, but in brain research and all the other disciplines
    that we are focused on. So, thank you, all of you, for your
    work. It is the Lord's work and very much we appreciate--as Mr.
    Fleischmann said, we all support doing as much as we can to
    further that work.
        So, I am from the State of Washington. I represent--among
    my constituents are those that work at the Pacific Northwest
    National Laboratory, truly a tremendous institution that does a
    lot of work in so many different areas. Like Mr. Simpson, I am
    always amazed at the things that they are working on there and,
    also, I hate to admit this, but like him, don't always
    understand what the heck they are doing. But it is great stuff
    and making tremendous strides in much of that work. So, I am
    proud of that and I always try to point out what I think is
    really one of those things that a lot of people even in the
    Tri-Cities in the State of Washington aren't aware of what is
    going on right down the road. And so, thanks for giving me a
    soapbox to talk about that.
        But as much of the partnership between NIH and the DOE as
    you had talked about, Dr. Varmus, it has been focusing on the
    world's computing systems and I think the fastest one happens
    to be at Oak Ridge if I am not mistaken.
        Mr. Fleischmann. And the next fastest one coming.
        Mr. Newhouse. Oh, is that right? OK. But you also talked
    about other things that DOE and the labs bring to the table. My
    understanding is that several of the NIH programs look to PNNL
    for things such as the advanced chemical analysis systems that
    can be very crucial for understanding the impacts of, say,
    exercise on their health and, even like Ms. Wasserman Schultz
    was talking about, helping do early detection of cancer and
    potential treatment. One thing that struck me as being
    something. What are some of the areas beyond computing that you
    see in the DOE facilities and the researchers having an impact
    on things like cancer or where should we be encouraging that in
    the future?
        Dr. Varmus. Well, you are correct, Mr. Newhouse, that all
    of us have been emphasizing to a very large extent, but not
    exclusively, the computational power that DOE brings to the
    table when DOE and NCI undertake things together. Indeed, the
    cancer initiative I described is largely based on the interface
    between high-performance computing and certain areas of cancer
    research. But as we heard and as is manifest frequently, but as
    we heard during our workshops in putting together a report on
    NIH-DOE interactions, there are many other areas: material
    science, developing new ways to fabricate things;
    nanotechnology, that the creation of very small devices that
    can be used, for example, in drug delivery or delivery of
    radioisotopes. Those are areas of research where NIH and DOE
    are doing things that are similar and benefit from the
    interaction. You talked about sensors, and sensors can range
    from sensing exercise regimes to sensing molecules in the
    bloodstream.
        I believe Mr. Simpson alluded--or was it Ms. Kaptur--
    alluded to devices for detecting head injury. We can now
    measure DNA that comes from cancer cells in the blood by taking
    a peripheral blood sample and use that as a guide for whether a
    treatment actually working. That is a kind of sensor developed
    largely through NCI and the private sector in this case, but
    representing the kind of sensitive device for finding just
    individual--small numbers of molecules that can reveal the
    function of an important organ or the progress of disease.
        So, these are all areas and mainly coming from engineering
    and the physical sciences which has been the strong point for
    much of DOE-related research, but, as I try to emphasize, has
    historically been involved in many of the advances we have made
    in healthcare, from the earliest development of simple x rays
    by Wilhelm Roentgen over 100 years ago to more modern ways to
    use magnetic resonance imaging or PET or CAT scanning to
    diagnose disease early. All these represent efforts to
    understand the body not just as a living set of cells, but also
    as a physical entity made up of molecules that are sometimes
    best approached through physics, chemistry, and engineering.
        Dr. Kasthuri. I have perhaps a tangential answer. So, about
    2, maybe 3 years ago, I had never really heard of the national
    lab system. I was 100 percent a neuroscientist. I maybe heard
    of some national labs, but certainly not of the 17 that exist.
    So, when I first showed up, I was amazed by the technology, the
    x rays, the computing, the material sciences.
        But I would like to add one other thing which still
    surprises me, and I think Dr. Varmus alluded to it earlier.
    There is s a culture about the national lab system that doesn't
    exist or exists at a less prominence in academia, and that is
    that impossible ideas seem common in the national lab system
    and people there are willing to address things that have a
    scientific basis and a physical basis. But in other settings,
    the scale is beyond what people could imagine. And I think this
    culture, this part of that national lab system is crucial and
    valuable. It is a place where impossible ideas are routinely
    considered and that--or where at the moment considered
    impossible ideas are routinely considered.
        And there is a different risk versus reward analysis that
    is happening I think in the national lab and the DOE system
    that is different for appropriate reasons in the NIH world
    where the risk versus reward is calculated differently. And I
    think combining these cultures is going to actually help
    advance science even if there were no x rays sources or
    computational sources or material science sources.
        Mr. Newhouse. I am way over time, but that may give me an
    opening to ask my second question. But if I were one of your
    students, I would say, but Dr. Kasthuri, so I was interested in
    your comments. And I wanted to ask you if you were familiar
    with the Allen Institute in the State of Washington, their
    efforts on brain science, that I have just learned a little bit
    about some of their things that they are working on and like
    the BRAIN initiative and the potential partnerships with the
    NIH and DOE to facilitate further scientific discoveries. They
    have been successful on large-scale transformative neuroscience
    projects, including just what you mentioned, the mouse
    connectome as you referred to, that you talked about that.
        But also I wanted to flag that the institute does provide
    open access of the data for scientists worldwide free of charge
    and which has partially been made possible by the congressional
    funding of the BRAIN initiative. So, I should also point out
    that the institute has a history of forging collaborative
    partnerships with other DOE centers of excellence involving
    neuroscience projects, such as big neuron data analysis,
    hackathon at Oak Ridge, and I know a lot of the great folks at
    the institute look forward to more opportunities for comparable
    partnerships, so with those initiatives. So, just I wanted to
    bring that up and any thoughts you might have on that as well.
        Dr. Kasthuri. I should say that the Allen Institute for
    Brain Science is probably--has some of the premier scientists
    in the world studying brain mapping, the way we do it. We are
    at worst frenemies, at best very close colleagues. I cannot
    imagine the kind of effort at a large scale doing this kind of
    mapping not including places like the Allen Institute or
    Janelia Farms, as Dr. Varmus mentioned earlier. These people
    have great experience in how to do this. And I think if this
    combination of private institutions, like the Allen Institute
    and Janelia Farms, mixing with Federal institutions where we
    will have really great breakthroughs. But in general, both the
    data they collect and the way they distribute the data for free
    to the community is kind of a model to emulate.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you very much. And again, thank you all
    for being here, Dr. Chance, as well. I appreciate your
    testimony. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Congressman Newhouse. I wanted to
    ask, the mouse connectome effort, is that finished?
        Dr. Kasthuri. No, I wish. I think we are just about to
    start that effort.
        Ms. Kaptur. Where?
        Dr. Kasthuri. Not well-known where or how, but I know--in
    fact, I was just speaking with Dr. Varmus about it this
    morning. It is an effort that is just literally starting, that
    people are thinking about how to fund it. What are the various
    multi-agencies that should be involved in it? Where are the
    various places that it should be developed and instituted? But
    I think the effort is actually at the very beginning as opposed
    to even close to the end.
        Ms. Kaptur. So, it involves government instrumentalities
    and several private sector instrumentalities?
        Dr. Kasthuri. Absolutely, I would suspect it would involve.
    So, for example, places like the Allen Institute, as
    Representative Newhouse was saying, places like Janelia Farms,
    which is a Howard Hughes private institute, like Professor
    Varmus was talking about, in addition to government agent
    institutions, DOE labs, and a bunch of academic places
    together, I think will be how the connectome gets mapped if the
    genome is any example, which was also a very similar process of
    mixing private, public, Federal, and academic all together.
        Ms. Kaptur. I will speak very openly. I think science has
    trouble communicating with the general public. Congresswoman
    Wasserman Schultz offered the observation about how she learned
    and what she knew and what she did not know. I would urge you
    to consider somehow with--you are scientists. You are not
    necessarily communicators, though you are the best
    communicators in your field or you would not be here today, but
    if you were to look at various months or days that Congress
    designates for whether it is cancer whether it is mental health
    awareness, and think a little bit about how you would use those
    opportunities because members, many members are involved in
    trying to use those moments to help the people they represent
    and help the country. I do not think science uses those days
    very effectively. So, for example, on autism--and I honestly do
    not remember which day it is that we acknowledge the issue of
    autism and we try to draw attention to it.
        The cancer issue is another one. But at that moment, you
    can get a calendar and you can look ahead and let us say it is
    June 1, right, at that moment, the best knowledge we have could
    come here to Washington. We could give you the Gold Room or the
    Rayburn Room or we could find a room here, a big room, and all
    of the associations, the Alzheimer's Association, for example,
    or the National Cancer Society, whatever the individual concern
    is, we could use that moment and you would have 436 Members of
    the House plus all of our territories and we could try to help
    message.
        But honestly, Members are very busy and they do not keep up
    on what is happening with the pace of science. So, for example,
    a Member like myself, I think to myself, OK, so if mental
    illness is an issue I care deeply about, I know of the Stanley
    Foundation. But Dr. Ifa Litori, and a lot of what I see on the
    website, is physical brain presentation. It is not necessarily
    neurotransmitters. So, the synapses in the middle part of the
    brain are larger, Doctor, according to at least his research.
        One of our esteemed Congressmen from Ohio, Mr. Gonzalez, is
    a former football player and is very involved with Boston
    University and the Brain Bank they have there. So, I go to the
    website and I look at trying to help him achieve his goal is,
    which is healing. In understanding, I am going, is it more
    physical or is it more embedded in the parts that we cannot
    see? It is really difficult to be a Member and try to figure
    out, OK, so where should I be moving this vast ship?
        And I am even having a little difficulty this morning
    trying to figure out, respectful of what our jurisdiction is,
    do we need more advanced light sources? Do we need more large
    computers? How far along are we on that road? It is hard.
        I am reading, Dr. Varmus, what you submitted to the record.
    Do I believe this is all going on and it is already happening
    so we do not have to worry about it?
        But it seems like on the communications front, we are not
    effectively using science to help the American people move
    forward in this arena. We could. NIH and DOE could think about
    that, and maybe in 2020 pick one. It could be cancer. It could
    be autism. It could be bipolar. Whatever it is, how effective
    could we be in reaching the American public? And at that moment
    the best scientists we have, the best folks people we have,
    could come forward, deliver some papers, and talk about the
    road forward.
        All I know about Alzheimer--or excuse me, autism, is I
    looked through a microscope in one lab and it showed that the
    receptors inside the ear, rather than looking like this for
    sounds and so forth, looked like this. They are all blunted. I
    thought, OK. Well, what does that mean? Every Member has that
    kind of experience. They cannot step away from the particular
    and figure out, all right, so what do we say to the American
    people? What do we know and what don't we know? What are these
    murky areas and we could--what we know.
        Maybe there are certain things we know. We know that for
    many neurological conditions, they onset in the teens. What do
    schoolteachers look for? Many scientists probably know, but we
    don't communicate it very well.
        So, I am saying to you, maybe if you could draw from your
    work in cancer, your work with light imaging, wouldn't it be
    great to tell the American people that we have to have a
    machine 10 times more powerful than this or we need more
    computer scientists that will major in whatever to solve this.
    I do not think we picked the essential out of what we already
    know to help direct thinking of the public and Members as a
    result. Dr. Varmus?
        Dr. Varmus. Thank you for bringing up this important issue.
    I think many scientists, myself included, have been worried
    about this for a very long time. For over 25 years, I have been
    affiliated, for example, with the Congressional Biomedical
    Research Caucus, and as you point out, although we put on shows
    every month, it is hard to get the attention of members. There
    is so much information. Some of it is solid. Some of it is in
    progress, hard to know how to present that.
        Science is not just one entity; it is a lot of different
    sciences. You have heard that around, even on this small table,
    what do people want to hear? I think one of the things that I
    resonated with in your comments just now was the idea that a
    committee like yours can distill a specific question. That is
    what is needed, specifically, to promote effective and more
    productive research between the two agencies.
        We have this report. It covers a lot of things. There is
    now 4 years of history since that report was issued. One could
    imagine having even just a discussion, not even a hearing, in
    which you say all right, what do you think of the weaknesses?
    Where can we put our resources to make these collaborations
    more productive?
        You know, there are so many things out there, and you heard
    a lot of ideas, just during our discussion this morning, but I
    think the pointed question, from appropriators themselves,
    could be very beneficial. I think a lot of us actually have
    spent a lot of time trying to communicate with the public. The
    public is a large, diverse beast, with a lot of different
    levels of competence, and there is a lot to say, and being told
    by you, the appropriators. What specific questions you would
    like answered, I think, is something that would go a long way
    to improving the interchange between scientists and you as
    representatives of the public.
        Ms. Kaptur. Would a discussion, Dr. Varmus, more of an
    informal discussion between DOE and NIH be a valuable--taking
    your recommendations from the hearing this morning, would that
    be valuable?
        Dr. Varmus. I think that is actually--the discussion is
    between leaders and the agencies. It is already occurring at a
    very high level. I was very gratified in my conversations with
    Chris Fall, the Director of the Office of Science, Francis
    Collins, and with others, NIH, who are running these
    collaborative efforts. There are a lot of discussions
    occurring. I think what is maybe missing in the mix is having
    interested staff from--especially from the Appropriations side,
    say we would like to hear from both of you in the room. So,
    what can we, as appropriators, do to make these connections
    work better? Right now, people are trying to make better use of
    the money they have and put things together in a sensible way,
    but I think going, actually talking to people who control the
    budgets would be a very useful exercise.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right.
        Mr. Chance. Can I say something?
        Ms. Kaptur. Yes, Dr. Chance.
        Mr. Chance. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur. I really accept a
    lot of what you say. I accept, from Mr. Fleischmann, we are not
    moving fast enough. I accept your admonition that we do not
    communicate well enough, and I accept your challenge to come
    and make that case and get involved and do more myself. You
    know, further, I think, if we want to go faster, the beamlines
    are not fully, you know, utilized. There is spare capacity, and
    we can go faster, and maybe that would be a cost-efficient way.
    New beamlines take a while, and, so, those cannot help
    immediately, but we could get more scientists embedded with the
    DOE. I mean, that is my secret sauce of what we have been able
    to do. Take university scientists and embed them with the DOE
    scientists, and, so, those stakeholders are bringing talent,
    money, and all of their resources to bear, to sit on that
    baseline, which you so generously appropriate. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Dr. Chance, thank you for that statement. Could
    you write me back for the DNA samples that, I believe, rest
    somewhere, that Case, or----
        Mr. Chance. Yeah, oh, I know quite a bit about that
    project. We work very closely with her Veterans Affairs
    hospital. They are a key affiliate. I know Dr. Bonomo, who is
    on some of those samples, and I will investigate that for you
    right away.
        Ms. Kaptur. Why are they useful? I have no idea. Should I
    know?
        Mr. Chance. Yes, you should.
        Ms. Kaptur. So, so, it is an unknown, big question mark.
    The Boston University Brain Bank, is that valuable, Dr.
    Kasthuri?
        Dr. Kasthuri. So, we are collaborating with them now to try
    to take some of these samples from the Boston University Brain
    Bank and analyze them. Sorry, these are postmortem samples of
    people who have either been diagnosed with concussive
    neuropathies or, et cetera, and H-matched controls, if you
    will. So, we are working with them, right now, to see if we can
    use our microscopes to find the physical basis of these
    different disease. It is just an exploratory work now, but I
    find these databases and tissue banks extremely valuable
    because, when they were collected, they were probably for a
    particular reason. But as our technologies advance, as our
    microscopes get better, as our genetic analyses gets better,
    these tissue banks become super valuable for new questions that
    had--that never been emerged. When they collected the tissue at
    Boston University, they did not collect it to have someone do
    superpowered nanoscale electron microscopic imaging of it, but
    it turns out that we are trying that now, and it is a resource
    being applied to a new question that no one had ever thought
    of, which I really like, in this world.
        Ms. Kaptur. And I know our ranking member talked with
    Secretary Perry about resources in California. I do not know
    exactly what exists there, but you probably know and there is
    interest among members not on this committee. That is a good
    thing.
        Mr. Chance. Yes.
        Ms. Kaptur. We need to use that. I just wanted to say, Dr.
    Varmus has to leave quickly because of a travel arrangement. Is
    that correct, Doctor?
        Dr. Varmus. No, I have to teach at 5:00 in New York, so I
    need to get on the 1:00 Acela.
        Ms. Kaptur. Yes.
        Dr. Varmus. I will make it.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. Well, I wanted to thank you all very
    much on behalf of our committee. We had a great turnout this
    morning. That shows the deep interest. I hope that as you go
    back to your respective responsibilities that you will consider
    the questions this morning, and the possibilities that exist
    with the additional funding that the ranking member and I tried
    very hard to get in this recent bill, and how we might move
    some of the investments at the Department of Energy forward,
    whether it is in light imaging, whatever you tell us, to help
    you to move your research forward faster, in collaboration
    between agencies and departments and outside interests. I hope
    that you use this as an open door.
        And I took your recommendation, Dr. Varmus, and we will try
    to bring, with your help, together some of those who should be
    around the same table, as we decide what is an appropriate role
    for the Department of Energy, what is an appropriate role for
    NIH, what is an appropriate role, frankly, for defense
    medicine, and for the research that occurs at the Department of
    Veterans Affairs. I do not view that research as everybody
    being in their own car, for heaven's sake, but we need to be on
    the same train car. We need to be working together here, and we
    have to break down some of the stovepipes that inhibit faster
    progress on scientific inquiry. So, consider this, please think
    about what you have heard others say and ask, this morning, and
    give us your thoughts, and we greatly appreciate your
    testimony, this morning, and your time.
        Mr. Simpson, do you have any additional comments or
    questions?
        Mr. Simpson. No. You better go, if you are going to make
    the 1 o'clock.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. Very good. That concludes this
    morning's hearing. Again, I would like to thank our witnesses
    for joining us today, and I ask them to please ensure for the
    hearing record that questions for the record and any supporting
    information requested by the subcommittee are delivered in
    final form to us no later than 3 weeks from the time you
    receive them. Members who have additional questions for the
    record will have until the close of business on Friday to
    provide them to the subcommittee office.
        This hearing, with our gratitude, is adjourned.
        [Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]

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                                            Thursday, February 27, 2020

             DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S FISCAL YEAR 2021 BUDGET REQUEST

                                    WITNESS

    HON. DAN BROUILLETTE, SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
        Ms. Kaptur. The subcommittee will come to order. I want to
    thank the Secretary very much for waiting. The floor votes were
    not our plan, and I know that Ranking Member Simpson and I
    would have wished to start a half-hour, an hour ago. So we
    thank you for your patience.
        Let us begin our first hearing on the fiscal year 2021
    Budget Request for the Department of Energy.
        Thank you, Secretary Brouillette, for being here, and for
    your patience.
        Before we get started let me first express my deep
    disappointment that well over 2 weeks after the budget was
    released, we only just received the full set of required
    supporting materials needed to evaluate this request late last
    evening. Frankly, this delay is unacceptable, and I hope, Mr.
    Secretary, you can rectify it for this next year.
        The Department of Energy addresses our Nation's most
    pressing energy, environmental, and nuclear security challenges
    through transformative science and technology. With those
    challenges come opportunity, opportunity to achieve progress
    for our Nation to sustain life, to grow our economy, and to
    shore up national security through energy independence,
    opportunity to meet the imperative of climate change by making
    energy supplies cleaner and more resilient, opportunity to
    advance high science to yield innovation, to keep our Nation
    globally competitive, and last but not least, opportunity to
    cost-effectively sustain the Nation's nuclear deterrent while
    simultaneously supporting nuclear nonproliferation.
        Looking toward fiscal year 2021, however, the Trump
    administration again proposes to cut the Department of Energy's
    budget by 8 percent overall, and by an astounding 35 percent in
    nondefense programs.
        This will limit America's future by drastically reducing or
    eliminating programs critical to meeting our future energy
    needs and assuring our Nation's security. These programs have
    received broad bipartisan, bicameral support precisely because
    of the crucial role in undergirding our economy, and preparing
    us for the futures to come, including the clean energy economy.
    What we should be doing is supporting programs that create jobs
    as our Nation transitions to a clean energy future.
        One need look no further than a recent Bureau of Labor
    Statistics reporting project, that the fastest-growing
    occupation in the country over the next 10 years, are you
    ready, is solar installation, to know that these programs are
    job creators.
        But, unfortunately, once again the President's budget
    request harms America's energy future, our competitiveness, our
    workforce, our environment, our consumers, and our economy.
    This request is riddled with backward-looking proposals. First,
    on energy efficiency and renewable energy funding is cut by 74
    percent.
        EERE is responsible for creating and sustaining American
    leadership, mastering U.S. energy independence and
    transitioning to a global, clean energy economy. The Trump
    budget again eliminates the weatherization program, so pivotal
    to achieving energy conservation for existing structures, and
    helping lower-income families and individuals reduce their
    energy costs.
        Also on the Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy, which
    invests in transformational energy technologies of the future,
    is eliminated in your budget despite its track record of
    success. This backward slide is a nonstarter for this
    subcommittee.
        Next, the Office of Science is cut by $1.2 billion. Under
    this request, research in vital areas such as advanced
    computing, biology and environmental sciences, chemistry and
    materials research will suffer. All spur innovation and keep
    our Nation globally competitive in an often predatory global
    marketplace.
        The administration has once again proposed a nuclear
    weapons budget that has not established clear priorities with a
    responsible plan to fund and execute them. Instead, this budget
    suggests that everything is a priority.
        The proposal includes an increase of $3.1 billion just for
    Weapons Activities. Mr. Secretary, media reports have indicated
    that you and even the President's own Office of Management and
    Budget harbored concerns about the size of this request, which
    is billions above what the Department projected it would need
    just last year.
        While sustaining the nuclear deterrent is a national
    priority, it must be done in a cost-effective, responsible
    manner. I must also express serious concern with your request
    to again cut key nuclear nonproliferation programs.
        With that, I close my remarks. Thank you, Mr. Secretary,
    again, for being here today, and we look forward to discussing
    this request and adapting it accordingly.
        I would like to turn to our ranking member, Mr. Simpson,
    for his opening remarks.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Kaptur follows:]

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        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur. I am pleased to
    join you in kicking off another series of budget hearings.
        I would like to welcome Secretary Brouillette.
        I believe today is not only his first hearing with our
    subcommittee, but also his first hearing as Secretary. Mr.
    Secretary, I look forward to hearing from you today on the
    fiscal year 2021 budget request, and learning more about how it
    reflects your priorities for the Department of Energy.
        As members of this subcommittee well know, the Department
    of Energy is critical both to the national security and
    economic competitiveness of the United States.
        A credible nuclear deterrent is essential for our own
    national security and for the security of allies around the
    globe. The Department of Energy, through the National Nuclear
    Security Administration, is responsible for maintaining a safe,
    secure, reliable, and effective nuclear weapon stockpile, and
    addressing nuclear proliferation threats that continue to
    change in a changing global landscape.
        The Department also supports a strong nuclear Navy which is
    also necessary. The fiscal year 2021 budget request strongly
    supports these national security responsibilities. While it is
    our job as legislators to ask questions, to make sure funds
    will be used wisely, and that programs will be successful, I
    believe these defense activities must remain a high priority
    for this committee.
        Our country's economic competitiveness is driven in part by
    our ability to continue as a global leader in energy production
    and energy technology innovation. These, in turn, rest on the
    basic science and applied energy research and development
    programs in the Department of Energy. The budget request
    proposes funding primarily for early-stage research, and,
    therefore, is not as robust as last year's enacted levels.
        I think Congress has made its position clear over the past
    several years that some amount of funding for all stages of
    research is important. I look forward to continuing our
    discussions on how to make the best targeted investments in
    these areas.
        Perhaps just as important as any particular funding level
    is actually getting the Department of Energy's budget, a final
    budget, in a timely manner. Our budget caps--levels are set for
    this year, so I am hopeful that we can work together,
    Republicans and Democrats, House and Senate, and the
    administration, to enact a fiscal year 2021 Energy and Water
    appropriation bill by the start of the new fiscal year, kind of
    a novel concept.
        Secretary Brouillette, I appreciate you being here today to
    explain your budget request. I know my colleagues and I look
    forward to working with you to move forward a budget that will
    strengthen our national security and advance our energy
    independence. I thank Chairwoman Kaptur for calling this
    hearing. I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson, very much. And before
    we turn to Secretary Brouillette, I want to remind our Members
    that after we hear from the Secretary and begin questions, for
    those Members present in the room, when I gaveled in at the
    beginning of the hearing, I will recognize you for questions in
    order of seniority, alternating between majority and minority,
    until all who arrived prior to the gavel have asked questions.
    For those who arrived after the hearing has started, I will
    recognize those Members solely in their order of arrival,
    again, alternative between majority and minority.
        And I want to thank the Members for their tremendous
    turnout today.
        We will now turn to our witness, Secretary Dan Brouillette
    of the Department of Energy. Secretary Brouillette is the 15th
    Secretary of Energy, and he was most recently the Deputy
    Secretary at the Department. He previously worked on the House
    Energy and Commerce Committee, and has worked for the industry
    and as a state energy regulator. Also, he has spent a great
    deal of time in the automotive industry.
        We thank you for taking the time to be here today. Without
    objection your written statement will be entered into the
    record. Please feel free to summarize your remarks in about 5
    minutes.

