[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REIMAGINING OUR INNOVATION FUTURE
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 15, 2021
__________
Serial No. 117-8
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
44-177PDF WASHINGTON : 2023
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma,
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
JERRY McNERNEY, California PETE SESSIONS, Texas
PAUL TONKO, New York DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
BILL FOSTER, Illinois MIKE GARCIA, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
DON BEYER, Virginia YOUNG KIM, California
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina JAY OBERNOLTE, California
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DAN KILDEE, Michigan VACANCY
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
VACANCY
C O N T E N T S
April 15, 2021
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Chairwoman,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 8
Written Statement............................................ 9
Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Witnesses:
Mr. Norm Augustine, former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
of Lockheed Martin
Oral Statement............................................... 13
Written Statement............................................ 15
Dr. Frances H. Arnold, Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical
Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, California
Institute of Technology
Oral Statement............................................... 23
Written Statement............................................ 25
The Honorable Ernest J. Moniz, President and Chief Executive
Officer, Energy Futures Initiative and Former Secretary, U.S.
Department of Energy
Oral Statement............................................... 32
Written Statement............................................ 34
Dr. Farnam Jahanian, President, Carnegie Mellon University
Oral Statement............................................... 58
Written Statement............................................ 60
Discussion....................................................... 74
REIMAGINING OUR INNOVATION FUTURE
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2021
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:02 a.m., via
Zoom, Hon. Eddie Bernice Johnson [Chairwoman of the Committee]
presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. The hearing will come to order, and
without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at
any time. Pursuant to House Resolution 8, today the Committee
meeting is virtual. I look forward to when we can all get back
together.
I want to announce a couple of reminders to the Members
about the conduct of this remote hearing. First, Members should
keep their video feed on as long as they are present in the
hearing, and Members are responsible for their own microphones.
Please also keep your microphones muted unless you are
speaking, and finally, if Members have documents they wish to
submit to the record, please email them to the Committee Clerk,
whose email address has been circulated to all.
Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing and welcome
to our distinguished panel of witnesses. I look forward to
hearing your expert insights on how we can ensure the continued
United States leadership in science and technology (S&T), and
harness our research enterprise, and all of our Nation's talent
to develop solutions to our most pressing challenges.
This morning, the Committee will discuss the current state
of the American science and technology enterprise, the
challenges posed by both increasing global competition and
shortcomings in our own system, and the opportunities to
reimagine and recommit to our innovation future. I understand
the depth of the challenges we face, but I remain hopeful
because I see the commitment, passion, and talent of our
scientists, engineers, and especially our students and early
career researchers. I am inspired to do everything I can to
support them.
For many decades, the United States was the unquestioned
leader in science and technology. This premise was firmly
established through a massive investment in the 1950's and
1960's to build national laboratories and entire agencies like
the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA (National
Aeronautics and Space Administration), and to support
unfettered research at U.S. universities. That commitment paid
real dividends, allowing the government, the private sector,
and indeed the world to reap the technological benefits.
However, since that peak, our commitment to nondefense R&D
(research and development) fell rapidly, then plateaued as a
share of our discretionary budget. As a share of our GDP (gross
domestic product), it has continued to decline. In the
meantime, many other countries have increased their investments
and built innovation systems based on our own successful
models. One of those on the minds of many here today is China.
China is already outspending us. It may only be a matter of
time before they are out-innovating us, including in critical
technologies that underpin our economic and national security.
I agree that China's rise in science and technology
creates real challenges for us. We have good reason to be
worried about research integrity and how research will be used.
However, we should not let those concerns misguide our thinking
about how we will lead in the future. We will lead by doing our
own best selves, not by emulating China.
In a forthcoming issue of Issues in Science and
Technology, a scholar of innovation policy writes,
``competitiveness is neither a necessary nor a sufficient basis
for equity, sustainability, or security . . . China's
industrial policy has improved neither equity nor
sustainability. Russia's economic collapse has done little to
erode its national security.'' I believe we can do both. We can
compete globally, and we can inspire innovation that confronts
long-standing societal challenges. We can build from the
institutional foundations established decades ago and work
together to re-envision a bold and more inclusive model for
American innovation in the 21st century.
There are a lot of big ideas to discuss, and I am sure
that today's hearing will be valuable and a constructive
conversation for all. In particular, we will be looking to the
expertise on this panel as we continue to develop bipartisan
science and innovation legislation in the coming weeks and
months.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Good morning and welcome to today's hearing. And welcome to
our distinguished panel of witnesses. I look forward to hearing
your expert insights on how we can ensure continued United
States leadership in science and technology and harness our
research enterprise and all of our nation's talent to develop
solutions to our most pressing challenges.