                 STATEMENT OF SECRETARY DAN BROUILLETTE

        Secretary Brouillette. Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member
    Simpson, and members of the subcommittee, it is indeed an honor
    for me to appear before you today to discuss President Trump's
    fiscal year 2021 budget request for the Department of Energy.
        And Madam Chair, your comments regarding the CJs are very
    important to me. I want to apologize to you for not getting
    that in on time. You have my personal commitment that that will
    not happen in the future.
        The members of this committee, on both sides of the aisle,
    have been very strong partners to the Department over the past
    3 years, and I am grateful for the support that each of you
    have given me as Deputy Secretary. And it is indeed a privilege
    for me to appear before you today as the 15th Secretary of
    Energy.
        My interest in the national security work of the Department
    began during my service as a tank commander in the United
    States Army. My time on the Hill, working in this very building
    for a member office, and later as chief of staff to the House
    Energy and Commerce Committee furthered my passion for the
    mission of DOE.
        Having led the Department's Congressional Affairs office,
    and most recently serving as Deputy Secretary, I am humbled.
    And I look forward to continuing to work closely with each of
    you in this new role. The President's fiscal year 2021 budget
    request promotes energy independence, it advances scientific
    research, it strengthens U.S. energy security, and it enhances
    the protection of our Nation's security.
        The budget supports the development of reliable and
    affordable energy with strategic investments in research and
    development, critical infrastructure, and cross-cutting
    initiatives such as energy storage, including the next
    generation of batteries that integrate renewable energy more
    efficiently into the grid.
        In 2020, for the first time in my lifetime, the United
    States will be a net energy exporter, and the world's number
    one producer of oil and gas. Notably, the United States is also
    the world's second-highest generator of wind and solar energy,
    and the world leader in carbon emissions reductions. I am
    confident that the initiatives in this budget will advance and
    extend those gains for years to come.
        The Trump administration believes it is imperative that
    America maintains dominance in science and technology,
    especially with global competitors like China racing to surpass
    us in critical scientific capabilities. That is the
    underpinning of this year's budget request of $5.9 billion for
    scientific innovation across the DOE complex.
        The request also supports substantial investment in areas
    the President has designated as industries of the future,
    including supercomputing, artificial intelligence, quantum, and
    advanced manufacturing.
        The budget again prioritizes the development of next-
    generation advanced nuclear technology. As we strive to regain
    American leadership in nuclear energy, this administration
    realizes the need for domestically produced uranium, and in
    doing so, this budget requests $150 million for a new DOE
    program, for a strategic stockpile of U.S.-origin uranium to
    protect against market uncertainties, recognizing the value of
    American nuclear energy and national security interest. This is
    the first step in a soon-to-be-released broader strategy
    endorsed by the President's Nuclear Fuel Working Group.
        The budget requests $27 billion to support DOE's mission
    for national security. Given the current geopolitical
    environment and increasingly capable rivals, the U.S. must have
    nuclear capabilities to meet current and future national
    security challenges, and key to this effort is sustaining the
    current stockpile of nuclear weapons, modernizing our nuclear
    forces, and recapitalizing its infrastructure.
        The request also funds continuation of cleanup sites
    associated with nuclear weapons development production and
    government-sponsored nuclear energy research. The
    administration believes progress on managing the Nation's spent
    nuclear fuel is critical, and that the standstill on this
    important issue has gone on for too long.
        Notably, the fiscal year 2021 budget does not request
    funding for Yucca Mountain licensing. Instead, we seek to
    prioritize research development and the evaluation of
    alterative technologies and pathways for the storage, the
    transportation, and disposal of the Nation's nuclear spent
    fuel.
        The men and women I have the privilege to lead are
    extremely dedicated to the DOE mission. Working with Congress
    and their industry partners, I am very proud of the
    Department's accomplishments over the last 3 years to advance
    American energy, promote scientific innovation, and to protect
    America. The results are significant for the United States as a
    nation and for taxpayers.
        And finally, I want to thank the committee for the strong
    support in the fiscal year 2020 appropriation, and the full-
    year appropriation for fiscal year 2019. The certainty provided
    the Department by both is appreciated. And we are seeking that
    same certainty this year.
        I look forward to working each of you to that end. Thank
    you very much for the opportunity to appear before you. And I
    look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Secretary Brouillette follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. We will
    begin questions now. The first one concerns research and
    development at the Department.
        Your budget, Mr. Secretary, cuts the Office of Science by
    17 percent, and the energy research and development programs by
    59 percent. While the United States currently leads in research
    and development, China is expected to surpass the United States
    in the next year or two.
        That substantial public spending from China helps explain
    why it was the world's largest market for energy investment in
    2018. And looking at U.S. clean energy research spending
    relative to the size of the economy, we rank No. 10 compared to
    other countries around the world. We surely must sustain
    investments in innovation to maintain U.S. edge and
    competitiveness in the future.
        Mr. Secretary, how do you justify these drastic cuts to the
    science and energy research and development programs at a time
    when China and other countries are investing, literally,
    trillions in innovative energy technologies?
        Secretary Brouillette. Madam Chair, thank you for the
    question. It is important that we maintain parity with
    adversaries and nations, frankly, who have other interests in
    mind, and it is certainly not our interest at heart.
        What we have done in this budget is, I think the ranking
    member has alluded to and I will elaborate on, is that we have
    moved some of the research from basic science research--excuse
    me, from applied research to basic science research. What we
    have noticed in some of the programs within DOE is that we are
    focusing on technologies that are now mature, now available to
    the marketplace, widely available I should say. And it is
    important that we look to the next generation of science, the
    next generation of these energy technologies that you mentioned
    in your opening statement.
        You and I had a quick conversation and I think it is an
    important--it is important for us to look to universities like
    the University of Toledo, who is working on, for instance,
    perovskite as the next generation of solar technology. So our
    goal is to leapfrog what we are doing today, and to look to
    those types of technologies and move them to the marketplace as
    soon as we possibly can.
        It has been said before that things like solar energy are
    now focused on photovoltaics, which in many respects can be
    almost akin to a horse and buggy. Anyone, anyone can obtain a
    solar panel. The initial investments in solar were critical,
    but it is the next generation of solar that we need to bring
    online. That is our intent and we want to focus our efforts on
    those types of things, and it simply means that we are going to
    move or we are requesting to move some of the money from the
    applied sciences over to the basic sciences.
        Ms. Kaptur. Well, Mr. Secretary, I heard your answer, and I
    think our committee will eventually work its will, but we want
    to develop both the basic research and the applied research.
    And we hope the Department of Energy is building itself to
    become a showcase for the invention of the future that is
    happening as we speak today.
        Secretary Brouillette. I would love that.
        Ms. Kaptur. I will reserve some of my other questions, and
    we will turn to my colleagues, and to our very able ranking
    member, Mr. Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you. You mentioned during your statement
    that there is no money requested for Yucca Mountain. I
    understand that. The budget request includes funding for
    interim storage. As you know, current law has some limits on
    authorized activities and sources of funding for those
    activities. Do you expect to execute the requested funding
    under current law, or do you anticipate the administration
    submitting a legislative proposal? And if you do, when would
    that be coming up? What is the timing of it? Do you know?
        Secretary Brouillette. Well, sir, with regard to our
    legislative proposal, I don't anticipate sending anything to
    the Hill in the near term. The current law, as drafted,
    prohibits us from pursuing Yucca Mountain, so it is the
    position of the administration that we will not pursue Yucca
    Mountain at this time.
        What we would seek to do is to look for alternatives. There
    are provisions in current law that allow us to do research and
    development on perhaps interim storage options. We don't need
    legislative authority to do that; it already exists in the
    current law under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. So, it would be
    our intention to work with you, to work with state
    policymakers, to work with local policymakers, to start to
    begin the process to identify potential alternatives to address
    an issue that has been with us for quite some time.
        Mr. Simpson. Do you anticipate trying to use any of the
    money from the Nuclear Waste Fund for those activities?
        Secretary Brouillette. No, sir.
        Mr. Simpson. You mentioned uranium reserve in your opening
    statement that we are establishing this to be on guard against
    market disruptions, and support strategic U.S. fuel cycle
    capabilities. We haven't seen a lot of detail on this proposal
    yet, but we have been told that this proposal is consistent
    with the priorities of the administration's Nuclear Fuel
    Working Group.
        Can you please provide any additional information on when
    we will see the working group recommendations, and how this
    proposal fits into the larger context, including the need for
    uranium reserve?
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, sir. So to take a step back,
    what we have noticed in the marketplace with regard to uranium
    is we have seen nation states dominate this marketplace over
    the course of the last 5, 10 years, perhaps 1 or 2 decades. The
    United States, in our view, has lost its leadership position
    with regard to the nuclear industry, and it is our view that it
    is very important that we regain it. What this represents or
    what the request represents, the $150 million that we are
    requesting from Congress is the first step in what will be a
    broader strategy that includes potentially conversion
    activities with regard to uranium. That working group will
    release its results early next week. I know that some of the
    staff here have begun briefings on that. Our current plan is to
    release that on Monday or Tuesday of next week. And I think
    what you will see is an overarching plan to take the first step
    and, perhaps, the next four or five steps to bring the United
    States back into a leadership position with regard to nuclear
    energy.
        Mr. Simpson. As you know, I am a strong supporter of
    nuclear energy and its role in providing reliable noncarbon
    power. In fiscal year 2020, Congress made a deliberate decision
    to move the program's focus from more general research to
    actually building things, which the public wants see us build
    things, primarily through the advanced SMR program and the new
    advanced reactors demonstration program.
        The budget request for fiscal year 2021 funds both programs
    but at significantly reduced levels, I assume as part of the
    broader choice to focus on early research and development. I
    think this broader policy is an area where Congress and the
    administration will continue to disagree. So, let us set aside
    for a moment where the funding comes from. How important do you
    think it is to successfully demonstrate U.S. advanced nuclear
    technologies? What kind of impact do you see for the domestic
    power sector for the U.S. economic competitiveness for nuclear
    security and for the environment?
        Secretary Brouillette. It is absolutely critical. It is
    absolutely critical. As we look to the future of nuclear
    energy, we see some continued development around the world of
    major reactors, big reactors, gigawatt-size reactors. Those
    will happen across the world. Unfortunately, I do not see that
    happening in the near term here in the United States. But that
    does not mean the end of nuclear energy as we know it. We are
    very excited about some of the activities that we see in the
    small modular reactor space. We were very happy to see
    companies like NuScale move into phase four of the regulatory
    process. We want to see them continue that. We are very excited
    about some of the smaller reactors. Companies like Oklo have
    developed reactors that are very small in size, 1 megawatt, 2
    megawatt, 5 megawatt. Those have enormous capabilities and
    opportunity available to places in the country like where I
    grew up, very rural parts of the country where a small modular
    reactor or a small microreactor can provide energy to a
    microgrid. And we want to see those technologies move forward.
    They are smaller; they are cheaper; and importantly, some of
    the work that we have done at DOE, they are using fuels that
    are accident-tolerant and walk-away safe in many cases. So, the
    idea of a Chernobyl, the idea of a meltdown does not exist with
    some of these smaller reactors. And over time, if we can prove
    and demonstrate this technology, then, perhaps, some public
    perceptions around nuclear energy will begin to change. It is
    important for us for the provision of energy It is important
    for us to maintain any ability to decarbonize the economy. We
    must have this type of power coming online.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson, very much. Congressman
    Kilmer.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks, Mr. Secretary,
    for being with us. As we were discussing before the chair
    started the meeting, my district is home to the only marine lab
    in the Department of Energy's national lab system, the Pacific
    Northwest National Lab's Marine Sciences Lab in Sequim,
    Washington. The Sequim lab is a unique asset. It is a valuable
    asset both for the DOE and for the local communities that
    benefit from the economic and educational opportunities that it
    provides.
        I actually want to start with just a thanks. Assistant
    Secretary Simmons and Director Fall visited the Marine Sciences
    Lab last year to learn about the work being done there to
    better understand coastal ecosystems and support the Powering
    the Blue Economy Initiative which is focused on developing new
    marine renewal energy technologies from Algae-based biofuels to
    marine hydrokinetic devices that can literally convert ocean
    waves into energy. The research and technologies being
    developed at the Marine Sciences Lab will play a critical role
    in our effort to decarbonize our Nation's energy system.
        I want to thank the chair and the ranking member and the
    folks on this committee for recognizing the significance of
    this work which began as a pilot program in fiscal year 2019.
    The committee provided $30 million for fiscal year 2020 to
    continue growing this program. Those funds are specifically
    intended to build upon the current model and focused efforts
    led by PNNL's Marine Sciences Lab. So, I want to make sure that
    DOE has a plan to use those funds for their intended purpose,
    and I was hoping you could tell the committee how you plan to
    execute on that funding.
        Secretary Brouillette. We do have a plan. And let me start
    by thanking you for your support of that lab, as well and the
    important support that you have provided to us over the years,
    not only for this particular activity within the lab, but also
    for PNNL generally.
        As you know, it is an important component for us. It is our
    big data center. It is important to quantum computing
    capabilities that we have coming online. I thank you for your
    support of that lab.
        With regard to the marine lab, we are looking at battery
    technologies that will involve the use of algae and other types
    of research, other types of materials I should say. And the
    research that is being done on that is being done in places
    like the Marine Sciences Lab. So, it is a very important
    component of the DOE complex, and I will give you my personal
    assurance that we will continue to support that lab at the
    highest levels.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. As the Secretary of the Department
    of Energy, you have a critical role to play in assuring that
    the U.S. remains a global leader in developing the next
    generation of renewable energies that our Nation and that other
    countries are going to depend on if we are going to reach that
    scientifically mandated goal of net zero, economywide net zero
    greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. And I want to see our Nation
    become the top manufacturer and exporter of these technologies
    so that American workers and American communities can benefit
    from this extraordinary economic opportunity. Recognizing that
    PNNL and the Nation's 16 other national labs are already
    playing a key role in the development of advanced renewables,
    how do you plan to continue that critical work and support
    America's competitiveness with just 25 percent of your current
    funding for energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, as
    were requested in this budget?
        Secretary Brouillette. While I understand the optics, if
    you will, of reducing a budget, it is very important that we
    look at the results. What we are focused on is the actual
    results. What is it that we are producing with this money? For
    us at the Department of Energy that looks to be along the lines
    of battery storage. We see that as the next progression, if you
    will, of the research that we need to study, and that is why at
    PNNL we announced a grid launch pad. So, what we are going to
    do there is a grid storage launch pad; and what we are going to
    do there is develop a facility that is going to allow us to do
    testing to achieve grid-scale battery storage because that is
    what is needed to get the renewables online in a much more
    aggressive and much faster way. Right now, they are an
    important component of our energy portfolio.
        Candidly, we need to do more work with AI, to get that
    integrated into our grid much more effectively because of the
    intermittency of the power itself. If we can solve the storage
    question, if we can provide grid-scale storage, battery
    storage, then you will see these technologies come online much,
    much quicker.
        The other thing we are doing is at a different lab, so
    forgive me for this, but at NREL we are studying the efficiency
    of these renewable technologies. For instance, windmills, we
    think they are very simple. They are three blades on a turbine
    and they turn when the wind blows. It is much more complicated
    than that. So, we are looking to improve the efficiency of the
    wind turbines themselves so that we can get these things much
    more stable in the grid.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. Congressman Fleischmann.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Mr. Secretary,
    thank you for being here today, and congratulations.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Fleischmann. It was a privilege working with you when
    you were Deputy Secretary, and I look forward to working with
    you in this new capacity, and Assistant Secretary Burnison, who
    has done an exceptional job with congressional relations. We
    really appreciate this as we work together to do great things
    for our Nation.
        As you know, I have the great privilege of representing the
    people of Oak Ridge, the birthplace of the Manhattan Project,
    Oak Ridge National Lab, Y-12, the uranium processing facility,
    which is just doing so well. It was redesigned and has come out
    of the ground and is just really a tremendous, tremendous
    facility, and testament to the work done by the contractor
    there. And then EM, near and dear to my heart, as I am the
    national co-chair of the EM caucus. Oak Ridge has a lot of work
    to do, so, it has been a pleasure working with you in all those
    endeavors.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you, sir. You are very kind to
    say that.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Mr. Secretary, I want to start with the
    SNS Second Target Station. I am very excited about the plans
    for the construction of the second target station at the
    Spallation Neutron Source; was happy to support the $37 million
    to complete the conceptual design in fiscal year 2020's budget.
    It is going to enable wholly new capabilities to examine the
    structure and dynamics of materials from polymers to proteins
    to catalysts. There is already an extensive report outlining
    the first experiments that will take advantage of the second
    target station. It is also going to double the capacity of SNS,
    which is currently oversubscribed by a factor of three. The
    project is critical to maintaining U.S. leadership in neutron
    sciences, and I am thankful that the committee provided and
    that Congress approved the $37 million to complete the
    conceptual design in fiscal year 2020, and readied the project
    for CD-1 review and start construction.
        Mr. Secretary, sir, when do you anticipate making the
    decision about CD-1 so construction can move forward, sir?
        Secretary Brouillette. We anticipate making that decision
    toward the end of this calendar year or, perhaps, the first
    quarter of next year.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. I am going to turn to high-
    performance computing. I know Exascale computing is a high
    priority for the Department, as it is for me and this
    committee. And this committee has very heavily favored this
    with its funding. And this will help not only DOE science, but
    energy, but also national security missions, but also will help
    the Nation's economic and technical competitiveness. Are still
    things on track to deploy Exascale systems in 2021 as planned,
    sir?
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Would that be with Frontier, sir?
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, it would be.
        Mr. Fleischmann. OK, thank you. On nuclear cleanup,
    environmental cleanup has been an area where the Department of
    Energy has had great success recently, including at our site in
    Oak Ridge. The Office of Environmental Management oversees
    projects that are being completed ahead of schedule while
    reducing environmental risks, thus delivering a sound return on
    investment for the American taxpayer.
        In Oak Ridge we are nearing completion on the first major
    cleanup in nearly a decade and starting a next phase of cleanup
    on the Oak Ridge Reservation. This next phase will pave the way
    for growth of the critical science and natural security
    missions. With this track record of sustained success and
    accelerated risk reduction, sir, can we count on the Department
    to continue to prioritize environmental cleanup funding at Oak
    Ridge?
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes. There is no question about
    that, sir. The EM program overall is making significant
    progress all throughout the complex. So, I will give you just a
    few quick examples. You know, in Hanford--I am sorry, at the
    INL, sir. I was thinking about Mr. Newhouse over here.
        Mr. Newhouse. Do not get those two confused.
        Secretary Brouillette. I will not get those two confused.
        Mr. Fleischmann. We love them both, but just not as much as
    Oak Ridge.
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, but we have two tank waste.
    That is what I was thinking about the tank waste, and I am
    always drawn to Hanford when I mention tank waste, but at INL
    the IWTU, we are on track, on target for that. And the Savannah
    River, obviously, the Salt Waste Processing Facility, we are
    going to start up those two major facilities this year.
        And, sir, with regard to Oak Ridge the ETTP, we have
    already--we are going to clean that up this year. We are going
    to finish that project. We have already received interest from
    outside parties who are interested in utilizing that particular
    facility. So, we are excited about that. We are going to
    continue that progress as we move forward.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir. Two quick questions. H-A-
    L-E-U, please tell us why it is important for America to have a
    fully domestic H-A-L-E-U enrichment capacity?
        Secretary Brouillette. It is important for the reasons that
    we talked about earlier with Mr. Simpson. The development of
    these small microreactors requires a higher enrichment. It
    requires a higher enriched uranium in order for it to be more
    efficient. As you make the reactor smaller, the fuel has to be
    enriched to a higher level. We announced a program last year.
    We are committed to that program. What we are looking to do is
    to catalyze the market. We are hopeful that private industry
    will see this as a market signal by the U.S. Government that we
    are looking to regain our leadership in the nuclear industry.
    So, that is the purpose of it, that is why HALEU is important.
    And as we move forward, we will exit the business once we see
    the market signal take off.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Madam Chair, I am beyond my time, but I
    have one quick question, if I may, on rare earth metals, for a
    quick response.
        Ms. Kaptur. Please.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madam Chair. The President, as
    Mr. Simpson talked about a uranium reserve for our country, and
    we appreciate that so much. We understand that there are
    certain rare earths out there. Will the Department be willing
    to look at other rare earth metals and minerals in that regard
    to what would be necessary to protect our interests?
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, we are. Those metals are very
    important for us as we look at this next generation of battery
    storage. We must have it. We must end our dependency on
    countries like China who are, literally, adversaries to the
    United States.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir. I yield back. Thank you,
    Mr. Secretary.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Congressman Newhouse.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair. Secretary
    Brouillette, thank you for being here with us. Let me add my
    voice of congratulations to your confirmation as Secretary.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Newhouse. I might say that I am guessing you are an
    inspiration to many of the staffers on this committee to reach
    the highest position, maybe some of the Members, too.
        Secretary Brouillette. You trained me well, though.
        Mr. Newhouse. But, anyway, congratulations to you.
        Certainly, the Department of Energy, as you know, has a
    huge footprint in my district in eastern Washington. Looking
    forward, very much, to partnering and working with you. So, let
    me just say about the proposed budget that is before us and
    characterize it in two ways. We have good news, but we also
    have some bad news, and I will talk about the good news first.
        You talked about this a little bit already, but as you
    mentioned, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in my
    district, certainly one of the crown jewels of the lab system
    for the Department of Energy, we are very proud of it, all of
    its research and development efforts. One of the lab's areas of
    unique expertise is in the grid-scale energy storage, which you
    already mentioned. That is going to be critical to the electric
    grid of the future, and so critical to the country's future. I
    think all of us would agree that a reliable and an affordable
    energy storage is critical to maintaining a resilient grid as
    we modernize and bring more renewal sources online, and you
    addressed that.
        One critical element of that work is the Grid Storage
    launchpad facility at the lab. And I am certainly delighted to
    see such strong support from the administration for that effort
    in the budget, so, a couple things on that. I would like you to
    walk us through the administration's thinking on this important
    effort, why it is such an important priority for the Department
    and our energy storage goals. Also, how will the grid storage
    launch pad benefit the greater R&D moonshot goals on energy
    storage? And also, could you talk about the strategy that you
    are deploying through the office of electricity funding in this
    budget, not only for the construction of the facility, but also
    to ensure that the Department is ready and armed with the
    requisite equipment and personnel that is going to be needed
    into the future to be successful?
        Secretary Brouillette. Great. Thank you for that, sir. This
    is an absolutely critical facility for us. As I mentioned
    earlier in the testimony, the adoption of renewable
    technologies has grown at an enormous clip. I was just handed
    this morning a report from EIA that says that wind energy for
    the first time is going to exceed hydroelectric energy in the
    United States. That is a very important development and we want
    to see that continue. As the President has mentioned in the
    past, as former Secretary Perry and I have talked about for
    some time now, we do believe that energy diversity, diversity
    of supply, diversity of suppliers is important to our energy
    security as well as our national security. So, all of these
    renewable technologies need to come online.
        In the past what has allowed them to come online is the
    provision of baseload power. We need to move beyond that. We
    need to get to what I mentioned earlier is grid-scale battery
    storage, and that allows people to move even further, perhaps
    even to one day where we achieve a goal of 100 percent
    renewables. Who knows? It is not available today; we cannot do
    it today. We have to have this type of facility in order for us
    to do the research that is necessary to achieve the battery
    technologies that we all want to achieve. So, we are going to
    be fully committed to this. In the budget, you will see we have
    established a grand challenge around this. We have asked for
    money, $158 million or so, that is going to go into this
    initiative. And should you provide it, we will focus
    specifically on these technologies.
        With regard to the other work that PNNL is doing, I will
    just mention quickly, they are not only key to battery storage.
    As I mentioned earlier, all of our supercomputing efforts, all
    of our big data efforts are centered at PNNL. Their expertise
    in this area is absolutely essential. Their expertise in
    artificial intelligence is absolutely essential if we are to
    achieve any of our renewable goals anywhere in the country.
        Mr. Newhouse. Excellent. I look forward to continue working
    with you and look forward to a second round of questions.
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, sir. Thank you.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Congresswoman Frankel.
        Ms. Frankel. Thank you. Thank you for being here, Mr.
    Secretary.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you, ma'am.
        Ms. Frankel. Let us see. I want to talk about nuclear
    weapons and the New START Treaty. The New START Treaty is the
    final linchpin in the United States-Russian nuclear arms
    control. If it is not extended, I think it was signed in almost
    10 years ago, February 2011. And if it is not extended, the
    Russian and United States nuclear arsenals will be
    unconstrained. It is due to expire February 2021. So I have
    some questions relative to that. Let me just have a drink of
    water first.
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure. I may do the same if you don't
    mind.
        Ms. Frankel. You, too. It is our Marco Rubio moment.
        Secretary Brouillette. Perfect. Perfect, perfect. That is
    so good.
        Ms. Frankel. I can say that, I am from Florida.
        Secretary Brouillette. That is so good.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. Do you, Mr. Secretary, do you know what
    the current status of the administration's review of the New
    START Treaty?
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, ma'am. We have not yet begun
    the conversations on New START, but I fully expect that they
    will start soon. As a member of the National Security Council,
    we are going to be a part of that conversation and it is my
    expectation that we will be asked to provide technical advice
    all along the process. But those conversations have not yet
    started.
        Ms. Frankel. Do you have an opinion whether the treaty
    should be extended or not?
        Secretary Brouillette. I don't have a personal opinion,
    ma'am. I will reserve judgment on that, but I am happy to
    follow up with you.
        Ms. Frankel. Have you evaluated what would be the potential
    impacts to our nuclear stockpiles should the New START Treaty
    not be extended?
        Secretary Brouillette. I am sorry, ma'am, say that again.
        Ms. Frankel. Yes, I will say it again. What do you believe
    are the potential impacts to the nuclear stockpiles should the
    New START Treaty not be extended?
        Secretary Brouillette. I think it would depend on what
    agreements were struck as part of those conversations and who
    might be a part of them.
        There has been some conversation about extending the treaty
    to third parties, perhaps China, others. I think it would
    depend somewhat on the outcome of those conversations.
        Ms. Frankel. I think China has a much reduced amount of
    nuclear weaponry than either Russia or the United States?
        Secretary Brouillette. That would be fair to say.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. I just hope that is not an excuse to get
    out of it.
        Secretary Brouillette. No. I am not presenting it as an
    excuse. I would reserve judgment on the actual impacts to our
    stockpile such that we just need to find out who might be a
    party to the conversation and a party to the treaty.
        Ms. Frankel. Thank you. I yield back, Madam.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congresswoman Kirkpatrick.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much. Arizona has a
    significant Native American population and Tribal energy needs
    are especially important to me. And so I really have three
    questions around the Indian Energy Policy and Programs Office.
        It was cut by 64 percent and eliminates the Tribal Energy
    Loan Guarantee Program. How would cutting and eliminating these
    programs affect Tribes that are pursuing energy security and
    resilience, particularly those pursuing clean energy?
        How is DOE working with the Tribes to help them develop
    their own energy resources and develop clean energy? And what
    steps is DOE taking to better communicate and work more
    effectively with Tribes to make sure they are informed about
    the availability of these Federal energy programs and how to
    access them?
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you for the question, ma'am. I
    think that last point that you just made is perhaps the most
    important point that--or the most important focal point that we
    could have at the Department of Energy.
        We tend to call it capacity building within the Department.
    I can't tell you on any given day exactly what that means. What
    I do know is what I saw when I traveled out and met with the
    Tribes. And what I saw were people who were completely unaware
    of the programs that we have at DOE.
        The reason for the reduction in the amounts or the accounts
    that you see there is that there are carryover balances that we
    need to expend. We need to work with the Tribes to, one, help
    educate them as to the availability of the money, but what I
    noticed as well is that they need assistance in basic things,
    like filling out the forms and understanding the process by
    which the government makes the decisions. And I want to work
    more closely with the Tribes to do exactly that. While it
    sounds basic, it is critically important that we do that. I
    don't know exactly what each Tribe needs. What I saw was some
    pretty advanced things.
        I was up in Alaska not that long ago with Senator
    Murkowski. She invited me up and we flew out to some very
    remote locations. And I was, on the one hand, dismayed to see
    that they didn't realize that we had assistance available to
    them. I must say that, on the other hand, I was stunned by some
    of the conversations I had. They were speaking about things
    like hydrogen energy. I mean, we were in parts of Alaska where
    literally Amazon has never been heard of much less delivered.
    They just don't go.
        But yet, here was a small Tribe talking about how do we get
    to hydrogen, how do we get to this advanced type of energy? And
    I want us to be there to help them do that. I think it is very
    important that we do.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. There is a special interest in the
    Arizona Tribes in alternative energy, using wind and solar and
    that is a real opportunity. A lot of these communities don't
    have access to the grid and so if they can produce energy
    internally, in their communities, that is more easily
    distributed. Do you have any sense of how you are involved in
    any of that local development of those alternative energy
    sources?
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure. Not only on the development of
    the production of the energy itself through wind and solar
    technologies, which obviously in Arizona you are blessed with,
    you have plenty of. What we are looking to do is to advance the
    research and development on microgrids. How do microgrids work?
    How do they remain stable? How do you maintain the frequency
    and the requirements that you need to keep the grid stable in
    such a small environment with an intermittent production of
    energy?
        Those are the advances that we need to make very quickly so
    that these Indian reservations, as well as other parts of the
    country that are just in remote locations, have access to. So
    that is our commitment. That is what we want to work on. That
    is our request to you for funding is focused on those types of
    activities.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. And what is the actual footprint of the
    microgrids?
        Secretary Brouillette. It depends on what you want to do. I
    mean, you could have as many as 1,000 homes or 2,000 homes or
    you could have it as small as 3 or 4. You could scale it up and
    down.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. So that is one of the advantages is that
    you have flexibility to address the needs of the community.
        Secretary Brouillette. You do. You can scale it up or down,
    but the key for us is understanding how to maintain the
    stability of the grid itself.
        You have to have so much energy on the grid for it to
    function all throughout the grid. And it is more challenging
    than it may appear on first blush, but that is our focus.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you for answering my questions.
    Thank you, Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Congressman Pocan.
        Mr. Pocan. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you, Mr.
    Secretary, for being here.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Pocan. And I just want to say you are the second
    cabinet secretary today for a couple of us. I couldn't get
    answers to yes and no questions earlier, but your clarity,
    knowledge, and expertise when giving answers is leaps and
    bounds above what we had this morning. Thank you so very much.
    Really, you have brought me some reassurance back. A couple
    things. Let me say just to start I want to thank you, for one,
    the support for Moly-99. We really appreciate that.
        As you know there are a couple companies that have been
    working on that within my district. You put the grants out;
    this has been tremendously helpful.
        Secretary Brouillette. You are kind to say that, thank you.
        Mr. Pocan. And we know that also there are some cooperative
    agreements that were previously put out and funded in fiscal
    year 2020 that are currently being awarded. We look forward to
    seeing that outcome as well. But I just want to say thank you
    on that front.
        Secretary Brouillette. You are kind to say that and I want
    to give you my personal assurance that we are going to continue
    to move that along.
        You may be aware that I just recently made a decision.
    Under the law I was allowed to extend the band, if you will,
    for HEU for a short amount of time. I was allowed to do that
    for up to 6 years. I chose to move it much shorter than that, 2
    years, because I want to see the companies in your district and
    other parts around the world come up and produce this important
    isotype with LEU.
        I think that is a critical step forward for us for our
    nonpro, but as well as just servicing the market itself. So
    thank you for your support of that program and I look forward
    to working with you.
        Mr. Pocan. No, appreciate it. Thank you. Also, University
    of Wisconsin Madison is in my district. A lot of money comes in
    through the Department of Energy----
        Secretary Brouillette. Outstanding university.
        Mr. Pocan. Thank you very much. Go Badgers. And our chair
    went to the University of Wisconsin Madison as well, so we like
    to give them extra credit----
        Secretary Brouillette. LSU is still the national champion
    so. We will put it right there. Just for the record.
        Ms. Kaptur. Just to interject, when I was there, they
    didn't win a game. If anything, it has improved so much.
        Mr. Pocan. Yes. A very quick aside. She came to an alumni
    program here in town and sang a song that everyone was shocked
    that she knew the words to and people who were current staff
    there didn't and so she is a true Badger and we appreciate it.
        So, but a lot of money comes in. We appreciate that. I
    think it is $87.6 million in federally funded energy research
    in the 2018, 2019 academic year.
        One concern, though, that the budget does have a $1.2
    billion cut to the Office of Science. A lot of that funding not
    only comes to my university, but 300 academic institutions and
    others around the country. Can you address that issue for me?
        Secretary Brouillette. It is a legitimate question and
    concern. I appreciate it. I want to assure you that many of our
    cross-cutting activities throughout the Department, however,
    involve universities like the University of Wisconsin.
        I was just with Paul Dabbar, who is our undersecretary of
    science, and we were talking about some of the projects that I
    know that they will be engaged in, things like quantum
    computing. Paul has been instrumental in creating a quantum
    entangled internet, a loop that now goes between Argonne,
    Fermi, and the University of Chicago. The University of
    Wisconsin has indicated interest in joining that and we would
    like them to be a part of that. So we will work closely with
    them.
        But while the absolute numbers look like they have been
    reduced, the cross-cutting efforts throughout the Department
    ensure that those types of important programs are going to move
    forward.
        Mr. Pocan. I just wanted to express that because that is
    obviously still a concern.
        A separate issue, but I think a big concern for someone
    like me, is the huge increase, usually you don't get complaints
    about increases in spending, but, unfortunately, the huge
    increase for Weapons Activities is $2.8 billion above what we
    were told last year was planned for this year's request. It is
    a 48 percent increase above what the agency planned to request
    during the Obama administration. I don't know if this is the
    time, at a time of peace, that nuclear weapons proliferation is
    necessarily the best idea. This is a giant increase in dollars.
    Can you give me some clarity on that?
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure. It is not our intention
    obviously to start an arms race with anyone in the world. That
    is not the intent.
        But within the NNSA, within the weapons complex itself,
    many of the infrastructure projects have been delayed for years
    and we are dealing with infrastructure that now dates back to
    the 1940s. The Manhattan Project was started at Oak Ridge, as
    Mr. Fleischman mentioned earlier. Many of those same buildings
    are still in use.
        So what we have decided to do is to ask Congress for an
    additional amount of money and front load some of these
    infrastructure investment so that we can repair these
    facilities and keep the country safe, keep the country in a
    posture that provides us with a nuclear deterrent.
        But it is not our intention at all to begin an arms race
    with anyone.
        Mr. Pocan. And I think because I have 20 seconds left I
    will submit something for the record. Also just a concern that
    we are developing a new nuclear warhead technology at a time,
    again, I am not happy that we have had a 20 percent increase in
    the last 3 years in defense spending period in this county, but
    now especially around nuclear weapons it is a huge concern, but
    I will submit that for the record.
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Pocan. And thank you very much for your comments.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you. I would be happy to take
    that for the record.
        Mr. Pocan. I yield back. Sure, thank you. I yield back,
    Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Congresswoman Wassermann Schultz.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr.
    Secretary, welcome. Since the SEC was invoked I will give you a
    hearty go Gators.
        Secretary Brouillette. I respect that.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I will avoid chomping in the middle
    of the hearing.
        Secretary Brouillette. I respect that.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But also go SEC. Mr. Secretary, I
    want to follow up on what my colleague, Mr. Pocan, asked you
    about because I am very concerned over the recently publicized
    battle which you appear to have not mentioned or downplayed in
    your response to Mr. Pocan.
        But there was quite a bit of publicity around the battle
    within the administration over NNSA's budget request. So
    clearly we have to have a credible, reliable nuclear deterrent.
    We have to do that cost effectively and responsibly and I can
    appreciate your answer to Mr. Pocan. But this request does not
    reflect that.
        The $19.8 billion in total that you are requesting for NNSA
    is a whopping $3.1 billion above the enacted and billions more
    than you projected to need just last year.
        So I am confused and I clearly speak for a few of us at
    least on the subcommittee when I say that it is difficult to
    see why we should have any confidence in this request because
    according to media reports, you supported the lower funding
    level for NNSA.
        So why were you comfortable with this lower amount and
    would the Department still have met its requirements at that
    amount had that been what was put forward?
        Secretary Brouillette. Well, I think it is important to
    take a step back and realize I saw the public numbers as well.
    I did not in any respect cut the NNSA.
        So while the number that we had talked about internally was
    smaller perhaps than what was ultimately presented to the
    Congress, that still represented a significant increase over
    the authorization from the year prior, the NDAA in the year
    prior, as well as the appropriation that was given to NNSA. One
    of the functions of the chief operating officer, if you will,
    the Deputy Secretary, which is where I spent most of my time in
    the Department, is to look for efficiencies and to look not
    only at the top line of these budgets, but the bottom line as
    well.
        We had this very respectful and very appropriate back and
    forth within the Department itself.
        Ultimately, however, the President gets to decide what he
    will submit to Congress and the President made a determination
    that he wanted to with the higher number because it allowed us
    to pull forward, as I had mentioned earlier, some of these
    infrastructure projects.
        And in order to do that, we needed more money. I think it
    is an appropriate process that we have within the Executive
    Branch with OMB and we came to the conclusion--
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Let me just make sure I have time to
    ask my follow-up questions.
        Secretary Brouillette. OK, sure.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I appreciate your response.
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure, sure.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. The drama that was depicted with the
    President's ultimate decision clearly seems to have gone
    outside the normal process for how the numbers would be arrived
    at that would actually be requested.
        Why were the projections about what would be needed in
    future years so wrong or were they not wrong and is it just
    that the President interfered with and overrode the normal
    process that occurs in the budget request process? And how can
    we have confidence that this request and its projections are
    accurate and not just randomly selected by the President of the
    United States?
        Secretary Brouillette. No, the numbers were not wrong. It
    is just a matter of establishing the priorities. And as I said
    earlier, the process was usual and customary. I mean, it is not
    uncommon to have debate as I am sure you have in this committee
    from time to time amongst yourselves as to what the appropriate
    levels of funding are.
        But the President does get to decide at the end of the day
    what he will request of Congress and he came to the conclusion
    that he wanted to move forward with these projects, so we
    adopted the bigger number and send that to Congress.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Before my time expires, I just want
    to clarify. So the way the number was arrived at that was in
    your request, went through the completely normal process and
    there was nothing unusual compared to any other fiscal year
    about the way the number that you have asked for in the budget
    request was arrived at?
        Secretary Brouillette. I can't really speak to prior years,
    but the conversation with OMB, the process that we used
    internally at looking at line item by line item at these
    projects, that all appeared to me to be normal. And as I said,
    the President at the end of the day gets to make the ultimate
    decision.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. And lastly, I want to touch on
    something else related to NNSA. What recommendations would you
    provide to Congress for where NNSA should be housed within the
    Federal Government?
        Should it remain at DOE, should it be made completely
    autonomous, or, and I don't support this last option, should it
    be housed within DOD?
        Secretary Brouillette. That is an important question that
    has been around. I was either blessed or cursed to be around as
    a young staffer on the Energy and Commerce Committee when some
    of these decisions were thought of back 20 years ago.
        It is my personal view that I think it is appropriately
    housed in the manner in which it is housed at DOE. Civilian
    control of the nuclear weapons complex in my personal view is
    very, very important. So I would not support a move to DOD.
        With regard to its independent status, I do not think that
    is the appropriate answer as well. I think it is very important
    that these agencies have cabinet level accountability as well
    as oversight, so I think it is appropriately housed within the
    Department of Energy today.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair, I yield
    back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Congresswoman, very much. Mr.
    Secretary, your request includes $27\1/2\ million to fund
    interim storage for nuclear waste and oversight of the Nuclear
    Waste Fund itself. When announcing that the request would not
    include funding for Yucca Mountain, the President tweeted and I
    quote, ``My administration is committed to exploring innovative
    approaches.''
        What specific actions is the Department proposing in this
    request to support innovative approaches to storing nuclear
    waste? And how are these proposed activities different than
    activities that have been carried out with funds previously
    provided by Congress over the last several years? And will the
    Department move forward with siting or licensing activities for
    an interim storage facility?
        Secretary Brouillette. With regard to the last question,
    the answer is no. We are not going to proceed with licensing of
    Yucca Mountain, and we won't proceed with licensing of an
    interim Federal facility.
        Ms. Kaptur. You will not?
        Secretary Brouillette. No, we can't. My understanding under
    the Nuclear Waste Policy Act we are prohibited from starting
    construction on an interim facility, a Federal facility. So, we
    will not pursue that.
        What we are intending to do with the $27 million is to,
    one, maintain our fiduciary responsibility for the Yucca
    Mountain site in the State of Nevada. We do need to protect the
    site. We do need to meet the environmental requirements that
    are established both at the state and Federal level.
        My simple point is that we can't walk away from it. We
    can't simply walk away from it because we have a fiduciary
    obligation to maintain it. It is Federal property. So, some of
    that money will be used as we refer to as guns, gates, and
    guards to maintain oversight of the facility.
        The rest of the money we would propose to begin development
    of options and look at alternatives for interim storage. So, it
    is the initial planning of a potential Federal site at some
    point in the future. But that preliminary work would be what we
    intend to use the $27\1/2\ million for.
        Ms. Kaptur. So, you are saying that you can't even begin to
    identify sites, or you are unwilling to begin to identify sites
    and licensing? That you are prohibited in doing so?
        Secretary Brouillette. My understanding of the Nuclear
    Waste Policy Act is that we cannot take title to spent nuclear
    fuel without the Yucca Mountain Project moving forward.
    Progress must be made on Yucca Mountain in order for us to move
    forward and put a shovel in the ground and begin the
    development of an interim facility.
        The law does not prohibit us, is my understanding, to
    develop options to look forward, perhaps, to that day. And that
    is what we intend to do withthe $27\1/2\ million.
        Ms. Kaptur. So, give us a little more detail on that as you
    proceed forward on this. I think there is some measured support
    on the subcommittee for interim solutions, so--and in the
    Senate as well. So, what might we expect?
        Secretary Brouillette. Well, it is a bit premature, a bit
    early. My intention would be to work with you. It would be to
    work with other policymakers, perhaps at the state level or
    Federal level, certainly, with our national laboratories, and
    collectively come up with some of the answers that I think you
    are seeking.
        But at this point in time, we have not even begun the
    process. We will wait for approval from Congress to begin that.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. Mr. Secretary, I have long said we
    must have a credible, reliable nuclear deterrent, but we must
    do so cost-effectively and responsibly. This budget request, in
    my opinion, does neither. And I am concerned that this is
    simply sprinting toward a cliff or toward failure.
        What I mean is that the nuclear weapons complex is at
    capacity from both a workforce and a manufacturing perspective.
    We have heard this from so many sources, from our past NNSA
    administrators, for one. And we even heard, recently, from
    Admiral Richard of STRATCOM that NNSA can only absorb so much
    work at one time. Yet, this budget request includes a $3.1
    billion increase, continuing to put more pressure on a system
    that already is laboring hard.
        This is both a question of funding and capacity at NNSA as
    it continues to modernize. So, if everything is a priority,
    maybe nothing is a priority. And will you commit to working
    with us to prioritize this budget request, including options to
    rebalance NNSA's unrealistic and risky workload, to do
    something that is more manageable while meeting defense needs?
        Secretary Brouillette. Madam Chair, I will always work with
    the committee to do exactly that. We have put forward a request
    that we think meets the needs of NNSA. You are absolutely
    correct, the agency is being asked to do a lot. Part of what we
    would like to do, as I mentioned earlier, the expansion of
    infrastructure is key. That is part of our capacity problem.
        The other part of our capacity problem is what you and I
    discussed prior to the hearing beginning. It is the development
    of talent. It is the recruitment of talent. It is bringing in
    the right scientists. It is bringing in people from the right
    STEM fields. It is getting them into our processes really
    early, really fast. That is all part of our request, of that
    $19.8 billion.
        Ms. Kaptur. Has the Department done any analysis looking at
    the current workload and options to give NNSA more breathing
    room?
        Secretary Brouillette. I think that is an ongoing process.
    It is something that we do literally every day. That is why we
    rely on many of our contractors and they tend to be very
    flexible. They tend to be very adaptable to the mission, as
    well as our needs. But it is an ongoing process within, not
    only the NNSA, but the Department of Energy writ large.
        Ms. Kaptur. Can you share that ongoing process with us and
    any analysis you might be doing internally?
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure, I would be happy to do that
    with you. I would be happy to do that. I am happy to make
    myself available to you or your staff and come back and give
    you a very detailed briefing on it.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. First, just a comment. It would seem to me--
    you don't have to respond to this, but it would seem to me that
    it would be wiser to seek the legislative changes that would be
    necessary to move ahead with interim storage if that is the
    road we move down. And we all believe that interim storage is
    going to be necessary no matter what we do. But to seek those
    legislative changes before we do it then, rather to go out and
    examine and find out what we can do and then seek legislative
    changes and find out maybe Congress doesn't want to do it. So,
    I am just looking at from that perspective. But that is not a
    question.
        Secretary Brouillette. It shouldn't be any problem.
        Mr. Simpson. Let me ask you a couple of other short
    questions. One is, what is the status of WIPP? Could you
    provide us with an update on the status and when do you
    anticipate WIPP being back up and running at capacity, and how
    does this affect the 2021 budget request? How does that affect
    this timeline?
        Secretary Brouillette. I think what we are hoping to do is
    get WIPP fully up and running within the next 12 to 14 to 15
    months.
        There is a ventilation project that you are aware of. That
    is coming along nicely. We hope to complete that work this
    year, perhaps later this year. Importantly, though, the WIPP
    facility itself is functioning very, very well.
        I appreciate your support, sir, the agreement that we
    struck with your state, your governor, your attorney general.
    Their shipments will continue. They will continue on time. And
    as soon as we can get the IWTU working properly, we will move
    that waste out of there as soon as we can.
        But to answer your question very succinctly, WIPP is
    operating very, very fine right at the moment. We hope to
    expand its capacity and upgrade its facilities within the next
    12 to 14 months.
        Mr. Simpson. I want to thank you, personally, and your
    Department for working with Governor Little and Attorney
    General Wasden to update the Idaho settlement agreement. It was
    very important to Idaho, and I think it was very important to
    the Federal Government, also.
        While the administration, Congress, and the states work
    toward a solution to storage and disposal of used fuel, it
    seems to me that the Department of Energy should be doing what
    it can now to get the used fuel in Idaho road ready by
    characterizing it and packaging it like the Navy does.
        Is DOE considering including that type of scope in the next
    Idaho cleanup contract, which is coming up? And if not, would
    you be willing to take a look at how that scope might be
    incorporated and get back to me? Are there other steps that we
    can take to get EM and NE working together to get used fuel in
    Idaho road ready?
        Secretary Brouillette. I would certainly be open to that
    conversation. And I would be happy to follow-up with you.
        Mr. Simpson. OK.
        Secretary Brouillette. And it is something I think we need
    to think through.
        Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it.
        And, finally, I just want to ask you, in fiscal year 2018,
    the fiscal year 2018 Act, we included direction to both the
    Department of Energy and the comptroller general to review
    certain aspects of the Department's Payment in Lieu of Taxes or
    PILT programs. GAO released its report this past October. DOE's
    response in that report stated that, ``A working group would be
    convened to identify high-level options for the program and to
    recommend any necessary and appropriate changes to DOE
    leadership for review and approval by March 31, 2020.'' What is
    the status of the DOE review on that? And is the working group
    activities identified with the GAO report?
        Secretary Brouillette. Still working on it.
        Mr. Simpson. Still working on it?
        Secretary Brouillette. Still working on it, and I
    understand your concerns very, very clearly. And I will come
    back up and personally brief you.
        Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. It has been a pet peeve of
    mine. And it is not--
        Secretary Brouillette. I recognize that.
        Mr. Simpson. The different sites out there, kind of--some
    of them get great PILT payments, others don't even get any PILT
    payments. I am not trying to take anybody's PILT payment or
    anything else. I am just trying to make a standard across the
    Department. Thank you.
        Secretary Brouillette. I agree with you. I think it is
    important that we understand what the impacts of a uniform
    approach would be. But as soon as we are done with that working
    group, and as soon as I get a little bit more clarity on their
    findings, I will come up and personally brief you on it.
        Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thanks
    for being here today.
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, sir, thank you for having me.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congressman Fleischmann.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, again, Madam Chair.
        And this has been a great hearing, Mr. Secretary. I really
    appreciate this.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir.
        While I was sitting here, I began to think about a new
    initiative of the Department, and I want to praise and laud you
    for that. This is AI.
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure.
        Mr. Fleischmann. We were asked last year to fund that and I
    believe we did that at $2.5 million. I thought that was the
    right move. I was very pleased to see that the President has
    requested, I think, $5 million in that budget.
        Secretary Brouillette. He did.
        Mr. Fleischmann. So, I think, again, another great move in
    the right direction. AI is going to be critically important.
        Mr. Secretary, you had mentioned PNNL. I appreciate that. I
    did not know that they were as well advanced in AI. Do we see
    the potential for more of the national labs participating in
    that endeavor? And I just would like your thoughts on that.
        Secretary Brouillette. Well, I certainly didn't mean to
    exclude the good work that is being done at Oak Ridge.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Yes, sir. No, I did not think any----
        Secretary Brouillette. They are, you know--as you know,
    they have the fastest supercomputer in the world at the summit
    program there. But they are also leaders in AI as well. And I
    look forward to working with Dr. Zacharia and others at Oak
    Ridge to move forward.
        What we have done at the Department of Energy and under
    former Secretary Perry's leadership is created sort of a
    coordinating office. And that is the office that you are
    referring to. There are many, many efforts all throughout DOE
    that are focused on AI. And what we attempted to do is to
    create an office to kind of collaborate and pull those efforts
    together so that we could perhaps focus them on a few key
    areas. I mentioned one earlier, the integration of renewables
    into our electric grid. That is a perfect application for AI.
        You may recall from last year's hearing Secretary Perry
    initiated an effort with HHS and with the Veterans
    Administration to look at treatment records so that we could
    maybe identify things that work perhaps better than others on
    brain injuries. So, dealing with PTSD or concussions, if we can
    identify treatments that have worked in a much more aggressive
    and faster way, then it will help, you know, doctors treat
    these things in real time.
        And we just have found so many applications for this
    technology, but--
        Ms. Kaptur. Would the gentleman yield on that point?
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Kaptur. I know Secretary Perry and Congressman Gonzalez
    of Ohio have a deep interest on the imaging issues and the
    brain analysis. Has DOE written anything on that or could you
    bring the committee up to date by providing some additional
    information to the record?
        Secretary Brouillette. I would be happy to reply for the
    record. I would be happy to share with you some of the initial
    findings that we have.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        Secretary Brouillette. I would be happy to do that, Madam
    Chair.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Once again, Mr. Secretary, I want to
    applaud and laud the Department for choosing to create this
    office of AI. I think it is going to be a great way to
    coordinate all of your efforts, and we will fully support--or I
    will fully support that.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congressman Newlove.
        Mr. Newhouse. Newhouse.
        Ms. Kaptur. We have a real estate company in northwest
    Ohio. I apologize. That is Newlove Realty. So, I have to really
    concentrate here.
        Mr. Newhouse. I wasn't sure what to say back to you, Madam.
        But thank you, Madam Chair.
        Secretary Brouillette. That is funny.
        Mr. Newhouse. So, Mr. Secretary, I promised you there was
    good news, but there is also bad news.
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure.
        Mr. Newhouse. And so I wanted to get to that part of my
    questioning. And just let me tell you directly, and I know that
    this has been brought up already. I can't tell you how
    disappointed I was to see this administration playing politics
    with something as important as completing the permanent
    solution to our Nation's high-level nuclear waste.
        I was recently, just the week before last, invited to the
    White House to talk about Yucca Mountain and I expressed my
    concerns directly to everybody that I could except for the
    President himself.
        Simply put, the law of the land is that Yucca Mountain is
    this Nation's sole permanent repository for high-level waste.
    And this budget pointing to, I think, what you characterize as
    a reinvention of the wheel is, in my humble opinion, a total
    waste of resources and a distraction from solving this very
    important issue for this whole country.
        Nobody in this Congress, no district, is more dependent on
    Yucca Mountain as Washington State's 4th. The Hanford Site's
    high-level nuclear waste is destined for Yucca Mountain. And,
    Madam Chair, no obfuscation, no politization of this issue, be
    it from Republicans, and we have seen it from Democrats, will
    change the fact that this is the law.
        And so, Mr. Secretary, I am disappointed. I told the powers
    that be in the White House that I will fight this with
    everything I have got. I just wanted to be on record with you
    so you know where I am coming from. This is important to the
    people of the State of Washington. Just as importantly, it is
    important to this country that we continue working on this very
    important project that we have already put upwards of $15
    billion literally into a hole in the ground that would be a
    sure sign of fiscal irresponsibility for us to just stop.
        Very much related to this, as you know, there are no less
    than 56 million gallons of nuclear waste stored in temporary
    underground storage tanks at the Hanford Site. The Federal
    Government has a moral and a legal obligation to cleanup this
    waste. And I know the Department of Energy is committed to
    that. But I was truly disappointed to see proposed cuts of over
    $700 million from the current levels for the Hanford cleanup in
    fiscal year 2021 in the budget request.
        I probably don't have to tell you this, but I will, at the
    proposed funding level, cleanup efforts would be profoundly
    impacted for the worse, and a number of important and
    successful efforts would be halted, including the 300-296 waste
    site remediation under the 324 building, the 200 West area
    groundwater pump and treat operations, the proactive sitewide
    risk mitigation, and work at the Waste Encapsulation and
    Storage Facility, the WESF, would be impacted.
        In order for the U.S. Government to fulfill its obligation,
    consistent and predictable funding is absolutely critical. I
    don't think I need to point out that the Environmental
    Management is the third largest liability across the entirety
    of our Federal Government. Anything less only prolongs cleanup
    and dramatically increases the costs.
        So, respectfully, Mr. Secretary, I do not believe the
    proposed level of funding meets the Federal Government's
    obligations in what is needed to ensure success at Hanford,
    both in the near term, but also on into the future.
        Secretary Brouillette. Thank you for that, Mr. Newhouse. I
    appreciate your concerns. The short answer is, yes, I do
    believe the President's current budget allows us to meet the
    moral obligations that we have to the State of Washington, as
    well as to the Nation.
        The reductions that you see in our budget are taken
    primarily from what we refer to as carryover funding. The
    Congress has been extremely generous to us with regard to the
    EM program. As you know and as we discussed earlier, none of
    the projects that are currently underway are scheduled for
    startup, i.e., DFLAW, this year will be affected by this
    request. We fully intend to hot start DFLAW this year.
        And the other projects that we are proud of in 2019 and we
    will continue accomplishing in 2020 are things like the K-basin
    cleanup. We moved some of the facilities away. We were able to
    stop those activities from endangering any of the groundwater
    or any of the river water, the Columbia River. We are very
    proud of those accomplishments. We will continue those.
        But I look forward to working with you and I understand
    your concerns. Hanford is a moral obligation for the Nation and
    the State, that we have--I mean, I am sorry, the Nation as I
    mentioned earlier. But it has also been something that I have
    been personally involved with since my earliest days as a
    staffer here on the Hill. I remember distinctly working with
    the Energy and Commerce Committee on this issue 20 years ago.
    And to be honest, I was a bit dismayed to come back 20 years
    later and see that many of the same issues still face us.
        There as been tremendous progress, however, at Hanford. It
    looks dramatically different than when I first visited that
    site in the early 1990s. But yet, there is much more to be
    done. And I look forward to working with you on that.
        Mr. Newhouse. I appreciate that. As I said earlier, I look
    forward to being a partner with you in making sure that we can
    continue the Federal Government's, as you said, legal and moral
    obligation here at Hanford, so, thank you.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Congressman Newhouse.
        Mr. Secretary, your budget proposes deep and arbitrary cuts
    that threaten progress on addressing one of our most pressing
    challenges and that is climate change. We can be a leader in
    exporting clean energy technologies, but not under your budget
    request. There is a significant global market for these types
    of technologies right now and into the future. And your budget
    request significantly disadvantages the United States. What is
    your plan to assure this does not happen?
        Secretary Brouillette. Well, I appreciate your concern,
    Madam Chair. I think as we move forward, though, as I mentioned
    earlier in the hearing, we need to do a couple different
    things. We need to focus on storage. That is where our
    attention needs to be. Renewable technologies are becoming
    somewhat mature in the marketplace. So, for us to focus again
    on these technologies that are now commercially widely
    available seems to us to be inappropriate.
        The market has taken off and we have seen the evidence of
    that in the pricing of the product itself. Wind electricity is
    now trading in some places across our country at 3 cents a
    kilowatt hour, 4 cents a kilowatt hour.
        So, to subsidize or to further those types of technologies
    from a governmental standpoint seems for us to be
    inappropriate. Our focus needs to be on what do we do to get
    these technologies integrated into the grid? What do we need to
    do to get them more widely available at a grid level, not an
    individual level, not at the household level? Anyone can walk
    in today to one of these companies that are usually perched
    outside of a Home Depot or a Lowe's or something like that and
    they can sign up for solar technologies and have those
    installed on their house or go to their local utility and get
    that installed relatively quickly.
        Our challenge is to get that to a grid-scale level. And
    that is what we want to focus on and that is what you see
    reflected in our budget and that is why you see the numbers you
    see.
        Ms. Kaptur. Without the Department of Energy, most of those
    companies wouldn't have moved into the 21st century at this
    point. So, I don't think we share a point of view on that, but
    hopefully we can find a way to blend our interests on this one.
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure. I think our goals are the
    same. I don't think we disagree on the ultimate goal. And I
    think you see that in the approach that we have taken with
    regard to the provision of energy and the energy policy that I
    think the previous administrations, this administration,
    previous Congresses and this Congress have worked upon. And
    that is why we can point to these records that we have today.
        While we have been able to grow the economy in the country
    by roughly 17 percent, we are also reducing our carbon
    emissions at the same time by about 14 percent. There is no
    other country in the world that can say that. There is no other
    developed country that can say that and there is certainly no
    undeveloped country that can say that.
        So, I think the record speaks for itself and it is due to
    the good work that previous administrations, this
    administration, previous Congresses, this Congress have
    undertaken. So, I think our goals are aligned. Perhaps
    direction may change from here and there, but I look forward to
    working with you on this issue. I think we are fully committed
    to the same outcome.
        Ms. Kaptur. If I look back at the fracking technology that
    exists today, when DOE started inventing it, I don't know how
    many decades it actually took. It was probably close to 2
    decades, wasn't it?
        Secretary Brouillette. A very long time. A very long time,
    about 20 years.
        Ms. Kaptur. And most companies wouldn't do that. We are
    very happy about natural gas now.
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure.
        Ms. Kaptur. But if we really--or solar technologies. I was
    involved with an Ohio company back in the '80s trying to help
    them hang on. Thank God, there was photovoltaic research
    division at the Department of Energy because there wasn't
    anybody in the venture capital world back then that was
    interested. The Department is really important in the basic
    research area so that we can launch more companies faster and
    move some of this really basic research forward.
        Secretary Brouillette. We don't disagree with that. It is
    one of the reasons why we created a chief technology officer
    within the company itself, I mean, within the Department
    itself. It is to move those types of technologies to the
    marketplace as quickly as we possibly can.
        And your example about fracking is exactly right. We helped
    invent the technology, but it wasn't until George Mitchell
    picked it up in the private sector and really utilized it in
    ways that at the time. It is that type of innovation, it is
    that type of entrepreneurship, it is that type of progress that
    we need to see not only with fracking, but with solar
    technologies and, as I mentioned earlier, with nuclear
    technologies. Some of these advanced reactors are absolutely
    critical to any climate goal we may have in the future.
        Ms. Kaptur. I wanted to say a word about workforce
    development if I could.
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. Kaptur. Our energy sector is rapidly changing. And we
    know and you know we need to have a skilled energy workforce
    that can keep up. We have also heard repeatedly from senior
    Department officials and our national labs that the
    Department's workforce is changing. And we aren't producing
    enough American engineers, scientists, and skilled labor and
    trade workers to meet the national need.
        And yet, we are again seeing a budget request that proposes
    to slash many of the very programs that require this workforce.
    And it again cuts or eliminates programs that support workforce
    development.
        I mentioned in my opening statement that solar installers
    are projected to be the fastest-growing job in this country
    over the next 10 years. That is why I am so disheartened to see
    that the budget request proposes to eliminate the Solar Ready
    Vets Program. What role do you believe the Department of Energy
    should have in helping to inspire, to train, perhaps even to
    fund some of the next generation of skilled workers to take
    advantage of these tremendous economic opportunities of the
    future?
        Secretary Brouillette. I would be happy to work with the
    committee on finding very specific programs that we might fund
    to do this. I can tell you from my own personal experience,
    growing up in south Louisiana, starting an early career working
    in the oilfield and working in the pipeline industry, the
    importance of training trades. I have done everything from
    pipefitting to welding to general laborer. And those are all
    skills that may sound simple. You have to learn early on in
    life in order to be successful on an offshore drilling rig. And
    it was so remarkably different than what I saw as a kid, as a
    young roustabout, and as a young pipeline worker. When I went
    onto a deck back then, there was 20 or 30 people moving pipe
    around. When I went onto the deck this time, there was one
    person there, that is it. And he was running
        But my point is that I was able to just last year or year
    before last, as a matter of fact, visit an of a computerized
    operation.
        Well, that skill set is remarkably different than the
    welding skill set that I brought to the table 20, 25 years ago.
    And if we are not preparing for that and we are not planning
    for that today, then we are going to be woefully behind China,
    behind other developing nations in a very near future. So, we
    have to focus on this now.
        One of the things I have done as Secretary and it is a
    small step but I think an important step. Whenever I travel to
    a national laboratory, I make a point of doing an hour or 2-
    hour lunch with young professionals who just started at our
    Department, who just started with one of our contractors within
    the last 5 years. Because I want to know from them what did
    they do to get here, what brought them here, why did they
    choose us as an employer versus Google or some other
    alternative or option that they may have had graduating
    college?
        Understanding those fundamental decisions that people make
    today versus what I made 25 years ago or 30 years ago, I think
    is key for us to find the answer. That is what we have to do.
    But we have to focus on it. It has to be an aggressive effort.
    It has to be intentional. It can't be something we just think
    about or that we assume is happening within the organization.
    Because I can almost assure you, it won't. If we don't focus on
    it, it won't happen.
        So, you have my commitment to that. I would work closely
    with you. If you have specific ideas that you would want me to
    focus on, I would be completely open to that.
        Ms. Kaptur. Well, Mr. Secretary, I think we could start
    with a list of those professions, some of which you have ticked
    off now, that are going to be the most in demand. And let's
    lead with the list. And whether it is NNSA or the Department of
    Energy or the labs themselves, it would be very helpful to
    provide that for the record.
        And last year, we had hearings that dealt with some of the
    workforce development, but I think it would be of great
    interest to this subcommittee to hear from the nuclear Navy. We
    have heard about nuclear welders. I always ask myself, isn't
    there an easier way to do that job? So, maybe we need some
    innovation there.
        But the workforce development responsibility doesn't just
    lie with the Department of Labor or the private sector. Because
    guess what, they have got vacancies and some of them have huge
    needs. I think everybody has to do their part.
        Secretary Brouillette. You are absolutely correct, Madam
    Chair. With all due respect to my colleagues at the Department
    of Labor, I am not sure they understand completely what we need
    in a national laboratory. It is up to us. It is our obligation.
    We are the ones running the national laboratories. We are the
    ones running the Department of Energy. We have to determine our
    own skill sets, our own labor needs, and move aggressively to
    develop them.
        Ms. Kaptur. Now, it took me 38 years to get a gavel on this
    committee, and I want to share is a couple ideas. I am just
    going to use my privilege here for a couple more minutes. I
    won't bore my colleagues too much, but two interests that I
    have that you can answer.
        I care about poor cities. I spent my life trying to rebuild
    places in poor cities that need new value. And one of the ways
    that we can actually help them help themselves is to study
    where they spend the most out of their budget, which is all
    public information, on energy. And they spend it purifying
    water and processing sewage.
        In most of these places, upwards of a third or more of
    their power budget goes to those two functions. Most people
    will say, well, that is not the Department of Energy's job
    because really it is EPA's job to worry about water and about
    sewer. Well, but the power issue isn't their job.
        And an evaluation of, well, let's actually pick the 50
    poorest cities in America and I represent some of them. And it
    isn't just a matter of buying a gauge that you stick on and it
    costs more money and you keep trying to retool old technology.
    But maybe there is something transformative that the Department
    of Energy could invent, even offsite or related to the property
    that these facilities exist on. It is a hidden cost and it is
    enormous.
        Just in northern Ohio, and it was hard to get this
    information because nobody thinks about it, between the whole
    lower coastline of Lake Erie, between Cleveland, OH, Lorain,
    OH, a steel town, one of the largest automotive platforms and
    truck platforms in the country, in 10 years, the mayors there
    combined will spend a half a billion dollars. That is a lot of
    money to those places.
        So, I am not saying we should move in small nuclear units.
    But there are solutions that can be adjacent to or one could
    think of how to retool. And I would just ask some attention to
    that.
        Secretary Brouillette. If you will permit me maybe a moment
    of personal privilege perhaps I can introduce an idea that may
    be of interest. The committee has over the years provided very
    generous funding to our laboratories. And as part of that
    process you allow the lab directors to conduct what is known as
    lab-directed research. This may be a perfect project for a
    young scientist coming on board with one of our national
    laboratories. And perhaps together, we can work with the lab
    directors to see if there might be interest under the lab-
    directed research programs to allow some young scientist to
    take this on as a project and develop some solutions.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you for your openness. We provided some
    funding in the advanced manufacturing program at DOE to look at
    it. But I just wanted you to hear it from me.
        Secretary Brouillette. Sure, I appreciate that.
        Ms. Kaptur. And to say these places can't pave their roads.
    So, the need for being able to provide power and to reduce the
    cost, they don't have time to think about it. So, maybe we
    could be of some help.
        Finally, I just wanted to say, we talked about this, put it
    on the record now, but we talked about the building that is the
    U.S. Department of Energy. And I would want to encourage you to
    think about the building envelope better reflecting what you
    do. I am not quite sure how to work with GSA on that or even
    how to work with this subcommittee. But we know we have to
    inspire the next generation. And millions of these young people
    walk around here every year, they come to Washington with their
    parents and they go to the Air and Space Museum across the
    street, they go to the Spy Museum. They go to all these places.
    The Department of Energy has a role to play in this. And DOE
    can communicate with these young people. There is nothing like
    seeing and believing.
        I would encourage you to think about aiming at some middle
    school students, perhaps. Coordinate with the science museums
    across this country. Your communication staff can do that.
    Think about private sector interest that might be able to help
    you sponsor some celebratory days that would over time--over
    time would begin to influence the American people and these
    younger people that we know we want to come into these fields,
    to make it exciting for them.
        And just in repairing your building envelope, finding a
    way, we will try to help. I will do what I can do. But some of
    these new building materials, I remember when I worked for
    President Carter and I wasn't on his energy team, but he wanted
    to put solar up on the building. And when Jim Oberstar, before
    Jim left here within the last decade or so, I think it finally
    happened. But all I remember is Rep. Oberstar complaining all
    the time about why can't we get those solar panels up there at
    the Department of Energy?
        Secretary Brouillette. It is still up there.
        Ms. Kaptur. It is still up there, but it is antiquated, I
    think.
        Secretary Brouillette. I think it puts out 1 kilowatt, I am
    not sure. Enough to turn on two lightbulbs maybe.
        Ms. Kaptur As you think about working with the building
    materials industry or the energy industry, you have friends and
    the Department has friends and they are doing magnificent
    things. Maybe you could have a day where some of the tiny homes
    people come and erect a net zero home. And everybody that walks
    by that month goes, wow, look at that. It is happening in
    America, but it is not reflected here very well. Maybe you
    can't do it physically, maybe you can do it virtually on a
    screen.
        I don't want to belabor it, but I just think that it is
    time for a little refurbishment and for inspiration for the
    country because we know we need it. I have lived long enough to
    know what it was like to be energy-dependent and now to be 90
    percent of the way to independence at the moment, but not for
    the next century, just for the next few years, and that this
    Department has been chugging away, that is a story. That is a
    story. And it shouldn't just be for the specialized energy
    magazines, but it should be on National Geographic, it should
    be in a lot of other places. And it should be in every science
    museum in this country. I ask you to think about that a little
    bit.
        And I would say to my ranking member, do you have any final
    questions or comments?
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I do have just a couple of things
    that have come up since I said goodbye. I was never going to
    say anything about Yucca Mountain at this hearing because,
    frankly, it won't make any difference. But when Mr. Newlove,
    you got a new nickname you know that, don't you? When he
    brought it up, I just wanted to say, as I have told Secretary
    Moniz and Secretary Perry, whatever you do, do not fill in that
    tunnel. That is a $16 billion tunnel and we are going to store
    all the studies that have been done on Yucca Mountain.
        Second, while we like to criticize where we think you are
    deficient in this budget, I do want to thank you for the
    increase requested for Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and
    Emergency Response. That is, I think, one of the biggest
    challenges this country faces. And it is actually a very small
    budget compared to, I think, the challenge we are going to face
    in the future. I appreciate the request for that.
        One other thing I wanted to ask is, you have proposed in
    this budget to move the FUSRAP program from the Corps to DOE.
    Whose idea is that? Is that OMB's or Department of Energy's?
    Because we looked at this last year and we thought, OK, what we
    are going to do is we are going to move the program to DOE.
    That means we will send the money to DOE and DOE is going to
    contract with the Army Corps of Engineers to do exactly what
    they are doing now. That didn't seem like an additional layer
    of government that would be necessary or very efficient in
    cleaning up these sites.
        Secretary Brouillette. Yes, it is a fair point, sir. I
    don't know where the idea originated, but I would be happy to
    get back to you. If you don't mind, I would just like to take
    that question for the record and get back to you in writing.
        Mr. Simpson. I appreciate it. I am not necessarily opposed
    to it. I just don't see what the value of it is. That is kind
    of where I am coming from. Let me rephrase what I think you
    said to Representative Newhouse and I think this is what you
    said. That with this budget we will be able to meet all the
    state agreements we have with the various states on EM, on the
    cleanup agreements unless something really strange happens.
        Secretary Brouillette. Right. Unless there is a curveball
    that I am not aware of, yes.
        Mr. Simpson. OK.
        Secretary Brouillette. And if you don't mind, sir, Madam
    Chair, if I could add another point. My staff handed me a
    question and I think I misspoke when I was talking to
    Congressman Newhouse. The DFLAW, I stated that it was ready for
    hot start. It is actually, we are going to complete
    construction. Hot start won't start until 2023. I wanted to
    correct the record for that, I misspoke. My apologies.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right, thank you. That concludes this
    hearing. Again, I would like to thank Secretary Brouillette for
    joining us today and all of his staff members and those who
    have sat with us this afternoon. I ask that for the hearing
    record, questions for the record and any supporting information
    requested by the subcommittee are delivered in final form to us
    no later than 3 weeks from the time you receive them. Members
    who have additional questions for the record will have until
    the close of business on Tuesday, March 3, to provide them to
    the subcommittee office. This hearing is adjourned.
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                                                 Tuesday, March 3, 2020

                  DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY APPLIED ENERGY PROGRAMS

                                   WITNESSES

    HON. RITA BARANWAL, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR NUCLEAR ENERGY
    ALEXANDER GATES, OFFICE OF CYBERSECURITY, ENERGY SECURITY, AND
        EMERGENCY RESPONSE
    HON. DANIEL SIMMONS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND
        RENEWABLE ENERGY
    HON. BRUCE WALKER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ELECTRICITY
    HON. STEVEN WINBERG, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR FOSSIL ENERGY
        Ms. Kaptur. The subcommittee will come to order. I want to
    thank all of the members for coming. Let us begin our second
    hearing on the Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Request for the
    Department of Energy's Applied Energy programs. Thank you to
    our witnesses for being here.
        We come together this afternoon to discuss the Department
    of Energy's Applied Energy programs, which cover energy
    efficiency, electric grid modernization and security, and
    energy technology such as renewables, nuclear and fossil. The
    energy future of our country depends on the Department of
    Energy's vital investments to achieve breakthroughs to solve
    our toughest energy challenges.
        And if you look at that chart up there, I think it is so
    wonderful to see that as a country, since the Department was
    first created we have actually helped America come out of a
    deep nose dive, in terms of domestic energy independence.
        The Department's programs are at the epicenter of these
    efforts and past successes of your programs have increased
    energy security and resulted in the United States becoming a
    net energy exporter, as shown from the Energy Information
    Administration's chart upon the wall.
        Looking toward fiscal year 2021, however, the Trump
    administration again proposes to cut the Department of Energy's
    budget, this time by an astounding 35 percent in non-defense
    programs. This will limit America's future opportunities by
    drastically reducing or eliminating programs critical for
    meeting our future energy needs and assuring our security.
        These programs have received bipartisan, bicameral support
    precisely because of their crucial role in undergirding our
    economy and preparing our Nation for the futures to come,
    including the clean energy economy. One need look no further
    than a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics listing of key job
    categories seeking employees, and first on the list is solar
    installers, like you see pictured here, to know that these
    programs already are major job creators and we face tremendous
    international competition, and also theft of intellectual
    property developed in this country.
        This budget request also returns to the Trump
    administration's seeming obsession with funding only early-
    stage research and development. As I told Secretary Brouillette
    in last week's hearing, private industry has repeatedly stated
    that they would not fund the kind of middle- and later-stage
    research and development including demonstrations that are
    proposed for elimination in this request.
        Without these critical Federal investments we won't be able
    to move early-stage R&D forward and really continue to launch
    companies to the stage that private investors will pick up the
    work. Abandoning this research sends a blank check to China and
    our global competitors. It turns our back on promising research
    that is critical to reinventing the American energy economy.
    And I am reminded of a quote from Robert Kennedy, ``Some people
    see things as they are and say why, I dream things that never
    were, and say, why not.'' I think it is good to always look to
    the future.
        These ill-advised cuts are almost too frequent to
    enumerate, but allow me to point out a few particular egregious
    examples, all right, energy efficiency and renewable energy
    funding slashed by 74 percent? Really? Technologies like those
    displayed upon the wall will all be cut by 76 to 83 percent,
    including vehicle technologies, bioenergy technologies,
    building technologies and advanced manufacturing.
        Also proposed for elimination, the weatherization program
    which is so pivotal to achieving energy conservation for
    existing structures and helping low-income families, including
    our seniors, to reduce their cost and, frankly, to help us meet
    our goal of energy independence with 40 percent conservation
    across our country.
        Third, carbon-free nuclear energy research and development,
    cut by 21 percent. Carbon capture utilization and storage
    research within Fossil Energy cut by 44 percent. Really?
        And finally, Resilient Distribution Systems within the
    Office of Electricity is cut by nearly 60 percent. That program
    focuses on technologies to ensure that the distribution portion
    of the electric grid can withstand and recover from
    disruptions.
        Given the increasing frequency and severity of storms and
    the potential of increasing cyber attacks, our Nation simply
    cannot cede our future to chance.
        Unfortunately, once again, the President's budget request
    harms American leadership and our energy future, our
    competitiveness, our environment, our workforce, our consumers,
    and our economy.
        With that, I will close my remarks thanking all of you for
    attending today, certainly all of our Department of Energy
    witnesses for being here. We look forward to discussing this
    request and adapting it accordingly.
        I would like to turn to our capable Ranking Member, Mr.
    Simpson, for his opening remarks.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Kaptur follows:]

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        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur. And I appreciate
    your opening remarks. I would like to welcome our five
    witnesses to today's hearing for the Fiscal Year 2021 Budget
    Request from the Department of Energy's Applied Energy
    programs.
        As was made clear at last week's hearings with Secretary
    Brouillette, the budget request for many of these programs is
    not as robust as most of us on this Committee would prefer. We
    should argue now, however, that within the budget request, many
    of the priorities are activities with broad bipartisan support,
    even if at lowered funding levels than some of us would like to
    see.
        For example, the request includes robust funding for
    cybersecurity work, it emphasizes efforts to advance energy
    storage technologies, it recognizes the importance of critical
    minerals to our energy sector and, in turn, to our economic and
    national security.
        From a management perspective, the request focuses
    attention on several cross-cutting initiatives to ensure DOE's
    various offices are working together to better understand and
    address challenges across the energy sector, better
    coordination across programs can help avoid duplication of
    efforts and help spur innovative solutions to those programs.
        There will certainly be areas where Congress will want to
    provide additional resources above the budget request.
    Personally, I would like to see a higher budget for the Office
    of Nuclear Energy to help ensure that the next generation of
    nuclear technologies is led by American technology. Advanced
    nuclear technologies will be necessary to achieve any low-
    carbon energy goals, and have those technologies be American
    technologies, it is important for our economic competitiveness
    and national security.
        To our witnesses; thank you for being here today to explain
    your budget request. I look forward to hearing more about the
    administration's priorities in these areas, and thank you
    again, Ms. Kaptur, for calling this hearing today.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Mr. Simpson. We will now
    turn to our witnesses. First we will have Bruce Walker, the
    Assistant Secretary for the Office of Electricity. Mr. Walker
    previously served as Deputy County Executive, founded a
    consulting firm, focused on electric utilities, and worked for
    several electricity-related companies.
        Next we will have Daniel Simmons, the Assistant Secretary
    for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Mr. Simmons
    previously worked at the Institute for Energy Research at the
    American Legislative Exchange Council, and on the House
    Committee on Natural Resources.
        Following that, we will have Steven Winberg, the Assistant
    Secretary for Fossil Energy. Mr. Winberg has 39 years of
    experience in the energy industry including at Foster Wheeler,
    Consolidated Natural Gas, CONSOL, Energy Research &
    Development, and Battelle Memorial Institute.
        Then we will have Rita Baranwal, the Assistant Secretary
    for Nuclear Energy. Dr. Baranwal previously directed the
    Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear at the Idaho
    National Laboratory, and she also has private sector experience
    at Westinghouse and Battelle.
        And finally we will have Alexander Gates, Senior Advisor
    for Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response. Mr.
    Gates joined the Department of Energy from the National
    Security Agency. He has 4 decades of experience in military and
    civil service-related, to national security, cybersecurity and
    signals intelligence.
        Thank you all for taking the time to be here today. Without
    objection your written statements will be entered into the
    record. Please feel free to summarize your remarks in about 3
    minutes each, starting with Assistant Secretary Walker.