This morning the Committee will discuss the current state
of the American science and technology enterprise, the
challenges posed by both increasing global competition and
shortcomings in our own system, and the opportunities to
reimagine and recommit to our innovation future. I understand
the depth of the challenges we face. But I remain hopeful
because I see the commitment, passion, and talent of our
scientists and engineers, especially our students and early
career researchers. I am inspired to do everything I can to
support them.
For many decades, the United States was the unquestioned
leader in science and technology. This primacy was firmly
established through a massive investment in the 1950s and 1960s
to build national laboratories and entire agencies like the
National Science Foundation and NASA, and to support unfettered
research at U.S. universities. That commitment paid real
dividends, allowing the government, the private sector, and
indeed the world to reap the technological benefits. However,
since that peak, our commitment to nondefense R&D fell rapidly,
then plateaued as a share of our discretionary budget. As a
share of our GDP, it has continued to decline.
In the meantime, many other countries have increased their
investments and built innovation systems based on our own
successful models. One of those, on the minds of many here
today, is China. China is already outspending us. It may only
be a matter of time before they are out-innovating us,
including in critical technologies that underpin our economic
and national security.
I agree that China's rise in science and technology creates
real challenges for us. We have good reason to be worried about
research integrity and how research will be used. However, we
should not let those concerns misguide our thinking about how
we will lead into the future. We will lead by being our own
best selves, not by emulating China. In a forthcoming issue of
Issues in Science and Technology, a scholar of innovation
policy writes, ``competitiveness is neither a necessary nor a
sufficient basis for equity, sustainability, or
security.China's industrial policy has improved neither equity
nor sustainability. Russia's economic collapse has done little
to erode its national security.''
I believe we can do both. We can compete globally, and we
can inspire innovation that confronts long-standing societal
challenges. We can build from the institutional foundations
established decades ago and work together to re-envision a bold
and more inclusive model for American innovation in the 21st
century.
There are a lot of big ideas to discuss, and I am sure that
today's hearing will be a valuable and constructive
conversation for all. In particular, we will be looking to the
expertise on this panel as we continue to develop bipartisan
science and innovation legislation in the coming weeks and
months.
With that, I now recognize Ranking Member Lucas for his
opening statement.
Chairwoman Johnson. And with that, I recognize our Ranking
Member, the Honorable Mr. Lucas, for his opening statement.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding this
hearing on the future of American innovation, and thank you for
those wonderful thoughts you just offered.
I believe this is one of the most essential concerns
facing our Committee, because our commitment to America's
scientific progress is what underpins every other issue that
comes before us, from space exploration to clean energy
development, and from the strength of our economy to our
national security. Our investment in basic and early stage
Federal research gives us lower food prices, better healthcare
treatments, cleaner and cheaper energy, and widespread access
to reliable broadband internet. It just hasn't come to my farm
yet in western Oklahoma. Reliable, that is.
In short, our investment in basic Federal research
infrastructure and workforce development pays massive
dividends. American companies use the knowledge and tools
gained in our laboratories to commercialize innovations that
improve our lives and our economy.
Historically, the United States has been the world's
largest investor in research and development. U.S. Government
and industry spent a combined $511 billion on R&S in 2016,
generating over $860 billion for our Nation's economy, while
supporting over 8 million jobs. As numerous studies have
concluded, as much as 85 percent of the long-term growth of the
American economy comes from scientific and technology advances.
But our research in science and technology is under
threat. China has likely surpassed us in total R&D spending
already. While they increased their research investment by 56
percent between 2011 and 2016, ours fell by 12 percent. The
Chinese Communist Party has an aggressive and strategic plan
for their scientific development. They have been very clear
that they intend to overtake us in critical technologies.
Communist leadership in China hasn't been shy about how they
plan to outpace us.
In addition to outspending us, they're looking to acquire
foreign research, attract premiere talent by building up world-
class research infrastructure, and buildup their domestic STEM
(science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) workforce.
With our leadership in science and technology at risk, we need
to reevaluate our commitment to the fundamentals we need to
success. Basic research, cutting edge facilities, and a
thriving STEM workforce.
Chairwoman Johnson and I agree on the need to support
Federal research. A few weeks ago, we introduced legislation to
reauthorize the National Science Foundation, along with
Research and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Stevens and
Ranking Member Waltz, we put forth the NSF for the Future Act,
which increases the funding to $13 billion over 5 years. It
invests in industries of the future, works to expand STEM
education, and develop our STEM workforce, and includes
important provisions to secure our research from foreign theft.
I appreciate the bipartisan work that went into this
legislation, and I look forward to working to move it forward.
It dovetails nicely with the Securing American Leadership
in Science and Technology Act, or SALSTA, as I like to call it,
which is legislation I've introduced to double our funding in
basic research and create a national strategy to focus our
investment on critical technologies like artificial
intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and quantum computing. SALSTA
will invent in our research infrastructure so we have the
facilities required to do groundbreaking research. It helps to
grow a strong American STEM pool of talent through workforce
development and STEM education programs, and it makes it easier
to transfer technology breakthroughs from the lab to private
industry through regulatory reform. Taken together, SALSTA is a
comprehensive and strategic approach to investing in American
science and technological development.