                     STATEMENT OF HON. BRUCE WALKER

        Mr. Walker. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member
    Simpson and Members of Committee, thank you for the opportunity
    to appear before you today to discuss the fiscal year 2021
    request for the Office of Electricity, OE.
        Today we are faced with many opportunities and challenges,
    resulting from a dynamically-changing electric grid. In real
    time the electric grid is adapting to a rapidly-changing
    generation of fuel mix, the increased utilization of renewable
    resources, and significant interdependencies between electric
    generation and natural gas pipelines.
        Furthermore, our industry is responsible for providing an
    essential national security commodity while nation and state
    actors continue to attempt to thwart our ability to operate
    through nefarious cyber operations. With keen awareness of
    these opportunities and challenges, OE's fiscal year 2021
    request of $195 million builds upon our existing partnerships
    through the national lab complex, industry and academia.
        While I will highlight several areas of the request, I
    would note that additional funding supports important work that
    is integral and complementary to the overall success of our
    mission to increase the resilience of our Nation's electric
    grid.
        Number 1, we are developing the North American Energy
    Resilience Model, the NAERM. As a first of a kind model, it
    comprehensively integrates and analyzes both power energy
    infrastructure, in addition to providing near real time
    awareness of the system, by utilizing advanced sensing
    capabilities, coupled with sophisticated modeling techniques,
    it will also identify opportunities to reduce congestion
    charges, facilitate the strategic integration of renewable
    energy resources, and optimize the placement and utilization of
    grid-scale storage.
        The funding for NAERM, advancing the sensing capabilities,
    and advanced transition modeling requests equal $21 million,
    $8.5 million and $25 million respectively. The development of
    the NAERM will also help inform potential future investments
    necessary for defense, critical electric infrastructure.
        Accordingly, the fiscal year 2021 request includes a new
    budget line.
        Defense critical energy infrastructure, energy mission
    assurance, working with key partners across the Federal
    Government, and throughout the industry, this funding will
    support the development of executable strategies to strengthen
    the energy infrastructure systems, to supply critical defense
    facilities, and their associate defense critical electric
    infrastructure.
        Number 2, we are on the precipice of developing affordable,
    commercially available, megawatt-scale bidirectional electric
    storage that does not rely on foreign-sourced critical
    minerals. To this end we propose investing $43.5 million in
    research and development supporting the Energy Storage Grand
    Challenge announced earlier this year by Secretary Brouillette,
    which will utilize the Department's expertise to address
    technology development, commercialization, manufacturing,
    utilization and workforce needs.
        In addition, in fiscal year 2020, we proposed launching the
    Grid Storage Launchpad at Pacific Northwest National Lab, to
    accelerate the development of a megawatt-scale storage. We
    continue our efforts in this endeavor through the fiscal year
    2021 request for $40 million for GSL. OE's fiscal year 2021
    request of $195 million will give our team the tools and
    resource that helps secure our Nation's electric grid.
        Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, ranking member and members of
    the committee. I looking forward to answering any questions you
    may have.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Mr. Walker. We were just
    looking at that slide trying to see the colors from here, the
    blue actually represents power generated by wind, the yellow by
    solar, and the red by nuclear. We are not sure what the green
    is, as we can't see it from here.
        Mr. Walker. Madam Chairwoman, if I may? Despite being with
    the Department of Energy, this slide actually is a dynamic
    slide that rolls through the 24 hours in the day, and what you
    will see when it actually runs, the file was too big to
    actually upload it, is that you will see the changing
    generation of fuel mix as the sun really rolls through the
    country.
        And this is a representation of just a small part of work
    that we have been doing, working with the EERE as well, that
    NREL provided to demonstrate what the NAER-M would look like in
    the future.
        Ms. Kaptur. How interesting. We will succeed when we are
    able to demonstrate that to the American people, including
    through our hearings. We are sure looking for a way to do that.
    Maybe you can find some of the geniuses over there to help us.
    That would be really nice. Thank you so much, Mr. Walker.
        Assistant Secretary Simmons, please begin.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL SIMMONS

        Mr. Simmons. Thank you. Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member
    Simpson and members of Committee, thank you for your time.
        The President's fiscal year 2021 budget request provides
    $719 million for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable
    Energy, EERE, to uphold America's energy dominance through
    technologies to make energy more affordable, reliable and
    efficient. Nearly half of the EEREs requested budget in fiscal
    year 2021 supports inter-programmatic or cross-cutting
    initiatives. These $225 million in investments represent EERE's
    commitment to coordinating high priority activities across this
    portfolio, and within the Department.
        Collaboration has been one of my priorities since I became
    Assistant Secretary, and this budget reflects that. I thank my
    colleagues on this panel for their support as we work together
    on these cross-cutting initiatives. In the interest of time, I
    will highlight three of EERE's cross cuts for the subcommittee,
    as seen on the following slides.
        First, the Department requested $97 million in fiscal year
    2021 for the Energy Storage Grand Challenge, a DOE-wide
    strategy to accelerate the development, commercialization and
    utilization of next-generation energy storage technologies.
    Energy storage is a top priority for the Department, as we move
    to a future with a wider array of energy options than we have
    ever seen before, the need to integrate all of these
    technologies is increasingly important, and we believe that
    energy storage is a key way to do that.
        Second, the Department requested $53 million in fiscal year
    2021 in support of President Trump's Executive Order 13817,
    issued in December 2017, to develop a Federal strategy to
    ensure secure and reliable supplies of critical minerals.
        The fiscal year 2021 request elevates critical minerals
    activities across DOE to an interdepartmental initiative.
    Critical materials are used in many products important to the
    American energy economy, but the United States imports most of
    our critical mineral commodities. America's dependence on
    foreign sources of critical minerals undermines our energy
    security and national security.
        Third, the Department requests $20.5 million in fiscal year
    2021 to accelerate innovations in energy efficient plastic
    recycling technologies. EERE will explore novel technologies,
    and approaches to economically deconstructing existing
    plastics, increased opportunities for upcycling, and develop
    infinitely recyclable polymers.
        Plastics play an important role in our daily lives; they
    are in the things that we use every day, the things to keep us
    safe and healthy, the things that make our lives more
    enjoyable, productive and convenient. The purpose of the
    plastic innovation challenge is to reduce the energy costs
    associated with the recycling of plastics, develop new polymers
    that are recyclable by design, and develop biological and
    chemical methods to deconstruct plastic waste, including from
    oceans and rivers, into useful chemical feedstock streams.
        Lastly, EERE will continue to work to work on the Water
    Security Grand Challenge, the grid modernization and other
    initiatives are outlined in the budget request.
        I look forward to working with you to advance affordable
    and reliable energy that keeps our Nation prosperous and
    secure. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the
    subcommittee today. I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Simmons follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Mr. Simmons. We will move
    on to Steven Winberg, please.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. STEVEN WINBERG

        Mr. Winberg. Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member Simpson, and
    members of the subcommittee. It is my pleasure to discuss the
    President's fiscal year 2021 budget request for fossil energy.
    The Office of Fossil Energy is committed to ensuring the
    Nation's abundant fossil energy resources continue to promote
    U.S. energy security, economic prosperity, and environmental
    stewardship.
        I would like to begin by highlighting some of our fiscal
    year 2021 priorities. Our flagship coal R&D program is Coal
    FIRST. This program will develop the coal power plant for the
    21st Century, with zero or near zero emissions, and its design
    will meet the demands of our Nation's evolving electricity
    grid.
        Building on the advances we have made through projects like
    Petra Nova, the world's largest post-combustion carbon capture
    plant, we are continuing to advance the technology to reduce
    the cost and to ensure that CCUS is available for coal, and
    natural gas power generation, and for industrial sources of
    emissions. In addition, we are leveraging our decades of CCUS
    R&D to advance the development of direct air capture
    technologies.
        Moving on, we are writing a new chapter for coal with our
    coal to products work. This includes the production of rare
    earth elements and other critical materials from coal and coal
    byproducts, the development of these materials from our vast
    coal reserves can help reduce our reliance on foreign sources,
    support economic growth and increase our national security.
        In addition, our coal to products work is targeting new
    technologies to develop valuable commercial products from coal,
    including carbon fibers, nano material, composites, building
    materials, and 3-D printed materials.
        In the oil and gas space, we continue to focus on R&D to
    ensure the responsible development, distribution and storage of
    the Nation's oil and natural gas resources, with an emphasis on
    methane emission reduction.
        Beyond R&D the Office of Fossil Energy manages the LNG
    export authorization process. To date we have authorized nearly
    45 billion cubic feet per day of LNG exports. In 2019 we
    granted 15 new long-term LNG export approvals. Our current
    export capacity is nearly 8 BCF per day, and at the end of this
    year, that capacity is expected to grow to over 10 BCF.
        Our LNG exports have reached 38 countries, and we are well
    on our way to becoming the world's top LNG exporter. With
    respect to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, you see the Big
    Hill slide here, I hope. Yes, it is there. We will continue to
    maintain the readiness of this national security asset to
    protect the U.S. economy from severe petroleum supply
    interruptions. And we look forward to working with Congress to
    ensure that the supply will continue to meet the demands of the
    21st century.
        Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Winberg follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Assistant Secretary Winberg. Now we
    will go to Assistant Secretary Baranwal.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. RITA BARANWAL

        Ms. Baranwal. Good afternoon, Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking
    Member Simpson, and the members of subcommittee. It is an honor
    to appear before you today to discuss the President's fiscal
    year 2021 budget request for the Office of Nuclear Energy.
        As the Nation's largest source of clean, reliable and
    resilient electricity, nuclear energy is the strategic national
    asset for the United States. Nuclear energy reliably generates
    over 55 percent of the Nation's clean energy, and about 20
    percent of the electricity in the U.S.
        As the use of nuclear energy continues to expand
    internationally, U.S. leadership is being ceded to countries
    such as Russia and China. The unique nature of nuclear
    technology creates a national strategic imperative to maintain
    U.S. leadership, and nuclear energy, and enhance U.S. influence
    by being competitive in global nuclear energy markets.
        Sustaining the current fleet of operating nuclear plants is
    a priority for the Nation. Without a robust nuclear industry,
    we will not be able to maintain the current contributions to
    clean electricity generation, nor maintain the associated U.S.-
    based supply chains, nor the fuel cycle infrastructure
    necessary for a vibrant civilian nuclear industry, and strong
    national security.
        Through the Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program, NE
    is working to ensure that the long-term economic viability of
    our existing nuclear fleet is done by conducting early-stage
    research and development to enable the development of the
    technical basis for the continued reliable and economic
    operation of the current fleet, ass well as the development of
    technical solutions to enhance the economics, and performance
    of nuclear power plants, including investigating alternative
    fuels.
        Chairwoman Kaptur, Davis Bessie in your home State and
    mine, is leading a pilot project to generate hydrogen to fuel
    not only the Toledo bus fleet but as well fuel manufacturing
    sites in that area.
        Today, communities around the United States and
    internationally face limited choices in nuclear reactors which
    constrain nuclear energy's true potential. The market has
    responded through the emergence of dozens of U.S. nuclear
    reactor developers looking to seize this opportunity by
    advancing highly innovative, small, scalable, flexible,
    resilient and more financeable nuclear reactors. These
    innovative technologies include SMR's, microreactors, high
    temperature reactors, molten salt reactors, and liquid metal
    fast reactors.
        Having a diverse catalog of technology options will make
    U.S. nuclear technology vendors more attractive and competitive
    in the global market and able to expand into countries that
    have not previously considered nuclear energy as part of their
    energy mix.
        NE is working to move forward our Nation's next generating
    of advanced nuclear reactors so nuclear energy continues to be
    part of our energy mix now and well into the future.
        Through the Advanced Reactor Technologies and Advanced
    Small Modular Reactor research and development subprograms, NE
    support early stage R&D that helps stimulate the nuclear
    industry as it works to address particularly high risk
    fundamental technical challenges in advanced reactor concepts.
    Thank you very much and I look forward to answering your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Baranwal follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. And now we will go to Mr. Alexander
    Gates. Thank you. Please begin.

                      STATEMENT OF ALEXANDER GATES

        Mr. Gates. Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman, ranking member
    and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
    appear before you to discuss the President's fiscal year2021
    budget for the Office of Cyber Security, Energy Security and
    Emergency Response, commonly referred to as CESER.
        CESER was created to help secure our Nation's energy
    infrastructure against all hazards, reduce the risk of, and
    impacts from cyber events and other disruptive events and
    assist the restoration activates.
        We are keenly aware of the cyber challenges the energy
    sector faces. The director of National Intelligence stated in
    his 2019 worldwide threat assessment that, quote, ``Our
    adversaries and strategic competitors will increasingly use
    cyber capabilities to seek political, economic, and military
    advantage over the United States and its allies and partners.
    China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, increasingly use cyber
    operations to threaten both minds and machines in an expanding
    number of ways to steal information, to influence our citizens,
    or to disrupt critical infrastructure.
        A reliable and resilient energy infrastructure is critical
    to U.S. economic competiveness, national security and to put it
    frankly, our way of life. Maturing CESER into an organization
    that is proactive, focused on its inherent strengths,
    particularly with the national labs and its relationship with
    the sector, are keys to its success.
        We will refine CESER's strategic plan in the coming weeks
    with an eye towards these following priorities. Situational
    awareness, obtaining, maintaining, and sharing sector-wide
    situational awareness would benefit the entire country and all
    who operate energy systems.
        Discovery, early detection in mitigation of malicious
    activity or dangerous devices is critical, a critical
    requirement for CESER.
        A robust purposeful research and development approach that
    tracks gaps in capabilities is central to CESER's investment
    strategy.
        And emergency response, improving the Department's
    performance as a coordinator for Emergency Support Function No.
    12, the energy sector, under the national response framework
    and our role as a sector specific agent is important.
        And finally operationalization. Developing processes that
    effectively align mission with people and technology to meet
    clear operational objectives is an essential furthering of
    operationalization within CESER.
        I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the committee
    and I'll look forward to working with Congress to address the
    Nation's cyber and physical security challenges.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Gates follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Gates. Thank you all for your
    statements. As a reminder for those members president in the
    room when I gavel in at the beginning of the hearing I will
    recognize you for questions in order of seniority alternating
    between majority and minority until all who arrived prior to
    the gavel have asked questions.
        And for those who arrive after the hearing has started, I
    will recognize those members only in order of arrival, again,
    alternating between majority and minority.
        Lastly, I intend to observe the 5 minute rule for questions
    and answers and will now begin questioning under our normal
    rules. Assistant Secretary Baranwal the budget request includes
    $20 million, and I quote, to establish a new program for an
    interim storage capacity. Excuse me. Interim storage capacity.
        In last week's hearing with the Secretary, he stated that
    the Department of Energy would and I quote being development of
    options and look at alternatives for interim storage including
    the initial planning of a potential Federal site at some point
    in the future.
        What specific actions is the Department proposing in this
    request to develop options and look at alternatives for interim
    storage and how are these proposed activities different than
    activities that have been carried out with funds provided by
    Congress in the last several years?
        Ms. Baranwal. Thank you for the question. One of the
    specific actions that the Department is planning to carry out
    is to issue a request for a proposal, which has been drafted,
    and the intent is for the basic design of an interim storage
    facility.
        What we are looking forward to in the future is that there
    are developments in technology space that have occurred over
    the past several years and we are hopeful that those will
    manifest themselves in the responses to the RFP. Those are some
    of the changes that we expect to see from what you asked about
    the prior years.
        Ms. Kaptur. Do you have particular locations in mind? Is
    that part of the application?
        Ms. Baranwal. Part of the work that's going on is to
    identify potential sites. To succinctly answer your question,
    no we don't have a location in mind at the moment.
        Ms. Kaptur. And so who would be, what are the categories of
    those who are being invited to apply? How would you describe
    that to the general public? Governors, private companies, how
    are you----
        Ms. Baranwal. I would have to get back to you on that.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. Well, think about that one.
        Ms. Baranwal. Will do.
        Ms. Kaptur. I am going to turn it over now to Mr. Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman. I guess I'm kind of
    amazed at the budget request across the board here and I
    suspect you all are too, but I know you have to support the
    administration's budget request but in some areas, it is just
    woefully inadequate.
        In fact, I would go through most of this and say that that
    is the case. I am sitting here and I think one of the biggest
    challenges we face in this country in our security doesn't come
    from nuclear weapons being launched at us, while certainly that
    is a threat. I think the future attack on this country is going
    to be from cyber. And it will be every bit as damaging as if
    they had launched nuclear weapons at us in what it could do our
    country.
        And when you look at it, we are spending, you are
    requesting $184 million dollars for CESER. That is not very
    much money really in the total scope of things. We are
    requesting $195 million for the electricity program. EERE, $719
    million down $2 billion from last year's appropriated level.
        As the chairwoman said, $1.18 billion for NE which is down
    21 percent down from last year's level. And I think you said
    Assistant Secretary Baranwal, that it produces 55 percent of
    the clean energy and 20 percent of the electricity currently in
    our grid.
        It is amazing to me but as the old saying goes, the
    administration proposes and Congress disposes and I suspect the
    budget will be significantly different when we finally get
    done.
        Let me ask you, Assistant Secretary Baranwal, I strongly
    support the Advanced Reactors Demonstration Program established
    in the fiscal year 2020 Energy and Water bill, demonstrating
    multiple new American reactor concepts in the next 5 to 7 years
    will be critical to addressing low carbon energy goals and to
    advancing American competiveness.
        Since the program's success depends in part on an
    aggressive schedule, Congress directed the Department to
    streamline its procurement processes and to take out--and then
    take other necessary actions to ensure implementation, that
    implementation is not delayed.
        Can you please describe what steps you have taken and plan
    to take to streamline and otherwise improve the process to
    ensure timely demonstration of new reactor concepts?
        Ms. Baranwal. Yes, thank you for the question. We have
    already issued a request for information and a notice of intent
    and that has closed and we are reviewing the information we
    have received.
        Thirty-three different entities provided us content and so
    we are digesting that, looking at multiple procurement options
    including contracts, financial assistance and the lessons
    learned from other agencies such as NASA and other programs
    within our purview, advanced SMR, R&D and SMR licensing
    technical support as well.
        Our plan is to issue the request for proposal for this
    effort in the next several weeks. We have also embarked on
    ensuring that we are clear and transparent in communicating
    with the appropriators and so we have had meetings with all 4
    corners and shared with them the intent in our plans for moving
    forward expeditiously.
        Mr. Simpson. You mention in your testimony the importance
    of the Light Water Reactor Sustainability Program. Yet there is
    a $16.5 million decrease in the budget request. How important
    is this program?
        Ms. Baranwal. The program is very important. The existing
    fleet and the continued operation of those existing reactors is
    the giant on whose shoulders that we will deploy advance
    reactor technologies.
        So to maintain the fleet, to maintaining the supply chain,
    to maintain the talent pool that is part of that community is
    very important.
        Mr. Simpson. I yield back now and will wait for another
    round.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. Thank you, Mr. Simpson.
    Congresswoman Kirkpatrick.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. This budget request proposes a 74 percent
    cut in EERE, a level that amounts to irreversible damage to the
    office and its mission. I am particularly concerned about the
    proposal to cut the Solar Energy Technologies Office by 76
    percent.
        Funding for the Solar Energy Technologies Office is
    critical to increasing solar deployment across the United
    States and decreasing its cost. And the program has a history
    of success. Solar costs dropped by over 60 percent between 2008
    and 2017.
        The solar industry supports over 250,000 jobs in all 50
    states, and my home State of Arizona ranks 6th for solar jobs
    nationwide.
        This program has helped the United States lead the way in
    developing, commercializing, and deploying solar technologies
    that are growing rapidly around the world. So here is my first
    question.
        Given the enormous cuts proposed here for the Solar Energy
    Technologies Office and other EERE programs, how can we ensure
    that renewable energy technologies can continue to develop and
    advance?
        Mr. Simmons. The budget as we have stated is focused on
    early stage research and development. We believe at this lower
    budget levels we are able to continue to drive these
    technologies forward, including solar, by focusing on early
    stage because we need to be gestating the new ideas of the
    future and a lot of those are going to come from early stage
    research and development.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Let me ask you, is that based on a
    successful model that you looked at?
        Mr. Simmons. One example of that is the, of a success is
    with NREL and the NETL and the MOU that they have signed with
    ExxonMobil where ExxonMobil is going to spend $100 million over
    the next 10 years at those laboratories working on projects.
        And one of the reasons for that is because in the case of
    NREL and some of the early stage research that they have done
    on next generation biofuels and next generation kind of
    synthetic fuels and by having that basis of early stage
    research, from there ExxonMobil is looking to do more.
        So that is one example I think of how having early stage
    research is critical for new idea generations so that we can
    then hopefully move them to commercialization in the future.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. But we really don't know how that is
    going to work out because it is something we have just start
    focusing the budget on, to really focus on early stage when
    currently the budget has obviously or the appropriated amounts
    is for that early stage as well later stage research.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. And couldn't you have a budget that does
    both?
        Mr. Simmons. Well, it could be possible, yes.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Have you looked at that and what that
    number might be?
        Mr. Simmons. That, I mean, there are many things that are
    considered as the, as the Department puts together the budget
    over the course of the year and for DOE to work with the
    office, to work with OMB so many things are considered as we
    are working towards that, the budget process.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Well, I just really have a concern about
    these enormous cuts. How can we ensure that renewable energy
    technologies can continue to develop and advance in light of
    these cuts?
        Mr. Simmons. Well, I mean, that one thing about the cuts
    too is that this budget is very similar to the budget that has
    been in terms of size, is very similar to what has been
    proposed over the past few years and we have seen--and as
    Secretary Perry noted, it is the beginning of the process, it's
    not the end of the process as Representative Simpson noted.
        EERE has very robust funding currently under current
    appropriated amounts and it is a back and forth and this is the
    beginning of the beginning of that process. We look forward to
    executing on the funding as appropriated.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much. Again thank all of
    you for being here and I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. Congressman Fleischmann.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madame Chair and Ranking Member
    Simpson for having this hearing today. And to each and every
    one of the assistant secretaries, thank you all for being here.
    Please convey my warmest regards to Secretary Brouillette. He
    did an outstanding job, very thorough, thoughtful last week
    when he was before us.
        As each and every one of you all know, I represent Oak
    Ridge. A great reservation, birthplace of the Manhattan Project
    and today leading in so many areas and it is a privilege to
    represent them in the House.
        My first question, Secretary Gates is for you, sir.
    Protecting our energy sector from cyber attacks is something
    that is a constant concern to me. Particularly the impact that
    bad actors could have on the grid.
        I recognize this committee's responsibility to provide
    support for the Department to ensure it has what is need for
    these programs. In particular, I have been very supportive of
    the Dark Net project which is a collaboration between the
    electrical power board in Chattanooga, Oak Ridge National Lab,
    university and industry.
        Dark Net is exploring ways to get critical infrastructure
    off the public internet and an important goal that aligns
    directly with this National need.
        My question, sir, is in your view, what additional
    resources might be needed for Dark Net to achieve this
    challenging goal, sir?
        Mr. Gates. Congressman, thank you for the question. Instead
    of going head on to the additional resources question, I'd like
    to cast a broader net on the challenge that we face with such
    projects, finding solutions with collaborations that are
    essential, national labs, industry that provides the expertise
    and then the DOE experience.
        Is that taking a result and operationalizing it in the
    sector is where the big challenge is going to hit us. How do we
    do that with contribution from the government and the essential
    support and adoption from the sector and what is that going to
    cost us?
        That is something I'm meeting frequently with Assistant
    Secretary Walker and looking at the challenges, what happens
    when we have success? What happens when we have the silver
    bullet? How do we actually make that impactful in the sector?
    That's one of the challenges we face.
        Dark Net is a great project. Those are the types of
    collaborations we need. We have them in other parts of the
    country with other labs and they're just essential because of
    the expertise that's necessary for us to find those tough
    answers.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir, appreciate your response.
    My second question deals with nuclear energy, it's directed to
    Assistant Secretary Baranwal.
        Madame Secretary, Oak Ridge National Lab has long
    established record in developing nuclear energy technologies
    and for the past 75 years has been bringing innovation in
    nuclear energy to the forefront from advanced reactor
    technologies to materials to manufacturing.
        In fact, bringing those examples together, ORNL is applying
    its broad expertise to a project called the Transformational
    Challenger Reactor or TCR that will help the nuclear industry
    with some of its greatest challenges and opportunities in cost,
    innovation, advanced materials, and deployment. ORNL's core
    research capabilities in material science, high performance
    computing, and nuclear engineering are being joined with unique
    tools and expertise at the lab's Manufacturing Demonstration
    Facility to demonstrate a revolutionary approach to reactor
    design and manufacturing that will ultimately lead to the
    deployment of new systems. My question is--I would--first of
    all, I would like to thank you for funding the TCR in the
    fiscal 2021 budget proposal, but I would welcome any thoughts
    that you might have on this project, and I look forward to
    working with you.
        Ms. Baranwal. Thank you for the question. As a materials
    engineer, this project is of great interest to me. I did get
    the chance to visit Oak Ridge last year and get an update on
    the project. They are making good progress, and if--as they
    proceed down their schedule. As you mentioned, advanced
    manufacturing is certainly one area that they are using in this
    project; digital predictive analysis is another one. And those
    two technological advances combined together will lead to
    advanced design and acceleration of new reactor concepts, new
    fuel types, and, so, I am very much looking forward to seeing
    this, seeing the outcome of this project.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you for your answer. I believe my
    time is up, so, I will yield back, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Absolutely to the second. Thank you.
    Congressman Pocan?
        Mr. Pocan. Yep. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate it and
    thank you all for being here.
        Assistant Secretary Simmons, I think my questions are
    probably more to you. So, I am going to go back to what
    Representative Kirkpatrick was talking about on the wind and
    solar cuts. They are pretty massive. I heard your answer, but I
    did not really hear a real answer to the question. I heard what
    you said, but my concern is coal and 8\1/2\ kilowatts of solar.
    I just checked my monthly bill, this month is $23.55. Take
    that. It is a good deal. Next month will be the cheapest. It is
    usually around $8, when I get to the sun that we get from this
    next period. It was a $23,000 investment for 8\1/2\ kilowatts.
    So, for most people, with some incentives, there is an 11-year
    payoff. It is not a great payoff. I am not a great investor,
    but I did it for other reasons. That is that second and third
    stage investment that you are taking away. You are still
    keeping the early stage R&D, but we need to get some of those
    ideas practically going to the market. And, as the chairwoman
    said, the companies are saying they do not have the resources
    to do that. So, if the companies cannot take an idea that may
    be too costly to put out there, and you are now taking away the
    research dollars by 76 percent for solar and 79 percent for
    wind, we are, basically, not taking--as a frugal Wisconsinite,
    you are not taking this great free resource of the sun or wind,
    and we are not really capitalizing on it.
        In addition, in Wisconsin, until our last governor got rid
    of some tax credits we had, we used to make windmill blades
    because you cannot take them real far away. That was a lot of
    good-paying, family-supporting jobs. Same thing with solar
    cells, we could be making that here. So, there is a lot of
    reasons why that the stages, the funding that you have taken
    away, mean real jobs and real applications and real savings in
    places like Wisconsin. So, I just would really--have a little
    better understanding of why those are the areas that you cut,
    and why you think that those are not important.
        Mr. Simmons. The theory of the budget, the theory of
    focusing on early stage research and development is because
    that is the most appropriate Federal role, to focus on areas
    that are precompetitive, so that everyone may benefit from that
    research, because as we get to later stage research, it can get
    into one proprietary technology versus another one. So, what
    the budget is focused on is research that benefits, we believe,
    all parties or all parties as much as possible. So, that is why
    the budget is focused on early stage because it is the most
    appropriate role for the Federal Government.
        Mr. Pocan. Yes, but I would argue, I mean, I do not think
    it has to be proprietary at all going into the second and third
    stage, and if you really want to see solar cells go on roofs'
    tops, we have to bring the cost down a little more. The cost
    has been coming down, but part of it is helping find ways to
    use these technologies. That is the very money that you are
    taking away. So, then it makes even less sense to have early
    stage development, if you are skipping the middle of the actual
    practical application of whatever idea you are coming with.
    That is why I think it is kind of--that is why you have to have
    all stages to actually make this become a reality and so we can
    all save money, as frugal Wisconsinites and other folks, who
    want to make sure that we are paying $23.55 in our monthly bill
    or less.
        I just do not know if the logic holds out, that you are
    going to invest in the early stage, but then not actually in
    making sure those technologies actually go to market and can
    have a practical impact.
        Mr. Simmons. So, one thing to note, or one important thing
    to note, is that every year, OMB puts out a memo on research
    and development. And one of the things that it says in that
    memo is that part of our job is to focus on early stage, but
    then to make sure that we are partnering as much as possible
    with the private sector to advance the technologies forward,
    the later stages of research and development are appropriately
    the role of private parties. But what--I think what gets missed
    is that it is an important part of our role to make sure that
    we are partnering with the private sector as much as possible.
    That is an important part of the budget, an important part of
    the theory of the budget, to have a focus on early stage
    research and development. Now, obviously, there is a differing
    opinion, so, it is why we are here today.
        Mr. Pocan. I will take that as OMB, but I made the mistake,
    and maybe we will continue this part of funding that might make
    some sense. Real quick, in my final seconds, you have a
    plastics innovation challenge in here, and University of
    Wisconsin-Madison is using a lot of biomass right now and doing
    some things, coming up with plastic alternatives. Do you
    believe that the future of plastics should focus on bioenergy
    rather than fossil fuel-derived materials?
        Mr. Simmons. We do not know. The point--and the point of
    the plastics innovation challenge is to reduce plastic waste
    and to do it by whatever means necessary. That includes, like,
    because the Bioenergy Technology Office, which includes work on
    bioproducts, is one of the offices in the Office of Energy
    Efficiency and Renewable Energy. We believe that there is a lot
    of opportunities for biobased pathways, both for bioplastics,
    but also deconstructions of plastics using biopathways. We
    think that there is a lot of opportunities, but there is also a
    lot of opportunities to do it with mechanical and other
    chemical methods. So, let us look at everything because the
    plastics challenge is a significant challenge, and we want to
    keep all of our options open.
        Mr. Pocan. Great. Thank you very much. I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congressman Newhouse?
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair. You had to think
    about that. I appreciate it. Welcome, everybody. I appreciate
    you being here, and as you can tell, there is a lot of interest
    in the administration's budget. Most conversations, I am sure,
    will continue, but I wanted to focus on a couple of other
    things.
        First of all, Assistant Secretary Walker, welcome to you,
    good to see you. I want to express my appreciation for the--
    your office's strong investment that you are proposing to make
    in the Grid Storage Launchpad at the Pacific Northwest National
    Laboratory. The Secretary was in last week. We had a good
    conversation, and as we talked with him, expressed to him the
    Tri-Cities is very, very excited about the--playing a central
    role in this critical infrastructure. So, I want to express
    that to you, as well.
        We also talked about the importance of the storage for
    integrating the more--the renewable energy on the grid, and,
    certainly, that is an important part about this technology, but
    I know that you are also interested in protecting our defense
    critical infrastructure. And, so, we have a lot of that in the
    State of Washington, but also around the country. Could you
    speak to the role that you see the grid storage launchpad and
    the energy storage technologies, in general, that will play in
    the--that critical national defense mission?
        Mr. Walker. Absolutely, and thank you for the question. I
    think storage is one of the--and we have heard people talk
    about it as the Holy Grail of the system, the Swiss Army knife
    of the electric grid, and, in fact, it is both of those. As an
    operator, who operated the system for 20 years, storage is one
    of those tools that you have in your tool chest that enables
    you to use it for different purposes when you need it. We are
    focused on megawatt scale, electric bidirectional storage
    because it provides a number of ancillary services on the grid
    that are significantly important when you talk about resiliency
    in the grid. So, when you speak about frequency control,
    voltage control, voltage support, black start, whether it acts
    as a loader or whether it acts as a supply, storage has the
    ability to provide all of those capabilities into the grid. And
    by virtue of being a stabilizer in the grid, it also
    facilitates the further integration of renewable technologies
    comingled with existing traditional generation on the system.
    So, storage is really the tool that is going to enable us to
    move forward, to meet things, like RPS standards, to increase
    national security.
        One of our keen focuses is on the national security,
    particularly the critical defense facilities and the associated
    defense critical electric infrastructure that feeds those
    facilities. And when you look at megawatt scale storage, it has
    the opportunity to be placed strategically in the system, which
    is why we are building the North American Energy Resilience
    Model to identify where those points are. And by placing it
    strategically in the system, we have the ability to secure
    those areas, whether we couple it with things like microgrid,
    other renewable technologies, and existing infrastructure on
    the grid, that security is something that, really, cannot be
    matched by anything else. And it is really part of the backbone
    of why Secretary Brouillette announced the Energy Grid Storage
    challenge, and it is the cornerstone of the building of the
    Grid Storage Launchpad that you mentioned. Pacific Northwest
    National Lab, where we have the opportunity to really
    accelerate through collaboration, validation, and coordination,
    amongst 25 to 35 different labs and universities, led by the
    national labs, PNNL, and, most importantly, and the reason PNNL
    really became the best choice for us, as we had to go through
    the CD-0 and the CD-1 analysis, is last year we opened up the
    Chemistry Center.
        And about 2 years ago, we made a huge change in our
    portfolio for energy storage, and rather than focusing on rare
    earth mineral technology, things like vanadium and lithium, we
    took a look at opportunities to use rare earth minerals that
    are ubiquitously available and cheap in the United States. And
    to that end, we are now using redox equation flow batteries and
    being able to leverage the chemistry capabilities of PNNL. And
    the new chemistry lab enables us to reach that megawatt scale
    storage in a very, very short period of time. While we are
    focused on that, we are also focused on things like sodium and
    manganese for use in that storage technology, again, highly
    available. We can build megawatt-scale storage off them, and we
    will have the capability to use them, not only for national
    security, but for further integration of different types of
    technology into the system. So, thank you for the question.
        Mr. Newhouse. Yep. Thank you very much for that complete
    answer. Like I said, we are very excited about being involved
    in this critical technology. development that will benefit
    for--us for decades to come.
        Mr. Walker. Absolutely.
        Mr. Newhouse. So, thank you very much. Madam Chair, I yield
    back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz?
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair. Assistant
    Secretary Winberg, the Office of Fossil Energy has launched a
    Coal FIRST Initiative, which I think has been alluded to here,
    to support research designs of the coal plant of the future,
    which seems like an oxymoron, and the request includes $172
    million in fossil energy to support Coal FIRST.
        Let us consider these facts. In the U.S., electric-
    generating capacity from coal plants has declined by 25 percent
    in the last decade, and the Energy Information Administration
    expects coal-fired capacity to decrease another 46 percent by
    2025. Globally, coal-fired energy will decrease 13 percent
    between now and 2050, according to the U.S. Energy Information
    administration at DOE, despite expected growth in overall
    electric generation. So, clearly, we are looking at a future
    without coal, or with certainly less coal, not more coal.
        So, it begs the question, is DOE starting a new billion-
    dollar research initiative for coal plants instead of focusing
    on the necessary technologies of the future, like renewables
    and energy storage? And why embark on Coal FIRST when you
    propose to cut EERE by 74 percent? It seems like you are
    investing in the past rather than the necessary future.
        Mr. Winberg. Thank you for the question. I think it is a
    response-rich question, and I will try and hold my answer down
    to 3\1/2\ minutes.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I have another question. So, I
    appreciate that.
        Mr. Winberg. The fleet is aging. The coal fleet is aging,
    and there is no question about that. Part of DOE's
    responsibility is to look out over the horizon, and what
    happens if gas prices go to $5 or $6 or maybe $7? And we have
    been there before on a number of occasions. So, what we are
    proposing is a 21st century coal plant of the future. This is a
    plant that will have near zero or even zero emissions or, in
    some cases, negative emissions.
        And to your question why do it----
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Right, but if I can interrupt you
    and ask you, for a moment, just to stick more closely to my
    question. I know what you are doing. I just do not understand
    why because you are dealing with a finite resource, as Mr.
    Pocan referenced, and you are proposing to cut, which we are
    not going to do, quite frankly. We did not do it last year. We
    are not going to do it this year. Why embark on Coal FIRST,
    when you are proposing to spend a billion dollars on a finite,
    old-school energy source that is not renewable instead of
    making sure that we can invest in renewable energy, that is
    less expensive and more plentiful going forward in the future?
        Mr. Winberg. Well, coal reserves in the United States are
    about 400 years. So, that might be finite, but it is pretty far
    out in the future.
        The second reason is that this is not a State problem. This
    is not a country problem. It is a global issue. If you want to
    reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and we have countries all over
    Asia, all over Africa, that are building coal-fired boilers.
    They are going to have a life of 40 or 50 years, and they are
    using 1970s vintage technology. So, what we are proposing is
    the coal plant of the 21st century because these communities,
    these countries, these regions will continue using coal for
    decades to come, and they are----
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. Focusing on the United
    States' priorities, it makes a lot more sense over the long
    term to invest in renewable energy, not finite energy, in clean
    energy, not dirty energy. So, thank you for your response to my
    question.
        I want to follow up on the Plastics Innovation Challenge
    because it certainly seems promising, but I am concerned about
    the Department's partnership with the American Chemistry
    Council, whose members include several petrochemical companies.
    This partnership seems to represent an inherent conflict of
    interest. These are companies that profit from making more
    plastics. If we actually solve the plastics problem, we likely
    will put them out of business. That is certainly not in their
    interest. So, how is your partnership with them not a conflict?
        Mr. Simmons. So, the reason that we partner with them is
    because they are the manufacturers, and they have the knowledge
    about plastics and they understand plastics better than anyone
    else, currently. And so, to be able to make sure that we are
    advancing the state of the art to take today's bottles and to
    be--to do a much better job recycling them, not--I mean
    bottles. That is what is right in front of me, but there is
    plastics used for a lot of things, taking today's technology,
    but also to advance the state of the art, and what those----
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Mr. Secretary, how can we ensure
    that these chemical producer partners are going to act in good
    faith during this challenge since it is not really in their
    interest?
        Mr. Simmons. We cannot. You know, we do not know how they
    are going to act. The Federal Government is focused on reducing
    the, you know, reducing plastic waste.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. So, you are not concerned about the
    fact that they could not act in good faith while--during your
    partnership and not make sure that we have plastics that are
    actually naturally renewable, as you referred to in your
    opening statement?
        Mr. Simmons. Obviously, cannot tell these companies what to
    do. We will work with whomever, you know, whoever we can work
    with to get the knowledge necessary to move to a better
    plastics future. I mean, that is our goal, is to be able to get
    the most knowledge that we can, so that we can do a better--so
    that we can do a better job with plastics.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Madam Chair, I would just suggest
    that as you prepare your mark, that we make sure that the
    Department has to consider whether the plastics industry
    actually is acting in good faith since they do not appear--
    since they have acknowledged here today that they do not know.
        Ms. Kaptur. I thank you for your recommendation,
    Congresswoman. And we will now turn to Mr. Kilmer.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair. Assistant Secretary
    Simmons, let me start with you. I mentioned to the Secretary
    last week that I appreciated you coming out to Sequim, WA, to
    the Marine Sciences Lab in person. Thank you for that. Having
    seen it firsthand, I know you recognize that it is a first-
    class asset and an important asset and a unique asset for the
    Department.
        As you know, the Water Power Technologies Office provides
    the single largest source of DOE funds to support the R&D
    efforts at the Marine Sciences Lab, which are a critical part
    of the--powering the Blue Economy Initiative, which is focused
    on new marine renewable energy technologies that can be helpful
    to remote communities and ocean-based industries. I am really
    grateful to the chair and the ranking member and this committee
    because they have shown support for that initiative in the last
    fiscal year. That resulted in a number of funding
    opportunities, including the ocean observing prize announced
    jointly with NOAA. Can you speak to that dual role that marine
    energy innovation can play in both developing new resources of
    clean energy while also improving our ocean observing
    capabilities, and how the R&D of these technologies led by the
    Marine Sciences Lab is critical to meeting DOE scientific and
    defense missions?
        Mr. Simmona. Sure. Thank you very much, I am grateful that
    I had the opportunity to get out to Sequim Bay and to see the
    lab and to see the work going on there.
        One of the things that I am excited about is the idea of
    the Powering the Blue Economy initiative. Because when you look
    at marine energy, it is incredibly difficult to think about
    wave or tidal energy competing in any significant way with wind
    or solar in the near term. And so what we are trying to do
    there is to look at new opportunities for these technologies so
    that we can get them deployed in some way and so that we can
    iterate on the technology and advance the technology because if
    what we have to do is to build a large device and to ship it to
    Hawaii, which is where there is a big wave device currently,
    actually there were issues transporting it to Hawaii and it was
    damaged. And so anyway, it is really challenging and so we are
    not getting a lot of learning by doing. With the Powering in
    the Blue economy and looking at ways to have for things such as
    sensors and floats and how do we use wave energy and the energy
    of the ocean to power those I think is a critical area and it
    is why I am very happy we are able to join with NOAA in putting
    together the ocean observing challenge, because it is very much
    what NOAA's mission does.
        And so the Marine Sciences Laboratory is a key piece to
    help us in that because they understand, well it is DOE's only
    marine laboratory and so they have a lot of capabilities. So
    there is, I think there is great opportunities there and
    looking at some non-traditional ways to think about marine
    energy that we haven't really thought about before by exploring
    all the opportunities, and as we are working to advance slowly
    the wave and tidal energy.
        I am sorry, I hope that answered your question.
        Mr. Kilmer. I think it is a terrific assets, and so we are
    constantly looking at how do we make sure that it is getting
    properly leveraged. So thank you for that.
        With the time I have left, Mr. Gates, I know some of my
    colleagues already asked about concerns around cyber security.
    I just want to get a sense from you, do you think that the
    department has the resources it needs from a financial
    standpoint, from a personnel standpoint, from an expertise
    standpoint, to fulfill its responsibilities of ensuring
    reliable and resilient energy infrastructure?
        Mr. Gates. Thank you for the question congressman. I
    believe the department is in the same place that many
    organizations that are concerned about cyber security are, they
    are competing for talent. They have plans, we have plans in a
    direction for acquiring more talent. I think we are well within
    the budget to be able to achieve our goals for having the
    workforce we need to accomplish our mission.
        But make no mistake, it is a competitive environment.
    Everyone has cyber security, all the agencies, all the
    partnerships we have, which are pretty good when it comes to
    organizations like CISA, organizations like FERC and NERC,
    people we are dealing with, organizations within the community
    who have the same care abouts we do.
        But I think we, within the existing budget will be able to
    achieve our goals when it comes to talent.
        What that does for the next 5 years, looking forward,
    looking at where cyber is across not only the energy sector but
    all others and what's happening in the universities, what's
    happening in the sector, it is going to be a very competitive
    environment and it is something we are keeping an eye on to
    make sure we have the talent we need to do the job.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Congressman Kilmer.
    Assistant Secretary Simmons, in this area of climate change and
    significant agricultural losses, in October the department
    signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of
    Agriculture to jointly increase, and I quote ``Energy,
    technology, development, and deployment'' for, and this is not
    in the actual memorandum, but for climate controlled and
    affordable energy for agricultural production across our
    country.
        I have advocated for this type of interdepartmental
    collaboration for years, and frankly I am relieved to see some
    progress here. But I am concerned that the working group's
    mission is rather broad and unfocused.
        So I wanted to ask a couple questions. What accomplishments
    have the interagency working group achieved since October? For
    example, the department's expertise in energy efficiency for
    industrial processes, lighting, and water systems, and energy
    and materials science, in particular, can benefit climate
    controlled greenhouses and 4 season production platforms. I
    think we have to move into that as a country in view of what's
    happening in different regions. How will the Department of
    Energy work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop
    and deploy affordable technologies to produce in agriculture
    across our country under this Memorandum of Understanding?
        Mr. Simmons. I will talk about what we are doing, also the
    Office of Fossil Energy is also working with the USDA on this
    MOU, and so I will make sure to, if that is OK, to have
    Assistant Secretary Winberg also answer that question.
        So it is a rather new Memorandum of Understanding. One
    concern, we have not looked at anything around greenhouses yet.
        Some of the potential work we will do is on say
    photovoltaic solar and agriculture, how they can co-exist.
    Because currently a lot of PV solar is just you essentially
    bulldoze the field and put in solar panels. And what are the
    other opportunities that we can do to have to have some
    agricultural uses of that land?
        Also in areas with wastewater treatment. Because rural
    areas is very much what USDA works on and looking at improving
    wastewater treatment through increasing the energy efficiency,
    increasing the wastewater recovery of wastewater treatment
    facilities, particularly from small and medium sized
    facilities. You can do it here in the district, for example, at
    wastewater treatment at DC Water because it is gigantic, but
    being able to downsize those technologies to really help
    improve the economics of smaller scale wastewater treatment,
    hopefully we will be able to work with USDA on that. And I will
    let Assistant Secretary Winberg add any additional color from
    FE's perspective.
        Mr. Winberg. Thank you. The MOU that we signed, in fact
    next week we are going to be having, I think it is next week,
    maybe the week after, we are going to be having a joint
    workshop to look at power generation and agriculture needs. It
    is the energy/water nexus that we are focused on. And the USDA
    has a Natural Resources Conservation Service which has a budget
    of about $4.5 billion, and they work with private individuals
    looking at conserving water. So we have the power plants that
    might be in water restricted areas, and we are evaluating ways
    to reduce water consumption on those power plants so that we
    are not sacrificing irrigation for power or vice versa.
        And I think that the combination of DOE and agriculture is
    a good opportunity for us to share our knowledge, especially
    across those two vital areas, again, irrigation for agriculture
    and water for power.
        Ms. Kaptur. We are so happy to have your focus there. I
    think it is going to take both departments to really lead
    America forward in this really important arena.
        I come from a region of the country where because of our
    fresh water systems, we have had historic greenhouse industry
    production, oftentimes 43 percent of their bottom line is
    energy from traditional sources. And with a little material
    science and with a little thoughtfulness, I think you could get
    that way down. And you could provide a boost to American
    producers who are finding themselves facing more imported food
    for different reasons, particularly the fruit and vegetable
    sector.
        But I really think a blending of your knowledge on material
    science, energy science, water science, and the Department of
    Agriculture's abilities in production agriculture could be most
    interesting. There is just tremendous opportunity for 4 season
    production with inputs carefully controlled for the west, the
    dry west. It also has potential. When you talked about water
    conservation.
        But I think the envelope and the integration of systems is,
    I don't think we have had a revolution there in half a century,
    and it really could be a tremendous gift you could give the
    country if you could push that research.
        I also wanted to say in terms of methane digesters, many of
    our large animal facilities can't find a methane digester that
    doesn't break down. Department of Agriculture doesn't seem to
    be able to solve that problem. Maybe you could help them.
        But if you look at kind of the blending of agriculture and
    energy it is just ah.
        And I will just say this for the record because I have been
    around here a while. We actually, I was there when we wrote the
    first provision in an appropriation bill in the late 1990s to
    move the Department of Agriculture into fuels. They didn't want
    it. So you didn't exactly have, we wanted to add food,
    forestry, and fiber, so you could add a fourth F to your stool,
    it was going to be called fuel on. Now you can't take it away
    from them. So you can't exactly say they had vision themselves
    over there. But now it has become a very important element of
    our way of life. And frankly, didn't take that long when you
    look at some of the other things we are working on.
        So I just wanted to put that one on the table for you. And
    believe me, you have the interest of this member in your work
    in blending your dual capabilities as to a very important
    department to our country.
        I am going to let Mr. Simpson put in his question now.
        Mr. Simpson. Assistant Secretary Baranwal, HALEU Fuel is
    required to operate most types of advanced reactions under
    development in the United States, but no commercial source
    currently exists. This committee has prioritized a recovery of
    HALEU from spent nuclear fuel owned and managed by the
    Department of Energy at the Idaho National Lab. Additional
    recourses have been provided to scale at processing to a high
    enough rate to meet projected needs for first movers.
        Are there other steps the department can take to support
    these first movers while demand for commercial product
    materializes, and secondly, the recovered HALEU will still need
    to be converted into actual fuel for these reactors. What can
    the department and the INL do to help convert HALEU into fuel
    for first time movers and spur private sector development.
        Ms. Baranwal. Thank you for the question. Within the $12
    million that is currently requested in the fiscal year 2021
    budget for material recovery and waste form development, the
    top priority is accelerated recovery and downloading of EBR to
    spent fuel in support of the high-assay LEU supply for first
    movers.
        The objective is to provide up to 5 metric tons of fuel
    feed material by the year 2023. And it certainly is responsive
    to the expressed interest of private industry that has
    demonstrated and expressed an interest at this time for that
    type of fuel feed.
        Mr. Simpson. The budget request includes $295 million to
    continue development of a versatile test reactor which will
    operate as an open access user facility for DOE national labs.
    This type of research infrastructure is a critical part of the
    government's effort to facilitate the development of new
    nuclear technologies, as currently the only availability for
    civilian research is actually in Russia.
        Can you please discuss what the recently announced GE,
    Hatachi and Terra Power collaboration means for the versatile
    test reactor, both problematically and budgetary? And are there
    additional opportunities to work with the private sector or
    with international partners who also would benefit from a fast
    neutron test reactor? And are there other steps the department
    is taking to ensure timely project delivery?
        Ms. Baranwal. Yes. So in November of last year I announced
    an expression of interest for private/public partnership that
    you alluded to. GE, Hitachi, and Terra Power have been some of
    the entities that had applied to that expression of interest.
    Others have as well. And what we are doing at the moment is
    inviting those entities that have submitted to the EOI to
    submit for a request for proposal. So that is part one of your
    question.
        With respect to international interest, we actually did
    receive substantial international entity interest as well. At
    the moment though, we have collaboration agreements with the
    countries of Japan and France to work together on the VTR, and
    so we are looking forward to that as well as if there are other
    international collaboration opportunities we will certainly
    entertain those as they come along.
        And then you had a third part to your question.
        Mr. Simpson. The third part was are there other steps that
    the department, let me find it here.
        Ms. Baranwal. Was it on schedule, ensuring that we stick to
    a schedule.
        Mr. Simpson. Are there other steps the department is taking
    to ensure timely project deliver.
        Ms. Baranwal. Right. And so we do have periodic schedule
    reviews. There is actually an internal peer committee that does
    reviews to make sure that progress is being met on the
    projected schedule and budget, as well as lab director reviews.
    And so those are the types of mechanisms that we are using to
    ensure delivery on time.
        Mr. Simpson. OK, thank you. Assistant Secretary Walker,
    this is the fourth year in a row that the administration has
    proposed to sell the transmission assets of three Federal power
    marketing administrations and change the current cost-based
    rate structure for all 4 of the PMAs. By statute, the power
    marketing administration's market power generated at Federal
    hydropower dams, at the lowest possible rate to consumers
    consistent with sound business principles. This means rates are
    set to cover the cost of the initial Federal investment,
    ongoing operations and maintenance and interest.
        Since ratepayers are paying all costs already, why is the
    department proposing to change the rate structure? And is this
    an attempt to privatize the PMAs?
        Mr. Walker. I support the administration's position with
    regard to the potential sale of the PMAs, and as always will
    execute the will of Congress. We continue to evaluate and look
    at ways to provide best opportunity for customers, and we
    believe the sale of the PMAs may in fact do that.
        Mr. Simpson. Appreciate that. And I am not sitting here as
    one who is going to fight to the death to avoid that from
    happening. I would just like to know why there is a benefit to
    it, and if there is a benefit to it. And so far nobody has been
    able to tell us exactly what the benefit would be from
    privatizing the PMAs. So we will talk about that I am sure much
    in the future.
        Thank you, Chairwoman.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Congressman
    Fleischmann.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just have one
    further question.
        This is to Assistant Secretary Simmons on advanced
    manufacturing, sir. The Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at
    Oakridge National Laboratory is very successful, it is a
    public/private partnership for the rapid development of
    advanced manufacturing technologies. It is successful because
    it enables industry to access first of a kind manufacturing
    tools and systems, as well as staff with advanced manufacturing
    expertise.
        Companies that come through the MDF, and sometimes relocate
    near the MDF, have the desire to work side by side with these
    experts and leverage the lab's unique tools and systems to
    improve their products and productivity in ways that will
    revitalize and grow U.S. manufacturing. In a global economy
    that can be disrupted at any moment, it is more important now
    than ever that this type of research and development and
    deployment should receive strong support from DOE as well as
    Congress.
        My question, sir, is, what is the biggest obstacle to
    ensuring that the U.S. remains a leader in advanced
    manufacturing, and what more can be done through facilities
    like the MDF to provide opportunities for industry to directly
    engage the lab's experts and unique capability, sir?
        Mr. Simmons. We do manufacturing in the United States so
    that we continue to have manufacturing in the United States.
    And I realize that it sounds maybe like a bit of a tautology,
    but it is.
        A couple months ago I visited Florida to Jinko Solar, that
    has the new solar module manufacturing facility outside
    Jacksonville, Florida. And Jinko is the world's largest solar
    producer, they are based in China. One of the things that they
    said is that if this facility had been built in Asia they could
    have built it in a month. It sounded great that they had built
    this facility in six months in Florida, that sounded really
    fast. But it just goes to show you the manufacturing challenge
    of manufacturing in the United States versus Asia.
        And so we need to have advanced manufacturing that can be
    that responsive. Because they were able to build it that
    quickly in Asia because of lower labor standards and lower
    labor costs. And we are not going to change our labor
    standards, we are not going to reduce our worker safety
    standards so that we can do that. So it is critical that we
    acknowledge the technological edge and that we keep
    manufacturing so that we keep the people, the workforce, with
    the expertise. And one of the great things about being able to
    locate, to have a facility like the MDF is--and you have people
    locating around the MDF is you have a lot of knowledge and a
    lot of expertise, and so you have like a conglomeration economy
    so that the sum is greater than the individual parts. And the
    MDF is a great facility. Over 5,000 companies have visited the
    MDF.
        We will continue to fund the MDF as long as we are
    appropriated money because of advanced manufacturing is going
    to be the type of manufacturing that we have in the future in
    the United States, and it is critical that we keep it because
    once it is gone, it is very difficult to bring back. And the
    MDF is a great example of a bright spot in American
    manufacturing.
        One example that you see at the MDF is in terms of 3D
    printing, 3D printing in metals. And with people from the MDF,
    I have visited near Cincinnati the GE Additive facility. And
    one of the great things that you see there is a part of an
    engine, an airplane engine, I think this is a turbo prop
    engine, that was 300 pieces originally, 300 individual pieces,
    but now it is a single piece that is additively printed. So,
    being able to make sure that we have that knowledge in the
    United States is critical and the MDF is one key way to bring
    that knowledge and to keep it here.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Madam Chair, I
    yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Fleischmann. I wanted to turn to
    the subject for a second here on renewable energy jobs.
    Assistant Secretary Simmons, you mentioned--well, we have
    talked a little bit today about solar in panels, but solar
    voltaic installers are expected to be the fastest-growing
    occupation in the country this year with the median pay at
    nearly $43,000 a year. These are really good paying jobs. And
    wind turbine technicians are the second fastest occupation,
    think about that, with a median pay at over $54,000 a year.
        Clean energy jobs are on the rise fueling a new clean
    energy economy. However, your budget request eliminates
    programs like the Solar-Ready Vets Program designed to support
    this growing clean energy economy. At the same time, there is a
    skills gap. So, we need this workforce but there are not enough
    skilled people to fill these jobs. Given the skills gap, why is
    the Department proposing to eliminate important workforce
    programs? And what more can the Department do to train the
    workforce that is needed to fill these jobs?
        Mr. Simmons. EERE very much has a strong interest in
    developing and maintaining a strong and well-trained workforce.
    As I just mentioned in the answer to the previous question that
    one of the challenges, for example, that I saw in Florida, that
    Jenco Solar said, is just that in Asia they do not have to
    train their workers nearly as much as you need to in the United
    States for modular manufacturing because they come from other
    modular manufacturers currently and because we do not have very
    much solar modular manufacturing in the United States
    currently. That is some expertise that has been lost, but is--
    hopefully, will come back some.
        We are preparing to launch in the next couple of weeks from
    funds appropriated for fiscal year 2020, a $20 million
    partnership to pursue leading-edge interdisciplinary, there we
    go, interdisciplinary research that promotes workforce
    development in emerging fields by supporting a coordinated
    expansion of existing joint graduate education programs with
    national laboratories for next generation scientist and
    engineers.
        The Department recognizes that the workforce of the future
    is very important and that is in the appropriated monies that
    we have, and we will continue to execute on that as
    appropriated. But the Department takes the workforce challenge
    seriously.
        Ms. Kaptur. So, I just wanted to point out to you that some
    of these positions are not Ph.Ds., but they are--they do
    require great skill. A lot of times veterans, just as the
    electric-generating companies, know not everybody can crawl up
    on a pole that, you know, 80 feet high, and the same is true
    with wind energy. And these are skills, manual skills that
    require a great deal of intelligence so you don't electrocute
    yourself, so you need training and workforce development. And
    it isn't just the Ph.Ds. doing some of the research into the
    future, but I hope that you focus on some of the capabilities
    that we have had before this very committee and make linkages
    there as well. We are talking about solar installers, we are
    talking about wind turbine installers. Imagine, the country
    doesn't have enough of them, and I am talking about thousands
    and thousands of jobs. So, I hope that your inquiry leads you
    there.
        Mr. Simmons. OK.
        Ms. Kaptur. And I am glad we have had this discussion. And
    I wanted to ask a question also on your hiring practices. The
    2020 appropriation bill provides a significant increase to your
    program direction with the expectation that the office achieve
    a full-time equivalent staffing level of at least 675. I know
    you are making progress on that, but remain concerned that the
    Department is filling career positions with political
    appointees.
        Most recently, Assistant Secretary Simmons, you filled a
    senior level position in your office traditionally held by a
    highly qualified career civil servant with a political
    appointee who not only has very little relevant experience, but
    once advocated for the office's closure. Are you having
    difficulty finding qualified civil servants to fill your
    vacancies? And will you commit to me here that you will stop
    converting career positions to political positions?
        Mr. Simmons. The Department is focused on executing our
    mission, and it will always be a combination of career and
    political appointees to be able to carry that out. In all
    offices there are, around DOE, there are deputy assistant
    secretaries that are a mix of political and career. What
    matters is executing on the mission and putting together the
    team that can best achieve that, and that is what our goal is,
    that is what our goal is staffing.
        Ms. Kaptur. So, you are not prepared to commit to me today
    that you will not convert career positions to political
    positions?
        Mr. Simmons. Well, the challenge there is what is what is a
    political position versus a career position? I am not sure what
    the distinction is, so that is not something that I could
    commit to do until we understand that.
        Ms. Kaptur. Well, I ask you to follow up for the record.
        Mr. Simmons. Sure.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Congressman Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, just a couple more questions.
    Secretary Baranwal, as you know the Idaho National Laboratory
    recently launched a National Reactor Innovation Center, or
    NRIC, which will provide private sector technology developers
    support to accelerate the testing and demonstration of new
    nuclear systems for eventual licensing in commercialization.
    How will the Advanced Reactors Demonstration Program complement
    the work of NRIC? And how can NRIC help increase the impact of
    the demonstration programs in commercializing the next
    generation of advanced reactors? Outside of the Advanced
    Reactor Demonstration Program, what role do you see NRIC in
    supporting reactor designs and designers? And how can NRIC and
    GAIN work together to support innovation and demonstration
    projects? That is a lot of questions.
        Ms. Baranwal. NRIC and GAIN are both very complementary,
    and they are coordinating their efforts to continue to support
    private industry. GAIN is certainly intended to provide private
    industry access to national lab capabilities with respect to
    technical expertise, testing facilities, regulatory assistance,
    and some financial assistance.
        NRIC is looking at the Federal infrastructure, including
    sites, facilities, materials, and expertise that would be
    needed to deploy advance reactor technologies. In its purview,
    it will be preparing the necessary safety safeguards, security,
    and environmental evaluations. So, all of those very much are
    required and will be needed by the private industry companies
    that will be demonstrating through the Advance Reactor Demo
    Program.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Mr. Winberg, I got the feeling you
    wanted to kind of say a little more about the importance of
    fossil energy, but didn't get the chance to respond fully to
    those questions earlier. I won't say who or anything like that.
        Tell me, how much fossil fuel, what percentage of the
    electricity is produced by fossil fuel today?
        Mr. Winberg. About 80 percent of our overall energy.
        Mr. Simpson. Overall energy?
        Mr. Winberg. Which includes electricity. And transportation
    is fossil energy: coal, oil, and natural gas.
        Mr. Simpson. When do you expect to get that to zero?
        Mr. Winberg. Not in my lifetime, certainly, and probably
    not in my children's. IEA, under their best-case scenario will
    be down to about 75 percent globally, 75 percent fossil energy
    from 80 today; 75 percent by about 2050.
        Mr. Simpson. So, given that that is kind of the future,
    looking down the road, and that takes into account what we are
    doing with renewables and so forth and so on, would it not be
    important to develop new coal plants that are zero emission, if
    possible?
        Mr. Winberg. Yes, sir. I think it would make a lot of
    sense, both here in the United States as well as around the
    world. And not only can we make them zero emission, we can make
    them net negative CO2 emissions. If we burn, say, 80 percent
    coal and 20 percent biomass with 95 percent CCUS, they will be
    net negative CO2 emissions.
        Furthermore, we are going to take the next step and we are
    going to be looking at coal, biomass, and waste plastics to
    produce hydrogen because we need to deal with the
    transportation sector. And if we can do that, and we can do
    that on a net negative CO2 emissions producing hydrogen which
    can be used then for transportation, it can be used for power
    generation and it can be used in the industrial sector.
        Mr. Simpson. And just to clarify, when CO2 goes into the
    atmosphere, does it stay over the place it was produced or does
    it go around the world?
        Mr. Winberg. No, sir. It is caught up in the atmosphere and
    that is why it is a global challenge not just here.
        Mr. Simpson. So, emissions and what they are doing in China
    and India and other places that are building coal facilities is
    as important, actually, as it is in this country, too, right?
        Mr. Winberg. Yes, sir, perhaps more important as it relates
    to CO2 emissions.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, and thank you all for being here
    today. Mr. Gates, I didn't ask you any questions because I am
    so confused on what we have to do with cyber security, and I
    want to come down to your facility and sit down, I know some of
    this stuff is classified, but go through where we are and what
    we can do to ensure the cyber security of this country in the
    future, and the electrical grid. Because, as I said earlier, I
    am almost more worried about that than I am of other things.
    So, I appreciate all that all of you do, and you should know
    that a lot of times people think of national security as our
    defense and that kind of stuff, well, everything you do in
    national security to make us energy independent, to make our
    grid secure, to develop new technologies, and so forth; to make
    sure that the nuclear reactors and so forth of the future are
    actually American designed with the safety that we put into
    them. Everything you do is as important to national defense as
    defense is. So, I appreciate all you do; and thank you all.
        Ms. Kaptur. I want to thank the ranking member for his
    remarks, and I endorse them. And I also want to thank
    Congressman Fleischmann for remaining with us here. I just have
    a couple of final questions.
        Assistant Secretary Winberg, you talked about a hydrogen
    future in transportation, and you hit the key on my piano for
    sure on that one. So, if I wanted to see the future in our
    country of hydrogen in transportation, which geographic
    location would you direct me to? Anything come to mind?
        Mr. Winberg. No, I don't think anything comes to mind as it
    relates to hydrogen because hydrogen can be produced through
    electrolysis using the Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant. It can
    be produced from natural gas, through national gas reforming
    with CCUS, and it can be used from coal. So, what that suggests
    to me is that around the United States, across the United
    States, we can produce hydrogen, maybe do it in a reasonably
    distributed manner, so that we are not centralizing our
    hydrogen production and then transporting it out to the areas
    that need it.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. I also wanted to ask you
    that your budget request cuts research for carbon capture,
    utilization, and storage by nearly $100 million, and I wanted
    to ask you what do you think is the potential for carbon
    utilization technologies and how you justify the proposed cuts
    to these accounts? FYI, the University of Toledo in my home
    community is developing technologies for algae systems that
    capture and reuse carbon dioxide to produce renewal materials.
        Mr. Winberg. Thank you for the question. We are going to
    have about $123 million in our budget request for CCUS, and
    that is going to allow us to do, again, some of the early-stage
    research because the technologies are out there to capture
    carbon. What we need to do is get that cost down, and we have a
    goal at the Department of Energy to reduce it down to about $30
    a ton from notionally $45 or $50 where it is at right now.
        We also have 45Q, and the Internal Revenue Service is
    writing regulations finalizing that. We are going to see
    demonstration projects come out of 45Q that will be commercial-
    scale done by private industry, and when that happens, that is
    when the learning really begins. The Federal Government can
    move back and allow industry to do what it does best, and that
    is to innovate.
        So, I think, there are great opportunities for CCUS. We
    have done some work in algae because it is a means of
    sequestering CO2 and you can turn it into a fuel or into a
    fertilizer, different uses for algae. In fact, we have
    currently got about $4\1/2\ million worth of projects going on.
    We just released a funding opportunity announcement and we are
    reviewing those now. I don't know if the University of Toledo
    participated in that, and if they did, it would be procurement
    sensitive, so I couldn't talk about it. But there are
    opportunities, clearly, for algae to be used in the
    transportation sector and also as a sequestration measure for
    CO2.
        Mr. Simmons. The University of Toledo project was funded by
    the Bioenergy Technologies Office. Just a note of clarification
    that the Office of Fossil Energy and EERE work together in this
    area, as well as making sure that we are keeping the aperture
    wide open in terms of carbon utilization.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. I know my colleagues know,
    you have heard me talk about algae a lot, but if you lived in
    the southernmost of the Great Lakes and you see what it does,
    my question really is, are we producing it anew or are we using
    what is already there? I don't know if there is a harvesting
    mechanism yet, but that gets into a much larger conundrum as
    one tries to solve the problem in the watershed that produces
    the algae in the end. And with climate change and so forth, it
    is just a new stew we are facing all over the country. On the
    Everglades where we live, I think even in Idaho, Montana, we
    have had real issues. I know up in Green Bay, I guess that is
    why it has the name Green Bay, but up in Wisconsin, but we
    really do need----
        Mr. Simpson. Is that why it is called Green Bay?
        Ms. Kaptur. I think so. I think so, but it never was quite
    this much. So, we have real challenges there, especially when
    part of it becomes toxic and it enters your fresh water
    systems. That is really a very dangerous moment.
        Finally, last question, and I thank my colleagues,
    Assistant Secretary Simmons, the administration has chosen to
    eliminate the weatherization and State energy program that
    helps individuals across our country save on energy costs,
    particularly those who have limited incomes and are elderly.
    And with states across the country facing budget pressures, who
    do you believe should pay for these if not the Federal
    Government? And the Department's coordination with other
    Federal agencies is crucial. At the ground, grantees do not
    know the difference between the colors of funds. So, can you
    elaborate on ways in which local weatherization grantees are
    leveraging weatherization funding with other related Federal
    programs?
        One of the things I learned, which was just astounding to
    me, in going to some of our announcements for the
    weatherization program is that your Department, through the
    states, fund magnificent retrofits of furnaces. They have these
    inventions where you can see where the cold air is coming from,
    or the hot air, into a home, but there is no coordination with
    HUD. So, if you fix the furnace and the roof leaks, it still
    isn't a perfect solution. And so, I found the need for
    collaboration huge, and some States do a good job, some States
    don't do a good job. And this is a real need across our country
    as some of this housing stock ages. It is still good stock. We
    need to fix it. Not everybody wants to live in a brand new
    house with no basement. And we have some phenomenal work going
    on sort of south of where Mike lives in the western part of the
    country where we have got net-zero homes being built in
    Arizona. I think that is so exciting. The construction industry
    has responded, too, but the necessity to kind of coordinate a
    little bit the energy agencies and housing agencies wouldn't be
    a bad idea and to try to do the whole unit at once and I think
    there needs to be a little bit more rigor there.
        So I know your budget has basically eliminated it. I hope
    that we are able to change that as we move the bill forward.
    Did you want to make any comments on weatherization?
        Mr. Simmons. Well, what I will say about weatherization is
    that the--that the zeroing is out is not a reflection of the
    importance of the program. It is a reflection of it is a State
    program, the theory is that it should be then funded by the
    States and that it could then maybe reflect some local
    circumstances better. So that's the theory of the budget.
        As you have, as you have seen over the past few years, we
    will work very hard and are weatherization office works very
    hard to execute on the monies appropriated to being able to
    make sure that the weatherization money gets out on time as
    well as the State Energy Program money gets out on time.
        It is a, as you noted, some states, some do better than
    others at being able to bring together and to do more
    innovative projects. I visited in November I went to Madison,
    WI to Representative Pocan's district and saw some
    weatherization work going on there and that the Wisconsin does
    really quite a good job in terms of bringing together different
    sources of funding to be able to make larger improvements for
    each project that they work on so that is, it's great to see.
        Mr. Simpson. Will the gentlelady yield for just a minute?
        Ms. Kaptur. I would be more than pleased to the gentleman.
        Mr. Simpson. I agree with you. I think zeroing out the
    weatherization program is a big mistake. But you know who pays
    for it, pays a lot of the costs in the Pacific Northwest? The
    Bonneville Power Administration of power marketing agency that
    this budget proposes to I think privatize.
        That is where a lot of the money comes from for the
    weatherization programs. And I have gone to a lot of different
    homes where they have done just what you have said, I mean,
    they do their whole home.
        They go in and they do that thing you said with the walls
    to see where the, everything is coming from and see if there is
    leaks and other stuff. They go downstairs to look and look at
    the amount of insulation and everything else and they do
    amazing, amazing stuff. And over a period of time that is
    energy saved is energy you don't have to produce.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much for those comments,
    Congressman Simpson. I urge you to be creative. We provided
    some language in the bill for 2020 to look at retrofit of
    entire neighborhoods, not just individual homes were you could
    have offsite solar, where you could use geothermal. We would
    leave it up to the creativity of the experts and that is really
    where DOE has an advantage over many of the states because the
    states don't really do research.
        Those devices that they have developed, the fans, the
    measuring devices that is a little bit high tech for states to
    do and I would expect that we have other innovations that could
    come that could help at the local level.
        Don't underestimate your own capabilities to help these
    States. You have moved America forward, you have weatherized
    millions of homes, you have saved them for the next generation.
    That is a big deal for people across this country, particularly
    those who can't afford to do it themselves.
        So, Congressman, Simpson, do you have any other questions
    for the record? We want to thank our witnesses very, very much.
    This concludes this afternoon's hearing.
        I again want to express my sincere thanks for all the
    effort that you devote to the people of this country and to its
    future and I ask the witnesses to please ensure for the hearing
    record that questions for the record and any supporting
    information requested by the subcommittee are delivered in
    final form to us no later than three weeks from the time you
    receive them.
        Members who have additional questions for the record will
    have until the close of business this Friday to provide them to
    the committee office.
        We thank all of our guests in the audience for your
    patience and interest. This hearing is adjourned.
        [Information submitted for the record follows:]