We're still benefiting today from research investments
made generations ago, and that begs the question, what
investments are we making for our grandchildren and their
grandchildren? Are we being strategic and forward thinking in
our commitment to Federal research and development? We have a
fantastic panel of witnesses here today, and I am looking
forward to their insights into that question.
As a wheat farmer, I am an internal optimist. I always
plant seed in the ground. I'm optimistic I'm going to make a
good crop every year. And I'm also optimistic that we can work
together in a bipartisan fashion to strengthen our research
industry and invest in the future of our scientific
development.
And with that, Madam Chairman, I yield back and
enthusiastically look forward to the rest of this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lucas follows:]
Thank you, Chairwoman Johnson, for holding this hearing on
the future of American innovation.
I believe this is one of the most essential concerns facing
our committee, because our commitment to America's scientific
progress is what underpins every other issue that comes before
us: from space exploration to clean energy development, and
from the strength of our economy to our national security.
Our investment in basic and early-stage federal research
has given us lower food prices, better health care treatments,
cleaner and cheaper energy, and widespread access to reliable
broadband internet (just not yet on my farm in rural Oklahoma).
In short, our investment in basic federal research,
infrastructure, and workforce development pays massive
dividends.
American companies use the knowledge and tools gained in
our labs to commercialize innovations that improve our lives
and our economy. Historically, the United States has been the
world's largest investor in research and development. U.S.
government and industry spent a combined $511 billion on R&S in
2016, generating over $860 billion for our nation's economy
while supporting over 8 million jobs. And numerous studies have
concluded that as much as 85 percent of the long-term growth in
America's economy is from scientific and technological
advances.
But our leadership in science and technology is under
threat. China has likely surpassed us in total R&D spending
already. While they increased their research investment by 56%
between 2011 and 2016, ours fell by 12%.
The Chinese Communist Party has an aggressive and strategic
plan for their scientific development. They've been very clear
that they intend to overtake us in critical technologies.
Communist leadership in China hasn't been shy about how they
plan to outpace us. In addition to outspending us, they're
looking to acquire foreign research, attract premier talent by
building out world-class research infrastructure, and build up
their domestic STEM workforce. With our leadership in science
and technology at risk, we need to reevaluate our commitment to
the fundamentals we need to succeed: basic research, cutting-
edge facilities, and a thriving STEM workforce.
Chairwoman Johnson and I agree on the need to support
federal research. A few weeks ago we introduced legislation to
reauthorize the National Science Foundation. Along with
Research and Technology Subcommittee Chairwoman Stevens and
Ranking Member Waltz, we put forth the NSF For the Future Act,
which increases the funding to$13 billion over five years. It
invests in industries of the future, works to expand STEM
education and develop our STEM workforce, and includes
important provisions to secure our research from foreign theft.
I appreciate the bipartisan work that went into this
legislation, and I look forward to working to move it forward.
It dovetails nicely with the Securing American Leadership in
Science and Technology Act, or SALSTA, which is legislation
I've introduced to double our funding in basic research and
create a national strategy to focus our investment on critical
technologies like Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, and
quantum computing.
SALSTA will invest in our research infrastructure so we
have the facilities required to do groundbreaking research. It
helps to grow a strong American STEM pool of talent through
workforce development and STEM education programs. And it makes
it easier to transfer technological breakthroughs from the lab
to private industry through regulatory reform. Taken together,
SALSTA is a comprehensive and strategic approach to investing
in America's science and technological development.
We're still benefiting today from research investments made
generations ago. And that begs the question: What investments
are we making for our grandchildren, and their grandchildren?
Are we being strategic and forward-thinking in our commitment
to federal research and development?
We have a fantastic panel of witnesses here today, and I'm
looking forward to their insights into that question. As a
wheat farmer, I'm an eternal optimist- I plant seed in the
ground and I'm optimistic that I'll have a good yield each
season. And I'm optimistic that we can work together in a
bipartisan fashion to strengthen our research industry and
invest in the future of our scientific development.
With that, I yield back.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Lucas.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
And at this time, I'd like to introduce our witnesses.
Before I do so, I would just note that they all have such
distinguished careers. I depend on their voices so much that I
could spend 30 minutes just introducing them. I'll try not to
do that, but I would encourage everyone to read their bios.
Our first witness is Mr. Norm Augustine. Mr. Augustine was
previously the chairman and CEO (chief executive officer) of
Lockheed Martin, a position from which he retired in 1997.
[inaudible] Secretary of the Army and Acting Secretary of the
Army, among many other positions in his long and distinguished
career, and a grade mark on where we are now and our future now
in the scientific endeavors.
Our next witness is Dr. Frances Arnold. Dr. Arnold is the
Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering,
Bioengineering, and Biochemistry at the California Institute of
Technology. She pioneered directed enzyme evolution, for which
she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2018, becoming
the first American woman to do so. Dr. Arnold has also co-
founded three companies and served on several private and
public company boards. Dr. Arnold was recently appointed as co-
chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology.
Our third witness, the Honorable Ernest Moniz. From 2013
to 2017, Dr. Moniz served as the 13th U.S. Secretary of Energy.
As secretary, he advanced energy technology innovation, nuclear
security and strategic stability, cutting edge capabilities for
the American scientific research community, and environmental
stewardship. He is currently the President and Chief Executive
Officer of Energy Futures Initiative (EFI), and a professor
emeritus and Special Advisor to the president of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Our final witness, Dr. Farnam Jahanian. He is currently
the tenth president of Carnegie Mellon University, where he
previously served as provost and chief academic officer, as
well as vice president for research. Prior to his service at
Carnegie Mellon, he led the National Science Foundation
Directorate for Computer and Information Science and
Engineering from 2011 to 2014. He spent much of his career at
the University of Michigan, during which time he co-founded an
internet security company.
As our witnesses should understand we will have five
minutes of spoken testimony from each of you. Your written
testimony will be included in the record for the hearing, and
when all of you have completed your spoken testimony, we will
begin a round of questions. Each Member will have five minutes
to question the panel.
So, now we will start with Mr. Augustine. You are
recognized for your testimony.
TESTIMONY OF MR. NORM AUGUSTINE, FORMER CHAIRMAN
AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF LOCKHEED MARTIN
Mr. Augustine. Well, good morning, Chairwoman Johnson,
Ranking Member Lucas, and Members of the Committee. Thank you
for the invitation to appear today.
My comments are going to draw heavily on a report, ``The
Perils of Complacency'' which was produced by the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences, an organization now almost 250
years old, in conjunction with the Rice University Baker
Institute of Public Policy.
The thrust of the message is very straightforward. First,
America's well-being depends heavily on having a strong
economy. Second, having a strong economy depends heavily on
advancements in science and technology. And third, America is
on a path to lose its leadership position to China in science
and technology in the not-too-distant future.
Wen Jiabao, the former Premier of the State Council of the
People's Republic of China, had the following to say, and I
quote, ``Scientific discovery and technological inventions have
brought about new civilization, modern industries, and the rise
and fall of nations. I firmly believe that science is the
ultimate revolution.''
There have been a number of studies that have shown that
up to 85 percent of the growth of the U.S. economy is due to
advancements in science and technologies. Two of those studies,
incidentally, were the bases of Nobel Prizes.
There are really two principal ingredients that dominate
scientific advancement: financial capital and human capital.
Beginning with financial capital, our current path is such that
China is passing us in investments in research and development
at purchasing power parity. The U.S. Federal investment in R&D
has fallen from 1-1/2 percent of GDP in the 1960's to 7/10 of 1
percent today, a period of increasing impact of science and
technology.
Turning to human capital, perhaps the best recognized
international test of primary and secondary education is called
the PISA test of 15-year-olds, it's given every 3 years.
Currently, the United States places in 25th place among the
developed Nations of the world in composite literary, math, and
science scores.
It is noteworthy that U.S. scientific and technology
enterprise today would barely function were not for foreign-
born individuals who have come to our country, received their
advanced degrees here, remained here, and raised their families
here. These individuals today provide 28 percent of the faculty
of science and engineering at our universities. They provide 1/
3 of the entire U.S. scientific and tech workforce. They
provide 1/2 of the postdoctoral workers who perform much of our
Nation's research.
I've been asked to comment briefly on military
implications of these trends. I would note that China has four
times the population of the United States. We are not likely to
compete effectively on a personnel manpower basis with China,
either militarily or economically.
Further, the history of warfare is replete with examples
where technological breakthroughs have had decisive results in
combat. It goes all the way back to the stirrup and the longbow
to the aircraft and nuclear weapons today.
But there's another important consideration not widely
acknowledged, and that is in the past much of the military
advancements in science and technology are traceable to
arsenals. However, today commercial technology is driving
military applications. I refer, of course, to microelectronics,
high speed computing, manufacturing, AI, robotics, automation,
and so on.
One thing that's clear is that we can't build a wall
around commercial science and technology. It's out there in the
marketplace, so we have a rather simple choice. We could either
be a leader, or we could be a follower.
What might be the U.S. report card in science and
technology as it would exist today? In terms of quality of our
research universities, we are unarguably No. 1. In terms of
innovation, we've dropped from first to eighth place. R&D
intensity and fraction of GDP, we've dropped from first to
tenth. Primary and secondary education, we're at 25th.