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                                               Wednesday, March 4, 2020

                        NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY AGENCY

                                   WITNESSES

    HON. LISA E. GORDON-HAGERTY, UNDER SECRETARY, NUCLEAR SECURITY AND
        ADMINISTRATOR, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
    DR. CHARLES VERDON, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, DEFENSE PROGRAMS, NATIONAL
        NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
    DR. BRENT PARK, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, DEFENSE NUCLEAR NONPROLIFERATION,
        NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
    ADMIRAL JAMES ``FRANK'' CALDWELL, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF NAVAL
        REACTORS, NATIONAL NUCLEAR SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
        Ms. Kaptur. The subcommittee will come to order.
        Administrator Gordon-Hagerty, I want to thank you and your
    team for being here today and for all the extra effort you make
    to inform our members.
        We continue our budget hearings with the Department of
    Energy's fiscal year 2021 request for the National Nuclear
    Security Administration.
        The NNSA and its workforce are responsible for the
    consequential mission of ensuring the safety, security, and
    effectiveness of our Nation's nuclear deterrent. This includes
    nonproliferation activities and powering the Navy's nuclear
    ships and submarines.
        I cannot overstate the enormity of this mission. I know
    that each of you here today feel that weighty responsibility.
        I want to take a moment to recognize two important
    milestones. Twenty years ago, Congress created the NNSA. This
    year also marks the 25th anniversary of the science-based
    Stockpile Stewardship Program, which gives us confidence in
    nuclear deterrent without underground testing and allows for a
    reduced stockpile size.
        I want to be clear: Maintaining a safe, credible, and
    reliable nuclear deterrent is a national priority. But we must
    do so in a cost-effective, responsible manner, and this budget
    request does neither.
        I have serious concerns about this request. At this very
    hearing last year, I warned that the increases proposed then
    were not sustainable year after year. And yet the
    administration has doubled down on its unrealistic request,
    proposing to grow the 12 percent increase in fiscal year 2020
    to 25 percent in 2021. I said that correctly, a 25 percent
    increase.
        To put it plainly, this budget is neither realistic or
    executable. It is based upon overly optimistic assumptions. In
    fact, I am becoming more convinced that Congress could write a
    blank check and NNSA still would not be able to deliver on its
    budget and schedule commitments.
        In analyzing the budget justification documents, which were
    shared with us only hours before the Secretary testified last
    week, it is clear NNSA is trying to do far too much, too
    quickly. Past precedent tells us that when we try to go too
    fast and don't do the upfront planning, NNSA makes costly
    mistakes.
        The fact of the matter is that nuclear deterrence is too
    important to get wrong. We don't have an unlimited defense
    budget, and as such, the answer cannot be limitless funding.
    Making budgets requires making strategic choices.
        Turning to nonproliferation, deterrence and diplomacy are
    complementary. The Department's nuclear nonproliferation
    programs have been a cornerstone of our efforts to prevent
    nuclear material from getting into the wrong hands, both
    internationally and at home. Yet this budget request proposes
    cuts to the Global Material Security program that is so vital
    to these efforts.
        In addition to rectifying this, I also believe that we need
    to take a fresh look at emerging threats as nuclear
    technologies evolve and as nations try to acquire them.
        The NNSA makes up a sizable portion of this subcommittee's
    bill. As such, we have a solemn obligation to the taxpayers to
    ensure that limited Federal resources are provided as part of a
    balanced, coherent strategy.
        Again, thank you for your service to our Nation and for
    being here today.
        With that, I will close my remarks and turn to our ranking
    member, Mr. Simpson, for his opening remarks.

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        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur.
        I would like to welcome our witnesses here today to this
    hearing. It is a distinguished and knowledgeable panel with
    whom we have had a good discussion in previous hearings.
        Thank you all for being here today. I look forward to
    hearing from you on the fiscal year 2021 budget request for the
    NNSA.
        The President's budget request for the Department of Energy
    shows a strong commitment to enhancing our U.S. national
    security. The request for the NNSA is just under $19.8 billion.
    This funding will advance the modernization of the nuclear
    weapon stockpile and its supporting infrastructure, prevent,
    counter, and respond to nuclear proliferation and terrorism
    threats, and to support the Navy's nuclear propulsion needs.
        I know there have been some concerns expressed about the
    increased request for the Weapons Activities account. But one
    thing we need to keep in mind also is why we are where we are
    today.
        After the end of the Cold War, many thought the need for a
    credible nuclear deterrent was gone or at least reduced, so
    many of the programs related to our nuclear weapons stockpile
    were reduced or eliminated. That may have been correct at the
    time, but today we know other nations are seeking to advance
    their nuclear capabilities.
        To appropriately respond to these evolving and emerging
    threats, we must continue the modernization of the stockpile
    and its supporting infrastructure. To do so requires
    reestablishment of many critical capabilities in an expeditious
    manner and a continued effort to make advancements through
    science and technology. These activities will require a full
    and capable workforce.
        The budget request is in support of these requirements.
    Many of these programs are by necessity ambitious and will
    require sustained attention to good program and project
    management. I believe the NNSA leadership assembled here with
    us today is up to the task.
        I look forward to today's discussion on the importance of
    your work and how the budget request will strengthen our
    national security.
        Chairwoman Kaptur, thank you for calling this hearing. I
    yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson.
        And before we turn to our witnesses today, I want to remind
    our members that we will follow our usual order for
    questioning.
        I also want to note that today I will be deferring to Mr.
    Visclosky for the first round of questions as he has joined us
    briefly before he must chair his own hearing in the Defense
    Subcommittee.
        I am pleased to have our witnesses here today. We will hear
    from the Honorable Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty, who is the Under
    Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator for NNSA.
    Administrator Gordon-Hagerty is responsible for the Nation's
    nuclear security enterprise, and she has more than 30 years of
    experience in nuclear security. She has served in private
    industry and has held positions on the White House National
    Security Council and the House Committee on Energy and
    Commerce.
        We will then hear from Admiral James F. Caldwell, who is
    the Deputy Administrator for the Office of Naval Reactors.
    Admiral Caldwell is responsible for managing NNSA's Nuclear
    Propulsion Program. Admiral Caldwell's sea tours include
    service in both the Atlantic and Pacific Fleets and multiple
    operational assignments.
        Thank you all for being here today. Without objection, your
    written testimony will be entered into the record. Please feel
    free to summarize your remarks to approximately 5 minutes.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, thank you for being here.

                STATEMENT OF HON. LISA E. GORDON-HAGERTY

        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Chairman Kaptur, Ranking Member
    Simpson, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the
    opportunity to present the President's fiscal year 2021 budget
    request for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear
    Security Administration.
        As always, it is a privilege to sit before you today
    representing the fine men and women of the NNSA. We are
    grateful for your demonstrated strong bipartisan support for
    the NNSA's national security missions and the people that
    execute them every single day.
        This year marks the 20th anniversary of the NNSA's
    establishment by Congress--although, of course, our heritage
    goes back much further, to the Manhattan Project and to the
    Atomic Energy Commission. And as always has been the case since
    the Nuclear Security Enterprise's creation, the effectiveness
    and credibility of America's nuclear capabilities reassures our
    friends and allies and serves as the ultimate deterrent against
    a nuclear attack by those who wish to harm us.
        In this regard, NNSA serves a unique role in supporting our
    Nation's national security. The $19.8 billion budget request
    for NNSA reflects President Trump's strong commitment to
    ensuring America has a safe, secure, and effective nuclear
    deterrent for decades to come.
        This funding also affirms the administration's continued
    work to reduce threats posed by nuclear proliferation and
    nuclear terrorism, as well as providing militarily effective
    nuclear propulsion for the United States Navy's fleet of
    aircraft carriers and submarines.
        The Weapons Activities request of $15.6 billion will allow
    us to modernize the Nation's nuclear stockpile and
    infrastructure and meet national security requirements after
    decades of neglect. It will modernize the stockpile with five
    weapons modernization programs, execute stockpile sustainment
    activities, conduct annual assessments for all weapon systems.
        And with this request, we will continue the dismantlement
    and disposition of weapons and components from the weapons
    retired from our stockpile and support production modernization
    activities for nonnuclear components and strategic materials,
    including a two-site plutonium pit production strategy.
        We will also continue to recapitalize NNSA's aging
    infrastructure, including the Y-12 Uranium Processing Facility
    and the Idaho Spent Fuel Handling Facility.
        As many of you have witnessed firsthand, our entire
    enterprise continues to age, with much of our infrastructure
    operating far beyond its design life. With this increase, we
    will finally be able to modernize the enterprise.
        Our defense nuclear nonproliferation request of $2 billion
    marks the third year in row that the Trump administration has
    sought an increase in funding for NNSA's nonproliferation and
    counterterrorism programs and fully funds DNN priority program
    requirements.
        This reflects the administration's strong commitment to
    reducing global nuclear threats and to arms control efforts
    that advance U.S., allied, and partner security. It will enable
    us to continue to build domestic and international capacity to
    secure and, where possible, eliminate nuclear and radioactive
    materials and prevent nuclear smuggling.
        Further, this request allows us to maintain a robust
    nuclear counterterrorism capability to respond to nuclear and
    radiological threats, including nuclear forensic activities to
    attribute the source of material used in a terrorist attack. We
    will advance our capabilities for detecting and monitoring
    foreign nuclear material and weapon production activities.
        Equally important is the Naval Reactors budget request of
    $1.7 billion. It enables us to provide for the continued safe,
    reliable, and long-lived operation of the U.S. Navy's nuclear
    fleet, which accounts for more than 40 percent of the Navy's
    major vessels.
        Finally, our Federal salaries and expenses budget of $454
    million will allow us to recruit, train, and retain a highly
    skilled workforce of 1,858 Federal employees.
        Madam Chairwoman, it is true that our timeline for
    modernizing the nuclear stockpile and recapitalizing the
    necessary infrastructure is aggressive. In some cases, we are
    asking our sites and partners to do in 10 years what has
    traditionally taken 15 to 20 years.
        But in the 2 years since being confirmed, I have seen
    firsthand the Nuclear Security Enterprise workforce's passion
    and dedication and what we can accomplish. Consequently, while
    the schedule may be aggressive, I believe it is achievable.
    However, we can only do so with consistent and sustained
    funding and, most importantly, our continued partnership with
    Congress.
        I would also like to thank our NNSA Deputy Administrators,
    Dr. Charlie Verdon, Dr. Brent Park, and Admiral Frank Caldwell,
    for your leadership, dedication, and commitment to our
    enterprise and to our great Nation.
        Thank you again for your strong support and the
    subcommittee's strong support and the opportunity to testify
    before you today. I am ready to answer any questions you may
    have. Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Gordon-Hagerty follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Administrator Gordon-
    Hagerty.
        Admiral Caldwell.