Professionals in R&D, per capita, 28th in the world. Fraction
of research funded by the government, 29th in the world. In the
fraction of initial degrees awarded in engineering we're 76th,
just behind Mozambique.
Permit me a personal word in closing. My first trip to
China was 44 years ago. I saw a handful of automobiles. Every
adult was wearing a Mao suit. I have visited there every half
dozen years or so since that time. While I don't admire many of
their methods, the economic, military, and S&T results are
truly astonishing. I'm 85 years old. I probably won't be around
for the results of the decisions that we make today and that
are being made in China. But I will note that very early in my
career as a young engineer, I had the great privilege to play a
very tiny part in putting 12 people on the Moon, all of whom
became my friends later on. And it's truly amazing what our
country could accomplish when we put our minds to it.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Augustine follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
Dr. Arnold?
TESTIMONY OF DR. FRANCES H. ARNOLD,
LINUS PAULING PROFESSOR OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING,
BIOENGINEERING AND BIOCHEMISTRY,
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Dr. Arnold. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking Member Lucas,
Members of the Committee, first of all, thank you for
supporting science and for inviting me to appear today.
As an inventor, teacher, entrepreneur, and researcher, I
have seen where innovation succeeds and also how it can fail.
The quest to understand our universe and our place in the
natural world is one of the great manifestations of human
creativity, and as we well know, such exploration is also the
foundation of wealth. The rest of the world appreciates science
as the driving force of prosperity, and they are making the
necessary investments to compete.
Now, I've been everything from a taxi driver to a
mechanical and aerospace engineer working for the nuclear
industry, later building solar energy facilities. After earning
a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and doing basic research in
biophysics, I became a professor, an inventor, and co-founder
of several companies. Now, I was never particularly expert at
any of these professions, but through these diverse
experiences, I acquired knowledge I could recombine to solve
problems in new ways.
Inspired by the astounding feats--engineering feats of the
biological world, I chose to become an engineer of that world
and tune nature's machinery to do chemistry for us. And I have
little doubt this will be the century of biotechnology, where
we'll be able to engineer biology to make everything from
pharmaceuticals, to fuels, to food, to cure cancer, and to
fight pandemics.
I am but one of the many Nobel laureates this country has
produced although, yes, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry. But importantly, I am the product of government
investment in science. That funding has supported cutting edge
research and trained more than 200 postgraduate researchers who
are now at top universities, government laboratories, industry.
And several have started companies that today employ hundreds
more.
Federal grants enable seedling ideas to take shape, but
not to create the many commercial products that come out of our
research. Getting technology into the hands of users--in other
words, making research truly useful, requires a much bigger
innovation ecosystem that includes applied or development
research, collaboration with industry, and entrepreneurial
activities, all of which I've done. Importantly, we do not
separate fundamental science aimed at understanding from
research aimed at applications. To me, they go hand in hand and
separation would impoverish both of them.
The strength of the academic research system in this
country, in my opinion, comes from empowering younger
scientists. I strongly favor portable fellowships because young
people are capable of deciding where the future lies, what
science fields, what problems. They will choose the
universities and research settings that meet their
expectations. Unrestricted grants to the most promising young
researchers pay off with work that is truly innovative, rather
than conservative by design, because these PIs (principal
investigators) are free to formulate whole new questions
outside the confines of bigger projects, whose goals are
already set in stone. I received such support early in my
career from the Packard Foundation.
Make no mistake, not all ideas are good, nor do all such
investments lead to breakthroughs, because scientists know
there may be no pot of gold or Nobel Prize at the end of their
little rainbow. But I believe we should reward exceptionally
talented scientists who can tackle those high risk, high reward
problems. And please note that all three U.S. women who've won
Nobel Prizes in the sciences in the last 3 years were supported
in their early years by the Packard Foundation. This is
remarkable and it is not a coincidence.
I love what I do for what it can do to alleviate suffering
of people and the planet. It was easier, however, 35 years ago
to start a career in academic research because we did not spend
2/3 of our time in department meetings, writing proposals, or
complying with regulations. Instead, we focused on research,
mentoring, teaching. That has degraded. With additional
responsibilities that women have with respect to family, it is
very difficult to compete, almost impossible to enjoy the
process. It is also a struggle for scientists from
underrepresented communities, and the most talented people have
multiple choices and simply take other paths.
I'm honored to be testifying before you today. I greatly
appreciate the recognition each of you has given to these
issues in recent legislation, and your recognition that there's
more that we must do.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Arnold follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Bera. I don't know if we lost the chairwoman. Can we
get----
Ms. Stevens. Yeah, it looks like Chair Johnson is not
there.
Mr. Bera. Should we go to the next witness?
Ms. Stevens. Yeah, Secretary Moniz.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE ERNEST J. MONIZ,
PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
ENERGY FUTURES INITIATIVE
AND FORMER SECRETARY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Bera. Secretary, you're on mute.
Mr. Moniz. Yeah, the most famous expression of the new
age, you're on mute. Thank you.
OK. Madam Chair, Ranking Member Lucas, Members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you
today.
Many countries have committed to net zero carbon emissions
by mid-century, and the U.S. will soon release a new ambitious
interim target for emissions reductions by 2030. A decade of
supercharged innovation is needed, starting now, in order to
have a chance of meeting these goals.
It's important to place the associated investments in a
larger context: the changing risk profile, the growing
interdependencies of critical infrastructures, the growing
importance of supply chains, and regional differences and
needs. Traditional weather risk profiles are no longer
adequate. The modernized climate risk disclosure needs to be
supported by research with sufficient regional granularity for
the full spectrum of extreme weather events. Electricity,
natural gas, and water systems are interdependent, and
innovation in systems analysis is needed badly. The need to
address supply chain issues was underscored by President
Biden's Executive order on American supply chains. Critical
minerals and metals availability are a major challenge and
needs innovation.
The administration has proposed an ambition innovation
agenda. Federal energy innovation should expand the Federal
Government's innovation role beyond early stage R&D, address
key breakthrough technology areas, improve coordination across
the Federal Government, harness the full range of tools for
Federal support, bring together public and private innovation
players, support regional innovation, build on and supercharge
successful innovation structures like ARPA-E (Advanced Research
Projects Agency--Energy) and the Energy Frontier Research
Centers.
The Energy Act of 2020 marks a significant move to advance
and accelerate the energy innovation agenda. It authorized new
energy RD&D (research, development, and deployment) efforts in
seven major titles, and emphasized the importance of Federal
support for demonstration projects.
Internationally, the current focus of mission innovation
should be expanded to include emerging technologies for carbon
dioxide removal (CDR) and advanced nuclear energy, both fission
and fusion.
RD&D areas that merit additional support include cross
cutting technologies that reduce emissions in multiple sectors
and strengthen the foundation of the innovation infrastructure.
A few examples are clean hydrogen, sustainable supply
chains, climate risk analysis tools, and as a complement to
emissions mitigation, carbon dioxide removal, and in addition
to direct air capture, emphasis should be extended to other CDR
pathways and multiple Federal agency roles.
A 2019 EFI IHS study also identified the importance of so-
called platform technologies as an enabler of innovation for
clean energy and multiple other sectors. Key platform
technologies include additive manufacturing, materials by
design, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics,
genomic science and synthetic biology, and much more.
A greatly enhanced platform technologies initiative could
be led by NSF with important contributions from DOE (Department
of Energy), DOD, Commerce, NIST (National Institute of
Standards and Technology), HHS (Health and Human Services), NIH
(National Institutes of Health), and others in a whole of
government approach.
The architecture and processes for implementation of a
Federal energy innovation investment program are also
important. First, innovation investment programs should build
upon and better integrate the existing unparalleled innovation
capacity in the United States across private industry,
universities, research institutions, entrepreneurs, and
Federal, State, local, and tribal government entities. Federal
policies should encourage public/private partnerships,
formation of regional innovation ecosystems, and alignment of
innovation investment with market formation policies.
Second, it's essential that the innovation portfolio
support the entire innovation spectrum from use-inspired
fundamental research through learning by doing demonstrations
and pioneering commercialization. The innovation process is not
a simple linear process. There's an opportunity to further
expand the NSF role beyond discovery science to support use-
inspired fundamental research in areas of science and
engineering, especially in platform technologies that cut
across many applications. However, adding a major focus on
technology development and commercialization to NSF's mission
would be a major risk to the nature and culture of the agency,
and would been to be circumscribed with great care.
A great example of use-inspired research comes from DOE.
Energy Frontier Research Centers focus on fundamental research,
and yet, have produced significant advancements in the
technology base toward commercialization. ARPA-E has also been
successful in bridging the gap and deserves more funding.
The future role of NSF in use-inspired fundamental
research should be complementary to and closely coordinated
with similar fundamental research at DOE and other Federal
mission agencies. The innovation agenda calls for better
alignment of the policies, players, and programs that are the
key building blocks of our national energy innovation
ecosystem.
Madam Chair, Ranking Member Lucas, Members of the
Committee, I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Moniz follows:]
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Mr. Bera. Should we go to the final witness?
TESTIMONY OF DR. FARNAM JAHANIAN,
PRESIDENT, CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY
Dr. Jahanian. I'd be happy to. Chairwoman Johnson, Ranking
Member Lucas, and Members of the Committee, I am grateful for
the opportunity to testify today. My testimony is shaped by my
perspective as a university president, my public service at the
National Science Foundation, my experiences as a computer
scientist and an entrepreneur, and as an immigrant who came to
this country at the age of 16.