                  STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL JAMES CALDWELL

        Admiral Caldwell. Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member
    Simpson, and distinguished members of this subcommittee, thank
    you for the opportunity to testify here today.
        I also want to thank the subcommittee for consistently
    supporting Naval Reactors, enabling my team to provide the Navy
    with propulsion plants that give our nuclear-powered warships
    the incredible advantage of unmatched reliability, speed, and
    endurance to carry out the national security missions that they
    do around the world.
        Our National Security Strategy and National Defense
    Strategies recognize an increasingly dynamic and complex global
    security environment marked by the reemergence of great power
    competition. Nuclear propulsion remains critical to our
    national security posture. Today, over 40 percent of the Navy's
    major combatants are nuclear powered, including 11 aircraft
    carriers and 68 submarines. Naval Reactors' budget request for
    fiscal year 2021 is for $1.68 billion. That is an increase of
    $35 million, or 2.2 percent, from our fiscal year 2020 request.
        Our budget request supports three national priority
    projects. The first project supports the Navy's number one
    acquisition priority by developing the new propulsion plant for
    the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, which will
    feature a life-of-ship reactor core. That core is made possible
    by reactor technologies developed over many decades. The fiscal
    year 2021 request will continue supporting oversight of lead
    ship propulsion plant design and safety analysis work.
        The second project is refueling and overhauling a land-
    based reactor in New York. There is a dual benefit to this
    effort: First, enabling continued research and development, and
    then providing 20 more years of training for new fleet
    operators. The project has been working through performance
    challenges associated with the integration of workforces from
    multiple shipyards. However, recent performance has shown
    improvement.
        The third project is constructing the new Naval Spent Fuel
    Handling Facility in Idaho, which will enable long-term
    reliable processing and packaging of spent nuclear fuel from
    Naval reactors plants. Market conditions, such as a shortage of
    skilled labor, high construction demand, and a remote location,
    coupled with price volatility for domestic construction
    materials, have resulted in higher than anticipated costs.
    However, we have taken action to minimize impacts to project
    costs and schedule.
        Congress' full support of this project has allowed us to
    make significant progress. Last year, we began construction
    activities, and later this year, we will begin pouring concrete
    backfill and foundations.
        This year's budget request also invests in three key areas:
    supporting today's nuclear fleet, developing advanced reactor
    technology for future classes of nuclear-powered warships, and
    modernizing critical infrastructure and reducing the program's
    legacy environmental liabilities.
        I want to assure the committee that our budget planning
    efforts are done with rigor. Although two of our major projects
    are facing challenges over the last year, I continue to pursue
    efficiencies to help offset cost increases and schedule changes
    that these projects have experienced. This puts pressure on
    other parts of my program, specifically in the areas of
    research and development, as well as facility recapitalization.
        However, I recognize the budget constraints this country
    faces, and I will continue to effectively manage the resources
    that Naval Reactors is allotted.
        I respectfully urge your support of our fiscal year 2021
    budget request, and I thank this committee for their
    longstanding support of Naval Reactors. I look forward to
    answering your questions. Thank you, ma'am.
        [The prepared statement of Admiral Caldwell follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Admiral.
        Now, we are going to turn to our very able and long-serving
    member of the subcommittee, Congressman Peter Visclosky, who
    also chairs our Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
        Mr. Visclosky. Madam Chair, Mr. Simpson, and the members of
    the Committee, I do appreciate the special consideration. There
    are five of us on this subcommittee that have another hearing
    on Defense.
        I do think the work you do is incredibly important. I have
    served on this committee since another century, and typically
    would ask questions, but just wanted to express some concerns
    as we proceed with the 2021 budget.
        I do believe our role is to make sure we have rigorous
    oversight, as obviously we are spending the taxpayers' dollars
    properly.
        My concern, first of all, is that according to the agency's
    fiscal year 2020 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan, NNSA
    did not intend to ask for more than $15.5 billion for Weapons
    Activities until the early 2030s. Yet, this year you are
    seeking $15.6 billion for Weapons Activities, which represents
    an increase of over 25 percent from current year levels.
        I would also emphasize that I am highly skeptical that NNSA
    has the capacity to spend $15.6 billion in fiscal year 2021,
    given that the agency continues to sit on a very large sum of
    unobligated and uncosted balances.
        Second, I am always and have been concerned that you are on
    the receiving end from requests from the Department of Defense:
    We need it. We will supply. Well, maybe we have constraints in
    making that supply.
        The case in point is this year there is a $53 million
    request for NNSA to begin work on the new W93 warhead, a
    project that was previously not expected to begin until 2023.
    And we had a discussion with the United States Navy earlier
    today at the Defense Subcommittee on this.
        The NNSA recently completed the life extension program for
    the W76-1 warhead and is in the process of modernizing the W88
    warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Given these
    efforts, it is unclear to me why we must begin funding the
    development of the W93 this year.
        Last month, as the US STRATCOM commander appeared before
    the Defense Subcommittee, in his written remarks expressed his
    concerns over the atrophy of our nuclear weapons-supporting
    infrastructure and resulting risks. Yet in spite of that risk,
    there appears to be no hesitation for another requirement to be
    added on to an atrophied infrastructure.
        The administration's insistence that the W93 warhead will
    not require a new design also gives me pause.
        In talking about infrastructure, it is my understanding
    that you have about $2.5 billion in deferred maintenance. I am
    a maintenance kind of guy. I am from Gary, IN. And my concern
    is whether or not we should take that on before embarking on
    other things that will stress that infrastructure.
        And the final point of policy is I have also always
    believed that it is less costly to spend money on
    nonproliferation to prevent the spread of materials and
    preventing other countries from securing them.
        This current administration is not the only violator of
    deemphasizing nonproliferation. It is very costly to build
    these weapons. And I just really wish we would strike a strong
    balance between nonproliferation as well as weapons
    development. Obviously, that is my personal observation.
        I just wanted to be allowed to make those observations. I
    do appreciate the indulgence.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Congressman Visclosky.
        And now we will turn to our very long-serving member on
    this subcommittee, Congressman Ken Calvert, who is the ranking
    member on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, and I appreciate your coming out
    here today. I think the modernization effort you are all
    spearheading is obviously a top priority for our 2021 budget
    request for the National Nuclear Security Administration. It
    comes in at $19.8 billion. It was mentioned, an almost 20
    percent increase from the fiscal year 2020 amount.
        We are also aware of the tight--very tight--schedule that
    your systems are operating on in order to replace the nuclear
    triad.
        Given that there is very little margin or room for error on
    these programs, can you please give a quick rundown on whether
    the nuclear weapons piece of the following program is on time
    and your confidence level that they will be delivered as
    expected? The Ground Based Strategic Deterrent replacing the
    Minuteman III; two, the Columbia-class sub or the Ohio
    replacement; and three, the B-21 Bomber program. If you can go
    through this for us that would be great.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Mr. Calvert, I can address the GBSD or
    the 87-1 replacement. There have been some slippages in the FPU
    date, in the first production unit date, based on the fragility
    of our infrastructure, which I think is rightfully stated.
        Because of the fragility of our infrastructure, that we
    have let it to decay, we have allowed it to delay over the last
    20 years, we are finding that we have a vendor base--a problem
    with our vendor base, and for the capacitors or from other
    components for the nuclear weapons stockpile.
        That certainly, we haven't needed them for 20 years, and
    now all of a sudden we are having this resurgence of five
    modernization programs, and we need these domestically produced
    or vendor-based products from here in the United States.
        To the extent we are working very closely with and continue
    to be aligned with every single program with the Navy and with
    the Air Force for our nuclear modernization programs, while the
    FPU will slip a bit, the IOC date is still the same, which
    means it will be delivered on target and on schedule with the
    United States Air Force.
        I would defer to Admiral Caldwell on the Ohio-class
    replacement and Columbia.
        Admiral Caldwell. Sir, regarding the Columbia, we are going
    to officially start construction this year in October. And the
    ship must deliver in 2028 and be to sea in 2031 for its first
    patrol.
        My responsibilities on the Columbia class are the design of
    the reactor plant, including the reactor core, the life-of-the-
    ship core, as well as the electric drive. Because of the great
    support that we have received from this subcommittee, I am on
    pace to support the needs of the Navy in constructing the
    Columbia class.
        In fact, last year I was able to order the reactor plant
    heavy equipment exactly on schedule. Those are the heavy
    components that go in the reactor plant. And this year I am
    starting construction of the reactor core, and I will be able
    to deliver that core within the required dates that the Navy
    needs it.
        On the Department of Navy side, I am funded to develop the
    integrated power system, or the E drive, which is an electric
    motor vice a steam propulsion turbine. And I have been able to
    actually build a prototypical motor and put that in a facility
    and start testing that motor and all the components in the
    integrated power system. And I am on track to support the
    Navy's needs in constructing the Columbia-class submarine.
        It takes a lot of work and a lot of oversight, and we are
    working hard with our industry partners to make sure we
    deliver.
        Thank you, sir.
        Mr. Calvert. Can you comment on that?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Sir, we can't comment on the B-21.
    However, I would like to mention something about it. I was
    referring to the 61-12 and the delay that we had in the 61-12
    FPU, but the IOC is the same.
        The 87-1, which is the 78 replacement for the Minuteman
    III, is on target for an FPU date of 2030. So we are fully
    aligned with the Air Force for the 87-1. So my apologies for
    that.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you. I guess I will hear from the B-21
    Air Force.
        I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
        Madam Administrator, the fiscal year 2021 request for the
    Weapons Activities is $15.6 billion, a $3.1 billion increase
    above last year. Last year, NNSA said it would need $12.8
    billion in fiscal year 2021 to meet its budget and schedule
    commitments. That should equate to a $350 million increase over
    what we appropriated last year. However, it leaves about $2.8
    billion in this request that was unplanned as of this time last
    year.
        As I told Secretary Brouillette last week, this budget
    request is simply sprinting toward failure. We need to take
    steps to prevent that from happening and give NNSA more
    breathing room before falling off the cliff.
        The program scope has been known for years. What has
    changed since this time last year to result in such a request
    for such a large increase?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Madam Chairwoman, the fiscal year 2021
    request was the result of a year-long activity that we
    undertook throughout the entire NNSA, with all our labs,
    plants, and site leadership, our field offices, and our
    headquarters leadership. And we looked at every single priority
    that has been given to us by the Department of Defense and
    those internal to us for nonproliferation and counterterrorism
    activities. And we took a very hard line on what these
    priorities were across the entire integrated NNSA.
        This is kind of somewhat of a unprecedented activity for
    us. In fact, this year, we are going to be looking at a zero-
    based budget requirement. We believe that it is important to
    spend the taxpayer dollars wisely.
        When we uncovered this and we looked at the five
    modernization programs, especially in the Weapons Activities
    area, we realized that after decades of neglect of our
    enterprise it was time that we received the necessary, the
    critical resources to upgrade our infrastructure and modernize
    our entire nuclear enterprise.
        We have facilities that are nearing 70 years old in which
    we are operating. More than 30 percent of the facilities across
    NNSA enterprise--more than 30 percent--are over 70 years old.
    More than 40 percent are over 50 years old. We are working
    through those facilities in the best possible way.
        And to the point of where we are throwing good money after
    bad, that is why it is time to modernize our infrastructure and
    recapitalize and reconstitute the nuclear security enterprise.
    It is because we haven't paid intention to it. Perhaps call it
    the peace dividend, call it what you will. But we have lost
    vendor capacity. We have lost our personnel.
        We are on a massive corporate approach to hiring. I am glad
    to say that we have hired 7,700 people across our nuclear
    security enterprise to date this year, through the end of
    fiscal year 2019. We lost much of that project management
    program, program management, laboratory scientific expertise at
    our three laboratories and our weapons plants and sites, and
    now we need to reconstitute and recapitalize that. We are at a
    tipping point.
        Even GAO yesterday in their testimony, I had the pleasure
    to testify before the House Armed Services Committee, and GAO
    even expressed their concern about doing this. They were
    cautious--my words--cautiously optimistic. They were
    questioning whether or not we could do it.
        Yes, we are asking. We are seeking to do things in 10 years
    that traditionally would take 15 to 20 because we work in the
    nuclear weapons complex. That is not building homes, with all
    due respect. That is building nuclear grade facilities. And we
    are constructing those and working for a modern, resilient
    enterprise.
        And the foundation of this goes to our nuclear deterrent,
    because the Department of Defense sets the requirements. But it
    is the NNSA that maintains the nuclear weapons stockpile, thus
    our national security for our Nation. And that is what we are
    seeking, is the 2021 budget request of $19.8 billion is to do
    just that, is to preserve our nuclear deterrent.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Madam Administrator.
        You know, you may have a very good strategic plan in place,
    but I don't believe that it actually is a realistic annual
    request. But I think the effort to put forward an overall
    number may be a very useful exercise, and I congratulate you
    for doing that. But, again, I think that there are some dangers
    in the type of proposal that you have submitted to date.
        I wanted to ask one other question, then we will turn to
    the ranking member. The request also includes a 77 percent
    increase above last year to support activities to produce new
    plutonium pits for warheads. Our fiscal year 2019 bill required
    NNSA to deliver a plan that includes the scope of work, costs,
    schedule required to meet its pit production target, and we are
    still waiting.
        So when, specifically, will you deliver this plan to us?
    Please know, without a plan, we have nothing to evaluate this
    request against. Why should we give NNSA additional funding for
    these efforts when it is not clear that you even have a plan?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Ma'am, we have a plan. We are working
    through it right now. It is in its final draft stages. And I
    have been assured that it will be on my desk shortly and then
    delivered to Congress soon thereafter.
        Ms. Kaptur. Do you have a target date?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Soon. I have made it our number one
    priority with defense programs to ensure that it comes to my
    desk very, very soon.
        Ms. Kaptur. Are we talking 3 months, 6 months?
        Mr. Verdon. It is in the concurrence process now, ma'am. So
    it is just when the people that have to do the concurrence
    process.
        Ms. Kaptur. How many people does that have to go through,
    Doctor?
        Mr. Verdon. It is at least three additional organizations
    before it comes back to the Administrator.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. So we are talking several months.
        Mr. Verdon. We will gladly come up to brief. We will offer
    that.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. In fact, that is a great idea. Thank
    you, Dr. Verdon.
        We would gladly brief you on our final draft plan, because,
    again, it is in concurrence, and we don't expect any
    significant changes to it because it is a plan drafted by
    defense programs. So those that are seeing it from the outside
    in, if you will, where it is currently in concurrence,
    shouldn't have any significant changes.
        Again, we will gladly brief you on that, if you would like.
        Ms. Kaptur. Again, you can understand, Madam Administrator,
    why we might be concerned about other requests that are far
    beyond the scope of what we believe can be realistically
    achieved.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Absolutely.
        Ms. Kaptur. I thank you very much.
        Thank you, Dr. Verdon as well.
        I would like now to turn to our ranking member, Mr.
    Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman.
        Madam Administrator, before I get into specifics of the
    budget request, I would like to start with why we are
    discussing an active program to begin with. I guess it is
    because of the neglect of the past that we are looking at this
    type of budget increase.
        Could you please describe the impacts of our nuclear
    deterrent and national security of modernization programs don't
    happen? And are there budgetary impacts for either the NNSA or
    DOD if NNSA's schedule is delayed?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Mr. Simpson, I am glad you recognize
    that after years of neglect--after decades of neglect--we find
    ourselves in the untenable position of trying to modernize and
    recapitalize our entire infrastructure while working on five
    major modernization programs as directed by the Department of
    Defense.
        So, yes, it is a challenge for us. And we are absolutely
    aligned right now with the Department of Defense, and we are
    working very closely with the Air Force and with the Navy, who
    drive the requirements for our major modernization programs. If
    we slip on our schedule, then that requires then slippage for
    the Air Force or for the Navy, which means now we are touching
    the deterrent and we are actually making decisions on what the
    deterrent's capabilities and capacities will be.
        And we rely foundationally on a strong strategic deterrent.
    And so if we continue to slip to the right, so to speak, then
    what does that say to our allies and to our partners and,
    equally important to our adversaries, about the capability,
    quality of our nuclear deterrent?
        So, yes, it has profound changes. And, also, it is going to
    cost even more if we continue to slip the modernization
    programs that are necessary for our Nuclear Security
    Enterprise.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you. I have been in some of those
    buildings, and I don't know that I would like to work in some
    of those that have been around for 70 or so years. They are
    risky, to say the least, especially when you are doing nuclear
    work.
        Mr. Visclosky mentioned the uncosted balances in his
    comments. NNSA has significant uncosted balances from prior
    years. Sometimes these carryover balances are planned, as with
    capital equipment procurement and construction projects where
    appropriations are needed to begin the activity, but dollars
    are often spent slowly over a period of time or even not until
    towards the end of the activity. Other times, uncosted balances
    can show trouble in executing the program as planned or even
    simply cost excess funds.
        What proportion of NNSA's uncosted balances is obligated
    due to activities like capital equipment, procurement, and
    construction? And do these proportions vary from program to
    program, specifically, weapons and nonproliferation? And for
    the record, can you please provide how NNSA's carryover
    compares with other Federal agencies?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. OK. Thank you.
        NNSA has worked significantly to minimize our carryovers,
    and we continue to make sure that this process is transparent
    with Members of Congress.
        I am pleased to report that at the end of fiscal year 2019,
    NNSA had a net funds carryover of $637 million out of a $15
    billion budget. That is equal to or below that of other Federal
    agencies and departments. And just as GAO said yesterday in our
    hearing, they believe that it was consistent with that and it
    was appropriate to have that kind of carryover.
        In fiscal year 2019, we did have $8 billion of carryover.
    And despite that massive number, that is reasonable for NNSA in
    executing a $100 billion program over 5 years.
        GAO again had stated that that was appropriate. And while,
    for example, Naval Reactors has a 46 percent carryover, which
    is considered efficient, NNSA has a 49 percent carryover
    efficiency.
        And, again, if you look across the Federal Governments and
    agencies, we have seen a chart recently that shows NNSA is
    equal to or below most other Federal agencies.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        Admiral Caldwell, let me ask you, I understand that Naval
    Reactors is the Advanced Test Reactors' largest customer. How
    does the ATR support the Navy's mission?
        And as you are aware, ATR is aging and experiencing
    infrastructure deficiencies. How does this impact your research
    and development efforts?
        Admiral Caldwell. Thank you for the question, sir.
        The Advanced Test Reactor is absolutely vital to Naval
    Reactors' responsibilities. Over many decades, we have been
    able to take fuel that--materials that we want to understand
    how they would perform in a radiation, in a field in a flux,
    and evaluate them in the Advanced Test Reactor.
        This reactor has allowed us to make significant advances in
    the life of our reactor cores. For example, Nautilus was
    refueled at about the 18- to 24-month period, and now we are
    talking about building Columbia, which will have life-of-ship
    core over 40 years. That would not have been possible without
    the Advanced Test Reactor.
        So we are very much involved with it, and we are very much
    interested in making sure we have that capability as a Nation.
        That said, we are involved with DOE-NE to make sure that we
    have a plan to maintain the current systems. And we are on a 5-
    year rolling maintenance plan that is designed to go repair and
    modernize and fix some of the support systems.
        That said, we are still not executing to the amount of
    operational days that I need. And we are also thinking about
    the future. We are looking to see if the Advanced Test Reactor
    can have its service life extended out to the year 2085.
        That analysis work is being done in conjunction with my
    team, and we will have an answer in the 2022 or 2023 timeframe.
        But that all said, we need that capability. If we are going
    to continue to develop these advanced cores for the Navy, I
    need to be able to test in something like the Advanced Test
    Reactor.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        And if anybody thinks that refueling one of these
    submarines is a simple project of just carrying the rods down
    putting them in, go up to Groton. It is an amazing process that
    they go through to refuel one of these submarines. I can't
    believe that--or I can believe the savings that will come from
    not having to refuel these when you have life-of-the-ship
    reactors.
        Admiral Caldwell. That is correct, sir. In fact, with the
    Columbia program, we are going to be able to do the mission
    with 12 submarines versus the current 14 in the Trident force.
    That will save the Nation on the order of $40 billion over the
    life of the program.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Administrator, I know you are aware that your budget
    request includes a Future Years Nuclear Security Program, and
    that provides a guidepost for Congress' future budget--for the
    future budget request that we can expect from you.
        In fiscal year 2020, your budget request told us that the
    NNSA outyear budget estimates were fully consistent with the
    2018 Nuclear Posture Review. But fiscal year 2021, as we have
    been discussing this afternoon, you are requesting $2.8 billion
    above the amount you expected to request, according to the
    fiscal year 2020 budget plan.
        I understand that the infrastructure is aging, that it is
    important for us to keep competitive, and that was your
    response. But just last week, the Secretary of Energy testified
    that the proposed increase in the request would, quote, ``pull
    forward infrastructure projects.''
        What specific infrastructure projects would be pulled
    forward with this increase? And why should the subcommittee
    pull forward any work at all when NNSA can't even keep pace
    with your current work?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Representative Wasserman Schultz I
    would say that we are on time and on budget with all of our
    work, in our workload and our construction. In fact. I can use
    UPF, which is our Uranium Processing Facility at Y-12, which
    has remained on budget and on schedule for 7 years in a row.
    That facility will be $6.5 billion and completed by the end of
    2025. That is huge major capital construction----
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Reclaiming my time for a moment.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. OK. So to your question, we looked at--
    we worked with our labs, plants, and sites and looked at the
    highest priorities and prioritized all the missions that we
    must execute in 2021 and beyond. And in order to have the--to
    receive that uplift and to work across the entire enterprise,
    our Tritium Finishing Facility request will be pulled to the
    left.
        Tritium is a critical strategic material needed in nuclear
    weapons. We have a facility in which we are operating that is
    over 60 years old. That is a single point of failure. We can
    speak in classified terms in numbers about what happens to the
    stockpile if we lose our Tritium capability. And that also goes
    with other strategic materials, such as the Lithium Processing
    Facility at Y-12.
        We need to move these facilities to the left. We have had
    these planned for decades, and they continue to slip. It is
    time we finally revitalized and recapitalized our
    infrastructure. So those are just two examples.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you.
        But it seems that NNSA and DOE were not really on the same
    page and using different assumptions to build your budget
    request, I don't understand why that is the case.
        The Secretary's preferred number for NNSA in an attempt--
    was that an attempt by the Department to prioritize NNSA's
    workload because the agency right now appears to them to have
    its hands full?
        You had a large discrepancy between his preferred number
    and what ended up in the budget request. It really appeared
    that you outmaneuvered your own Secretary in pursuit of an
    unrealistic, wildly fantastical number.
        I get that we have to catch up and we certainly need to
    make sure that we keep our national security needs paramount.
    But you can't catch up for 30 years in 5 years. That is just
    not possible. We deal with finite budget authority in the
    appropriations process.
        NNSA doesn't have the capacity to deal with the funds that
    you have requested. We have other priorities, and NNSA can't
    just suck up all the money.
        So I really don't understand how you ended up with a, as
    has been expressed on both sides, the concern expressed on both
    sides, a much larger number than you seem to have the capacity
    to spend and that we have the capacity to appropriate for you.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Representative, all I can say is that I
    have been through the labs, plants, and sites, our field
    offices and I know that we can----
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. No, no, no, I know that, except
    that----
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. I am betting on our infrastructure and
    our personnel.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Reclaiming my time because I want
    you to answer my question. I have heard you go on about what is
    so important about this. I understand it is important.
        But your Secretary of your Department had a preferred
    number for NNSA, and you appear to have outmaneuvered him and
    gotten a larger number. And that discrepancy is very clear,
    that you don't have the capacity to spend the funds even if we
    appropriated every dollar to you. You can't possibly expect us
    to give you that much money in this small part of the budget
    and be able to deal with the other priorities that we have to
    deal with.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. So to the extent the executive branch
    went through our processes, they were respectful processes, and
    we followed the President's direction of his number one
    priority, which is modernizing the nuclear triad. And the
    request that we asked for----
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You went up the chain?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Pardon me?
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. You went straight up the chain?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. No, ma'am, I did not. I worked through
    the regular process internally. And our internal executive
    branch discussions are just that. And we worked very closely
    with the Secretary of Energy to explain our position.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. That is not the information that
    I have. OK.
        Thank you. I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        Congressman Newhouse.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        And welcome to all of you. I appreciate you being here this
    afternoon with us.
        I had a particular question for you, Administrator Gordon-
    Hagerty, as well as Dr. Park. As you know, the Pacific
    Northwest National Laboratory is in my district, and they are a
    leader in protecting against the threats of nuclear
    proliferation. We talked about that just a little bit prior to
    the hearing. So I was pleased to see the strong investment in
    your budget as it relates to the Nonproliferation Stewardship
    Program.
        Probably most of my colleagues are very familiar with the
    Stockpile Stewardship Program. But could you share with us the
    role of the Nonproliferation Stewardship Program and how, in
    your estimation, that this program is going to help us maintain
    our ability to deter proliferation in this modern age?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Thank you, Representative Newhouse.
        Let me say, I am very pleased to report, as I mentioned in
    my opening statement, that that is the third year in a row that
    the Trump administration has sought additional and increased
    budgets for our nuclear nonproliferation program. We are very
    pleased with it. It is complementary to and supported by our
    Defense Program's activities.
        I would be delighted to turn to Dr. Park and give you some
    ideas about some of the activities that we have ongoing in the
    Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you.
        Mr. Park. Thank you for that question. And more than
    anything else, I truly appreciate all of your constant,
    continued support for the nonproliferation program. So thank
    you so much for that.
        PNNL is a critical component, a critical member of our
    national lab response team.
        And going back to your question about the nonproliferation
    stewardship activities, it is about people. We need to focus on
    training the next generation of people, and this program will
    allow that.
        We need to actually have a program that is sustainable and
    steady state. And we will pursue a couple of large initiatives
    that will involve the PNNL, along with the Los Alamos and
    Plutonium Science Institute. And although Mr. Fleischmann just
    left, we will pursue Uranium Science Institute with the Oak
    Ridge and the other laboratories.
        This is the bedrock for training next generation of people.
    And at the same time, it is not just empty training. They will
    get to do meaningful, mission-focused work. So they will get to
    have very classified information with which they can do
    research and develop new tools and to come up with the new
    technologies to do sample analyses. Hopefully, we will have a
    chance to talk on nuclear forensics.
        But, again, this is the cornerstone of how we train the
    next generation. So your support for this program is very much
    appreciated, and we are counting on it. Thank you.
        Mr. Newhouse. I appreciate you sharing that with us and
    critical to our efforts.
        Again, thank you all for being here with us this afternoon.
    I appreciate the frank testimony, the response to the
    questions, and I look forward to working with you as we move
    forward.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        Congresswoman Kirkpatrick.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Thank you, Administrator, for being here. And thank you to
    the panel all for being here today.
        I especially want to congratulate Dr. Verdon for choosing a
    great university for your doctorate, the University of Arizona
    in my hometown of Tucson. We are happy about that.
        I also have a concern about the unspent funding. And I know
    that you have got--you said you have got a plan to spend it. Do
    you also have a timeline that you can provide for us as to when
    that money is going to be spent down?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Absolutely. We do. And we have been
    sharing with the staffs of the subcommittees and the full
    committee, and we will continue to do so. But we are working
    judiciously to spend down those resources.
        I do want to make a point about spending on resources,
    though. While we have specific tasks for all of the defense
    program's related activities--for example, in the
    nonproliferation program--some of those carryovers that we see,
    those unexpected carryovers, some of the programs that we
    undertake, such as the most recent successful removal of 700
    kilograms of highly enriched Uranium from the United Kingdom,
    took several years to accomplish.
        Once we sign an agreement with them--and that goes not only
    for the U.K., but all of the materials that we return or work
    with to secure around the world, are multi-year-faceted
    programs.
        You don't just sign an agreement and then bring the
    material back, much like you don't just refuel a submarine. It
    takes many years to put the plan together and to execute that
    mission, and then bring it back to the United States or secure
    it in place or take it to a third country.
        While we might receive the requests for resources, receive
    the budget, the appropriations in 1 year, we might have that
    over several years before we can expend it all. So in some
    cases there are--people view that as, well, those are
    unobligated, unspent resources, and there is nothing further
    from the case.
        The worst case would be is that we use those resources for
    something else and then at the critical time, when we want to
    bring the materials back or secure it, those resources aren't
    there, and then we have to come back to Congress for additional
    appropriations. And that is not a good use of taxpayer dollars.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. So are those funds obligated then?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. They are technically obligated, but
    they show up in different columns. And we are working also to
    make sure that we are more transparent in those kinds of long
    lead-time activities. And so, yes. The answer is yes.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. We would appreciate that as the
    committee, because, I mean we are charged with oversight of the
    program.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Absolutely.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. And I feel like we are just not getting
    all the information.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. OK.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. My next question is for Dr. Park. And I
    am going to change the subject slightly to the nuclear security
    challenges.
        What nuclear security challenges are you most concerned
    about? And what are you doing to address these threats?
        Mr. Park. So as it turns out, it is not a single event, it
    is not a single topic that we are worried about. It is a string
    of events. So I will provide you with a few quick snapshots of
    what we are worried about.
        Now we are worried about countries like Iran, DPRK, and so
    on and so forth, and how they actually work with like-minded
    countries and work with the IAEA and so on and so forth to make
    sure no materials will leave these countries and they don't
    go--they don't advance their nuclear programs.
        At the same time, if you go far to the right into the
    future, we are worried about there are more countries now than
    ever before who want to own nuclear power plants, for example.
    We want to actually be in the game, ahead of the curve, to make
    sure they actually apply all these nuclear technologies for a
    peaceful purpose.
        It is actually a wide spectrum of challenges we are facing,
    and that is exactly the program that we have in the DNN. So we
    actually look at a wide variety all at the same time, as a
    function of time, as a function of location, as a function of
    how we can team up with other countries and so on. This is an
    international effort to a large extent.
        As much as we have leadership on many of the things, we
    work with the IAEA, we work with the U.K., we actually have a
    great relationship with Japan to make sure that they are
    actually giving up the materials that they don't need anymore.
    In fact, I am happy to report to this committee that we are in
    the process of retrieving 90 kilograms of SNM from Japan this
    coming year, special nuclear material.
        So it is not a single event. One thing that I need to
    emphasize is that we cannot take our eyes off on the things we
    have been doing. We have been converting high performance
    research reactors that use HEU. We are converting it to use
    LEU.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Low-enriched Uranium.
        Mr. Park. Low-enriched Uranium. Thank you.
        We cannot slow those efforts down, by the way, and chase
    after new concerns. We need to maintain a steady state effort,
    if you would, in all of the things we have been doing, and then
    continue to make process and be ahead of the curve. And the
    phrase that the chairwoman used, anticipating threats, and that
    is actually what we do.
        So, again, it is a connection of all of these events that
    would drive our program requirements.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Madam Chair, I have one other quick
    question. May I extend my time?
        And so it sounds to me like you need highly trained
    engineers and scientists to do this work. Are you working with
    universities to make that you have got people coming through
    the pipeline to fill these positions?
        Mr. Park. Excellent. We actually have center of excellence
    programs, and we actually have three centers supporting over 40
    universities, by the way. With your support on the university
    outreach program, we are doing that.
        Our labs, by the way, they do their own outreach program
    that is not part of headquarters' efforts. But all the labs
    that we work with--Los Alamos, PNNL, Oak Ridge National Lab--
    all these labs have a very robust education program.
        In fact, when I started my career at Los Alamos in the
    1980s, I was a Ph.D. student. So there are many of us in the
    pipeline. So looking at your program to us, yes, we have a
    robust program, but it is much bigger than you think it is
    because of our labs. They actually have a robust engagement,
    literally training thousands of people.
        If I am allowed to add one more?
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Sure.
        Mr. Park. I work closely with Dr. Verdon. Many of the
    programs I support for Ms. Gordon-Hagerty, I require Charlie
    Verdon's people, because these are nuclear materials experts.
        So, again, when you see the modernization and the buildup
    on the Defense Program side, Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation,
    we benefit substantially, because that is the money that I
    don't have to invest.
        But, again, this is a close cooperation between the NA-10
    and NA-20 within NNSA, so we strongly support this cooperation
    with the university.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. I am glad to hear that.
        I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        Congresswoman Fleischmann.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madam Chair. I had a brief
    absence. My apologies. I had to run to the floor. We are
    working on a bipartisan supplemental for the coronavirus. So my
    apologies. But that is going very well.
        Madam Administrator, thank you for being here today to this
    distinguished panel. I have worked with each and every one of
    you all for several years, and I know you. I want to thank you
    on behalf of the Congress, our committee. You have done an
    exemplary job.
        Our Nation's nuclear deterrent is critically important to
    the security of our country. Just last week, I was at STRATCOM,
    and I shared my plaudits for this group, and I have received it
    back as well. So thank you so much for your endeavors.
        A very quick question, Madam Administrator. I understand in
    my absence you addressed the issue of UPF replacing Y-12. Thank
    you for your request for robust funding. We have worked
    together with this subcommittee to get the resources necessary,
    I think, to keep that moving. But very briefly, are you pleased
    with the progress? And how do we plan to keep this on time and
    on budget?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. We are extremely pleased with the
    process. And as I mentioned in your absence, this is a program,
    a $6.5 billion major construction project at Y-12, that will be
    completed by the end of 2025 for not more than $6.5 billion. To
    date, we have expended $3.1 billion in contracts and work, and
    we are on time and on schedule for the seventh year in a row.
        Mr. Fleischmann. And I thank you. In my tenure, we have
    seen a redesign, we have seen it brought under budget, and just
    truly a tremendous project. And a credit to the men and women
    and your contractors as well.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. And a special credit to our acquisition
    and project management team at headquarters that has really put
    some fidelity into our programs.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Agreed. Last week, one of my colleagues
    from the other side of the dais raised an issue, Madam
    Administrator, that was a very valid question, but did concern
    me in terms of the housing of NNSA, where NNSA would be.
    Obviously, I am very pleased with where it is right now and
    what you all are doing.
        But there were some questions that were raised with the
    Secretary. He made it very clear, I believe, in his response
    that NNSA--and I am using my words--has a safe home here in the
    Department of Energy.
        I would like your thoughts on that, and just maybe
    reassurance for the committee as to where you think NNSA will
    be housed.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. I support the administration's position
    that NNSA continue to be housed in DOE as an agency.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you. Thank you very much. As do I.
        Dr. Verdon, the President's budget requests an additional
    $109 million for a lithium production facility. How important
    is this facility to our ability to execute the nuclear mission?
        Mr. Verdon. Thank you.
        It is very important. When we, as the Administrator set
    out, when we looked at what the requirements were from the DOD
    and the facilities we needed to meet those requirements, we are
    not trying to modernize all the facilities that are 70 years,
    back from the 1970s. We have identified the key facilities to
    meet the DOD requirements as well as workforce safety.
        And Lithium is one of those facilities where it is an
    essential material, making essential components for the nuclear
    weapons, and that is why it is one of our highest-priority
    facilities to bring up to support the DOD's deliverables.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir.
        My final question. Given the challenges associated with the
    hiring for the unique roles within our defense nuclear
    establishment, as well as the length of the clearance and
    training process, what steps do you plan to take to be able to
    execute this budget increase?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Representative Fleischmann, we have
    undertaken a corporate approach to a hiring strategy across all
    of the NNSA labs, plants, and sites, field offices, and
    headquarters, and I am happy to report we hired 7,700 people
    across our entire enterprise this last year.
        It is a robust program. We visited colleges and
    universities, including the University of Toledo. I had the
    pleasure of visiting with Chairwoman Kaptur this last year.
        We are doing a great job. The strength of our program and
    our national security mission is truly a lure for scientists
    and engineers, for the technicians we need.
        We are also undertaking robust programs at different
    technical colleges for skilled craft that we need across our
    entire enterprise as well.
        So we are working along those lines, and we are seeing
    really, really, really good results as we continue our efforts.
        It also requires, however, security clearances, as you
    said. And while we have seen traditionally security clearances
    have taken an average of 444 days, we are now seeing
    approximately 130 days in our security clearance process.
        We are working closely with OPM, with the office, NBIB,
    that handles the security clearances, and also with the
    Department of Defense, who is now taking over those programs.
        We have incredible opportunities. We cannot ask people to
    come and work with us and serve our Nation and have them sit on
    their hands while they are waiting for their security
    clearances. And, in fact, we are finding other useful work for
    them to do while we are waiting for their clearances.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you for your thoughtful responses.
    And, again, thank you for what you do for our great Nation.
        I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Mr. Fleischmann.
        I wanted to ask you, Administrator Gordon-Hagerty, you
    often talk about all the jobs that are available at NNSA and
    different categories of jobs. You are very open to seeking
    individuals from places in the country that haven't been asked
    before. But is there an easy way to access the full job list on
    your website?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Yes. We are working with our labs,
    plants, and sites. Because of our labs, plants, and sites being
    unique in their characteristics--they are actually
    contractors--there are some bureaucratic issues that we are
    working through about whether or not contractors can look at
    other contractor websites, and they can look into the Federal
    websites.
        So we are working through that, that is actually one of the
    tasks that we have for our management and budget organization,
    so that we can have a better idea about all the jobs that are
    available throughout our entire enterprise.
        And to the extent that we have people that we are hiring,
    remember, we are coming across--we are coming into that bathtub
    curve where in the next 5 years nearly 40 percent of our
    workforce, 35 percent of our workforce, will be eligible for
    retirement. Right now, it is 21 percent at our headquarters and
    our field offices.
        We have got to do something about getting the workforce of
    the future in place now so we have mentorship, so we have some
    cross training. We can't just bring them in and expect them to
    do some jobs, do work, do useful work, and not have any
    training before them. So we are working along that--
        Ms. Kaptur. Let me interrupt in view of the time, but just
    to say it is very difficult to try to figure out what those
    jobs are. And I doubt there is any Member of Congress that is
    sitting up here on the dais that could actually go in front of
    an audience and read some of the job categories and positions
    that you are asking for.
        So somehow NNSA has to figure out a way to communicate with
    the general public.
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Sure.
        Ms. Kaptur. And I think all of us would welcome that. So I
    just wanted to mention it.
        I heard what you said about contractor difficulties. But
    just recognize even when I went to the website, I thought,
    ``Oh, my goodness.''
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. I take that, and we will work on that.
        Ms. Kaptur. Generically, you might be able to prepare a
    different kind of list that doesn't label a particular lab but
    a particular skill. That could be very, very helpful to people,
    just by way of comment.
        Now, I wanted to move on. Admiral Richard from STRATCOM
    recently noted the nuclear enterprise can only absorb so much
    work at one time. As I understand it, NNSA is looking at moving
    the timeline for the Long-Range Standoff warhead to the right
    because NNSA's workload is too great.
        Is this true? And what are your plans to reduce scope for
    the W871? Yes?
        Mr. Verdon. So as part of any of our weapons acquisition
    programs, we are always looking. Especially in this case, where
    it is mostly the Air Force is developing a new missile at the
    same time we are developing the warhead for it, we are
    constantly working on it to make sure we are staying
    synchronized.
        So we are in that process. We do it almost annually, if not
    more frequently. We are in that process right now to make sure
    how their procurement is going, how our work is going, and
    then, if there is a need to change anything based on
    synchronization.
        So certainly we do discuss the idea of moving an internal
    milestone, but we do not do anything to change the IOC or the
    FOC, those stay fixed. We look at movements within that to
    better align the programs.
        So we are indeed doing that now, but no decisions have been
    made. They are being teed up now for the Nuclear Weapons
    Council's consideration based on the results we obtained. But
    it is just something we normally do to make sure we stay
    synchronized for both of those programs.
        And I will say now, our look already is we can move an
    internal milestone with no additional cost increase. We have
    already identified that, so that won't be--it won't be a major
    issue, but it will be more a synchronization issue for the all
    up round.
        And then, in terms of the 87, what we have done very
    recently is we have what we call threshold requirements, which
    is must-dos, and we have objective requirements, which are if
    possible, if they don't have major impact, if the cost is worth
    the benefit.
        And so we had--we have had a recent review on the 87 where
    we had two objective requirements that we were still working
    on, that we accelerated the review of those requirements for
    their consideration, and we had a lengthy analysis of the
    benefits, the costs associated with those requirements. And we
    brought those before the Nuclear Weapons Council and a decision
    was actually made not to go forward with those two objective
    requirements.
        So we have downscoped, if you like, the requirements that
    we were carrying on those warheads. All of the threshold
    requirements are still there, but those two objective
    requirements have been eliminated.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.It know it is a heavily
    industrial region. And you, in your testimony again today, have
    mentioned some of the componentry that you could not or they
    are having difficulty acquiring. You mentioned capacitors as
    one.
        I am wondering if you could, just generically, discuss some
    of the componentry you are having trouble finding contractors
    for. And my question would be, how can NNSA expand its
    manufacturing base? And will those efforts help reduce your
    costs? And to supplement some of the academic alliances you
    currently have, what value would there be in an academic and
    industry consortium focused on helping NNSA with its
    manufacturing needs?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Go ahead.
        Mr. Verdon. So, yes, we are indeed, for many reasons, we
    are expanding our industrial base. As you mentioned the
    capacitor issue, that was a case where we had essentially a
    single vendor at the time, and we recognized that to add
    resiliency into our complex we actually had to expand the
    number of vendors that could provide us things like electronic
    components that you mentioned.
        So we are actively pursuing that and have actually
    increased the number of vendors that we are now utilizing on
    our, in particular, our life extension programs.
        The same is true for our large construction projects, where
    we are buying a considerable amount of equipment across the
    United States. We have expanded the vendor bases that we are
    using there.
        And we are even reaching out now to some of our great
    American industries to help us with advancing some of our
    manufacturing techniques, that instead of just replicating what
    we did during the Cold War, we are actually using American
    industry to learn from new manufacturing techniques and
    beginning to help us prototype those activities to actually
    bring them into the complex to hopefully make us more efficient
    than what we had in the past.
        So we are undertaking all those efforts that you mentioned,
    to try to improve, to certainly make the complex more resilient
    with the goal of also reducing the cost, making us more
    efficient.
        And in terms of the academic alliance, it is a great
    question. We have been actually asking that. And we are
    starting to look at, because we recognize that manufacturing is
    such an important component, of how do we expand and what
    universities can we tap into that could help us in the area of
    manufacturing and new manufacturing techniques, as I mentioned,
    to take advantage of what is being developed and to plan
    thoughtfully how to bring it into the complex as we go forward.
        Additive manufacturing is kind of a worked example now, but
    what is the next great thing out there? And we are starting to
    look at that now.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        A couple of things. Is it accurate to say that the
    Secretary of Energy supports the President's budget request,
    and that includes the NNSA budget?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Yes.
        Mr. Simpson. Contrary to some of the comments that were
    made.
        Could you effectively and efficiently spend the budget
    request if that request were to come about in the
    appropriation?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Yes. I am confident we can execute all
    of the missions that are given to us.
        Mr. Simpson. Let me ask Dr. Verdon. We have heard concerns
    that various components of the modernization program, including
    components that are in the early stages, are over budget and
    behind schedule. With major construction projects, we have a
    management process with milestones, including cost and schedule
    baselines against which we can measure performance.
        A couple questions. Is there a comparable management
    process for programs like the life extension program? And at
    what point are plans mature enough to produce legitimate cost
    estimates and schedules against which we can measure whether
    the life extension programs are over budget or behind schedule?
        Mr. Verdon. Yes, sir, there are. We use a process that
    sometimes you call it the Phase X process, or the Phase 6.X
    Process. It is a joint DOD, DOE, and NNSA acquisition process,
    warhead acquisition process, and it is a very rigorous process.
        And we do have a number of gates, a number of phases that
    we go through, a number of gates, a number of reports that have
    to be produced. There is a whole documentation, a very rigorous
    documentation has to be produced along the way.
        And there are certainly--like, one example is we adhere
    to--I think it is U.S. Code 55--2537, I think, which is the
    selected acquisition reports, a report to Congress that we
    provide annually on the schedule, the costs, and so forth.
        So we do provide annual snapshots and even more frequent
    snapshots of the progress we are making, how we are doing with
    the budget, how we are doing with the schedule. And basically
    that is how we monitor the progress on the programs, is through
    those types of activities and other additional reports.
        Recognizing it is a lot of information, and we would
    certainly offer that if there is information out of those
    reports that would make it easier for you to be able to
    transparently see what we are doing, we would be more than
    happy to work with you and your staff to pull out that
    information so that you are not having to read these very long
    reports that we produce. But it is a very rigorous, very, very
    rigorous process that we go through.
        Mr. Simpson. Appreciate that.
        Madam Administrator, it has been said that the production
    of 80 pits per year in 2030 is NNSA's highest infrastructure
    priority. NNSA is planning to split production between Los
    Alamos and Savannah River.
        What is the current cost estimates for each of these
    projects, and what is the level of fidelity we have for each of
    these cost estimates? And is Los Alamos on track to produce its
    first pit for use in a nuclear weapon by 2023 and up to 10 pits
    by 2024? And what challenges have NNSA and the contractor
    encountered?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Mr. Simpson, we have made great
    progress at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and in fiscal year
    2018 and fiscal year 2019 we produced 10 developmental pits.
    That gives us the opportunity to look at the characteristics of
    the plutonium pit as we are manufacturing them so we can get a
    higher fidelity in how we will ultimately produce the 10 pits
    per year in 2024, the 20 pits in 2025, and 30 pits per year
    starting in 2026, in perpetuity. We will continue that process.
        We are doing great work at Los Alamos in terms of bringing
    in the necessary equipment to execute that, to put the
    production mission in place, while we are also undertaking all
    of the actinide chemistry and the necessary and continued
    programs that are under the Plutonium Center of Excellence that
    is housed at Los Alamos.
        In addition to that, we are working through the conceptual
    design plan for the Savannah River plutonium processing site,
    which will use the facility formerly known as the mixed oxide
    facility, or the MOX facility, at Savannah River that then
    Secretary Perry terminated in 2018.
        We have been working with our contractor at the site, the
    Savannah River Nuclear Solutions Laboratory, our contractor to
    develop the conceptual design. We will move forward with that.
    We will receive that later this year. And we will move to
    conceptual design 1, which is CD-1, in fiscal year 2021.
        We have a very aggressive program, as I have mentioned
    before. It is our highest priority. And we believe that we can
    accomplish this mission.
        We are doing things in parallel with our Los Alamos and
    using Livermore experts, since they used to have a plutonium
    production or plutonium capability at Livermore, which we did
    inventory in about the 2011 timeframe.
        So our single plutonium manufacturing capability in the
    United States at the present time is Los Alamos. We are looking
    to develop a rigorous and resilient program for our
    infrastructure in the future.
        As a reminder, more than 30 years ago, we shuttered the
    plutonium pit capability in the United States at Rocky Flats,
    which we did in around 1989, 1990. It is time we develop a
    resilient enterprise for our current and future nuclear
    deterrent.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        Finally, Admiral Caldwell, you mentioned in your testimony
    about the unanticipated cost increases in the fuel handling
    facility. As we talked, it was a variety of things, but the
    cost of steel and concrete and so forth, and those costs--bids
    came in at a much higher cost than were anticipated.
        That is putting pressure on your budget in other areas.
    What other areas is it putting pressure on? Is it putting
    pressure on developing new nuclear technologies that you put on
    the shelf and that kind of stuff?
        Admiral Caldwell. In this particular case, sir, the budget
    or the bids that came in substantially over what was expected
    have put pressure on my facilities and infrastructure spending
    in fiscal year 2021, my request for fiscal year 2021. So to
    accommodate that I have had to defer to major MCPs and move out
    some other facilities work that I was planning on doing, but I
    am able to handle what I need to do in fiscal year 2021 within
    the current request.
        The challenge will be, as we go into future years, fiscal
    year 2022 and beyond, I am trying to step up the investment
    that we make in research and development. We have devoted over
    the last many years focus on the three major projects, which
    include the refueling of the reactor in New York, the spent
    fuel handling facility, and the Columbia project. And now, as
    those projects are in execution, we need to really refocus on
    developing the advanced technologies that the Navy needs to
    make the Navy--provide capability to the Navy in the future.
        Some of those things are advanced instrumentation and
    control, advanced core concepts to be able to load more fuel
    in, advanced manufacturing capabilities to reduce cost and
    schedule duration and improve performance.
        So there will be pressure on my budget in R&D, research and
    development, as I go forward, and there will also be pressure
    on my ability to recapitalize older facilities and to continue
    an aggressive pace of decontamination and decommissioning
    activities.
        So that all said, I have got to figure out how I am going
    to manage through that. Right now, I am prioritizing the
    research and development, taking some pain in the facilities
    and infrastructure. But as we come forward, I will work with
    NNSA and DOE and your staff here on the Hill to figure out the
    best way to do that and continue to meet what the Navy needs.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        Thank you all for being here today. I appreciate it very
    much.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        Congressman Fleischmann.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Madam Chair, I have no further questions.
    I yield back. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
        Administrator Gordon-Hagerty, what does the future of the
    nonproliferation program look like? And I think Dr. Park might
    want to also address this. How is our country positioning
    itself to address emergent challenges as other countries seek
    to harness nuclear energy technologies?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Madam Chairwoman, as we discussed
    yesterday, I am delighted to have Dr. Park's leadership in our
    Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program. We are embarking on a
    strategic, on both a parallel path, which is doing the good
    work of the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation program, also
    looking from a strategic perspective about those emerging
    countries that are looking to acquire peaceful uses and
    continue down that path.
        I would like to defer to Dr. Park on that. But I think we
    are making some great inroads, and we have some great strategic
    planning going on in our efforts. So I think that will pay
    dividends for our Nation and for like nations in the future.
        Mr. Park. Thank you, ma'am.
        Again, thank you for your outstanding leadership supporting
    the DNN program. Actually, all of NNSA.
        So as I stated earlier, we actually look at full coverage
    worldwide. That requires a steady state improvement in how we
    do what we do. For example, in terms of removing, eliminating
    nuclear materials, or better protecting them, or working with
    international partners so they can actually better protect the
    materials they own. And, whenever they don't need it, we like
    to work with them, work with the IAEA, to make sure we actually
    have a solution to get rid of them. Eliminate forever is our
    theme.
        And at the same time, as the new countries show up
    interested in nuclear technologies, we prefer they work with
    the United States through a 123 agreement, but even if they
    don't we want to work the IAEA and like-minded countries to
    actually share with them what it takes to be nuclear industry--
    nuclear technology owner.
        It takes a lot, by the way. So we actually spend a fair
    amount of energy educating our newcomers to the nuclear
    technology--the membership.
        Recently, a year ago, in fact, Administrator Gordon-Hagerty
    and I participated in an insider threat symposium, where we
    actually had 60 countries participate.
        Protection is not just from outside; it is also from
    within. And many of the countries joining this nuclear
    technology membership, if you would, they actually did not know
    what we meant by ``insider threat.'' So it is actually by
    educating them.
        There is a softer side of engagement in nuclear
    nonproliferation, and we do that quite a bit. At the same time,
    we work with other countries that actually own substantial
    amount of nuclear materials, and we would like to actually find
    a way to make sure we have a consistent solution to the
    international community, and, at the same time--but there are
    many things that we worry about.
        One of the things that we actually spent a lot of time on
    is developing technologies to make sure we actually have
    verifiable treaties. So I am happy to report to you NNSA does a
    substantial technology leadership role, play a substantial
    leadership role in coming up with the technologies to actually
    monitor these activities from the ground, from air, space, and
    so on, and I think we have provided the multiple classified
    briefings to you on what we do with the satellites and so
    forth, working with the U.S. Air Force, for example.
        I could go on. But, essentially, it is actually important
    for me to recognize we have a very important counterterrorism
    program within the DNN, and we actually work with international
    partners in that area as well so they can actually respond
    should there be an incident.
        We cannot go after every incident that there is in the
    world. So, again, we go out there. We have a very able staff
    within NNSA. And they go out there and train them, educate
    them, and we do tabletop exercises, and so on.
        I mean, I would like to respect your time. But, again, it
    is actually in-depth. But there are new technologies, dual-use
    technologies that we worry about that I am more than happy to
    cover in a classified setting that we are really spending our
    time on going forward.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. I thank you very much for that, and
    we might ask for that classified setting briefing.
        Congressman Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. I am----
        Ms. Kaptur. You are finished. OK. Thank you.
        Final question. Madam Administrator, the Department has a
    clearly defined process for managing construction projects.
    That really isn't so for ongoing life extension programs and
    requesting funding for a fifth, brand new warhead program.
        What specific changes are you making to your current
    weapons acquisition process to increase transparency for
    Congress and to avoid future cost increases and schedule
    delays?
        Ms. Gordon-Hagerty. Madam Chairwoman, we have made some
    significant progress under Dr. Verdon's leadership in this
    area, and I defer to him to explain exactly how we are
    upgrading and updating our processes for weapons activities.
        Mr. Verdon. Yes, ma'am.
        So part of our continuous effort to improve and lessons
    from the B61 and the 88, we are making changes, improvements to
    our acquisition process.
        A couple of highlights that we would say is we recognize
    that we need earlier engagement between the design agencies and
    the production agencies, so those are being implemented.
        More senior leadership engagement from the M&O sites, not
    only within their own site, but across the site. Improving a
    shared FADE approach and more discussion and collaboration
    amongst the sites. More Federal oversight of the technical
    choices and decisions that are being made.
        So there are a number of improvements we are making. Those
    are just a few. We are putting quite a few others in place as
    well.
        As I did mention, we do have a pretty--it is a pretty
    rigorous acquisition process, and I recognize it contains a lot
    of information. We try to invite your committee staff members
    to a quarterly review of all of our life extension programs so
    they can hear the updates right from the people that are
    conducting the programs, to get a status of how they are
    moving, how they are progressing, where our issues are, as well
    as the documented reports. As I mentioned, the selected
    acquisition reports, where we document on an annual basis how
    we are doing against costs, how we are doing against schedule.
        But as of our life extension programs right now, we made
    the commitment that the issue we encountered on the B61 and the
    88, that we would fix it from within the portfolio of our life
    extension programs, and we did that. While, if you look at the
    budget, the 61 and the 88 do go up because of the technical
    issue we encountered, the 80 and the 87 went down in comparison
    because we made efficiency improvements on the 80, and we made
    those down-selects that I referenced on the 87.
        So within the life extension program, we actually balanced
    the increased costs in the 61 and the 88 through cost savings
    on the 80 and the 87.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. I want to thank you for placing that
    on the record. Thank you for placing that on the record. And
    any additional information you can give us on how we can have
    greater transparency for congressional oversight would be
    greatly appreciated. If you could provide some additional
    documentation to the record in that regard.
        Mr. Verdon. Certainly.
        Ms. Kaptur. I would certainly be very appreciative of that
    on behalf of the entire committee.
        We have been fortunately joined by one of our most capable
    members, whom we are so pleased to have joined us here this
    afternoon, Congressman Derek Kilmer from the State of
    Washington, who has been a very faithful attendee at
    everything. I know he had competing committees. So we thank him
    very much for joining us today.
        If you have any questions you would like to put forth, we
    recognize you.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you, Madam Chair. My apologies. We had a
    briefing on the coronavirus with the Vice President, and coming
    from Washington State, as you can imagine, that is a high
    priority for us. And I did set the land speed record from that
    briefing to this committee room.
        Thank you for being with us.
        Admiral Caldwell, thank you for your terrific leadership
    and partnership. And it wouldn't be an opportunity for me to
    visit with you without checking in on the Enterprise disposal
    issue.
        The Navy is issuing a contract solicitation for dismantling
    and disposing of a surface ship support barge contaminated by
    nuclear materials. And I understand the Navy is establishing a
    process with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for technical
    and contractual implementation of NRC regulations governing the
    disposal of the barge. I also understand that the precedents
    established with the NRC while dismantling the barge will
    inform the process of dismantling the aircraft carrier
    Enterprise.
        With that in mind, I was hoping you could speak to how this
    contract solicitation and barge work fit into the plan for the
    disposal of the Enterprise. Is this the template you plan to
    use for the Enterprise? If you are not sure, what could you
    discover in the process that leads you to a different model for
    the Enterprise? And is there anything you have already learned
    from the barge disposal contract solicitation that you can
    share?
        Admiral Caldwell. Thanks for the question, sir, and I
    understand your interest in this.
        As you know, it is my responsibility to handle the
    materials in my program from cradle to grave, and we have a
    long history of regulating and responsibly dealing with the
    materials and disposing of them properly, protecting our people
    and the environment and the program's reputation.
        The surface ship support barge was a refurbished tanker
    that was used for defueling Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. It
    was last used for defueling the USS Abraham Lincoln. And now
    that that system is obsolete because we have implemented new
    technologies, it is my responsibility to properly dispose of
    it.
        So we are moving down a path and we have submitted requests
    for proposals, and we have answers back. We are now in the
    source selection phase, so I won't go into any details on that.
    But we are working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and
    we have had a lot of dialogue with them and have an interagency
    agreement that we have negotiated with them.
        What we are learning in this process is that there are a
    lot of interested parties in this business. As the commercial
    ship-breaking business has come about, there is a substantial
    amount of interest.
        My responsibility is to do this safely, securely, and do it
    at an affordable way for the Nation.
        So we are, as we go forward, we are continuing to
    understand and learn about our regulatory framework. We are
    continuing to learn on other aspects of the job as we move
    forward. And while it may inform some steps for Enterprise, it
    in no way is determining the answer for Enterprise, and in fact
    no specific decisions have been made with regards to the
    Enterprise disposal path.
        That said, we are evaluating options, and we are working on
    an environmental impact statement. The draft environmental
    impact statement will be released next year. And it is my
    promise to you that we will continue to keep your staff
    informed as we improve forward on this effort.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.
        Admiral Caldwell. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Kilmer. And I appreciate the persistent transparency
    and engagement with both my team and with me. So thank you for
    that.
        Admiral Caldwell. Roger, sir.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
        And I would just like to thank our ranking member,
    Congressman Fleischmann, Congressman Kilmer, for being here,
    and for having full committee participation today. It was just
    a great hearing. We thank you very much for being with us
    today.
        That concludes this afternoon's hearing.
        And I would like to thank each and every one of our
    witnesses. I ask the witnesses to please ensure for the hearing
    record that questions for the record and any supporting
    information requested by the subcommittee are delivered in
    final form no later than 3 weeks from the time you receive
    them. Members who have additional questions for the record will
    have until the close of business on Monday to provide them to
    the subcommittee office.
        Our hearing is adjourned.
        [Material submitted for the record follows:]

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                                                Tuesday, March 10, 2020

                            ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS

                                   WITNESSES

    HON. R.D. JAMES, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE ARMY, CIVIL WORKS
    LIEUTENANT GENERAL TODD SEMONITE, COMMANDING GENERAL AND CHIEF OF
        ENGINEERS, U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS,
    TIMOTHY R. PETTY, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, WATER AND SCIENCE, DEPARTMENT OF
        THE INTERIOR
    BRENDA BURMAN, COMMISSIONER, U.S. BUREAU OF RECLAMATION
        Ms. Kaptur. The subcommittee will please come to order.
        We are here today to discuss the fiscal year 2021 budget
    request for the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of
    Reclamation.
        Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. I want to
    extend a special thank you to General Semonite, whose term as
    Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the U.S. Army
    Corps of Engineers will end in May. That is both good news and
    bad news.
        On behalf of our subcommittee, I would like to thank you,
    General, for your service, your fine service to our country and
    for all you have done for the Corps in your important role. You
    have demonstrated an unwavering dedication to addressing our
    Nation's water resources, its needs during a challenging period
    of environmental reset due to climate change. Thank you for all
    the disasters you have helped us avoid and for those that you
    have helped to clean up.
        Last year, we faced similar circumstances. Your agencies
    were under pressure from significant flooding in the Midwest
    and drought in the West. Again, today, Mississippians across
    that State are still drying out from the Pearl River flood, 45-
    percent of western States are experiencing some form of
    drought, the Great Lakes are at an all-time high, and
    precipitation and snowpack have been below average in
    California so far in 2020. Climate change is accelerating and
    communities are caught in the cross-hairs.
        Though the water resource needs of our country vary from
    region to region, there is a constant and essential need to
    invest in our infrastructure. Without significant investment in
    our infrastructure, the dichotomy of water surpluses in the
    middle belt and water shortages in the West threatens Americans
    from all walks of life.
        Although Congress last year rejected the administration's
    proposed deep cuts, the Trump administration has once again
    proposed to slash funding for the Corps and Bureau of
    Reclamation, this time by 22 percent and 32 percent,
    respectively. When will the White House learn their proposal is
    flawed and dangerous to our people and our communities?
        These proposed cuts are greatly disappointing to this
    subcommittee and to our colleagues from both parties. These
    cuts are divorced from reality. We all know our water resource
    infrastructure impacts the life and safety of our citizens, as
    well as America's economic prosperity.
        I am particularly incensed about this administration's lack
    of attention to the needs of the people of the Great Lakes
    region. Yes, the administration has prioritized the Soo Locks,
    and a broad bipartisan coalition in this House is thankful.
        However, the economic and environmental threat that the
    Asian Bighead Carp pose to the Great Lakes, a multibillion
    dollar fishery and the economic lifeblood of millions of
    Americans, is just as great as the threat of failure of the Soo
    Locks. The continually rising lake level across the Great Lakes
    threatens millions more people, ports, and communities, and
    adds to the threat of the Asian Bighead Carp sweeping into the
    Great Lakes. Yet this administration has ignored clear
    congressional intent by refusing to fund the next phase of work
    for the Brandon Road LOCK and Dam and by refusing to begin a
    Great Lakes Coastal Resiliency Study.
        Worst of all, President Trump reneged on his word. He made
    a promise to the Great Lakes at a recent Michigan rally that he
    would move swiftly and stop Asian Bighead Carp. But as we have
    learned, he can be full of empty promises, and when the cameras
    were turned off, he overruled the Army Corps and stopped the
    Brandon Road project dead in its tracks. But this committee,
    this subcommittee, will persevere.
        Despite these proposed cuts, rest assured that there is
    bipartisan support in Congress for the work that your agencies
    undertake on behalf of the American people. Do not be deterred
    by these draconian cuts. The subcommittee recognizes and
    appreciates the importance of your work.
        I wanted to say before we recognize Mr. Simpson regarding
    the schedule of our hearing, we anticipate having votes at
    about 3:45. I would encourage everyone, including our
    witnesses, to be as brief as possible.
        I will now turn to our ranking member, Mr. Simpson, for his
    opening remarks.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Kaptur follows:]

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        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur.
        I would like to join you in welcoming our witnesses. We
    appreciate you being here today to discuss the fiscal year 2021
    budget request for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works
    Program, the Department of Interior's Central Utah Project, and
    the Bureau of Reclamation.
        General Semonite, I understand that this is likely your
    last hearing before this committee. Whether you like it or not,
    I am not sure. You brought great energy to your term as Chief
    of Engineers. Thank you for your service to the Corps and to
    the Nation.
        The budget requests for these water resource programs, once
    again, include sizeable reductions from enacted levels, 32
    percent for the Bureau of Reclamation and the Central Utah
    Project, 22 percent for the Corps of Engineers. Reductions are
    no surprise. It happens almost every year, regardless of who is
    in the White House and who is in charge of Congress. The only
    surprising thing to me is that the reductions for the Corps was
    not even larger.
        When you move the funding request for FUSRAP back to the
    Corps, which Congress is likely to do, the budget request total
    is $6.1 billion. That is not just the highest budget request in
    many years, it is more than $1 billion higher than all but one
    budget request in the last 20 years.
        Unfortunately, I continue to have concerns about the
    projects specific allocation process, especially when it comes
    to the annual work plan. Over the past several years, we have
    seen continued disregard for congressional direction, which is
    incorporated into law. We have seen encouragement of allowing
    non-Federal sponsors to buy their way to the front of the line
    for Federal funding, and we have seen funding categories
    ignored. I think I know how these problems are finding their
    way into the work plan process, but to make sure, I will have
    some questions on these issues at the appropriate time.
        The infrastructure investments carried out by the Corps and
    the Bureau of Reclamation are critical to improving our
    national economy, public health and safety, and the
    environment. I think Congresswoman Kaptur said last year that
    this is the biggest infrastructure bill we have. We all talk
    about infrastructure, but this is the biggest infrastructure
    bill that we have. I am confident that, once again, this
    committee will work together to provide strong support for
    these programs.
        Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur, for calling this hearing. I
    look forward to discussion with our witnesses.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Simpson.
        We will now turn to the ranking member of the full
    committee, Kay Granger of Texas. Welcome.
        Ms. Granger. Thank you very much. I would like to thank
    you, Chairman Kaptur and Ranking Member Simpson, for holding
    the hearing today on fiscal year 2021 budget for the Civil
    Works Program with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the
    Department of Interior's Bureau of Reclamation and Central Utah
    Project.
        I want to say particularly to Lieutenant General Semonite,
    I enjoyed our trip. It was very helpful. We went on the border
    and saw what was happening there, and it was a short trip but
    very, very helpful. Thank you.
        And the Honorable R.D. James, we have worked together such
    a long time on projects that are close to what I am doing in
    Congress, and in my district, and thank you for all the work
    that you have done.
        I would also like to thank our witnesses for being here
    today. Your agencies are the Nation's foremost experts on water
    resources development and management issues, and we all
    appreciate the important work that you do. Your efforts support
    our economy; protect public health and safety; improve the
    environment; and generate clean, renewable hydroelectric power
    for communities across the country.
        The Corps of Engineers also carries out significant
    construction work for other Federal agencies. I have had the
    opportunity to see firsthand the work the Corps is doing on
    behalf of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol as we went on our
    trip, and that was very helpful. I have witnessed many
    construction projects over the year, and I know how difficult
    the work is. I commend your team for doing really a quality job
    on such a complex project.
        Unfortunately, the executive branch has consistently
    proposed reductions for the important programs we are
    discussing today. Although the budget request for the Corps of
    Engineers is the highest request in many years, that request
    and the request for the Bureau of Reclamation are significant
    reductions from current levels. I wish everyone who did that
    could see what I see and those of us who are on this
    subcommittee and how important your work is. So thank you very
    much for your testimony, and I am glad to be with you.
        Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Granger.
        Now let us proceed. First, we will hear from the Honorable
    R.D. James, Assistant Secretary--I should say outstanding
    Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. Mr. James
    serves as the 12th Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil
    Works and previously served on the Mississippi River
    Commission, and he is no stranger to the Corps.
        Next, we will have Lieutenant General Todd T. Semonite, the
    54th Chief of Engineers, also outstanding. Lieutenant General
    Semonite assumed his current position on May 19, 2016. As I
    stated in my opening remarks, General Semonite's term in this
    role will end this May. Again, thank you for your leadership,
    General Semonite, always with a smile.
        Following that, Assistant Secretary Timothy Petty, the
    assistant secretary for Water and Science at the Department of
    Interior. Previously, Assistant Secretary Petty served as
    acting assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary for
    Water and Science at the Department of Interior under President
    George W. Bush.
        Last but not least, we have the Commissioner, Brenda
    Burman, from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Commissioner
    Burman is the 23d commissioner for the Bureau of Reclamation
    and the first woman to lead Reclamation.
        Thank you all for taking the time to be here today. Without
    objection, your written statements will be entered into the
    record. Please feel free to summarize your remarks in about 3
    minutes, starting with Assistant Secretary James.

                      STATEMENT OF HON. R.D. JAMES

        Mr. James. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and members of the
    committee. Thank you for inviting me here today to testify, and
    thank you for your time to listen to me. I do have a written
    testimony here. It is the same as I would turn in for the
    record. So under your timeline, I think I will just forego
    reading it, unless you want me to.
        Mr. Calvert. You can skip anything you want.
        Ms. Kaptur. Please proceed.
        Mr. James. There are a few things I would bring up. The
    Secretary of Agriculture, Sonny Perdue, has become very, very
    interested in the inland waterway system of this country and
    the needs of the inland waterway system of this country as it
    relates to agriculture, of course, from his wheelhouse. He and
    I, I am working on a plan with him to make the needs of inland
    waterway known around this country. We rolled out in St. Louis,
    Missouri, last fall, and we intend to be speaking at other
    areas around the country as we go forward. Of course,
    agriculture isn't the only thing that uses the inland waterway
    system, but that is Secretary Perdue's focus is on the needs of
    agriculture and how the inland waterway system helps
    agriculture.
        The other thing that I would mention is that the CEQ,
    Council on Environmental Quality, is, as we speak, looking over
    the NEPA process, which is somewhere around 40 years old now,
    and the feeling--and I share that feeling actually--is that it
    needs to be refreshed and looked at and see if we can update
    that in any way to make it better for the people that we all
    serve, and also, I think, discover places where we might be
    able to save money and get more dirt moved for the dollar. That
    is what I am hoping for.
        The other thing that I would mention to you that you may or
    may not know about is the water subcabinet. The water
    subcabinet is made up of all the major agencies, including
    Commerce, Interior, EPA, Agriculture--who have I forgot?
        Mr. Petty. DOE.
        Mr. James. The Department of Energy, Army Corps Civil
    Works. Now, why do we need another bureaucratic agency in this
    town? Well, that is what I thought when this started, it really
    was. I have been to several of their meetings. I feel
    completely different. It is going to let us as a U.S.
    Government look at the same problems from different
    perspectives and come out with one idea. That is the hope. That
    is what we are trying to do. We have had a couple of examples
    of that already, and it seems to be working fine, and I am
    proud to be a member of that subcabinet.
        The other thing that bothers me personally is the fact of
    the benefit-cost ratios that we are discovering through our
    core processes of studies and feasibility studies and the PED
    part of the study, and I can't believe that some of our
    projects' benefit-cost ratios are as low as they are. I don't
    feel like we are discovering all the benefits of a project in
    our processes the way that we are doing them right now.
        I will be looking into that with General Semonite and/or
    his replacement as the summer goes long. And we are not trying
    to bamboozle anybody, but if there is a flood control project,
    we want to make sure it gets the benefits, its regional
    benefits, plus its national economic benefits. And I don't
    think we are doing that. I don't think we are deep diving into
    what are the benefits. Same way with our locks and dams. I
    don't think we are deep diving into that. We are just doing the
    NED benefits. That is like skimming the surface. So I will be
    working on that as this summer goes along as well.
        With that, I will stop. I used my whole 5 minutes anyway.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. James follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Assistant Secretary James, for your
    fine service.
        General Semonite, please begin.

                 STATEMENT OF LT. GENERAL TODD SEMONITE

        General Semonite. Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member
    Simpson, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank
    you for the opportunity to testify today. I am pleased to be
    here with Assistant Secretary James and appreciate his
    leadership of the Army Civil Works team as we continue to work
    together to address water resources and infrastructure
    challenges across the great Nation.
         I have been in command of the Corps for nearly 4 years,
    and I have challenged the enterprise to revolutionize the way
    we do business. This does not imply that the Corps is not a
    world-class organization; rather, it demands that we anticipate
    and respond to changing requirements and externalities like all
    world-class organizations.
        Successful civil works project delivery supports the
    Nation's current and future energy and water infrastructure
    priorities. The Corps' credibility is measured by our ability
    to deliver results that are on time, on budget, and of
    exceptional quality. To that end, the Corps has been taking
    bold actions to improve performance to continue to engineer
    solutions for the Nation's toughest challenges. We are able to
    do this because we have a world-class workforce of talented and
    dedicated professionals who are actually passionate about what
    we do. However, none of our work is done alone. It is done in
    full participation and collaboration with many others like
    yourselves.
        We appreciate the appropriations provided by this committee
    to focus on current mission areas and serve as a guide to
    implement the Civil Works Program with a strategic vision
    taking pioneering steps to remain relevant and ready for the
    challenges of tomorrow.
         The fiscal year 2021 civil works budget is performance
    based, focused on reducing flood risks in communities across
    the Nation, facilitating commercial navigation, restoring
    aquatic ecosystems, and generating a low-cost renewable
    hydropower. Our targeted approach allows us to invest $5.966
    billion in discretionary funds towards commercial navigation,
    flood and storm damage reduction, and aquatic ecosystem
    restoration, all of which benefit the Nation's economy, the
    environment, and public safety, now and in the future.
        I would like to focus my remarks on a couple of significant
    programs and projects in this year's budget. The fiscal year
    2021 budget provides $102.6 million in the Investigations
    account to evaluate and design projects within the Corps' three
    main mission areas and for related work, including research and
    development. $2.265 billion of the fiscal year 2021 budget will
    be used for the Construction program to produce as much value
    as possible for our Nation from the available funds. Funding is
    also prioritized for mitigation work at ongoing construction
    projects and work needed to comply with biological opinions and
    with treaties.
        The Corps continues to improve the efficiency and
    effectiveness of the operation and maintenance program. The
    budget focuses on investments that address infrastructure
    maintenance needs on a risk-informed basis. The budget also
    provides a total of $3.123 billion for the operations and
    maintenance programming, including $158.8 million in the
    Mississippi River and Tributaries account, and $967.9 million
    in the Harbor Maintenance account.
        We appreciate, value, and depend upon the support of the
    administration, the Congress, and all of our partners to
    succeed in our mission. I am very proud of the work that the
    Corps accomplishes, and I am equally aware that the
    organizations can and will improve. I have been and remain
    committed to instituting lasting changes to the Corps' delivery
    process in order to become a more efficient and effective
    organization.
        We process more than 80,000 permits annually for the
    regulatory program to effectively protect and preserve water
    related resources of this Nation. We need to be optimally
    funded at $210 million. The Corps strives to be value added to
    deliver solutions as the Nation's engineers. We cannot conduct
    these reforms in isolation. We need the help of OMB and
    Congress to unleash the power of the Corps by acting on our
    numerous work plan and budget recommendations.
        For more than 244 years, the Corps has adapted to meet the
    challenges of the day. Today is no exception. Our current
    efforts to revolutionize the Corps simply represent the next
    chapter in this remarkable journey.
        Thank you, Madam Chairwoman and members of this committee.
    I appreciate all the comments you said at the beginning about
    my tenure, and after 41 years, it is the pride of my life to be
    able to be in this job, and I really appreciate the support of
    this committee and this Congress in helping us do our job.
        Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, General. And for the millions of
    miles you have traveled in our country and abroad, thank you
    very, very much.
        Assistant Secretary Petty, please begin.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. TIMOTHY PETTY

        Mr. Petty. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member
    Simpson, the rest of the committee members. It is a pleasure to
    be here today and to discuss with you the President's fiscal
    budget for 2021 at Department of Interior and the Bureau of
    Reclamation and the Central Utah Project Completion Act, also
    referred to as CUPCA. I greatly appreciate your ongoing support
    of our programs.
        I am also pleased to join the commissioner here today, and
    I thank her for her leadership that has been just outstanding
    in the work of reclamation.
        Overall, the Department of Interior's complete 2021 budget
    request is $12.8 billion in current funding. So much of that
    work is just built into the use of sustainability and natural
    resources. Reliable water supply and energy security of our
    discussion here today is critical in supporting the economic
    prosperity of communities in the West, the Bureau of
    Reclamation's operations, including recreational support of
    over $63 billion in economic activity and over 450,000 jobs
    each year that reclamation supports. Reclamation's annual
    average of roughly 40 billion kilowatt hours of electricity
    provides for more than 1 billion in gross power revenues for
    the Federal Government. The 2021 budget request supports our
    efforts to address the challenges that impact the availability
    and reliability of water supply.
        This budget also furthers Interior's commitment to working
    with Indian Tribes toward Tribal prosperity. Across Interior,
    the budget includes $156 million for Indian settlements
    commitment, of that $112.1 million in Reclamation's efforts
    toward fulfilling those responsibilities.
        Our Nation's water resource challenges will only be
    addressed through cooperative efforts. Assistant Secretary
    James referenced earlier the importance of that collaboration,
    and I continue to engage on so many of his counterparts and
    other agencies with water-related responsibilities.
        Our cross efforts increase coordination, which focuses
    resources, which reduces duplication across the Federal
    Government. We recognize that work collaboratively. We can
    better support work that is underway to address the water
    challenges in areas of drought, water quality, water reuse,
    weather forecasting, just to name a few items.
        Finally, Interior's budget request includes the CUPCA
    program and CUPCA office. This falls under the jurisdiction of
    the assistant secretary. In 2021 budget, request the office is
    allocating $10 million for the continual planning/construction
    oversight activities of all of these efforts being completed in
    the State of Utah.
        In conclusion, I would like to submit all my work and
    records here. And, again, thank you so much for all the effort
    and support that you give to the Department of Interior.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Petty follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Assistant Secretary, very much.
        Now we will hear from Commissioner Burman. Please begin.
    Thank you.

                    STATEMENT OF HON. BRENDA BURMAN

        Ms. Burman. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member
    Simpson, members of the subcommittee, for the opportunity to
    discuss today the President's budget for the Bureau of
    Reclamation. I am Brenda Burman. This is my third year
    testifying in front of you as the Commissioner of Reclamation.
        Before I begin, I would like to thank the committee for
    your hard work and support in providing funding for our
    projects in fiscal year 2020. Having full funding has made a
    profound difference in Reclamation's ability to fulfill our
    mission with the resources Congress intended for that purpose.
    We are grateful as well for the appropriation of both WIN
    funding as well as additional funds for the priorities we share
    with you, particularly rural water, water conservation and
    delivery, and WaterSMART and title XVI.
        In this hearing, it is my goal to testify to the strengths
    and purpose of Reclamation's fiscal year 2021 budget request, a
    budget which continues to address water supply challenges in
    the West. Our goal remains to ensure water reliability and the
    efficient generation of energy, our mission, to celebrate
    America's recreational opportunities and to uphold the
    commitments to Tribal nations and the environment. The 2021
    budget prioritizes these functions and fully supports
    Reclamation's vital role out West.
        I wanted to take an opportunity to talk a little bit about
    hydrology, and you have some slides in front of you and up on
    the wall, and this is where Reclamation works. This is the
    background in which we work, and in 2020, I just wanted to give
    you a little bit of an idea of what is going on in the West. If
    we could go to the hydrology slide.
        So when you look at the West this year--and, Chairwoman
    Kaptur, you mentioned some of this--we see that in many places
    we are running about average on hydrology. If you look up in
    the Missouri Basin, we have full reservoirs from a very wet
    year last year, and we believe we are going to be able to meet
    our responsibilities to water users in the Missouri Basin.
        But as you move across up into the Pacific Northwest, I
    think you will see that we are running, again, about average,
    and that is a good thing. So let's look at the Colorado River
    region.
        So if you look at the upper and lower Colorado region, it
    started off fairly wet, and it has been trending towards drier,
    though it is supposed to rain the next 3 days in Arizona, but
    we believe that we are on target to meet all of our
    responsibilities in the Colorado River Basin given the
    hydrology this year.
        But now if we look to the Klamath in southern Oregon, I
    think you will see that they are significantly below average
    for their hydrology this year, and it is still early. It is
    March. A lot could happen between now, March and April. Even
    May we get storms. Last year we did. But this year is looking
    like it might be very difficult for the Klamath Basin.
        And if you look further south into California, you will see
    that they are significantly below average. It is a very dry
    year in California to date. Again, we hope that will turn
    around, but this informs. This is what Reclamation does. This
    is our responsibility that we can deliver water in a wet year
    but also in a dry year.
        The next slide, I just wanted to give you all an idea of
    what happens to the appropriations you send to the Bureau of
    Reclamation. So this slide just gives an opportunity to look at
    geographically where so many of our different projects are
    going on. These are construction projects across the West. And
    I want you to know that when this committee and Congress moves
    forward with appropriations, we are putting your funding to
    work. This is on-the-ground work that is making water more
    reliable, is making the Western grid more reliable, and is
    bringing hydropower to your local communities.
        So in keeping that as a background, I would just like to
    highlight for a moment a little bit of our budget as we move
    forward with fiscal year 2021 recommendation. In the upper
    basin, the Upper Colorado Basin, we are continually seeking to
    implement what I call mutually beneficial Tribal settlements.
    They avoid expensive and contentious litigation, and they are
    good not only for Tribal nations but also for their neighbors.
    In fiscal year 2021, we are requesting funding for the Navajo-
    Gallup Water Supply Project and for the Aamodt Litigation
    Settlement, as well as others.
        In the Lower Colorado Basin, home to Hoover Dam, home to
    Representatives Calvert and Kirkpatrick, our priority remains
    to continue to address the 20-year drought on the Colorado
    River Basin using all of our authorities.
        In the California Great Basin, you can see it holds many
    challenges this year, and we will be moving forward with
    partners with those in the basin to move forward to make sure
    that water can be as reliable as possible. And we have so many
    other projects across our different regions.
        I will just conclude by saying thank you to the committee.
    I am prepared to answer questions. We are very proud of the
    work we are doing across the West.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Burman follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Commissioner Burman, very much. And
    I thank the Bureau for providing maps that members can
    understand.
        Ms. Burman. OK.
        Ms. Kaptur. With an average seniority level in the Congress
    now of 6 years or less, we have a lot of education to do, and
    so we thank you for this and for making us able to speak with
    our colleagues in a more coherent manner. If you were up here
    at the dais, you would see how many people, how many members
    have the map at the top of their stack. So that was very, very
    good, and we thank you for that.
        Thank you all for your statements.
        And as a reminder for those members present in the room,
    when I gaveled in at the beginning of the hearing, I will
    recognize you for questions in order of seniority, alternating
    between majority and minority, until all who arrived prior to
    the gavel have asked questions. For those who arrive after the
    hearing has started, I will recognize those members solely in
    order of arrival, again alternating between majority and
    minority. Lastly, I intend to observe the 5-minute rule for
    questions and answers, and we will begin questioning under our
    normal rules.
        The first one deals with Brandon Road. And I wanted to ask
    Secretary James, the Brandon Road Projects, President Trump
    went back on his word, and since then, Michigan and Illinois
    are taking a new approach in their efforts to temporarily fund
    the project with State dollars. Mr. Secretary, it is my
    understanding that there are two agreements heading to your
    desk to allow the work to start. Expedited review is essential
    to ensure the project can proceed during this fiscal year. Can
    you, will you commit to ensure expedited review of these
    proposals?
        Second, we all know that the OMB reviews your work plan and
    oftentimes overrules your policy and engineering expertise. In
    your opinion, is the final work plan reflective of the Corps'
    recommendations based on technical and engineering expertise?
        Mr. James. There is an agreement in the Division office
    right now, MVD. It will be coming up to my office very shortly.
    I understand that Illinois and Michigan did agree to pay $8
    million toward this study, which is the PED study, the Pre
    Engineering and Design, at a cost share of 65/35. It is also my
    understanding that for the actual construction, I think
    Illinois is leading the way trying to get other States to buy
    into the project and actually cost-share some of the
    construction of the project.
        You wanted to know about the funding.
        Ms. Kaptur. Will you commit to ensure expedited review of
    these proposals?
        Mr. James. Absolutely. When they reach my office, they are
    expedited. They have to go through administration review and
    then I get them back for submission to the Congress, but we
    expedite them. I made it a point--when I got here and found out
    that there were still guidance documents from laws you all had
    passed in 2014 and 2016, it upset me, and we are expediting
    everything.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. I thank you very much.
        Is the final work plan that will be put forward reflective
    of the Corps' recommendations based on technical and
    engineering expertise? We know that OMB often changes things
    around. And so, therefore, can you affirm that the final work
    plan is reflective of the Corps' recommendations.
        Mr. James. As it leaves my office, it is.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. I will resume my remaining
    time at a different moment.
        I would now like to call upon Ranking Member Granger.
        Ms. Granger. I am sorry, I was still complimenting you on
    your reply.
        As I said earlier, we visited the southwest border several
    times to view the security enhancements. Some call it a fence.
    Some call it a wall. I called it a fence by mistake, and the
    President took objection to that, so I call it a wall now, is
    what you all call it now.
        I saw that there is a change in the problems, sometimes
    water problems, sometimes rock problems. It is very difficult
    to do this and have construction along the Rio Grande where
    there is miles of border. How do you adjust from one type of
    issue physically to another? And also, there is a plan for 450
    miles of border fencing to be completed by the end of the year,
    and will you be able to reach that goal?
        General Semonite. So, ma'am, there is several different
    types of terrain and different types of environmental factors
    down there, so what we do, really we have been asked to build
    this within 3 feet of the border, so, therefore, the location
    is relatively fixed. But we work for Customs and Border Patrol.
    They have very, very stringent guidelines that we must follow
    when it comes to taking care of Native American burial grounds,
    when it comes to the environment, the water, all the rest.
        So we actually do what is called the design build. We give
    the contractor the start and the end. We have them actually do
    the design. A good example, if there is water that is going to
    flow through, there are certain structures that have to be able
    to let that water go underneath and let the debris not get
    caught up in it. So every section of it, although this is a
    standard design, it is hand tailored to be able to make sure
    that it is best applicable to either go up the slopes or be
    able to take care of those environmental factors.
        We are very worried about the habitat. There are certain
    areas where we have got to be able to make sure a habitat can
    go through it within the confines of still trying to achieve
    what the administration and CBP is trying to do. And we can
    certainly go into more details, but there is no one size fits
    all. It is handcrafted to be able to make sure we are balancing
    all those competing demands.
        Ms. Granger. And the other part of the question, there is a
    plan for 450 miles of border fencing completed by the end of
    the year. Can you--
        General Semonite. We are very aggressive. That is our plan.
    We think we will still be there. I would like to think we can
    even beat that. On the other hand, there are times litigation
    kicks in, and if we have litigation, then unfortunately that
    will impact the schedule. But our goal is to be exceptionally
    aggressive and to do everything we can to get to the 450
    number.
        Ms. Granger. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Kaptur. Ranking Member Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. I would yield to Congressman Calvert. He has a
    Defense hearing at 3.
        Mr. Calvert. I appreciate that.
        General, thank you for coming, I appreciate it. And I know
    the President has probably been calling you weekly about the
    border wall and how much progress you are making. But I am just
    curious, 450 miles, is that built or obligated?
        General Semonite. Sir, that is actually what we expect to
    have in the ground by the end of the calendar year of 2020. So
    there is other money that has been obligated that will go into
    2021 and even some into 2022. But the 450, that is all
    obligated and will be built.
        Mr. Calvert. Is this the money that was displaced out of
    the Defense budget to go into the wall? Is that what you are
    going to obligate?
        General Semonite. Sir, there are a combination of three
    types of money. Part of it is the regular, normal congressional
    appropriation the CBP gets; there is another portion which the
    Secretary of Defense, which is called 284 money; and then there
    is a third portion which is called 2808 money. So it is a
    combination of three different types of money.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
        I want to be careful how I say these things because I don't
    want the money that is in Murrieta Creek to end up somewhere
    else. So with that, I will move on to Murrieta Creek. Secretary
    James, General, thank you for both being here. I want to talk
    about Murrieta Creek. I have talked to you both about it many
    times over the years, and we are, you know, wanting to get this
    project completed. We have been working closely with Colonel
    Barta at the L.A. office. And as you know, we are trying to
    contain costs and available resources, that we use it
    effectively to get this thing completed. The sponsor, Riverside
    County Flood Control and the Water Conservation District, has
    requested a section 221 in-kind contribution for credit
    agreement to allow the sponsored design phases 2B and 3 of the
    project. They believe the section 221 agreement would
    accelerate remaining design work and reduce total project
    costs. The sponsor has also asked to work closely with the
    Corps to update the economic side-by-side study of the project.
        How are we doing on that and what do you expect?
        General Semonite. Sir, we have a very high standard in the
    Corps for making sure we are collaborative and we communicate.
    We missed it on this one. I want to look you in the eye and
    tell you that. The District let me down on this. And so as a
    result, we are doing four things. Matter of fact, Mr. Al Lee
    right here is my new director of Civil Works, he has been on
    the phone the last couple of days making sure we get this to
    where it needs to be.
        Four things. Number 1, we are going to turn the work over
    to Riverside County by 30 June of this year, and phase 2 will
    be 21 January of 2021. Number 2, we are going to suspend the
    work on the GRR and instead we are going to do exactly what you
    asked, section 221, to be able to let the non-Federal sponsor
    go ahead and do that design work on their own. Number 3 is we
    are going to do better partnering. That has always been a goal.
        But, again, on this one, we didn't do what we needed to do
    to make sure that you were informed. We even were late
    answering a letter to you that we should have been much, much
    more responsive on.
        And then the fourth one is I have asked Mr. Lee to be able
    to do a biweekly update, so this District now is not just
    reporting to the division, they are coming into the
    headquarters to make sure that we personally track them. We
    have got a lot--we are doing $66 billion of work this year, but
    those that are not where we need to be get a extra special
    little bit of love, and this one is going to get some extra
    love.
        Mr. Calvert. God bless you. We need all the love we can
    get. So thank you for focusing on that. I appreciate that.
        The mainstem project, any comment on the Santa Ana Main
    Stem, how we are going to be allocating the supplemental funds,
    specifically what is in the plan to address the outstanding
    $161 million for the new official cost estimate?
        General Semonite. So as you are aware, we have got $17.4
    billion as supplemental. This one is a supplemental project.
    There is some additional growth to this particular project due
    to some design issues. We have to go figure out where can we do
    some reallocations. We have got a proposal right now to go to
    Mr. James and to be able to get his approval to be able to put
    some additional money. There is a couple of projects that we
    think we have got a little bit of float on, but we need to go
    back in and let Mr. James approve that. Our goal is to come in
    and do the majority of what we were going to do in Santa Ana.
    But you have got my commitment. This is a very, very important
    project, and we have got to get Santa Ana done. The question is
    we are a little bit shy, but we think through the depth of the
    program we will be able to cover it.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congressman Kilmer.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thanks, Madam Chair. Thanks for being with us.
        I am not sure if I should direct this to Assistant
    Secretary James or General Semonite. Coastal communities
    throughout my district are really struggling with growing
    threats of coastal erosion and with rising sea levels. I am
    very grateful that your budget includes $77 million for flood
    control and for coastal emergencies. And I am particularly
    grateful for the countless times the Seattle District has
    rapidly deployed resources to shore up failing jetties or sea
    walls to prevent a major disaster from occurring, and
    appreciate them not putting a restraining order out against me
    and my staff for the number of times that we have called.
        I recognize those activities come with a significant price
    tag, and I keep coming to the thought that we are missing an
    opportunity to make smart investments on the front end in
    resilience rather than waiting until these structures fail.
        So in comparison to the $77 million that is requested to
    respond to these emergencies after they happen, your budget
    includes $5 million provided for planning and technical
    assistance to local communities that are trying to reduce their
    risk of a major flood or coastal hazard event. And,
    additionally, the Corps has no dedicated resources to help
    communities that are actually trying to execute what are often
    small-scale resilience projects that could yield a lot of
    benefit on the downside.
        So I was hoping you could talk about the opportunities you
    see for the Corps to take a more active role in supporting
    communities who want to invest on the front end in resilience
    before a disaster occurs and what resources and authorities you
    already have to support that work and what you might need from
    Congress to better support that type of work.
        General Semonite. You are exactly right, the more that we
    can be proactive up front just pays unbelievable dividends down
    the road. So this is mainly through planning assistance of
    States. That is a great program and a little bit of investment
    with--really, a lot of times, a relatively small amount of
    money can have unbelievable capabilities. The challenge is, is
    when you look at the total pot of money, unfortunately, there
    are so many must funds, things like making locks and dams work
    and other--some of the projects, that that is one of the
    accounts that is a little bit light.
        Anything that Congress could do to give us more money in
    that particular area, even if it is fenced or dedicated, then
    we are going to be able to turn that right around, and we will
    make sure and we will commit to be able to put that where the
    best return on investment for Congress will be. We are not
    going to do all of them, but where we see good ones, like the
    ones you are mentioning, I think there is great merit in doing
    that.
        Mr. Kilmer. From an authority standpoint, do you have what
    you need?
        General Semonite. I think we do, but I will tell you what,
    I will take as a task here to double-check that, and if you
    don't mind, I will get back with you and say what do we need,
    if there isn't anything on authorities, and maybe even
    recommend a rough order of magnitude of what do we think within
    the capability of what we could do so that in future years you
    could see if you could help us out.
        Mr. Kilmer. I would really value that.
        Assistant Secretary James, I am also grateful that your
    fiscal year 2020 work plan includes $3 million for the Seattle
    District to proceed with design and cost update for the
    downstream fish passage facility at the Howard Hanson Dam. As
    you know, this fish passage facility is just critical for
    meeting your agency's obligations under the Endangered Species
    Act, also really essential for recovering some of the key
    stocks of Chinook that will help, not just worker recovery, but
    both our Tribal and recreational and commercial fisheries as
    well.
        It is essential that the Corps completes the design and
    cost update quickly so that we can keep the project on track to
    meet the 2030 deadline set by the biological opinion. Can you
    tell me when these funds will be made available to the Seattle
    District, and what is the anticipated timeline for completing
    the design and the cost update?
        Mr. James. The funding in the fiscal year 2020 work plan
    was $3 million for the investigations and $4 million in the
    President's budget 2021 for the O&M. Now, I don't think the $3
    million is going to finish the investigation on that fish
    passage. It is going to take more funding than that.
        Mr. Kilmer. What will it take?
        Mr. James. I don't know.
        General, do you have any idea what it would take.
        General Semonite. I don't think I have that here, no, sir.
        Mr. James. I don't either, but like the General just said,
    we can get you the number of where we are looking at to date to
    finish that study and get back to you just as quickly as
    possible. I don't have it and what that would be.
        General Semonite. Sir, the main thing we need here is we
    are real close to 902 limit on this, and so we have to be able
    to get the report done and be able to make sure that we
    continue to have the bandwidth to be able to continue to invest
    in this. So I think that is the main thing that $3 million
    would do is to get what is called the PACR done so we can have
    the 902 limit raised.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you.
        I know I am out of time. Thanks, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Ranking Member Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman.
        As I mentioned in my opening statement, I would like to try
    to get a little more insight into the Corps' work plan process,
    particularly in the fiscal year 2020 work plan. General
    Semonite, as I understand it, the first draft of the work plan
    is developed by subject matter experts in the District
    Division, and headquarters offices, culminating in your
    recommended work plan to the assistant secretary. Is that
    correct.
        General Semonite. It is, sir.
        Mr. Simpson. Can you please briefly describe how you
    prioritize projects for funding in your recommended work plan?
    What kind of quantitative and qualitative metrics do you use?
        General Semonite. So, first of all, we put a lot of effort
    in the work plan. It is not something we do in 2 or 3 weeks. We
    spend 6 or 7 months on it. We are starting the work plan for
    next year right now. So every one of the requirements that we
    can't get funded, those go through a very, very critical
    analysis.
        And you talk about the metrics. I am going to give you
    five. Number 1, risk to public safety; No. 2, legal mandates;
    No. 3, national security; No. 4, economic and environmental
    return on investment; and, number five, we are going to finish
    what we start. So those are how we bin those, and we are
    engineers, so I hate to say we have a great big matrix and they
    all kind of rack and stack accordingly.
        The other thing, though, is that as much as you can have
    great metrics, what is most important here is your gut. And so
    I go to the division commanders about 2 months out and I say, I
    want to know your top three to five projects that you really
    think this Nation needs to be able to invest in. And they write
    me a personal email, I give it to General Spellmon, sitting
    right behind me, and I say, let's get as many of these as we
    can.
        Now, sometimes they might want $80 million but their
    capability is only 30. But the bottom line is we go out of our
    way to be able to make that--that work plan is based on
    engineering and science. We don't worry about boundaries. We
    don't worry about politics. We are trying to do what is best
    for America.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        If we include districts, divisions, headquarters,
    approximately how many technical experts are involved in
    developing what becomes your recommended work plan? Would you
    say it is in the hundreds?
        General Semonite. Sir, it is probably over 2,000.
        Mr. Simpson. Assistant Secretary James, as I understand the
    process, after the Chief of Engineers sends your recommended
    work plan to you, you have a handful of people in your office
    who review it as well. Is that correct?
        Mr. James. Yes, sir, that is correct.
        Mr. Simpson. Do you make any changes to what the chief
    recommends? And if you do, would you characterize the scope of
    changes as minor or significant?
        Mr. James. Most changes I make in my office are policy type
    changes, if I see something that is interfering with a policy
    that we need to follow that maybe the Corps missed. But we make
    very few changes because my management and budget staff are in
    hourly contact with the chief's staff over there as they and we
    are developing the work plan. So there is very little daylight
    between us when I get the work plan.
        Mr. Simpson. Then once you have your recommended work plan,
    you send it on to OMB where a handful of people review it as
    well. Is that correct?
        Mr. James. Yes.
        Mr. Simpson. General Semonite, was the final fiscal year
    2020 work plan submitted to the committee identical to your
    original recommended work plan? If it was not, would you
    characterize the scope of changes as minor or significant?
        General Semonite. Sir, I would say that it was not
    identical, and I would say that the changes are significant.
    And I would also say that what Mr. James said, this is not
    where we develop it, we send it to him and we don't see it
    anymore. Every day we are talking back and forth. And there are
    times where I might walk in and say we need a little bit more
    money here and there, and probably more than any other work
    plan, it has been seamless between the two different offices
    that we have provided a product that we would put our name on
    to say this is a good investment.
        Mr. Simpson. So it seems to me that we have a process that
    allows for a handful of people at OMB, who may or may not have
    any engineering or construction experience, to override the
    judgment of hundreds of people who have been hired specifically
    for their subject matter expertise. This is not a good
    situation. I believe Congress needs to do something about it,
    and I have several ideas I plan to discuss further with my
    colleagues.
        Additionally, I am concerned that the fiscal year 2020 work
    plan is not in compliance with the direction provided in the
    Act. General Semonite, in fiscal year 2020, the 2020 Act
    included language providing you as the Chief of Engineers with
    the authority to determine which projects are eligible for
    funding under which categories. I assume your original work
    plan recommended to the assistant secretary was consistent with
    your determination and congressional direction provided in the
    bill and report. Is that correct?
        General Semonite. Definitely.
        Mr. Simpson. Were you provided the opportunity to confirm
    whether or not the final work plan also was consistent with the
    direction in the bill and prior report to it being submitted to
    the committee?
        General Semonite. No. Primarily, sir, because this was done
    in so much flux that even up to the day that we made the
    announcement of the work plan, there were still being changes
    being made that morning. We just couldn't get all of that level
    of fidelity.
        Mr. Simpson. Were you given any explanation for how you
    were supposed to fulfill your statutory responsibility if you
    weren't even given sufficient time to review the significant
    changes in the work plan before it was finalized and submitted
    to the committee?
        General Semonite. Sir, we were not given any additional
    guidance, no.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        Yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congresswoman Frankel.
        Ms. Frankel. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Thank you to all of you for your service. Appreciate it.
        Let me just start and make a comment that I think, given
    the economic stress that this country is under, this is not a
    time to cut back the Army Corps budget, other than--and I say
    this with probably no respect--I don't think we should be
    spending money on that stupid bigoted border wall, which I
    think is a name, but no comments necessary on your part.
        Secretary James, I know that the marine industry would
    agree with you on taking a look at the cost-benefit analysis,
    because they believe that there are a lot of issues associated
    with the marine industry that is not taken into account. But I
    have some local issues I would rather get your comment on,
    unless you feel--OK. I would just wanted to pass that on.
        Mr. James. Well, my feeling on that, I didn't dream it one
    night. You are exactly right, Congresswoman. That is from years
    of dealing with people in both the inland navigation, the
    harbor people on the coast, and people seeking flood control in
    this country. We have still got people that get flooding, just
    like the Missouri River did last year, and those are the people
    that cannot get projects because their benefit-cost ratio is
    too low to be funded.
        Ms. Frankel. All right. Thank you for looking at that.
        I want to ask a couple of questions. In terms of the
    Central Everglades Planning Project, the Army Corps' position,
    do you believe that a new start is necessary for each
    individual project?
        General Semonite. Yes, ma'am. Our counsel has looked at
    this several times and, unfortunately, that is the current
    position of our lawyers.
        Ms. Frankel. First of all, I want to also thank you for the
    additional funding that you are requesting.
        On the--you probably know about the controversy in Palm
    Beach County, in Martin County concerning the lake level of
    Lake Okeechobee. So this year, it is my understanding that this
    year, that you allowed the lake to go 2 feet below this
    average, if you are following that. There is a very big fear,
    especially in the cities and the counties, that we are going to
    go to a drought. I was mayor when we had a terrible drought,
    and we almost lost our water. It is also a concern of the
    agriculture community.
        So I am just--first of all, do you expect that we are going
    to have to have any drought measures? And is this going to be
    something that you are going to be doing every year?
        General Semonite. We don't expect any drought, ma'am.
    Again, we think a couple of years ago we probably came in too
    high on how much water was in the lake. Last year, we went low
    mainly to be able to dechampion or to be able to not have the
    algae blooms. That worked very, very well. This year, we are
    going to go a little bit higher. I don't have the number of it,
    but I think you are aware of, we have some very, very strict
    protocols of how we work the lake levels. We are right in the
    middle of redoing that, so we have a little bit better table to
    be able to make sure that everybody knows what is going to
    happen with the lake level. We do not see a significant problem
    this year.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. That is good.
        And, Madam Chair, just to remind the committee and also the
    Corps that last year, in our bill, we put language which
    encouraged the Corps to use the best available science to
    determine appropriate lake levels. So I would hope that we will
    have that again, Madam Chair, and that you will be doing that.
        General Semonite. We are going to do it regardless of what
    the language is, ma'am. We are going to put the best science we
    have.
        Ms. Frankel. All right. And just I want to ask you in terms
    of some of our projects, whether they are on schedule. Herbert
    Hoover Dike?
        General Semonite. Yes, ma'am, on schedule.
        Ms. Frankel. On schedule. How about the Midtown Beach
    renourishment? I know there has been some back and forth on
    that. How is that going?
        General Semonite. I don't believe I have that one, but I
    will get back with you on Midtown.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. That would be great.
        And what about--with the Everglades restoration, can you
    give me an update on, you know, the completion on that?
        General Semonite. Overall, I think we are in a very, very
    good place. And Congress has done a great job of investing in
    it in the last several years. We have seen a lot of new starts.
    We have seen a lot of projects being done. We continue to be
    able to get a very, very good investment on the money that is
    going back in there. So there is no specific challenges out
    there.
        The main thing we are doing is we want to be able to make
    sure we work the EAA Reservoir, because that is a critical part
    of making sure the water flow goes in the Everglades. And that
    is back to your question about the new start.
        Ms. Frankel. Yes.
        General Semonite. And this is where that is going to have,
    I would think, in a WRDA, it could have, you know, some
    language, and then in the work plan for 2021, that would be a
    good place to be able to put a new start in the 2021 work plan.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. So you are suggesting that we try to do
    that?
        General Semonite. We need to get that EAA Reservoir done,
    ma'am.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. Then I want to ask you about Port
    Everglades, not Everglades restoration, Port Everglades, which
    is a port that accepts cargo and so forth. It received the new
    start, thank you for that, in last year's Army Corps work plan
    and $29 million to start moving the Coast Guard station. Any
    estimate on when actual new construction will start at the port
    and how long it is going to take to complete the first step,
    and then how much more money will be needed in the construction
    account for the entire project?
        General Semonite. So this one did get a new start. That is
    good news. The next big thing is the project partnership
    agreement. We expect that to come in sometime in December, and
    that will be a--that is good news. And then we have got to do a
    supplemental NEPA because we have got some ESA issues out
    there. That will be done, I think, this September.
        And then when it comes down to what we think the actual
    construction, what I will do is I will have my guys lay out--I
    have got a beautiful graphic here. We will lay out exactly what
    the deliverables are. But at the end of the day, the biggest
    thing we are worried about is coral. You know what happened in
    Miami.
        Ms. Frankel. Yes.
        General Semonite. So we want to make sure we do this right.
    And we have got a new dredging methodology, so when we dredge
    out Port Everglades, we don't see anywhere near the risk to the
    coral that has been experienced in the past.
        Ms. Frankel. Good. Thank you. That is excellent.
        I yield back.
        General Semonite. $238 million is what it is going to need
    at the end.
        Ms. Frankel. Is that total money for both State and Federal
    or is that the Federal?
        General Semonite. That is the Federal, the balance to
    complete. We have already spent about $29 million, so that is
    about the rough order of magnitude.
        Ms. Frankel. What portion of that is of the project?
        General Semonite. I think that is 65 percent.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. Thank you so much.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congressman Newhouse.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member
    Simpson.
        First of all, welcome to all of you this afternoon. It is
    always a pleasure to have you in front of us.
        My first questions I direct toward the Army Corps, so
    Assistant Secretary James and Lieutenant General Semonite. The
    hardworking men and women that you have on your team at the
    Army Corps of Engineers, as you know, have been conducting an
    extensive study of the operations of the Columbia River system.
    I think it has been over 3 years now. They have been doing so
    in conjunction with several other agencies, Federal scientists,
    engineers, fish biologists, and experts of these agencies have
    been drafting a comprehensive analysis of the operations of the
    system and its impacts on the environment, fish and wildlife,
    the economy, and certainly the communities across the region.
    So thank you for your efforts there.
        Since the release of that draft EIS, I believe it was
    February 28, I have been doing everything possible to encourage
    community members, regional stakeholders as well throughout the
    Northwest, to engage, make sure the general public takes the
    opportunity that they have during this 45-day comment period to
    provide their input. This is an open and transparent process.
    The document is public and available for everyone to review,
    and anyone can lend their voice and offer feedback through
    official comment.
        There are a series of public meeting meetings. One of them
    is in my district at the Kennewick Red Lion, just make sure it
    is on the record, on Wednesday, March 18, from 4 to 8 p.m.
    There will be others throughout the Northwest.
        In my view, members of our community, the everyday citizen
    must engage in this process because of the importance the river
    system has, truly the profound effects it has on the lives of
    every single person who lives in the Columbia Basin region and
    certainly the Greater Northwest. We must hear these voices of
    the people that are impacted.
        I recently received--and I will just hold it up so you can
    see from a distance--this was an email, a hard copy of an email
    from an environmental organization, and in my humble opinion,
    had the gall to fundraise off this Federal review process. You
    don't see average community members doing that, fundraising off
    of this process. You don't see everyday citizens raising money
    on a scientific review that will, like I said, have profound
    impacts on the daily lives, the livelihoods of millions of
    people in the region.
        That is why I believe the public process is so important.
    That is why I believe more dialogue is so important, but
    dialogue based on science and facts, not on political antics
    like this. That is why, for example, I recently invited the
    Governor of Oregon to come to one of our world-class
    hydroelectric dams in Central Washington, to engage with
    scientists, to engage with experts on the facts, not on
    politics. I was disappointed to learn just yesterday that the
    Governor will not be able to join me on this opportunity, but I
    will commit to doing everything in my power to continue to
    engage in a constructive dialogue with community leaders,
    members of the region that make decisions, while continuing to
    encourage the public to offer their comments. And just let me
    help by inserting a plug right here, anyone can go to crso.info
    and provide comments.
         So with that long background, I thank you for engaging--
    allowing me to do that.
        Mr. Secretary, Lieutenant General, I would simply welcome
    you to share some of the facts on how this process has
    developed, share some of the background on the Federal
    resources and effort that went into drafting this EIS. And any
    information that you could share about your efforts moving
    forward would be appreciated.
        General Semonite. I will keep it real short, but the bottom
    line is we want to do this right. It is a very, very
    complicated equation. There are a lot of different variables,
    and they all compete against each other. We have got a great
    relationship with Bureau of Rec, a lot of other key players out
    there. And so what we have got to do is be able to continue to
    go through this comment period, because the time is short, and
    we have got to get this EIS done by the end of the next year.
        We don't think we can extend the comment period, but we are
    very, very receptive to be able to make sure that everybody is
    telling us what those ramifications are. And then, again, at
    the end of the day, it is about how do we balance the
    environment with all of the other needs like navigation,
    hydropower, and irrigation.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you.
        Secretary James, any comment that you would like to
    provide?
        Mr. James. No. Just for the record, though, I think this
    whole enterprise is--for the environmental discovery for
    other--another project, right, for the 14 power dams that are
    supposed or proposed. And what we are talking about here today
    is the environmental impact statement on what will or will
    those dams not do to the environment. Am I not right?
        Mr. Newhouse. Primarily. Just the future operations of the
    Columbia/Snake River system.
        Mr. James. Yes, sir. I am like General Semonite, we are all
    in on getting this EIS finished so the project, whatever the
    mitigation is, we can move on with it and get things going out
    there.
        Mr. Newhouse. Finally, yes.
        Mr. James. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Newhouse. I appreciate that.
        Mr. James. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Newhouse. I appreciate your commitment to seeing this
    through to the end in a positive way. Thank you.
        With that, Madam Chair, I am sorry, I went over time. I
    yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congresswoman Kirkpatrick.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        And I thank everyone here before being before the
    committee.
        And, Commissioner Burman, I especially want to thank you
    for meeting with me yesterday. I really appreciated your time.
        And so, you know, we know Arizona and the West are headed
    toward a drought, and I just want to ask you, you know, what do
    you think the chances are that, you know, the drought
    contingency plan will kick in, and what are Reclamation's plans
    and strategies to address the drought that we know is coming
    this year?
        Ms. Burman. So, as you know, the Colorado River is so
    important to Arizona and to the seven basin States and Mexico
    who rely on it. We have been in a 20-year drought on the
    Colorado River. That is the deepest drought that we have seen
    in the recorded history of the Colorado River and one of the
    worst droughts that we have seen in the Paleo Record.
        But what we have done, the incredible work that was done on
    the drought contingency plans and the help from Congress last
    year to pass that legislation, is really remarkable. But what
    happened at that same time was also, last year, was an above-
    average year on the system, and we are blessed with incredible
    infrastructure on the Colorado River. So we were able to
    capture the water from that wet year, and that has been a
    significant help.
        In addition, the drought contingency plans incentivized
    conservation and the basin States together were able to save
    almost a million acre feet behind Hoover Dam last year. So that
    has put us in a very good position.
        So for 2020, there will not be a shortage on the Colorado
    River. We are in a place we call tier zero underneath the
    drought contingency plans, and that means there are some
    contributions by Arizona, by Nevada, and by Mexico. But when we
    look ahead to 2021, we also do not expect to see a shortage in
    2021. Anything could happen if this year stays very dry. The
    chances would go up, but we think the chances are fairly small
    in the--like 11 to 15 percent chance of a shortage next year.
        And they start to go up from there. In 2022, they are
    looking more at that 11 to 15 percent. 2023, they go up more,
    37 to 45 percent, but not to throw a bunch of numbers around.
    But I would say we are in a very good position because of
    conservation last year, because of incentives from the DCP that
    were allowed to happen, and because it was an above-average
    year. So we look good for this year and next year.
        Mrs. Kirkpatrick. That is really good news. You know,
    Arizona is supposed to be getting 3 days of rain this week. So
    we certainly welcome that. But thank you for your leadership,
    and we will certainly stay in touch.
        I yield back.
        Ms. Burman. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        Ranking Member Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman.
        I wasn't going to say anything about this, but it is always
    a fascinating discussion on the Columbia River Basin. I notice
    you all mentioned hydropower, irrigation, and transportation,
    how important those are. Nobody mentioned fish. Nobody
    mentioned salmon that come back to Idaho that, if in the next
    15 years something isn't done, they will be extinct. There is
    no doubt about that. They will be extinct. So we can talk about
    all that.
        And we never talked about the 487,000-acre feet of water
    that Idaho sends out of my district down to flush salmon over
    those dams, and the one thing they are not doing is recovering
    salmon, but they are keeping water in the pool so that we can
    irrigate in Washington. So we sometimes have a little different
    take on this.
        Representative Newhouse and I could sit here for hours and
    talk about this. I understand how important that is to his
    district. And I guess if you don't live in an area where the
    Olympians of salmon come back to spawn in Idaho, then you
    really don't care about it. But people better start looking at
    this seriously, and any plan we come up with, any EIS, had
    better recover salmon. Now they got a new plan out here the
    flexible spill thing. The one thing it will not do is speed up
    the migration of salmon to the Pacific Ocean, which is now
    about twice as long as it used to be.
        We don't have a Columbia River anymore. We have a series of
    pools the fish now have to swim to. It takes them twice as
    long, warmer water, more predators. We are not looking at the
    whole picture here. We are trying to preserve what exists
    instead of saying, what do we want to do for the next 20 or 40
    years? What do we want this to look like in 20 or 40 years? Do
    the people of the Pacific Northwest want to lose the salmon
    runs? If you do, then fine. Make the determination. Let's quit
    spending $750,000 a year--million dollars a year every year now
    by the ratepayers at Bonneville Power to recover salmon.
        It is just not working. People have got to get out of their
    niches and start looking at what we want to do in the future.
    That was a subject that I wasn't going to bring up, but as you
    can tell, I feel a little passionately about it.
        Assistant Secretary James and General Semonite, as you
    know, the 2008 compensatory mitigation rule established a
    hierarchy of mitigation with a preference for the use of
    wetland banks, which was established--which have established
    credits already in place as approved by the Corps. According to
    the publicly available data, there is a wide disparity of the
    use of mitigation banks against--across Corps districts.
        Do you know what is causing that disparity, and do you
    agree that it would be useful to take a look at this issue to
    see if there are majors that would provide better consistency
    and adherence to the hierarchy in the rule?
        Mr. James. I will let General Semonite elaborate on that,
    but from my understanding, there is not enough wetland
    mitigation banks in our country right now, and the Corps is
    working on that. They are working with individuals and other
    public entities to raise the number.
        The other thing is, is in some areas of the country, in
    some Corps of Engineer district areas, the people there for one
    reason or another would rather have their mitigation in the
    area of the project. Not everybody wants to buy from a
    mitigation bank, and as we all know, once they put in a
    mitigation bank, you better get your wallet out because the
    mitigation is going to cost you.
        Mr. Simpson. Yes.
        Mr. James. And that is the reasons that I know of
    personally. That is not in my policy head. These are just
    things that I picked up over my years of service here.
        Mr. Simpson. OK.
        General Semonite. Sir, we certainly are looking at this
    right now. We want to continue to look at it and have a
    dialogue with you. Three main reasons why there is some
    disparity out there, and these banks are all based on every
    part of the country is a little bit different. First of all,
    what functions are needed in the watershed? What is
    environmentally preferable for offsetting functions lost
    through permitted impacts? And, finally, the availability of
    mitigation bank credits. It is kind of like the secretary said.
        This goes back to it has got be a tailored solution, and
    sometimes what might work in the Northwest doesn't work in the
    Southeast. But we are looking down through. There are some
    incentives we are looking at right now. We are trying to study
    this, and if we can find a way of doing this better, we are all
    in.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        Commissioner Burman, the budget request includes a bit of a
    reduction for Indian Water Rights Settlements overall, although
    some individual projects go up. What is the reason for the
    decreases? Is it due to the availability of mandatory funding?
    And at the request levels, are all the settlements on track to
    meet statutory deadlines?
        Ms. Burman. Absolutely. Representative Simpson, Ranking
    Member Simpson, we absolutely are committed to our tribal
    obligations, and you see that in our budget. This past year,
    2020, is the first year that mandatory funding through the
    Reclamation Settlement Fund has become available, and that is
    about $120 million a year. And so we have been able to put that
    to work this year. We announced that about a month ago, where
    that funding would be going for this year.
        So when you look at our budget for 2021, it is to meet our
    responsibilities, and we have many settlements, many
    settlements that must be funded and complete by 2025. We
    believe we are on target. It is tough. It is difficult, but we
    are moving forward with those projects, and we do believe we
    are on target to meet our responsibilities.
        Mr. Simpson. Let me just ask you, the budget request
    reduces funding for the authorized rural water projects. Some
    of these projects have components benefiting Tribes. How do the
    Tribes' projects' components factor into the budget request for
    rural water projects?
        Ms. Burman. On the rural water project program, first and
    foremost, we meet our existing responsibilities, meaning our
    O&M, our operation and maintenance responsibilities. That is
    overwhelmingly on the Tribal side. Next, we look at the
    different projects that need construction, and we do look at
    our Tribal responsibilities as we move forward with that. I
    think you will see from our 2020 spend plan that we were able
    to put significant resources provided by Congress towards all
    of those rural water supply projects, and they are moving
    forward.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson.
        Commissioner Burman, Reclamation's 2020 work plan includes
    $8 million for Shasta Dam being raised, despite Congress
    specifically not including WIIN Act funding for this project.
    Will all fiscal year 2020 funds be used only for planning,
    design, and preconstruction activities with no funds used for
    any construction activities? Is that correct?
        Ms. Burman. That is right. The $8 million provided in the
    reclamation spend plan that was sent to Congress on February 3
    for fiscal year 2020 includes $8 million for Shasta Dam to move
    forward, and that is under preconstruction activity. So we are
    completing design. We are doing the testing we need to do to
    know if that project is viable and can it move forward.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you for that clarification.
        Secretary James and General Semonite, the Great Lakes
    navigation system is just that, a system, and thankfully, that
    navigation system received over 10 percent of the entire Harbor
    Maintenance Trust Fund expenditures for operation and
    maintenance each year from 2014 through fiscal year 2019. Last
    year, however, the Great Lakes navigation system saw a
    precipitous dip in funding, receiving only 8.9 percent of O&M
    funding.
        Can you walk us through the reason for that change and why
    the Great Lakes received just under 9 percent of the entire
    operation and maintenance funding in this fiscal year of 2020
    versus 12.4 percent in fiscal year 2019? What has changed in
    the Great Lakes or national landscape to warrant this
    reduction?
        Mr. James. Madam Chairwoman, I would have to check that out
    with experts and get back to you as soon as possible. I don't
    have that.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. You know, with all of the extra
    waterfall and so forth, we have docks underwater. We have a lot
    of seawall collapse. There is just a lot of flooding all over
    the Great Lakes region at 124-year high of rainfall in the
    region. So I would appreciate your getting back to us as soon
    as you can. Thank you so much.
        Mr. James. Madam Chairwoman, let me make sure I am on the
    right study. Is that the coastal resiliency that you are
    talking about or--
        Ms. Kaptur. No. This really has to do with the allocation
    of the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to different--we are a
    creature of that, and the significant reduction in funding was
    just 9 percent of the entire O&M funding this year versus 12.4
    percent in fiscal year 2019. So we are curious, what actually
    happened to cause that aberration downward in a fund that has--
    --
        Mr. James. I will get that to you immediately. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Thank you very much.
        And to both of you, again, thank you so much for
    prioritizing the Soo Locks. Your budget request for 2021 is at
    a solid level. And can you please give us an update on that
    project and make sure that it is actually delivered on time and
    on budget? Are we still on track to complete the project with
    the total estimated cost of $922 million, and will the 2021
    project request keep us on track toward that goal?
        General Semonite. Madam Chairwoman, the answer is yes. The
    bottom line is you got three parts of it. Upstream channel
    deepening, the upstream approach walls, and the new lock
    chamber. The work plan money of $125 million is on capability
    where we need to be. And then the 2021 budget gives us another
    $123 million. So that is capability as well.
        And then what we will do is we will start construction
    oversight of the upstream channel deepening soon so we can get
    that part going and get the other two and continue to be able
    to get moving. So we don't see a problem with the overall total
    that you mentioned. We think that is right on track. And if
    there is ever a time when Soo Locks gets out of balance, I will
    personally come see you, because this is a critical project.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
        Secretary James.
        Mr. James. And I feel exactly the same way. That is one of
    the first projects I visited when I came into this job was Soo
    Locks. And when it was explained to me what a priority it is
    for this country, the taconite that comes out of Minnesota
    across the Great Lakes and through Soo Locks, you only have one
    lock, no redundancy, and then the story about soldiers and
    anti-aircraft gun being stationed there during World War II to
    protect that. So it should be a national priority to get that
    other lock finished and in operation.
        General Semonite. Fall of 2026 is when we expect to have it
    done.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary and General.
        General Semonite, are there any Corps resources or workers
    that would otherwise work on Civil Works projects being
    directed to work on the border wall?
        General Semonite. No, ma'am. We have a wide variety of
    different types of skills. There are some that work military
    missions and some that work civil works, but there is also a
    repository of engineering and construction people. So there are
    times we lean on different types of skill sets to be able to do
    all of our different work, but right now, because you allow us
    to hire up, whatever the workload is--I don't have a fixed
    manning document--we are able to hire whatever we need to do to
    be able to take care.
        We are doing $8 billion for the VA right now. I love
    working for the VA. We build hospitals for the VA. There is
    nobody coming off of Civil Works projects because they are
    diverted to some other project.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you for that clarification.
        I was greatly disappointed that your 2020 work plan did not
    include a new start in funding for the Great Lakes Coastal
    Resiliency Study. Assistant Secretary James, why wasn't this
    important effort funded in the 2020 work plan? Can you clarify?
        Mr. James. I cannot clarify, I think, to your satisfaction.
    I can clarify due to the fact that it was not in the top
    priority of the budget, and that is--when I get those from the
    Corps, as we talked to before, as I get them from the general,
    then they are gone over with the administration. Sometimes they
    are reprioritized. Sometimes they are not. But then the
    administration's budget comes out of that.
        Ms. Kaptur. General, would you wish to comment on that?
        General Semonite. We continue to see unbelievable value in
    this study, and we will continue to be an advocate for this
    study wherever we can.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
        Congresswoman Frankel.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. Would you like to ask questions? You just
    came in.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I am good.
        Ms. Frankel.OK. Thanks.
        First of all, I thank you all again. I really like your
    approach. Very commonsense. On the--OK. Let me get back to the
    Everglades restoration. So this is--and back to the water
    level, which is such a controversy in my area, because what is
    happening, as I think you know, in parts of south Florida, they
    are having the green algae in the water, which is very
    disruptive to them. And the folks like where I live in Palm
    Beach County and the cities, they are all worried about not
    having enough water. So it is, like, the people in Martin
    County, they don't want too much water in the lake, and then
    people south of them are afraid of too little in the lake. I am
    sure you get that back and forth.
        So this question is related to that. In WRDA 2000, when
    approving the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan,
    Congress included a provision called the savings clause, and
    this provision prohibited the Corps from changing water supply
    to utilities, agriculture, and other Lake Okeechobee water
    users when completing the restoration projects.
        Now, my local folks, again, in Palm Beach County are very
    anxious about what is going to be the new, what you call LOSOM,
    the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual, which I guess will
    guide on how high the lake should be. And they are very anxious
    about that, and they are requesting that there be some kind of
    a saving clause in this new schedule. And I would just like you
    to comment on that, the practicality of that, the pros, the
    cons.
        General Semonite. Ma'am, I don't personally know the
    savings clause with respect to Lake Okeechobee, but let me
    figure it out. The main thing we want to do is be very, very
    open and willing to, you know, take any ideas. This study is
    not going to be done until 2022. So we have got 2 years. We are
    doing a lot of outreach. And if there is something that we are
    legally allowed to do and it makes sense, then we will
    certainly take a good, hard look at it.
        Ms. Frankel. Well, that is very good. Thank you for taking
    a look at that.
        General Semonite. Sure.
        Ms. Frankel. You might want to sit around the table with
    some of these folks and understand their concern. I am sure you
    will do that.
        Mr. James. Congresswoman, I can tell you are sincerely
    concerned about that area, the Lake Okeechobee area.
        Ms. Frankel. Yeah.
        Mr. James. And I understand that. I have fished Lake
    Okeechobee for probably 25 years in the wintertime, before I
    took this job, of course, but I am quite familiar with the area
    and I am quite familiar what your concerns are. I will tell you
    this, ecologically we think between 12\1/2\ foot and 15\1/2\
    foot is probably the right spot to be.
        And the other thing I wanted you to know is that we have
    ERDC, the Engineer Research and Development Center--thank you--
    working on the algae and how to get rid of the algae, dissolve
    the algae, or whatever we can do, in case we have the problem
    we did year before last again.
        I made a trip to Florida during that time just to see that,
    and it was distressing for everyone I ran into down there. So I
    want you to know we are watching it.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. Thank you so much.
        Another question sort of related.
        Another group is concerned about the large number of
    aquifer--the ASR, aquifer storage and recovery, wells that are
    being proposed for the upcoming Lake Okeechobee Watershed
    Restoration Project that is north of the lake. They are
    concerned that not enough water will be able to move south if
    it is stored belowground.
        My question: Have you heard about these concerns, and your
    response of that?
        General Semonite. I have not. Let us blow into it and come
    back and let you know. I am sure my guys on the ground probably
    do. But we are worried that if there is enough--if there is a
    lot of draw out of the aquifer, what you are talking about
    could be exactly true. So this is where we got to put that into
    the equation.
        Ms. Frankel. OK, good. So thank you for taking that into
    account.
        And then finally in my last 13 seconds, Secretary James,
    back to that cost-benefit analysis, just to remind you that
    OMB, that their cost analysis is almost always different than
    the Army Corps. And I don't know how you can figure that one
    out, but--
        Mr. James. Well, let me tell you, that is two different
    things. OMB's reasoning behind their benefit-cost ratio and
    analysis, it is different, because to authorize a project, the
    benefit-cost ratio has to be 1.0 and above. Now, the
    administration's viewpoint is, to appropriate money for a
    project, it has to be 2.5 and above.
        And I am not arguing to change that. I mean, I am not
    saying the administration needs to change that. What I am
    saying is that the individual needs of this country, if you
    have got a project, whether it be navigation or flood control,
    we need to get all your benefits. We don't need to be just
    cherry-picking the easy ones over the top and get to the 1.1
    and quit.
        Ms. Frankel. Got it.
        Mr. James. We need to get up to where it is cost effective
    for appropriation.
        Ms. Frankel. OK.
        Mr. James. And we are--a lot of projects we are not doing
    that. I don't know. I may discover as we get further in that
    with the general that they are taking all the benefits.
    Personally, right now, I don't think so, and we are going to be
    looking at it.
        Ms. Frankel. OK. Well, that might solve that issue. But
    thank you very much.
        I yield back, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much.
        Congressman Newhouse.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        I want to ask Commissioner Burman and Secretary Petty a
    little bit about the Columbia Basin Project. And I wasn't going
    to do this but it came up, so I want to respond a little bit.
    Some people probably think that Mr. Simpson and I have an
    ongoing conflict. It is true there are potatoes in Idaho, but
    there are great potatoes in Washington as well, and I always
    have to remind him of that.
        However, the whole notion of looking at the Columbia/Snake
    River system in a holistic manner in order to prioritize salmon
    is something that we are all interested in, and I want to have
    that conversation on how to address the many challenges that we
    have in that river system, even the spill of water from the
    Idaho dams.
        You know, we do, Mr. Simpson is absolutely right, we invest
    a ton of money into that system every year, but we have seen a
    lot of good results as well, an improved habitat, improved
    passage at the dams, the tremendous amount of work on the
    turbines and their efficiency and the high passage rate,
    survivability rate of the salmon through those. We are working
    on the predators issues, the Forest bill thing, which the jury
    is still out on that, as far as I can tell. But we are looking
    at different things in order to increase salmon survivability.
        All that being said, there were intentional decisions made,
    if you look back in history in the State of Idaho, that salmon
    were not welcome. So when they get through all the dams,
    through the Columbia and the Snake River in Washington, guess
    what? Through much of the system they run into a concrete
    barrier, because spawning salmon just don't want to take a hook
    and they want a trout. So decisions were made way back in the
    history.
        So I admit we have got challenges, but I think through
    positive conversations, we can meet those challenges and come
    up with solutions so that the proof is that dams and salmon can
    coexist, and I think we are living that and we are proving that
    every day. Can we do better? Absolutely, but I think we can. I
    think we will.
        But I do want to talk a little bit about the Columbia Basin
    Project as well. First, just start by saying, Commissioner
    Burman, you are doing a great job. You are doing a great job
    leading the Bureau, and I am really grateful to have such an
    enthusiastic partner in advocating for water needs, not just in
    the Pacific Northwest, but all over the western United States.
    You are thoroughly engaged. You are responsive to questions
    that we have been bugging you with over the last few years. I
    appreciate that. It really does make a difference when we have
    somebody on the front line that recognizes how valuable of a
    resource water is to all our rural communities and such a
    critical component to our economy, our growth, and our
    prosperity. So thank you. Thank you very much. Don't get to say
    that very often.
        Mr. Petty, for your efforts as well, both of you, you know,
    the Columbia Basin District, the project in my district well,
    particularly the importance of something that I think has
    captured the attention of the chair of the committee, the
    Odessa Groundwater Replacement Program. I have discussed it
    many times, and I am pleased to have Chairman Kaptur's interest
    in this as well.
        What I would like to ask both of you here today is to share
    with me some insights that I could bring back to my community
    members in my district. Something I often share with them when
    they come to DC and make the trip to talk about these issues is
    the importance of speaking with one voice. You know, the
    Federal Government is vast. The bureaucracy is sometimes
    confusing even to us, right? It can be burdensome. So I believe
    it is critical that when farmers or local elected officials or
    water advocates or community leaders come to D.C., that their
    message be singular and unified.
        I don't want to provide you the answer that I am looking
    for, but when we have these tremendous advocates from the
    Pacific Northwest come and the partnerships between
    organizations like the Columbia Basin Development League, the
    Washington State Department of Agriculture, the collaboration
    of the Office of Columbia River, the regional Bureau of
    Reclamation offices and so on, these partnerships and
    collaboration is what will move the ball forward in this
    important effort, at least in my humble opinion.
        I'd like to ask you to share your thoughts on the
    importance of ensuring a unified vision amongst these many
    shared entities.
        Mr. Petty. Yeah. Let me kick that off, Congressman. Thank
    you so very much in the important part of just how the Columbia
    plays into each of the different regions and specifically into
    your region. The whole Columbia Basin and the Snake come
    through your district, and you don't--you know it better than
    anyone on all these systems that come through.
        But one of the key parts that I just want to highlight is
    the importance of the relationship between the Army Corps,
    Bonneville, and Reclamation, and Interior as a whole. And it is
    the interaction that we get all the time, including the draft
    EIS, the Army Corps, we designate it as that one Federal lead
    so that we could work through it together. And it was the
    importance of, if we don't all succeed individually, kind of we
    all end up hanging together.
        And so with the Army Corps being able to be right there in
    the front, making sure that all the science, all the decades of
    work that we put in to develop these different areas all the
    way down to Odessa, the need for surface water, as well as
    subsurface water, is critical, including working with your
    State and the local State water districts as well. Those are
    all incredibly important areas.
        So I will let the commissioner kind of finish off any
    thoughts that she has as well. But thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. I would just like to draw attention to the
    witnesses, we have been called for votes, and we think it is a
    series of this first vote and then another.
        So, Commissioner Burman, if you could briefly summarize.
    And we have another member who has come in and is waiting to
    question.
        Ms. Burman. Of course. I will just agree with everything
    Dr. Petty said. And moving forward with the one Federal
    decision model has been very--it has been great for all of us
    just to be able to talk things out and move forward. On the
    Odessa project, it is so important. It is designed to help
    rural communities in eastern Washington, and it is locally
    driven. The State is a partner. The district is a partner. We
    are a partner. We are all moving forward. And that project, you
    know, we are hoping we will be delivering water this year.
        Mr. Newhouse. The importance of having a single voice
    coming to D.C., you would agree, is something we have to have
    too.
        Ms. Burman. Absolutely.
        Mr. Petty. Absolutely.
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you.
        The gentleman's time has expired.
        Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Secretary James and General Semonite, thank you very much
    on behalf of the whole Florida delegation. We were thrilled
    that a new start was awarded so that we could begin the $29
    million in construction funding that was needed for the fiscal
    year 2020 work plan on the Everglades restoration. It is a long
    time in coming.
        And, Secretary James, we appreciate you coming down and
    taking a look at what our needs were as well, as well as Port
    Everglades.
        We are very proud that we have come together as a
    delegation to pressure the President to request the kind of
    funding that we need for Everglades restoration, and I
    certainly hope the $250 million becomes the new Federal funding
    floor, not the ceiling.
        As you all know, Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan,
    or CERP, was authorized by Congress in 2000. We learned this
    week that the State legislature is getting ready to appropriate
    $100 million for their end of the bargain, getting closer to
    the 50/50 partnership that we have been since the beginning of
    this century.
        We have a number of the approximately 60 projects in CERP
    that are nearing completion, including the C-43 and C-44
    Reservoirs and the Picayune Strand Project. We have also made
    great progress on non-CERP projects like the Herbert Hoover
    Dike restoration and Kissimmee River.
        So could you report on the CERP projects nearing
    completion? Because after so much work of the Federal and State
    investment, we really need to start moving to ribbon cuttings
    as soon as we can and celebrate the few projects that we have
    gotten across the finish line. So where are we in terms of the
    projects that are nearing completion so we can do that?
        General Semonite. Ma'am, let me just say a couple of
    highlights. So complete construction of Kissimmee River this
    year, construction of C-111, South Dade, this year; complete
    Everglades Agricultural Area follow-up report and submitted to
    Secretary James in May of 2020, and that is one we know that is
    very, very important. C-43 West Basin Storage Reservoir, that
    will complete in 2023. And then just the last one that is
    important, Indian River Lagoon, that is done in 2022.
        And the one that we really want to continue to keep pushing
    is the EAA, to be able to make sure we get that reservoir done,
    and that does need a new start. Congressman Frankel asked just
    before you came in. Our lawyers do say that the way that the
    authorities are set, we are going have to get a new start for
    that. So I encourage the committee to do it because we are all
    ready to go.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. And I would say in the nicest way
    possible that we don't agree, but we have been around that
    block before.
        If the committee appropriates the full $250 million, either
    the Assistant Secretary or the General, that we have requested
    for fiscal year 2021, will the Army Corps be able to spend
    those funds, and do you already have a plan to do so?
        General Semonite. We don't see any problem right now on the
    ability to put all that in the ground. I don't have the exact
    plan with me, but let us come back to you and lay this out so
    you can see exactly what is out there. And if for some reason
    that is not in line with what the rest of the delegation would
    like, then we can certainly take a look at monitoring that or
    changing that.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. Thank you. That would be very
    helpful.
        I am concerned about the bureaucratic obstacles that were
    just referenced about the need for new starts in projects that,
    you know, overall were already authorized. So would you say
    that the limitation on the number of new starts--I know you
    just indicated the, you know, wrapping up of these projects--
    but would you say that the limitation on the number of new
    starts would impact or delay Everglades projects in fiscal year
    2021?
        General Semonite. I do think that there will be some impact
    with the limited number of new starts we get, yes.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Well, it would be great if we
    could revisit the way that this is interpreted, because it
    really doesn't make sense to many of us.
        Touching on CEPP and the EAA reservoir as top priorities
    for Everglades restoration, what is the status of CEPP and the
    EAA? I know we are still waiting for the Corps to finish the
    90-day report on EAA, which is required by WRDA in 2018. Can
    you give us a little more detail? I know you touched on it,
    General Semonite.
        General Semonite. So, ma'am, that report will be done in
    May, and it is going to go to the secretary, and then he will
    hack off on it. I do believe he has to send it to OMB. The
    other thing we have got to do is the environmental impact
    statement. That closed on the 24th of February of this year. So
    now it really goes back to be able to get that new start.
        Now, the budget, 2021 budget, does have $148 million in it,
    and that is where anything we can do to be able to free that up
    we will certainly do it. And I am more than willing to look at
    different interpretations, but right now, we don't think we can
    get past that new start decision.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. And then, lastly, is the Corps
    prepared to use all contracting tools available to implement
    CEPP? The conditional contract clause, does that apply to
    provide flexibility that enables the projects to move ahead as
    quickly as possible? My understanding is that you are
    authorized in the Corps to fund annual segments of a larger
    contract over many years.
        General Semonite. That is true, and we have been very
    aggressive in contracting over the last couple of years to
    really change our approach. So anything that we can do,
    regardless of what type of contract it is, as long as it is
    within the existence of the FAR, that allows us to be able to
    have the right tools to be able to put this stuff in the
    ground.
        The continuing contract clause, I am not aware there is any
    problems with that on CEP.
        Ms. Wasserman Schultz. OK. Good to know.
        Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Thank you very much, Congresswoman
    Wasserman Schultz.
        I would like to now turn to our ranking member for any
    final.
        Mr. Simpson. Just a final comment.
        You might not understand this, but Representative Newhouse
    and I are really good friends. I enjoy the Hanford Reach and
    the PNNL and what they do as much as the Idaho National
    Laboratory. However, we do have some differences on a couple of
    issues, and I just--you know, discussing the 60-, 70-year-old
    history of what the Idaho Department of Fish and Game did
    doesn't really help us cover--recover salmon today.
        And like he invited the Governor of Oregon to come and look
    at the dams, I would encourage him to come up and come with me
    in August and we will go look at some streams that used to have
    hundreds of salmon or thousands of salmon spawning in them, and
    if we are lucky, we might find one or two, if we are lucky.
        And the one thing I would say to him, everybody says we all
    want to recover salmon. The question is whether they are
    willing to do it. And we can all talk about neat things. We
    have been talking about this for 50 years. Everything you do on
    the Columbia River, everything we do on the Columbia River can
    be done differently if we choose to do it differently. Those
    dams produce 3,000 megawatts of power. You could put small
    modular reactors or other things in there. You could produce it
    differently. Everything we do, we can do differently. Salmon
    need one thing. They need a river.
        Thank you, Chairwoman.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Ranking Member Simpson.
        Thank you again. This concludes this afternoon's hearing.
    Again, I would like to thank our witnesses for joining us
    today. I ask the witnesses to please ensure for hearing record
    purposes that questions for our record and any supporting
    information requested by our subcommittee be delivered in final
    form to us no later than 3 weeks from the time you receive
    them. Members who have additional questions for the record will
    have until the close of business Friday to provide them to our
    subcommittee office.
        This hearing is adjourned.
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                                              Wednesday, March 11, 2020

      DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY BUDGET REQUEST FOR ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS
         AGENCY--ENERGY OFFICE OF SCIENCE, AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

                                   WITNESSES

    HON. CHRIS FALL, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF SCIENCE
    HON. LANE GENATOWSKI, DIRECTOR, ADVANCED RESEARCH PROJECTS AGENCY--
        ENERGY
    WILLIAM (IKE) WHITE, SENIOR ADVISOR TO THE UNDER SECRETARY OF SCIENCE
        FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT
        Ms. Kaptur. The subcommittee will come to order as we begin
    our hearing on the Department of Energy's fiscal year 2021
    budget request, with respect to its environmental management,
    science, as well as the ARPA-E programs. Thank you to our
    witnesses for being here, and we apologize for some of us for
    being few minutes late. We just did finish a series of votes.
        This is our committee's fifth hearing. As I have expressed
    in the last four hearings, I am deeply disappointed in the
    administration's budget request. The deep cuts are unrealistic
    and will result in a failure to address our Nation's most
    pressing challenges, including climate change and maintaining
    America's leadership in energy innovation, and, surely, the
    Trump budget utterly fails to meet our moral and legal
    obligations to the communities that helped our Nation win World
    War II.
        The Department of Energy's Office of Environmental
    Management addresses the environmental legacy, resulting from
    five decades of nuclear weapons production and Government
    sponsored nuclear energy research. EM is responsible for the
    cleanup of some of the world's most radioactive sites, a
    mission that is complicated and dangerous, but vital to
    ensuring clean soil, water, and air, for many Americans now and
    for future generations.
        This unrealistic request proposes to cut EM by 19 percent,
    jeopardizing progress made on the remaining 16 sites, and we
    have some photos up there, while delaying several project,
    unnecessarily. These deep cuts translate into a moral and legal
    failure that we simply cannot accept.
        Similarly, the budget request proposes draconian cuts to
    the Office of Science, 17 percent, or $1.2 billion, from last
    year's level. The Office of Science is an indispensable pillar
    of American leadership in science and technology, yielding over
    100 Nobel Prizes. Every time I say that, 100 Nobel Prizes, and
    making key scientific advances, ranging from creating solar
    energy system and successive generations of batteries, to
    inventing new materials and decoding DNA, we are just at the
    beginning of that age.
        Cuts of this magnitude will endanger America's leadership
    in technological innovation, economic progress, and, I believe,
    national security. Reflect, for the moment, for just this
    moment, on 100 Nobel Prizes. These programs embrace the future,
    sustain a better life for all, and assure our national security
    on many fronts, including the unknown.
        Finally, the proposed elimination of the Advanced Research
    Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E, Program is an absolute
    nonstarter. Since its inception, ARPA-E has supported
    breakthrough technologies, such as next generation batteries,
    electric aviation, and improving components of solar panels.
    ARPA-E fills the gaps between basic and applied research, where
    the private sector will not take on those financial risks.
    Just, if you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the
    number one job in America now that remains unfilled, it would
    be solar installers. So, the work of ARPA-E filters down to
    production platform, ultimately.
        This is vital. This program, ARPA-E, is vital to
    innovation, and our Nation should be investing more in science
    and engineering, not less. Our country's energy future depends
    on the Department of Energy's vital investments to solve our
    toughest energy challenges. The Trump budget request harms
    America's energy future, our competitiveness, our workforce,
    our consumers, and our economy. The Trump budget also falls
    short in meeting our obligations to the communities that have
    sacrificed, and still bear the brunt of environmental costs
    born from winning World War II. We are in the new century. We
    have got to fix that.
        With that, I will close my remarks. Thank you, Dr. Fall,
    Mr. Genatowski, and Mr. White, for being here today, and, to
    Dr. Fall, thank you, for visiting Ohio for our National
    Laboratory Day. It was a rewarding and very valuable
    conversation, that is yielding real results. We look forward to
    discussing the Department's budget request and adapting it
    accordingly. I would like to turn to our able ranking member,
    Mr. Simpson, for his opening remarks.
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        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman Kaptur. I would like to
    join you in welcoming our witness to today's hearing. I believe
    it is the first time we will get to hear directly from all
    three witnesses on these programs. So, we will try to make it
    so that you do not want to--so that you want to come back
    again, yeah. I look forward to hearing about the priorities
    included in the fiscal year 2021 budget request, for your
    respective programs, namely Environmental Management, Office of
    Science, and ARPA-E.
        The Department of Energy investments in basic science
    research have provided great benefits to our national economy,
    national security, and the everyday lives of our constituents.
    Just a few weeks ago, we had a hearing on DOE's work with NIH
    and others in the biomedical sciences, a topic that seems
    pretty relevant these days, the Advanced Energy Research
    Project-Energy, or ARPA-E. Research and development projects
    are often described as high risk, high reward, and, therefore,
    something the private sector, on its own, is unlikely to
    pursue. By authorization, APRA-E is tasked with accelerating
    transformational advances in energy technologies.
        The Federal Government has a responsibility to clean up
    five decades of nuclear weapons development and production.
    This work is the mission of DOE's Environmental Management
    Program. Over the past decade, EM has made significant progress
    on cleaning up sites across the country, but there is still a
    heck of a lot of work to do.
        I think I can safely say that Congress will make some
    significant changes to this budget request for those programs,
    as we have in the previous years. I look forward to the
    discussion with the witnesses to inform our work here on this
    committee. Chairwoman Kaptur, again, thank you for calling this
    hearing, and I yield back
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. We will now turn to our
    witnesses. First, we will have Lane Genatowski, the Director of
    the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E. Prior to
    joining ARPA-E, Director Genatowski served as senior advisor to
    the under secretary for science, and in various private sector
    roles in the banking and energy sectors.
        Next, we will have Chris Fall, the Director of the Office
    of Science. And prior to his position, Mr. Fall served as
    Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Energy and as acting
    director of ARPA-E; and he has also served in a variety of
    roles at the Office of Naval Research.
        And finally, we will hear from Ike White, Senior Advisor to
    the Under Secretary of Science for Environmental Management.
    Prior to this role, Mr. White served as Chief of Staff and
    Associate Principal Deputy Administrator for the National
    Nuclear Security Administration. At NSA, he also served as the
    Deputy Associate Administrator for Safety and Health, and in a
    variety of leadership and technical positions. Thank you, all,
    for taking the time to be here today.
        Without objection, your written statements will be entered
    into the record. Please feel free to summarize your remarks in
    about 5 minutes each. I want to thank, again, all of our
    committee members for being present today, and we apologize for
    making you wait about 10 minutes because we did have a series
    of votes. We would like to start with Director Genatowski.

                      STATEMENT OF LANE GENATOWSKI

        Mr. Genatowski. Chairwoman Kaptur and Ranking Member
    Simpson and members of the committee, thank you very much for
    inviting me up here. It is an honor to appear. I will get right
    into the 2021 budget request, and then move along. The
    President's proposal--budget request proposes no additional
    appropriations for ARPA-E for new projects. It requests $21\1/
    4\ million for program direction regarding to existing projects
    and requests a cancellation of any unobligated balances
    estimated to be $332 million. If this budget is approved, ARPA-
    E will not invest in any new technologies in 2021. However,
    approximately 350 projects which are ongoing will be carried
    out to completion or their cancellation if they do not meet
    their grant contracts.
        ARPA-E started in 2009, and since then, it has achieved
    some remarkable things. And after following on $2.3 billion in
    appropriations, they got follow-on funding of $3.2 billion.
    That is about 150 percent of what was appropriated. So, these
    are indications of success that they have. Three hundred and
    eighty-five patents were issued and 219 projects were carried
    along to other Federal agencies. So, the success ratio is
    pretty good for what they do, where they focus on the TRL
    Scale.
        In 2019, administering the last 2 or 3 months of the budget
    when I got involved in July, we obligated 374 million, which
    was the highest obligation rate we ever had. And it is a
    testament to the staff, that they could execute all the
    contracts and get them out the door to make sure we spent all
    the appropriations.
        One program in the 2019 budget that was approved was the
    PERFORM Program. Renewable electric-generating assets are,
    actually, not dispatched as highly as they could be by the
    system. This program is meant to address that. So, when the
    renewable is available, they are given a risk score, like every
    other project is given a risk score under this program. And we
    think using statistics and AI will get the renewable assets
    dispatched into the generating system, into the grid, more
    quickly and more assuredly.
        In 2020, I want to thank you all very much for the $425
    million appropriation that we got. So far, we have announced
    $287 million of FOAs, which is about 75 percent of the year's
    work, so we are ahead on that score, and they include several
    interesting programs. One is a fusion program which we are
    cooperating with Director of Science Fall on fusion; and
    another program which is called GEMINA, which directs itself to
    fission, and has the target of reducing O&M by 90 percent on
    the new small modular reactors.
        Finally, I would like to say that the personnel at ARPA-E
    are outstanding, in my experience; the consistent high quality
    dedication, they will go anywhere and work any hours that are
    required to get their projects done. One of the unique things
    is the program director position is filled by candidates 3 to 5
    years at a time. So, it requires a constant refresher of ideas,
    which always is interesting to hear the debates every other
    week in the office among the PDs, program directors, as to what
    they are focused on and what they are interested in.
        You have asked me to put some slides together. And that is
    something from our ENLITENED Program, where we use photons for
    chips to communicate inside computers rather than wires.
    Photons are smaller than electrons and has a reduced heat
    factor and an increased speed factor. That has been a very
    popular--that little thing is a robot, and it goes through and
    identifies--it is called phenotyping. It identifies the
    qualities of plants, automatically, that will yield a higher
    crop yield in biofuels, and that is part of our REACT Program.
        The next one is an electric motor that does not use any
    rare earths, and it has a performance factor at a comparable
    cost to regular motors. And as you can see there, or maybe you
    cannot see, the team leader in that one was Baldor Corp., so
    starting to be commercialized from the start.
        The next one is--and a battery. It is a large grid-level
    battery for storage. It is a flow battery and it is based on
    iron. So, it is readily available material in the United
    States, which is something that we tried to focus in on.
        The last thing is--it is difficult to say what that is, but
    that is a drill bit on the left, and inside the middle of the
    drill bit is a laser, and it is drilling for geothermal fluid.
    And what it does is the laser softens the rock and the drill
    bit goes through. So, it is more efficient in terms of getting
    to the rock. Quite often, geothermal reservoirs are capped by
    very hard rocks. They are a high temperature, high pressure,
    and what this does, it makes the drill more efficient.
        That is the end of my prepared remarks. I would like to
    thank you very much for giving me the opportunity, and I am
    happy to answer any questions that you might have now or later.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Genatowski follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. We will have a question period before I turn to
    Mr. Fall. Do you have anything to say about the portion of your
    testimony that deals with agricultural carbon management? You
    did not mention it in your verbal testimony.
        Mr. Genatowski. Well, no, I did not.
        Ms. Kaptur. It was on page 3.
        Mr. Genatowski. Oh, fine. Well, the little robot had to do
    with agricultural products in terms of growing biofuel more
    efficiently and phenotyping them to get better types of
    products. Oh, Smart Farm, I beg your pardon. My first time, I
    am a little nervous.
        Ms. Kaptur. Oh, it does not show. You know so much. I am
    just glad for the photos. You are making ARPA-E real for our
    members and for the country.
        Mr. Genatowski. Thanks very much. Smart Farm bioreactors
    process fuel and then they send it to biorefineries, and they
    send it to fuel refineries to be mixed in as ethanol. So, to
    the extent that they are told there is a certain carbon capture
    level in the--it is a national level. And what the Smart Farm
    tries to do is to make the carbon capture nature of the
    particular agricultural project localized to the region. So, if
    your region has soybeans that capture more carbon or sequester
    more carbon or use less carbon, we measure it in the soil. And
    that program has to do with, basically, quantifying the carbon,
    so the farmers can get paid more for what is stored in the
    soil, and it is place by place. Indiana or Illinois or Ohio
    have different levels of carbon in the soil. Now, a national
    level is used, and we are trying to get a specific level for a
    farm use, so that people get more money for it. It will be a
    more cash crop, and it will grow more of it.
        Ms. Kaptur. Well, that is a whole long conversation that we
    should have both before the committee and then maybe a private
    briefing because you are into something that struck right to my
    aorta, I will tell you. That is vital. I just returned from the
    Salton Sea, and----
        Mr. Genatowski. Ah.
        Ms. Kaptur. Anyway, that is a long conversation, but we----
        Mr. Genatowski. My first geothermal project was on the
    Salton Sea.
        Ms. Kaptur. We need you there more. Thank you very much Mr.
    Genatowski
        Mr. Genatowski. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Mr. Fall.

                        STATEMENT OF CHRIS FALL

        Mr. Fall. Ma'am, we have some pretty exciting things in the
    Office of Science, and I am not sure that we have a laser
    drill. I think I want the laser drill. Thank you, Chairwoman
    Kaptur, Ranking Member Simpson, and distinguished members of
    the committee. It really is a privilege to be here and
    represent the Office of Science before you today. The fiscal
    year 2021 budget request for the Office of Science will ensure
    continued U.S. leadership in basic physical sciences, our core
    responsibility, and continued support for the underpinnings of
    our Nation's technological and economic future.
        We are requesting support for investments in new and
    ongoing administration initiatives, as well as continued
    support for basic research, for construction and operation of
    our major scientific user facilities, and to renew and
    modernize the critical infrastructure of the national
    laboratories.
        Just a few examples, our integrated computational and data
    infrastructure for scientific discovery will dramatically
    shorten the time it takes to do ambitious experiments, analyze
    the results, make computational predictions, and then flow
    those results back to new experiments. This is transformative,
    in my opinion. The Next Generation Biology Initiative will
    allow us to move from the genomics and biochemistry of
    biological systems we work on now toward the development of
    bioinspired, biohybrid, and biomimetic systems that will
    bolster biotechnology as an industry of the future. Our
    Separation Science Initiative will radically improve the
    extraction of rare earth minerals and help achieve supply chain
    independence for these critical materials, and the same
    underlying science applies to carbon capture technology.
    Separation science applies equally to carbon capture and to
    rare earth elements. We would like to revolutionize polymer
    upcycling by developing the technologies for moving discarded
    plastics up the value chain instead of down the value chain.
        Building on the Pilot Cancer Moonshot, we would like to
    accelerate data and computational collaboration with the
    National Institutes of Health. Our data handling, our
    supercomputers, and our expertise is something the NIH uses
    already. We would like to expand that.
        One of the Office of Science's most significant
    contributions to science, medicine, industry, and national
    security over the decades has been particle accelerator science
    and technology. The Strategic Accelerator Technology Initiative
    will focus on innovation and technology transfer that will
    build up our domestic supply chain for these critical dual-use
    technologies, and we are closely partnering with the National
    Nuclear Security Administration on that effort. And finally,
    and interestingly, we propose to begin the work of connecting
    our national laboratories with an entangled quantum network, a
    backbone that we believe will lay the foundation for a
    commercial national quantum network. Those are new initiatives
    we are proposing for 2021. We ask for continued support for
    ongoing priority initiatives, including artificial
    intelligence, quantum information sciences in response to your
    legislation, the Exascale Computing Initiative,
    microelectronics innovation, biosecurity, isotopes, and
    enhancing the domestic U.S. fusion program.
        I would just like briefly to call your attention to the
    effort we have made at the Department to better coordinate with
    other programs outside of the Office of Science. Secretary
    Brouillette stood up the Research Technology Investment
    Committee, or RTIC, with just this purpose, to coordinate
    technology work across the whole Department. The Office of
    Science now participates in Grand Challenge efforts such as
    grid scale storage and battery cycling that are just the result
    of the Secretary's direction to work together as one team on
    these priority initiatives.
        In closing, I just want to say again how privileged and,
    frankly, proud I am to represent the Office of Science before
    you today. The career team headquartered at Forrestal,
    including what I think to be the best budget officer in the
    Federal Government, the phenomenal scientific and engineering
    talent in our laboratories, and the incredible world-unique
    machines we built for discovery, really represent the most
    capable science and technology enterprise in the world.
        This proposed budget will allow the Department of Energy to
    continue to leverage our technology superpowers, science at
    scale, the convergence of the disciplines, and these remarkable
    user facilities we support to solve the great scientific
    questions of our time, to effectively address the great human
    challenges of our time, and to provide for economic opportunity
    and better lives for our citizens.
        Thank you. I welcome your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Fall follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Mr. Fall, what are we looking at there with
    that blinking light?
        Mr. Fall. That is the quantum loop. That is the first stage
    of this quantum network connecting Argonne National Laboratory.
    I think that is about--it is listed up there, it is 26 miles,
    so a 52-mile round loop. We are going to build this out,
    connect all of our national laboratories, this entangled
    quantum network, fundamentally different from the internet.
        And then we are hopeful, just like what happened with
    ARPANET, ARPA's original internet, the commercial sector will
    pile on top of that and use that backbone as a way to build a
    commercial quantum network.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. Mr. White.

                       STATEMENT OF WILLIAM WHITE

        Mr. White. Chairwoman Kaptur, Ranking Member Simpson, and
    members of the subcommittee, I appreciate your support for the
    Department of Energy's Environmental Management mission, and I
    want to thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
        Throughout the 30-year history of EM, many sites have been
    cleaned up and closed, transitioning from waste sites to
    wildlife refuges, wetland preserves, and job-creating economic
    development hubs.
        Over the past 9 months that I have been on the job, I have
    had the opportunity to see cleanup progress firsthand at sites
    like Hanford and Idaho, Oak Ridge. I know many of you have as
    well, since I met a couple of you in your districts at events
    to celebrate the progress we are making at those sites.
        The fiscal year 2021 budget request enables EM to continue
    building upon that success and enable further cleanup progress.
    A key focus of the request is tackling one of EM's largest
    challenges, tank waste. Not only does tank waste account for
    one of our largest environmental risks, it also accounts for 60
    percent of our total environmental liability and 40 percent of
    our annual budget.
        After decades of preparation and support from this
    committee, EM has reached an inflexion point with Savannah
    River Salt Waste Processing Facility coming on line this year,
    and ramping up operations in fiscal year 2021.
        SWPF will eventually enable EM to process up to 10 million
    gallons per year of tank waste, and accelerate the mission at
    Savannah River to finish in just 10 to 15 years. The request
    also supports initiating operations at the Integrated Waste
    Treatment Unit in Idaho to enable EM to treat the remaining
    tank waste in Idaho in the next 5 to 10 years.
        Hanford also remains a top priority, representing nearly
    one-third of the entire request. The request focuses on
    completing and commissioning the facilities and infrastructure
    needed for the Direct-Feed Low-activity Waste System to enable
    initiation of tank waste treatment by the end of 2023.
        Collectively, these capabilities represent a fundamental
    shift for the program when completing long-running construction
    projects, to a solid commencement of tank waste treatment
    operations.
        To put the scope of what we will achieve with these new
    capabilities and perspectives, we have treated about 16 million
    gallons of tank waste to date for the program. With SWPF and
    IWTU and DFLAW online we will be able to process that same
    amount of tank waste in under 2 years.
        In addition to prioritizing the tank waste mission, Madam
    Chairwoman, the request will enable continued progress across
    EM, modernizing infrastructure and the Waste Isolation Pilot
    Plant so it can continue to play a vital role for DOE and EM
    for years to come.
        Completing the removal of targeted buried waste at Idaho,
    continuing slab and soil remediation at Oak Ridge East
    Tennessee Technology Park, continuing demolition of the first
    enrichment process building at Portsmouth, EM has a lot planned
    for fiscal year 2021, and I am confident in the ability of our
    talented and dedicated Federal and contractor workforce to get
    it done.
        To strengthen our ability to achieve continuing success, we
    are also pursuing a set of strategic initiatives. They include
    strengthening project management, expanding new contracting
    mechanisms to encourage innovation, and reduce government
    costs. We will also continue the science-driven and risk-
    informed approach to cleanup.
        And with the safety record that is well ahead of other
    comparable industries, we will continue embracing a safety-
    first culture. As someone who has spent most of my 30-year
    career focused on the safety of nuclear operations, this is
    particularly important to me.
        So, in closing, I would like to thank you and members of
    the committee for your support of the EM mission. I know a
    number of you have EM sites in your districts or at your
    states. As Congress works to complete a final budget, I look
    forward to working with you to meet the Federal Government's
    moral and ethical responsibility to complete the EM mission.
        Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I look forward to your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. White follows:]