Throughout this Nation's history, a thriving research and
development ecosystem has served as a foundation for broad
economic prosperity, national security, and individual and
collective well-being. Today, we see this ecosystem at a
crossroads, shaped by three major trends. The first is the
unprecedented scope, scale, and pace of innovation. Major leaps
in data-enabled, technology driven research are impacting a
wide range of applications and industries, from drug discovery
and enhanced telemedicine, to new materials for clean energy,
breakthroughs in transportation and manufacturing, and the very
essence of scientific discovery itself.
The second is the rise of global competition, as you just
heard. The U.S. R&D engine has been the envy of the world for
the past half century, and our global competitors are now
replicating our model of an innovation-based economy. The need
to invest and out-innovate could not be more urgent.
And finally, this moment is defined by a widening
opportunity gap and a rising economic inequality. Digital
transformation and globalization have contributed to a profound
reshaping of our workforce, and persistent structural barriers
to access and opportunity are preventing the benefits of our
innovation-based economy from being widely shared.
At this critical moment, our national response should rest
on four thrusts as outlined in my submitted testimony.
Investing in research at the pace of discovery and innovation,
winning the global race for talent, committing to a robust
research and innovation infrastructure, and finally, expanding
the geography of U.S. innovation.
Let me highlight key recommendations in several of these
areas.
First, if we're to compete and win, the Nation must
urgently increase Federal investment in research to double the
current levels for the next several years. To some, the current
moment creates an imperative to choose between increased
support for curiosity-driven research versus strategic mission-
driven initiatives in emerging technologies. This is a false
choice. Scientific exploration occurs along a dynamic continuum
from foundational discovery to use-inspired research.
Breakthroughs from the internet to self-driving cars, to rapid
development of MRNA vaccines all stem from support for
innovation across this dynamic continuum.
Along with foundational research across all disciplines,
we must also invest in use-inspired research motivated by
national and societal priorities in healthcare, sustainability,
transportation, clean energy, public health, cybersecurity, and
much more.
To catalyze mission-driven approaches for these complex
challenges, the Nation needs targeted investments in the
emerging technologies that have become near ubiquitous in their
impact, including artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced
manufacturing, materials, biotechnology, quantum computing, and
next generation wireless.
Second, the Nation must win the global race for talent and
build a broad-based science and technology workforce that
leaves no one behind. We must ensure every child and young
adult has access to training and digital competency and
computational thinking, double the number of graduate students
and postdoctoral researchers in science and engineering, and
broaden public/private partnerships for human capital
development.
Finally, the United States needs now bolder strategies for
transitioning discoveries from lab to market. With an
intentional focus on expanding the geography of U.S.
innovation, our universities and national labs have
extraordinary capacity to generate discoveries and innovations
that catalyze economic growth and job creation. The Nation must
invest in entities adjacent to universities that are capable of
facilitating the seamless fusion and transfer of ideas,
technologies and skills. The possibilities for creative,
innovation-based economic development to support American
competitiveness are endless.
I'm grateful to this Committee for the important work that
you do, including advancing the NSF for the Future legislation.
The boldness of your actions is a poignant reminder of the
transformative power of science, technology, and innovation to
advance our economic prosperity and national security. The
education and research community is ready to seize the
opportunities that lie ahead.
Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Jahanian follows:]
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Ms. Stevens [presiding]. Great. Thank you so much to our
speakers, and as Vice Chair of the Committee, as our Chairwoman
proceeds to address her technological issues, I will take over
as chair.
We want to thank you all for wonderful testimony, and what
we'll do right now is move into the first five minutes of
questions. The chair will recognize herself for questions, and
then pass it over to the Ranking Member.
So, certainly the breadth of topics and needs that all of
you discussed are quite pertinent, and in particular, Secretary
Moniz, you had mentioned that the need to not just focus on
R&D, but to look at technology transfer applications. And you
as well, Dr. Arnold, also touched on that.
But I'd like to get a little more specific. As you
mentioned, Dr. Moniz, we can't get this--we don't want to
necessarily house all the technology transfer at the NSF, in
part because it's early stage, original research applications,
and you briefly mentioned DOE. But could you get a little bit
more specific about where we might see this mature is the DOD
an avenue or at the acceleration of SBIR (Small Business
Innovation Research) awards or other public/private
partnerships that we should be pursuing? And you can feel free
to chime in as well, Dr. Arnold.
Mr. Moniz. Yes, Congresswoman, I think these are very
important issues that you've highlighted.
Let me first kind of reiterate, my view at least is that
what we need is not to look in the same way that several of my
colleagues have emphasized that there is a kind of continuum
across the innovation spectrum. What we need to do is to match
that to what I believe is the structure of our very
successful--in need of some juicing up--but very successful R&D
enterprise across the multiple agencies, with NSF having a
very, very broad remit across the entire science spectrum, and
other agencies being mission agencies with narrower focus and
complimentary roles. It's maintaining the complementarity which
is critical.