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        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much, Mr. White, and all of you
    for your statements. As a reminder, for those members present
    in the room when I gaveled in at the beginning of the hearing,
    I will recognize you for the questions in order of seniority,
    alternating between majority and minority, until all who
    arrived prior to the gavel have asked questions. And for those
    who arrived after the hearing had started I will recognize
    those members solely in order of arrival, again alternating
    between majority and minority.
        And lastly, I intend to observe, as best we can, the 5-
    minute rule for questions and answers. And we will now begin
    questioning under our normal rules.
        Dr. Fall, obviously the coronavirus-19 is in the news and
    at the forefront, but most people probably don't realize that
    the Department of Energy's national labs are contributing to
    scientific solutions, for example. And I hold a story here I
    will make part of the official record from the Chicago Tribune
    about the Argonne National Lab. And we know that the Department
    of Energy's x ray light sources are used to image proteins of
    the virus, like those shown on the screen. And those can reveal
    target sites for antiviral drugs and assist in vaccine
    development.
        Could you please tell us what Department of Energy's assets
    are already being used, and what capabilities do DOE scientists
    possess in their user facilities to offer biomedical solutions
    and suggestions to our biomedical community with respect to the
    coronavirus-19?
        Mr. Fall. Thank you for the question, Chairwoman Kaptur. As
    I think you all know already, you know, generally no other
    agency builds x ray light sources. So we build these things, we
    operate them on behalf of the country, on behalf of the
    academic researchers, and certainly on behalf of the National
    Institutes of Health.
        Here is an example, this story in particular that you
    mentioned, we have a number of these light sources. They are
    all capable of doing this kind of work, crystal,
    characterization of crystals, of proteins, just taking a
    picture of the coronavirus, understanding how it is put
    together, and, in the case of a potential interventions,
    figuring out how to interrupt how that virus is put together
    inside of cells.
        Now that is one example. However, there is a whole
    computational side of that same question, so researchers are
    using our supercomputers to model the coronavirus, to model and
    predict. So here we are taking pictures and doing an experiment
    on the coronavirus. We can also predict using databases of--
    using the structure of the coronavirus and databases of drugs,
    what might work, so that we can then--but I talked earlier
    about that interaction between computation and experiment,
    prediction and validation. So, both of those are happening at
    our DOE labs.
        And then the third component of this is epidemiological
    modeling. So, how fast could the disease spread, and what
    factors influence the spread of that disease? That is a big
    computational challenge. We are doing that as well. We can do
    genome. As you know we have a whole part of my organization
    oriented to understanding genes, genomics, sequencing, and so
    forth; that is another area of expertise.
        So, across the board, a lot of opportunity here. I can't
    remember if the story mentioned this particular factor, but, in
    fact, we were on a shutdown of the APS when the coronavirus
    outbreak started. We ended up using our resources to restart
    that facility 2 weeks early in order to get those crystals on
    the machine and take those pictures. So, it is a great story.
        Ms. Kaptur. In view of some of the apprehension of the
    public, and obviously our need to know how to help the public,
    any progress you make on that, thinking how to communicate that
    would be very valuable to our members. So, I just urge you, you
    know, to follow that closely and to let us know.
        Mr. Fall. Thank you, ma'am. And the labs have come together
    as a team. We have working group meetings several times per
    week on the existing work going on and future opportunities for
    how we can help. So that has been very well coordinated, being
    very well coordinated with the White House, with HHS, we are
    connected to all the groups working on this. So the agencies
    understand that we are available and organized to be a resource
    as needed.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you so much. Mr. Genatowski, I really
    appreciated your testimony, and I want to just go back, and
    this will be my last question for this series. We will go to
    the other members.
        But on agricultural carbon management, that topic
    fascinates me because I represent a region of the country where
    Lake Erie, the southernmost of the Great Lakes, is the drain
    for the largest watershed in the entire Great Lakes, and Lake
    Erie is sick. And the only way we can cure it is by having a
    very, very concerted effort in the vast watershed it drains to
    understand soil science and which plants, for example--we're a
    major soybean bowl--to plant between the soybean rows, to have
    a lot of plants with roots that absorb the excess legacy
    nitrogen and phosphorous that is in the soil, and also some
    other matter that is spread on the soil, be it fertilizer or
    manure, to prevent drainage into the lake.
        The land is not managed that way now, and I am wondering
    what in your--maybe we want to invite you out to Ohio. And I
    just returned from Southern California, and looked at the
    Salton Sea. That is a drain, too. I think the Everglades,
    though, our dear Congresswoman Frankel has just stepped out for
    a minute, if we look at what is happening there because of
    sugar beets.
        You have got Salton Sea draining the Imperial Valley, you
    have got Lake Erie draining the Western Basin, you have got the
    Everglades, you have got examples across this country where the
    relationship between carbon management and water health is
    direct.
        But we don't yet have through the Agricultural National
    Resource Science Offices over at the Department of Agriculture,
    we don't really have--we have a lot of well-intentioned
    objectives, but we really don't have the science yet for
    regenerative soils and those that hold carbon and reward
    farmers who use those practices.
        What enlightenment could you give us? What could your
    office provide to regions like this that are truly facing a
    frightful situation with the pollution of their water from
    agricultural practices?
        Mr. Genatowski. I beg your pardon. Our roots program is
    directly related to that, where we are trying to get the roots
    to grow deeper and keep more in the soil, carbon, keep more
    fertilizers so it doesn't run off. We are mostly now in a
    combination of the stage of measuring to reward the farmers,
    and the roots program is in the stage of trying to redesign and
    type the plants that are most successful at that.
        So once we get the two of those combined, I think that is
    something that can be rolled out and let private initiative
    take care of the farmers, give them more money for what they
    do, for what they naturally do. Use fewer fertilizers, keep it
    in the soil better, and reward them for capturing the carbon,
    so not only do they do what you want in terms of capturing
    carbon, but they get paid more for it.
        Ms. Kaptur. You have an open invitation to call my office
    and bring your people over.
        Mr. Genatowski. I will do that.
        Ms. Kaptur. And I will invite some of my colleagues who
    face similar problems in their own regions.
        Mr. Genatowski. I appreciate the invitation.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. Mr. Simpson?
        Mr. Simpson. A correction first: it is sugarcane down
    there, sugar beets are good. They are grown in----
        Ms. Kaptur. I am sorry. Yes, I am sorry.
        Mr. Simpson. Yes, sugar beets are good, remember that. I
    would like to yield my 5 minutes to Mr. Calvert, who has a
    defense hearing at 3:00.
        Mr. Calvert. I thank the gentleman. And Madam Chair, I am
    glad you were in Southern California, Salton Sea. George Brown
    was the first chairman of the Salton Sea Authority and then he
    died. And then Sonny Bono was the second and he died. And then
    they made me the third, and I said, I have got to get out of
    this job, and Mary Bono took that. And now Raul I think is the
    chairman of the Salton Sea. So I have a long history down
    there.
        I worked on the first power facility. I know the
    Congressman Veasey, going back in the early 1970s when he was
    Secretary of the Army. And it is not very far, Madam Chair,
    from my hometown. It is very famous, you might have heard of
    it, it is Corona, California. That is why we refer to this
    disease as COVID-19, not Corona.
        My question is, you know, I have been around a long time,
    and we have been talking about fusion for a long, long time,
    and it is always a silver bullet that is just around the
    corner. And, you know, I have worked with a lot of companies,
    and it is a silver bullet, it solves a lot of problems, if they
    can figure it out.
        And, you know, Lockheed now claims that they have an idea
    that I am going to go down to Skunk Works to take a look at it.
    They will roll off; they think there are a number of years
    away. I have friend over at Caltech says that is a bunch of
    malarkey. You know, these physicists, they all argue amongst
    each other, like economists.
        So I would like to get an understanding. Can you provide us
    an update on where we are at in the development of fusion, and
    where are we going?
        Mr. Fall. Well, sir, it is just around the corner.
        Mr. Calvert. Yes.
        Mr. Fall. Well, as I think you are aware, and my boss
    actually, Under Secretary for Science, was just out at Lockheed
    just last week looking at that, and I wouldn't bet against
    Lockheed, they have done some remarkable things at Skunk Works.
        But what is interesting about that is that, yes, as you
    know, we are funding and associated with the large fusion
    project in the South of France, ITER. But in the meantime, what
    has happened there, it is not just Lockheed. There is a whole
    bunch of these startup companies now, who are developing
    innovative technologies for fusion, and smart money, this is
    not federally funded, this is money that is privately raised.
    And so we are hopeful that we will have the flexibility while
    continuing to participate in ITER, and there are a lot of
    benefits to that, to also supporting this domestic fusion
    industry that is growing uniquely in this country. A little bit
    is going on in Canada. There is a lot of opportunity there, and
    the difference really is that ITER is based on--you know, got
    started quite a while ago, and is based on relatively legacy
    technology.
        These new startup companies are taking advantage of all the
    magnet technologies that have evolved, for example,
    superconducting magnets and so forth. That is the reason that
    they can do this more cheaply and in a more compact way. So,
    timeline, couldn't weigh on that, but it is promising. I think
    we understand we are going to get there.
        Mr. Calvert. It would solve everything if you are able to
    actually use fusion on a massive scale because we wouldn't have
    the waste product.
        Mr. Fall. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
        Mr. Fall. Save everything but your water problem.
        Mr. Calvert. Well, maybe we can develop--we have unendable
    energy, we could desalt the sea.
        Mr. Fall. There you go. OK.
        Mr. Calvert. Thank you.
        Ms. Kaptur. Congresswoman Kirkpatrick has kindly allowed
    Congressman Kilmer to precede her here. I want to thank her.
    Please proceed, Congressman.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank
    you to my colleague. Director Fall, I mentioned to the
    Secretary recently that I really appreciated you coming out to
    my district last year to see the Marine Sciences Lab in person.
    The high-level attention that you and that your colleagues are
    giving this laboratory, including making sure DOE has an
    enduring presence in the community by finalizing the land
    acquisition this year, is really appreciated.
        As you know, one of the primary areas of basic research
    that is conducted at the Marine Sciences Lab is focused on
    understanding coastal ecosystem dynamics and their resilience
    in the face of a rapidly changing climate and a growing
    population that puts a greater demand on that ecosystem.
        A couple of questions. One, based on what you learned
    during your recent visit, I would love to hear from you more
    about the role you think the Marine Sciences Lab can play in
    supporting programs within the Office of Science.
        And then second, what support do you need from this
    committee, from Congress, to help you fully utilize the unique
    capabilities and expertise that the Marine Science Lab has?
        Mr. Fall. Thank you for the question, Congressman. We are
    thrilled to visit. Unfortunately, we couldn't do it together; I
    know we had talked about doing that. What we have done, as you
    suggested or as you said, last year was to finalize the land
    purchase. That was a significant investment and a heavy lift to
    get that on solid footing. We do have opportunities, as you
    suggested, the science through BER, the interface between
    marine and terrestrial ecosystems, a very important question,
    lot of opportunity there.
        As you know, there is a lot of advanced energy work that
    goes on at Sequim, and that is not funded by my office. It is
    funded by EERE, but the basic premise holds there. I am not a
    big fan as I have, I think, said publicly in single-purposed
    laboratories and, I think, the opportunity for Sequim is to
    diversify that and, yes, programs within the Office of Science,
    but also make that available across the agencies and, you know,
    clear through the policy knots that make it difficult for them
    to fund things going on at Sequim. So, I don't know if that is
    helpful.
        Mr. Kilmer. Very much so. And I would just offer our
    continued partnership as we look at fully leveraging that lab
    and its capabilities.
        Mr. Fall. Thank you, sir. And I will, you know--I am quite
    confident that Director Ashby at PNNL shares the vision of
    figuring out how we can leverage this completely unique asset
    in DOE.
        Mr. Kilmer. He does, and he has got a terrific team, some
    amazing people working there at Sequim. Director Genatowski, I
    want to start by saying I share the disappointment expressed by
    many of my colleagues that the administration is, once again,
    proposing elimination of ARPA-E. I imagine you must be equally
    disappointed sitting here testifying on a budget that would
    eliminate your role. Thankfully, Congress, I think, has shown
    strong bipartisan support for the growing investments in ARPA-
    E, in part because of the vital role it plays in basic research
    and development, developing next-generation renewable
    technologies. We have seen it in my state. These funds have
    supported efforts to modernize the power grid, to harness
    energy from new noncarbon resources, LG-based biofuels, fusion
    energy that will help us regain our energy independence.
        I guess my question for you, one, can you talk about how
    ARPA-E and other DOE programs are working to make sure these
    technologies have a pathway to commercialization? And,
    secondly, are there other DOE programs that support this kind
    of work? It seems like ARPA-E is uniquely punching above its
    weight on that front.
        Mr. Genatowski. Well, thank you for saying we are punching
    above our weight. What we have done is--ARPA-E had a program
    before I got there called Tech-to-Market, and it starts with
    the original proposals of all the scientists for a program that
    they have to have a reasonable or a colorable path to market
    for one of their items. We work on electric airplanes. We have
    got two programs that I authorized since I have been in office
    and on each of those programs, I waited until I was fairly
    well-assured that not only would the science work, but the cost
    per available seat mile would be lower than the revenue per
    available seat mile because that is the key criteria for an
    airline to purchase aircraft. I banked the airlines for about 5
    years when I was working as a banker. So, I know that is the
    key metric, and I waited until they would get me that
    information before I let it go forward.
        So, that is being incorporated more and more, and expected
    more and more of the scientists, not to impede what they are
    doing, but more to guide what they are doing in a useful path
    so they can, I always say, get on the loading dock and get into
    the environment. Otherwise it is, you know, a term paper, so to
    speak.
        We are going through a reorganization now of two things.
    Interfacing with larger corporates with big R&D budgets to--not
    so much--public-private partnerships are one thing, but to
    educate us as to what the needs are in the marketplace. What
    does the market need? Not incrementally, but what does the
    market need in a revolutionary sense, and help to inform our
    researchers when they try to propose projects as to what they
    propose. So, that's ongoing. And I see I have 15 seconds left.
        Another thing we do is we have got----
        Mr. Kilmer. I am in overtime, so.
        Mr. Genatowski. Pardon me?
        Mr. Kilmer. We are in the hole 50 seconds, sorry.
        Mr. Genatowski. I am out.
        Mr. Kilmer. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Congressman Kilmer. Congressman
    Simpson.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman. I am kind of perplexed,
    frankly. I was always taught that you kind of reward success
    and punish failure; and yet, you are all sitting here saying we
    are doing such a great job in ARPA-E, finding out new things,
    great job in sciences, we are doing such a great job in
    cleanup, please cut out budget. Frankly, that doesn't make any
    sense to me. And, in fact, it is not only in ARPA-E that we are
    doing such a great job finding these technological things and
    doing all this kind of stuff, please eliminate us.
        I have got to believe that it is hard for you to sit here
    with this budget request--and, I doubt very seriously that this
    committee is going to go along with the budget request. And,
    hopefully, I think we can have a 302(b) where we can address
    the deficiencies that are in this budget that are seen both by
    Republicans and Democrats.
        Let me ask you, Mr. White, at this budget level, do you
    think you can meet all the settlement agreements with the
    states?
        Mr. White. At this budget level, we can meet all of our
    near-term agreements with the settlement agreement in Idaho. We
    will be on track to ship to WIPP, as we have committed to do to
    the State of Idaho; and we are also on track to start up IWTU
    by the end of this calendar year.
        Mr. Simpson. What about settlement agreements with other
    states?
        Mr. White. In the short term, I think, we can meet all of
    our milestones. Certainly, deferring work in the short term
    makes milestones that are in outyears a little more difficult.
        Mr. Simpson. OK. You have recently--let me get to it.
    Earlier this week, the Department released a document entitled
    ``EM Vision 2030, A Time for Transition and Transformation.''
    Are there a couple of key points you would like us to take away
    from this document?
        Mr. White. So, for me, there are a couple of key points. As
    you probably know, one of the things that GAO has recommended
    that EM do is do a better job of integrating how we look at the
    environmental cleanup program across the entire program and not
    just on a site-by-site basis. So, for me, this is an
    opportunity for us to lay out for the first time in recent
    history what the EM program looks like across the board at all
    of our sites.
        I think it is important for us to continue to make the case
    that we made earlier related to the progress that we have made
    with the investments that you have given us over the past
    couple of years. I think it is important for you and for the
    folks in the communities where we are doing cleanup and for the
    American people to understand that we are actually making
    effective use of those cleanup resources. And so, laying that
    out and demonstrating that is very important to me.
        It is also the first piece in what will be a larger effort
    to improve our overall integration and planning. So, it is also
    important to note this is a 1-year document. What it reflects
    is the budget that Congress has enacted in the current year,
    and it reflects what we see going forward for the next 10 years
    based on the proposal.
        But as we go through the 2022 planning cycle and as
    Congress enacts the 2021 budget, this is something that I
    intend to update every year to reflect both the progress that
    we are making with the enacted budget and what we hope to get
    done over the next decade.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Director Fall, the budget request
    includes several crosscutting initiatives, both across program
    offices within the Department and across subprograms within the
    Office of Science. A crosscutting approach can help avoid
    duplication of effort while also bringing all relevant
    expertise to a problem, but it must be managed appropriately.
    How can the Office of Science ensure the effectiveness of these
    crosscutting initiatives? And does each initiative have
    specific goals and milestones, and are resources and
    competencies clearly aligned toward those goals and milestones?
        Mr. Fall. Thank you, sir. As I did mention, you know, the
    leadership on this really is coming from the Secretary.
    Actually, it was before he became Secretary, he initiated this
    RTIC concept for--that has led to the crosscutting department-
    wide programs. They are very well organized. They include ARPA-
    E, Office of Science, the Applied Offices, and so forth.
        Mr. Simpson. It won't include ARPA-E very long if we follow
    this budget.
        Mr. Fall. Potentially, sir, yes. Thank you for letting me
    trip myself up. But within the Office of Science--this is my
    own priority, you know. I come with this and I talk to my team
    about it all the time where I prefer them to be a chorus rather
    than a group of soloists, and we are working towards that. But
    I want to offer it is not just about the program, as I think
    you understand. In order to do what we do, to get money out the
    door to support the laboratories, to support the universities,
    there is a legal component, there is a contracting component.
    There are all sorts of bits and pieces of this machinery. And
    what we are doing uniquely now when we put out a funding
    opportunity--we just prototyped this for the first time with
    the Quantum Center FOA--is to bring all those people together
    and attack it as an integrated team, you know, all these people
    at once, instead of sending around the Department 10 different
    times. It makes common sense and you think we would be doing
    that. We are doing it now.
        So, it is not just coordinating on the programs, and the
    scientific objective is actually coordinating on the business
    processes that go into that as well. And I think that is a
    great success story.
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you. Thank you, Chairwoman.
        Ms. Kaptur. Certainly. Congresswoman, Kirkpatrick.
        Ms. Kirkpatrick. Thank you, Madam Chair. And I thank you
    all for being here to testify. And I especially want to thank
    you Director Genatowski for meeting with me yesterday
    discussing the innovative research that is coming out of ARPA-
    E, especially the groundbreaking research that you are doing
    with solar technology out of the University of Arizona, my alma
    mater. So, I do appreciate what you are doing with batteries,
    energy storage, new solar technology developments. So, thank
    you very much.
        Instead of this administration's continued attempts to
    shutdown ARPA-E entirely, I am really interested in increasing
    the Department's ability to fund early-stage energy research
    and advance U.S. energy security and economic competitiveness.
    How is ARPA-E coordinating with other Department of Energy
    offices, working with the private sector, or developing new
    internal programs to make sure that the technologies that have
    received previous support have a pathway to commercialization?
        Mr. Genatowski. Thank you very much for that question. We
    coordinate with a number of different departments and different
    agencies. We coordinate with Director Fall on a fusion program
    which we have just put out together. We work with NASA in their
    Ohio facility, quite a lot on electric aviation. They are going
    to be a testbed for our work. We are talking with them. And in
    point of fact, they are going to be on our Merit Review Board
    when proposals finally come in.
        In terms of the Department of Defense, we coordinate with
    them on many programs. So, we do have--and I said 219 programs
    are handed off to other offices. For example, EERE takes many
    of our programs and moves them the next step along the
    technical chain, if you will.
        In terms of how do I coordinate with them on
    commercialization? Again, we have tech-to-market professionals
    who have to have a first course correction when they put their
    proposals up, that they have a colorable title to getting to
    market, then a mid-course correction, and then a final report.
    We are always on top of them looking at what they are doing. We
    have what we call active management, which is different from
    the other programs where the program directors and their
    assistants visit the programs and if they have problems, they
    guide them, they turn them, and they try to focus them on
    successful science and science that will end up on the loading
    dock, if you will.
        Ms. Kirkpatrick. Can you give me a little bit of a timeline
    on that course correction? How long does that take to actually
    make that change and get it up and running?
        Mr. Genatowski. Well, sometimes--there was a program we had
    called SLIPS, which was to reduce resistance inside of a
    pipeline, and it morphed. It wouldn't work inside of a natural
    gas pipeline, but it morphed into something that now goes onto
    the bottom of ships. And just the application changed; some of
    the formulas changed. So, instead of bottom paint, they put
    SLIPS on and it decreases the fuel use of ocean-going
    transports, and that is an example of a mid-course correction.
        How long does it take? Some things happen more quickly.
    Some things we might think of as a failure and they might
    happen 20 years later. It is just very hard to tell. Our
    general commercialization rate is somewhere around 4 percent of
    the properties, 5 percent, which is significantly higher within
    the gambit that we get the information, which is the term of
    the grant plus 5 years after the grant.
        Ms. Kirkpatrick. Can you address specifically what you are
    doing with University of Arizona, especially regarding solar?
        Mr. Genatowski. Well, if you give me a moment, I could.
        Ms. Kirkpatrick. Sure.
        Mr. Genatowski. OK, thanks. Instead of eating up your time,
    if you will give me a moment to get back to you, that would be
    great.
        Ms. Kirkpatrick. You can get back to me.
        Mr. Genatowski. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Kirkpatrick. Thank you. You know, I went to the
    University of Arizona, and I live in Tucson, and so, I was just
    interested. But you can follow up with me after the meeting.
        Mr. Genatowski. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Kirkpatrick. Thank you very much. And thank you, Madam
    Chair, and I yield back.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. Congressman Simpson. Oh,
    excuse me, Congressman Fleischmann.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, Madam Chair, Ranking Member.
    Gentlemen, I just want to say thank you. I have worked with
    each and every one of you all, and your respective agencies
    within the Department of Energy, and I think you are doing an
    exemplary job, not only for the Department, but for our
    country.
        As you know, I have the privilege of representing Oak
    Ridge, the Oak Ridge Reservation. I think that is rather
    rhetorical.
        Mr. Simpson. One of the best labs in the country.
        Mr. Fleischmann. I was going to say. And I have some very
    distinguished competitors on this dais, sometimes even on my
    side of the aisle. Now you know why I am so good to the chair.
    But, having said that, we are doing tremendous work. Our
    commitment is to work with you through this budget process, I
    will say that.
        A couple of questions. Mr. White, as you know, I am the
    chair of the Nuclear Cleanup Caucus. I represent a major EM
    site, the Oak Ridge Reservation, and I take very seriously the
    Federal Government's responsibility to remove nuclear,
    radioactive, and other hazardous waste materials from
    communities like Oak Ridge and other communities around the
    country.
        Our colleagues on this committee have agreed with me in the
    past, and have consistently funded work for the disposition of
    U-233 in Oak Ridge. What is the Department's commitment to
    dealing with U-233? What is your plan with that? And I will
    just let you answer that question, sir.
        Mr. White. Thank you, Congressman. I appreciate that
    opportunity to talk about our uranium-233 disposition program.
    I know you and I were together back in November in Oak Ridge,
    and I appreciate your support of the cleanup caucus. I also
    noted that you brought members with you from Illinois and from
    Nebraska to see not just the laboratory, but also our cleanup
    work. So, I thank you for that.
        With respect to our U-233 program, I think that is one of
    the highlights of our cleanup program. It is an isotope that we
    have spent decades spending money to store until we can dispose
    of it in a safe and effective manner. I think we have found a
    way, as we talked about in November, to be able to not only
    dispose of the material safely, but also do it in a way that
    saves the taxpayers money and make some of the material
    available for lifesaving medical research. I think that is a
    very important program to EM. I think that is a benefit to the
    country at large, and I am very much committed to that path
    forward for disposition.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir. Dr. Fall, as I told
    Secretary Brouillette a couple of weeks ago, I am very excited
    about the plans for the construction of a second target station
    at the Spallation Neutron Source, and in our last budget, I
    think, we actually funded the beginning research for that. It
    is going to enable wholly new capacities to examine the
    structure and dynamics of materials from polymers to proteins
    to catalysts, and it is also going to double the capacity of
    the current SNS which is oversubscribed now by a factor of 3,
    sir. The project is critical to maintaining U.S. leadership in
    neutron sciences, and I am thankful that Congress provided $37
    million to complete the conceptual design in fiscal year 2020
    and ready the project for CD-1 review at the start of
    construction.
        Secretary Brouillette said that he anticipated the
    Department making a decision about CD-1 by the end of this year
    or in the first quarter of next year. From your perspective, is
    everything on track within the Office of Science and BES to
    meet this timeline, sir?
        Mr. Fall. Well, everything is on track, sir. The time will
    depend, of course, on the level of appropriation. We do have
    quite a lot of money that has been appropriated for the SNS,
    and we are committed to the project, as you suggested. And
    relative to the gentleman's earlier question, this is a
    uniquely--the second target station is uniquely suited for
    biological work, such as with the NIH.
        As I understand it, the bulk of the money that we got in
    the last appropriation is engineering and construction money
    that cannot actually be used for the planning process that we
    are undergoing now to CD-1. So, you know, if we could get back
    to you on that, maybe we can work with you to shift some things
    around a little bit so that we can get through CD-1 and then
    move on to the construction of the project.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you, sir. I really appreciate your
    defining that. That is very helpful, sir.
        Quick question, my time is running short, but on medical
    isotopes, Dr. Fall, we committed in this subcommittee a
    proposal by the Office of Science to invest in the research and
    production of stable isotopes, and the Department is requesting
    additional resources for this purpose in fiscal year 2021.
    Isotopes, both radio isotopes and stable isotopes for medical
    or industrial applications are one of the areas where DOE, Oak
    Ridge National Laboratory, and other National Labs have had an
    incredible impact, including saving the lives of billions of
    people and having a billion-dollar impact on the U.S. economy.
    Dr. Fall, can you speak to what is driving the investment by
    the Department? And if you can provide us a status or report on
    the Stable Isotope Production and Research Center, and when do
    you expect CD-1, sir?
        Mr. Fall. And I apologize. I am going to have to get back
    to you on CD-1, exactly. But, boy, we--as you suggested, we
    have identified this as a priority. We are committed to it; Oak
    Ridge, yes; FRIB at Michigan State, and other facilities
    producing the isotopes. Most Americans do not understand that
    the isotopes that are--most Americans probably do not think
    about medical isotopes, but do not understand that the medical
    isotopes that are not commercially produced are all provided by
    the U.S. Department of Energy.
        I could also follow up with you later about some changes we
    are doing structurally within my office to bolster the isotope
    program, to carve it out and lift it up and get it more in a
    production mindset. Right now, it is very closely tied to
    research. We think that it--we think that giving that the
    talent that is oriented more towards production and business
    and sustainability is the right thing to do, in addition to
    these facilities, to increase the capacity of that program.
        Mr. Fleischmann. Thank you very much, sir. And, gentlemen,
    I wish you the best in your endeavors. My time is up. I yield
    back, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Congressman Newhouse?
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Mr. Ranking
    Member. Gentlemen, welcome to the committee. I express my
    thanks to you, as well, for all the great work that you and
    your folks do on behalf of our country. And like Mr. Simpson
    said, we hope that you do well enough to come back, and we
    would welcome you back. I wanted to talk a little bit about--
    this was in my first--in the first round of questioning, a
    focus on the environmental cleanup efforts at the Department of
    Energy.
        Mr. White, if I could just talk to you just for a little
    bit here? As it was mentioned earlier, you released your
    Strategic Vision, I think, just this past Monday. I am aware
    that, for the past several years, the Government Accountability
    Office has been highlighting concerns about I guess what we
    could term a lack of a clear program-wide strategy, with better
    reporting, to address the growing environmental cleanup
    liability, and I think that is fair to say. A significant
    portion of that liability lies at the Hanford Reservation, as
    you know.
        First, let me commend you on heeding the GAO's input for
    your work on drafting this, what would be a starting point for
    the development of a strategic mission. Some of the document
    includes important priorities at the Hanford Reservation,
    particularly the Department's commissioning of the waste
    treatment plant, so that we can, finally, begin to vitrify the
    low-activity waste, which is very important. It is truly a high
    priority that we are all committed to. So, thank you for that,
    but there are--I got to say that there are several concerns
    that arise from this document or, generally, the strategy that
    is laid out. So, let me address those concerns, first.
        From what I can tell, there is--would be, essentially, no
    work done, conducted on the Waste Encapsulation and Storage
    Facility, or the WESF. And if I could recall a comment made by
    the Department not that long ago, but they considered the work
    being done there, and the pool that the capsules are stored in,
    to be the greatest risk in the nationwide DOE complex for
    serious accident. So, it concerns me that there is no work
    scheduled to be done, if we stick with this report.
        And, also, there would, essentially, be no work conducted
    at the 300-296 waste site, the work that is being looked at,
    completing the--to clean up under the 324 building. That is,
    certainly, a concern there. That is, literally, yards from the
    Columbia River, as you know. And, also, I believe, there is
    vital risk mitigation work that needs to go on with groundwater
    remediation, the dewatering of the K-Basins, building
    demolition. There is just a lot of things that are concerning
    that show up in this report.
        Now, I would--and I fully realize that there is constraints
    based upon the President's budget requests. I appreciate that,
    but what I want to make clear to the people at home, the people
    that are on the committee, the DOE officials, certainly, that
    my work here and the work of my colleagues and, certainly, the
    colleagues in the Senate, including Senator Murray, it is all
    to ensure one thing: that we do not allow this budget request
    to become a reality for the cleanup across the EM or,
    certainly, at the Hanford site. That just cannot be.
        You could walk up to almost any person on the street in the
    Tri-Cities and ask them a question about the Federal
    Government's responsibility at the Hanford. I heard the words
    ``ethical'' and ``moral,'' but there is one other word that
    would be--I think you would hear from people in the Tri-Cities,
    and that is the legal responsibility for the Federal Government
    to complete this cleanup work. And so, I just want to bring up
    those concerns. I wanted to let you address those.
        So, Mr. White, could you assure me that the Department of
    Energy, DOE, is still committed to the important cleanup
    efforts at Hanford? And then, if you could, please feel free to
    respond to the greater matter of the Strategic Vision and its
    relationship to the budget. And I know you mentioned some
    things about--and I do not want to put words in your mouth, but
    updating the report as we move forward, so.
        Mr. White. Thank you, Congressman. I appreciate the
    opportunity to talk about the important work that we do at
    Hanford, as well as our Strategic Vision document. A couple of
    things.
        First, on the important work that we do at Hanford. The
    Department remains committed to all of the cleanup work that we
    need to do and the environmental legacy that we have at
    Hanford, and that includes all of the projects that you laid
    out. The fact that our budget may not have been able to fit
    everything for the current fiscal year within the top line, and
    that reflects a broader set of national priorities, does not
    mean that we are not committed to getting it done. And we are
    committed to getting it done whenever funding becomes available
    to do that work.
        In terms of the Strategic Vision, it does reflect the
    priorities laid out in the President's budget request, but it
    has to be a living document because the budget process itself
    is a living process. And as we go forward, it needs to be
    updated on an annual basis to reflect not just the previous
    year's proposal, but also the budget that is passed by Congress
    and that we are enacting in the course of the current year, and
    I intend to do that.
        Mr. Newhouse. OK. I appreciate that, and I look forward to
    continue working with you, as well. Thank you, Madam Chair.
    Thank you for your indulgence.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. Dr. Fall, the Department's
    long history and leadership in supporting basic science has
    resulted in biomedical innovations and applications, some of
    which you have referenced, all of which have enabled future
    breakthroughs in health research. Some of these include drug
    discovery, high-precision imaging to advance-precision brain
    and nerve mapping, cancer detection, and cancer treatment. In a
    recent hearing held by this subcommittee, we learned that over
    90 percent of new drugs approved by the FDA between 2010 and
    2016 used the Department of Energy's light sources as an
    essential part of their drug development. Could you, perhaps,
    enlighten us, if you can, on what are the most promising areas
    of biomedical research that might benefit from more
    collaboration between the Department of Energy, the National
    Institutes of Health, and other Federal agencies, like the VA
    and the DOD, and their medical arenas?
        Mr. Fall. Yes, ma'am, and thank you for the question
    because I think it is as you suggested, it is a great story of
    collaboration, existing work. And I do want to let you know
    that we took the SEAB report, Secretary of Energy Advisory
    Board report, on NIH-DOE collaboration very seriously and every
    one of my deputy program leads has now met with counterparts at
    the National Institutes of Health to look for additional
    opportunities; as you suggest, imaging, the accelerator
    science, and technology beam therapies is another angle,
    obviously, our computers. At the end of the day, what we bring
    that almost no other agency brings, I will just say what I said
    in my statement, is science at scale, our abilities to do these
    big things. NIH is a phenomenal resource for the country, but
    they are focused largely on individual investigators across the
    country and even at their institutes. We bring the big machines
    and the know-how of how to work in very large teams to do
    things, like the Human Genome Project, right?
        Ms. Kaptur. Yes. Yes.
        Mr. Fall. That was a partnership with the National
    Institutes of Health. We are, in addition to this, topic by
    topic, collaboration. We are in discussion with NIH leadership
    now about what that next moonshot should be. It might be as--it
    might be antimicrobial resistance, as was talked about in your
    hearing. It could be mapping the brain, as well. We are going
    to leave it to the National Institutes of Health to decide what
    their priority huge projects are, but we are standing by to
    work with them with our light sources and other factory
    science, if you will, with our supercomputers and our data
    handling, to attack the problem that, you know, they lean on.
    and we identify as something that is mutually--what is the next
    Human Genome Project is the question, in addition to the
    routine collaboration we are doing across these areas,
    including drug discovery and cancer therapies and so forth.
        Ms. Kaptur. I am going to say something that is in order,
    but probably a little bit unusual. There is not a sheriff that
    I meet with or, recently, because of this COVID-19, many of our
    county health Department directors in my part of the country,
    and when I say to them, OK, so, what is at the top of the list,
    and they say at the top of the list is mental illness, at the
    top of the list. And because we have moved from the '70s and
    '80s of having people in state institutions to
    deinstitutionalizing, and now our prisons have become the chief
    domiciliary for those who are so sick, and it has been
    interesting to talk to some of our colleagues. Congressman
    Gonzalez of Ohio is very interested in the human brain because
    of his experience in football, with a lot of his colleagues,
    and what has happened to them. There is a Brain Center at I
    think it is Boston University, where a lot of individuals who
    have died from professional football, their craniums are taken
    after they pass. And I was looking at what they have and I
    thought, boy, if you could get that on computers, and they are
    beginning to do cross sections of the brain and look at what
    has really happened for the onset of all kinds of illnesses
    that they do not completely understand.
        There is a doctor--oh, I have to remember his name. He runs
    the Stanley Institute, I think it is called, and he began
    measuring the craniums and looking at what was happening with
    individuals who had bipolar and illnesses that we give a name
    to, but we really do not understand, like schizophrenia. And I
    think with your supercomputing capacity and with the interest
    of a number of members--we have Congresswoman Annie Kuster, who
    heads a working group; another one, Congresswoman Grace
    Napolitano. We are--we know we are dealing with something we do
    not completely understand, but I think what you have, whether
    it is the ability to finally measure distances within the
    cranium, to take a look at the electronics of the brain, to
    think about the work that I have seen happening at some of the
    labs, where, oh, my goodness, the imaging is so granular that
    you can see things that others do not.
        I think you have something there, that might take on a set
    of illnesses that, by the way, cost us billions of dollars
    annually, simply because we do not know the answer. And perhaps
    aggregate data in a way that those scientists you talk about,
    who work on an individual basis, they are not able to pull
    together a lot of information in this highly gray area of
    medical research, so--and also, the way different medicines
    function, where those things register in the brain. Why do some
    medicines work? Why do others not work? Why do generics work in
    this patient, but not in that patient? Why?
        I would--I am not sure that we can find that out on bench
    research. I think we have to have something else that happens,
    and I think you can bring it together.
        So, I just urge you along those lines, just having had
    experience on the road in this job, and seeing what we are
    dealing with. Right now, half of those who are addicted with
    opioids are mentally ill. So, it gets all mixed into these
    other things that society experiences, and that is one area
    where we need enlightenment and where you just might have
    something that we have not looked at before. So, I wanted to
    mention that.
        I also wanted to ask Mr. White, as a follow-up to Mr.
    Simpson's question on the schedules for cleanup, could you be
    more specific about long-term delays you would experience if
    the environmental management budget were to be enacted as
    proposed?
        Mr. White. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that question. One
    example for--which relates to Mr. Simpson's district is the
    retrieval and eventual treatment and disposition of calcine
    waste. Our commitment is related to that, stretch out to 2035,
    but we could be doing research now that would enable us to make
    easier progress along that line and in the outyears. That sort
    of work would be some of the work that would have been deferred
    under the President's budget request.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you. Dr. Genatowski, I was very
    interested, you said you had something to do with what is going
    on in the Salton Sea. You or the Department, right?
        Mr. Genatowski. No, I did a long time ago.
        Ms. Kaptur. A long time ago?
        Mr. Genatowski. Right. I financed and then sold a
    geothermal plant in the Salton Sea.
        Ms. Kaptur. I saw several of them, and I was told more----
        Mr. Genatowski. It was the Leathers Plant.
        Ms. Kaptur. OK, is it still functioning?
        Mr. Genatowski. I do not know. It was a long time ago. I
    worked on it for Burlington Northern Railroad.
        Ms. Kaptur. Where would I go to get a--the best scientific
    study one could find on the energy potential of the Salton Sea
    Bowl as the second lowest point in the United States?
        Mr. Genatowski. OK, and I do not know where you would go,
    but I can get back to you on that.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. I would be really interested in
    that. There are at least three geothermal plants operating
    there now. I climbed one hill. They said, Congresswoman, you
    are standing on a volcano. I said I do not want to be there,
    and what is going on under the soil?
        Mr. Genatowski. Right.
        Ms. Kaptur. What is happening there? I would, personally,
    appreciate a briefing or if there are papers I can read. But if
    I ever felt like I was in an energy bowl, that I did not
    completely understand I know I was in it, the windspeed alone,
    and the angle at which the sun met the horizon, at the
    hillsides and so forth. I just thought what is this place? And
    I know it is the drainage bowl for the Imperial Valley, but I
    think it is something more. And I would like to know, from the
    energy standpoint, what could we maximize there?
        We were told by one person that one of the geothermal
    challenges that they have, and there were at least three
    geothermal sites that I saw, evidently, when they go down and
    they try to probe, the metal that they use corrodes within 6
    months, maybe 5 months. And one of the elements they are
    bringing up is lithium. And I said, oh, how much of that? Is
    the lithium experiment working? I do not know. So, I would be
    very interested if the Department could collect information
    about the Salton Sea and perhaps share it.
        Mr. Genatowski. We would be happy to.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. I thank you very much. On
    Portsmouth, Mr. White, I wanted to ask you, in May of last
    year, a possible radioactive contamination led the local
    community to close a school near the Portsmouth Gaseous
    Diffusion Plant, you are very aware of that, so that the
    children would not be exposed to possible contamination. What
    are the results of the latest air quality tests, including the
    results from any independent tests conducted?
        Mr. White. So, I think you can just--Congresswoman, the--as
    you are aware, when we were notified of the potential concern
    by the school this past spring, we sent in a team of the
    world's best nuclear incident response personnel to sample the
    school, and then we had those samples analyzed by two of the
    best forensics laboratories in the Department of Energy. The
    sampling results indicated no radioactivity above background
    levels in the school. And we also provided those samples to the
    Ohio Department of Health, and their analysis of those samples
    was consistent with the analysis done by the Department.
        You--we have also continued to do air monitoring, as we
    would always do around our sites, and for 2019, we have
    detected no transuranic contaminants in that air sample effort
    that we have ongoing. And in terms of a third party sampling
    effort, we, you know, we committed to this school and the local
    officials that we would fund an independent third party
    sampling activity that worked to develop the sampling plan and
    the methodology with the local community is still ongoing, but
    I expect that to begin within the next few weeks.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right, thank you very much. Mr. Simpson?
        Mr. Simpson. Thank you, Chairwoman. If you want to see some
    real energy, come up to where I live, and, you know, it has a
    lot of geothermal because it used to be over the hotspot of
    Yellowstone. And Yellowstone is--obviously, a lot of geothermal
    there and all that type of thing. And if the caldera goes off
    in Yellowstone, I live--I have, like, 4 minutes to kiss my rear
    end goodbye. It is all right.
        Ms. Kaptur. Oh.
        Mr. Simpson. So, it is a full of energy up there, but I do
    want to confirm what my good friend from Washington said. This
    is incredible to me, when you look at the Richland operations,
    down 35 percent; the Office of River Protection, down 22
    percent; Idaho, down 40 percent; Oak Ridge, down 42 percent;
    and the one really perplexing one is that the Waste Isolation
    Plant is down 3.4 percent, down $13.5 million. Where do we
    stand on the Waste Isolation Plant, and where is it going to--
    and how is cutting their funding going to get them open
    quicker?
        Mr. White. So, I appreciate the opportunity to talk about
    that. WIPP, as you know, is a very important-- part of the
    cleanup complex. It is also important not just for EM, but for
    the broader national security and science missions the
    Department does. So this budget request protects and very much
    reflects a commitment to continue to invest not just in
    operations, but also in the infrastructure.
        This year we will begin work on the utility shaft to
    increase our ability to do work there at WIPP, we are also
    continuing work on the safety significant confinement
    ventilation system, that will also increase our ability to do
    work there. Those infrastructure upgrades should be in place in
    the 2022 timeframe, if it is on schedule. And I think that will
    set up WIPP for the decades to come for the Department.
        Mr. Simpson. So you think we will be back to full
    operations by?
        Mr. White. Current schedules, assuming those projects stay
    on line, the 2022 timeframe.
        Mr. Simpson. OK. Thank you. And I know you guys, all of you
    know that I am not upset with you. I know that you support the
    President's budget, and that is kind of what you have to do,
    and you argue for it, and you go through OMB, and et cetera, et
    cetera, et cetera, and whatever comes out, comes out.
        And I hope you know that those Republicans and Democrats
    are a little flustered by what is being proposed here, and
    hopefully this won't stand in--you know, and Mr. Genatowski, I
    don't know whether to ask you any questions or not, because I
    don't know if you are going to be here in 6 months, after
    looking at the budget request. It says, please close us down.
        But I have been trying to figure out where the people that
    proposed this budget come from, what they are thinking in this
    kind of--you went through all of the neat things that are being
    done and research that has been by RPE, showed us some neat
    slides and all that kind of stuff. I guess my question would
    be, thinking from their point of view, or from their mind, why
    is private sector doing that? Would any of that have been done
    by the private sector had RPE not been in existence?
        Mr. Genatowski. Well, the statute requires that we do
    something that is unlikely to be done by the private sector. I
    think all projects I have examined, which are 330 we have going
    on, programs and projects, I don't think the private sector
    would have financed it. When I was in the finance business, I
    wouldn't have financed them.
        They have far too much risk, and the real risk is not
    whether or not the science is right or not, because I think the
    scientists kind of get it right. The real risk is what is the
    timeframe from getting it right on the bench in the lab to
    being able to put EBITDA on your income statement to your
    shareholders? That is the real risk.
        The risk is we are trying ameliorate that by bringing the
    institutions in that run their R&D research, large corporations
    that understand how to manage that, and try to inform us. We
    want them to say these sorts of things we just can't get to. Do
    you find it interesting? Can you get to it?
        It is really a question more of sometimes they don't work,
    sometimes they do work, that is R&D, but it is the time factor
    to money. Sometimes it will be, how long did it take the
    Internet to make money, 25 years? That is why I say, we get our
    answers from the scientists, and then they will have to report
    to us what they do for 5 years. But something that we may think
    is a commercial no success, comes back 17 to 27 years later to
    roll back in and be a success. We just can't tell.
        Mr. Simpson. That is then, that is really----
        Mr. Genatowski. And that is what keeps them out.
        Mr. Simpson. That is really the debate we have here in
    Congress. there will be some people that want to get rid of RPE
    because they believe that, you know, the private sector ought
    to be in on all of this stuff, And we have that debate in
    Congress. I think that is the proper role of government, it is
    do those things that need to be done, that show potential for
    moving us forward in science and technology, and development in
    this country, that just wouldn't be done by the private sector,
    because of the investment that it would take, and the return on
    your investment would be--you know, you couldn't sell that to
    shareholders and stuff.
        And that is the important role I think that this plays, and
    it is just--and I will say again, it is amazing to me that what
    we want to do in this budget is defund or reduce funding for
    things that are looking into the future, and defund those that
    are trying to take care of the problems of the past.
        It is just kind of a strange budget, but we will work with
    you and we will get it done. And I don't think you will have to
    live with this budget, hopefully, because I know Chairwoman
    Kaptur is very interested in these programs and so am I and so
    is this whole Committee.
        So, thank you all for being here today.
        Mr. Genatowski. Thank you, sir.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you, Mr. Simpson. Mr. Newhouse?
        Mr. Newhouse. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thanks for the
    second round of questioning. Something on everybody's mind is
    we all did the corona bump when we ran into each other today.
    Very awkward, I am not used to that yet, and I hope I never get
    used to it. But that is certainly you can't get through the day
    without talking about this and how we deal with it.
        And Mr. Fall, as Director of the Office of Science for DOE,
    I wanted to ask you a little bit more about the role that the
    National Labs maybe could be playing and are playing in this
    whole effort to counter the COVID-D--or COVID-19, and we are
    not supposed to say coronavirus anymore because of Calvert. But
    I am aware and, in fact, I am going to be going to Richland
    next week, to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory partly,
    not just because it is in my district, but they are doing some
    things that are very, I think, potentially very important for
    this effort.
        As I understand that the Environmental Molecular Science
    Laboratory, the EMSL, they are working on ways that they could
    assist in that. And I am not a scientist, so excuse me for my
    stumbling through, but the biomarker discovery efforts there
    that could be looking for signs of immune response in patients,
    antibodies that indicate that a patient is exposed even if they
    are asymptomatic, but it shows actively circulating viruses.
        So, just a couple of questions, and I will let you expound,
    because you are much more adverse to this. So is it true that
    current testing kits only identify whether a patient currently
    has an active virus versus someone who has previously been
    exposed? And how can these biomarkers assist with screening and
    testing?
        And then I am also aware that PNNL's imaging capabilities
    could assist with the development of a vaccine. So do you know
    that or could you speak to that potential as well?
        Mr. Fall. Yes, sir. I don't know about the testing kits
    actually. I will get back to you on that. I don't know the
    details of what they can actually do.
        Mr. Newhouse. I may learn next week, so I will be able to
    tell you.
        Mr. Fall. That is right. But what I can say is that
    generally speaking, the paradigm for biomarkers is looking for
    derivative signs, if you will, biological signs of some
    underlying process that are maybe more accessible. Instead of
    having to take blood and do a blood test, you do a saliva test
    or maybe a skin test or something. This is the idea behind
    biomarkers.
        And absolutely, the Environmental Molecular Sciences Lab is
    positioned to do that work. As I mentioned earlier to the
    chairwoman we, you know, have now organized this front door for
    the whole laboratory complex, where questions like yours were
    put out to this committee of representatives for all the labs.
        And instead of, for example, going to, you know, knocking
    on PNNL's door, we put it to the committee and find out
    actually which lab. We don't have a national biotechnology
    laboratory that can do this kind of thing. So, this is sort of,
    call it a virtual biotechnology laboratory, where we have one
    front door and can reach out to all of the capabilities of our
    laboratories.
        Pardon, the third question, sir, was?
        Mr. Newhouse. The vaccine potential.
        Mr. Fall. Yes. That is right. Yes. And of course, as you
    may know already, we have incredible capability in this country
    to rapidly develop candidate vaccines. PNNL could help with
    this or other laboratories could help with this. The trick for
    a vaccine is not development of it, and DARPA, in particular,
    has led efforts to quickly develop the--it is the clinical
    trials.
        And you can't at this point get around the idea that in
    order to safely roll out a vaccine to hundreds of millions or
    billions of people, you have got to do the clinical trials.
    Those take the time that Director Fauci has indicated 12 to 18
    months to get the clinical trials partly done. I would expect
    we would have candidate vaccines very quickly through the
    existing programs that we already have.
        Mr. Newhouse. To begin those trials?
        Mr. Fall. That is right, exactly.
        Mr. Newhouse. OK. Well, thank you. And I think it is
    exciting that we have a lot of capability within the national
    lab system to be able to address something like this. So, thank
    you very much.
        Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Ms. Kaptur. Thank you very much. Congressman Newhouse, you
    remind me, and listening to Dr. Fall's answer there, that in
    this area of mental illness I think a lot of the working groups
    that we have, and they are bipartisan, and they will appear in
    Congress, you are talking about dozens of members who
    participate in these, and it might be very helpful to you as
    you draw from your different scientific capabilities across the
    government, and try to figure out how--you know, where would
    you concentrate.
        It might be interesting for you to send somebody up here,
    and we will gather some of those members, and you can just
    listen to them, based on what they have been struggling with,
    what they have been attempting to achieve from the standpoint
    of the law, and for them to hear more about the science and
    what your science capabilities are.
        Because I really think it is quite complex and it probably
    involves biochemistry and supercomputing, it probably involves
    certain physical characteristics on occasion. I am not sure all
    patients would demonstrate with that. But putting together sort
    of the datasets that exist and are scattered all over the
    place, you might actually be surprised at what you are able to
    do. I don't think anybody in the Federal Government has done
    that.
        And, you know, we meet these different scientists that come
    up here, and I sort of feel like they have their hand on the
    tail of the dog. If you think, OK, what is next here, how do we
    find all the pieces and fit them together? There are certain
    private labs that know a lot, that make medicine. I don't know
    what they know and what they don't know, and they will probably
    use your light labs. So I view the research is scattered and
    you might have a powerful role to play in gathering some of
    that and posting it in some coherent manner.
        If you ever get a chance to go up to Walter Reed, there is
    an Intrepid center, but Walter Reed, and it specifically tries
    to serve veterans who had certain types of brain concussions
    and other onset illnesses during their military service. That
    is a very interesting place, and some of the light machines,
    various types of machines, imaging machines that they have
    there that I haven't seen anywhere else. Very fascinating.
        And so to think about the work you have done with PET scans
    and other things that have come out of the labs, purposefully,
    or by accident, and capabilities that you have, there is so
    much there. So, I just--I encourage you down those lines, and
    would welcome to invite a bipartisan group of members to just
    give you some of their impressions based on what they know. I
    would hope you would be open to that.
        Mr. Fall. Yes, ma'am, of course. And I might be remiss if I
    didn't credit prior Secretary Perry for the work, I think you
    are aware of, with veterans and our supercomputers and TBI,
    really led the way of the collaboration with the Veterans
    Administration on gathering these data--particular kind of
    dataset, brain injury, and analyzing those on our
    supercomputers.
        Ms. Kaptur. And it was the last thing I talked with him
    about; I think he went out to California. I can't remember if
    he went to Boston. I think he was scheduled to go to Boston,
    but didn't go. It would be a shame if we--we had another doctor
    here, it was Tim Murphy from Pennsylvania, and he left Congress
    before he completed his work. But he was dead serious about
    this topic.
        And I just think we need to pick up the threads of this
    somehow and have it make more sense. And you have the ability
    with those light machines to understand even with current
    medications or treatments that are out there, whether that
    registers in the brain or the nervous system, and why it works
    or why it doesn't work. So, anyway, it would be a very
    interesting exploration.
        I have a final question, Dr. Fall. Your budget request
    would cut the Office of Science Workforce Development by 27
    percent, programs critical to bringing in new talent in your
    pipeline for science, technology, engineering, and math. In the
    next 10 years, the number of STEM jobs will grow my 13 percent
    compared to 9 percent for non-STEM jobs. And given the current
    and future demand for STEM workforce and the shortages and
    qualified candidates, how do you justify cutting this program?
    And is the Office of Science working with other programs
    throughout the Department to develop and expand workforce
    programs to ensure we have the skilled workforce that would be
    needed in the future, including directly in your purview?
        Mr. Fall. I thank you for the question, ma'am. If I could
    just give you a little bit of context. In fact, we are
    proposing to reduce the work, WDTS as we call it, the Workforce
    Development for Teachers and Students Program. But I need to
    emphasize that that is actually a relatively tiny program in
    the context of our budget. It is focused on some particular
    boutique fellowship programs that could be scaled up or scaled
    down according to the budget.
        I think it is important to understand that the vast
    majority of the STEM work that we do, so a couple of tens of
    millions for the WDTS, a few billion dollars in research
    expenditures, the vast majority of the students we train in
    STEM go through our grants program, a grant a university pays
    for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and even
    undergraduate students in laboratories.
        That is actually the much more important pipeline for
    student development is support through our billions of dollars
    of grant support to our laboratories and to universities. But
    granted we are asking to reduce the WDTS particular program a
    little bit.
        Ms. Kaptur. All right. Well, I don't think we should cut
    any having to do with workforce development, so we might try to
    fix this.
        And I wanted to thank Congressman Simpson, I understand you
    have no further questions at this time. And Congressman
    Newhouse? No further questions.
        All right. That will conclude the hearing this afternoon.
    And I want to thank Misters Genatowski, Fall, and White for
    being with us all afternoon. I ask the witnesses to please
    ensure for our hearing record the questions for the record, and
    any supporting information requested by the subcommittee are
    delivered in final form to us no later than 3 weeks from the
    time you receive them.
        And members who have additional questions for the record
    will have until the close of business this coming Monday to
    provide them to the subcommittee office.
        Our hearing is adjourned. Thank you all.

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