But as I said, I could see easily NSF having a major lead
in leading use-inspired fundamental research. And as I said in
the DOE example, once you're into use-inspired fundamental
research, you will see spillovers into commercialization.
That's the stage at which then that initiatives like SBIR can
be extremely successful. I mean, I think we all know of so many
examples of SBIR that has helped small companies grow up to the
next stage going forward.
And in doing that, I would like to emphasize something
that Farnam said, and I said in my testimony as well. In terms
of regional innovation systems, we really need to get regional
pushes on innovation, and that includes--if you look in my
testimony, the written testimony, the heat map of innovation
institutions, we've got some blank spaces there, and we need to
take advantage of all of our talent in this country, and use
that also as a criterion for going from use-inspired research
all the way to commercialization.
Ms. Stevens. Thank you so much.
Dr. Arnold, did you want to chime in there at all? And
specifically honing in on a few things that you said that, you
know, I love what you were talking about--different topic, but
portable fellowships, which I think gets us there too a little
bit.
Dr. Arnold. Oh, well I'm all for portable fellowships
because who does the future belong to? It's those students, and
they're smarter than you might think about knowing what the
future will be.
But I also want to say that I have received SBIR grants
and STTR (Small Business Technology Transfer) grants that are
critical for taking things out of the basic research laboratory
and moving them at least to the next stage. And it's those
young people who often start the companies that benefit from
those SBIR grants, so that's a wonderful mechanism, and it's
also a very high-quality mechanism. Those are hard to get, and
they're very competitive, and I think could easily increase in
number and be very beneficial.
Ms. Stevens. Thank you. Great. Thank you all, and I've got
about 30 seconds left, so I'll just reclaim the time. Because
in part, even though I'm Vice Chair, right, it's still--I was
going to be three in the ranking, so I do want to be respectful
of my colleagues and recognize our Ranking Member, Mr. Lucas,
for five minutes of questions. Thank you so much, Mr. Lucas.
Mr. Lucas. Thank you, Vice Chair, and I address my
question to the entire panel.
The Securing American Leadership in Science and Technology
Act, SALSTA as I like to call it, which I introduced last month
directs the development of a national science and technology
strategy and a quadrennial review, like the process that DOD
undertakes for national security.
Can each of you comment on what you would like to see in a
process for a whole government strategy for S&T, and how that
might benefit American competitiveness? Whoever would care to
go first.
Mr. Augustine. Well, I'll be happy to start, if I may.
I think your question touches on a very important aspect
of the issue we're addressing. One of the problems today is we
really have no R&D strategy or R&D plan. We also fund our R&D
efforts on a yearly basis, and R&D just doesn't work on an
annual cycle.
Furthermore, I'm not aware of any successful corporation
in America that doesn't have a capital budget. The Federal
Government has no capital budget, not in R&D or anywhere else.
I think one of the very first steps will be to put together
planning that includes emphasis on the transition from the
laboratory to the field. We lose a lot of our edge in that
transition period.
I will be brief so that my colleagues can speak. I'll turn
it over to them.
Mr. Lucas. Absolutely. Doctor, Doctor?
Dr. Jahanian. I'll be happy to chime in next.
If you step back and look at our R&D ecosystem, which
candidly is the envy of the rest of the world, the investment
that we've made in this country over the last 75 years has not
only enhanced our global competitiveness, but very, very
bluntly, has enabled so much in this country in terms of the
prosperity of our Nation and national security.
But the entire R&D ecosystem not only has the government
investment, but it also has to be catalyzed by private sector.
You need to have public/private partnerships that spur,
essentially, productive entrepreneurship and enhance both
skilled development and innovative supply chain of ideas. You
also need to have strategic alignment of education, economic
and community development, as well as infrastructure
initiatives.
So, any kind of a decadal survey or assessment of this
would really have to look at the entire R&D enterprise of the
country. Clearly, the government has a huge, huge role to play
in this without any doubts. Our agencies across the country,
whether it's NSF, NASA, DOD, and so on, and Department of
Energy, they have a massive role in terms of shifting and
prioritizing our priorities in this country.
But I think we're going to have to bring the private
sector into the picture. We're going to have to look at very
creative public/private partnerships to be able to advance not
only scientific discovery and innovation, but also win the
global race for talent, and furthermore, transition effectively
what we discover in our labs to market, hopefully creating new
industries, products, and services, and beyond.
Mr. Lucas. Anyone else care to offer some input on that?
Mr. Moniz. May I add, Mr. Ranking Member?
Mr. Lucas. Absolutely.
Mr. Moniz. Let me tee off just from one of the elements
that you introduced, the quadrennial review of DOD. I will note
that when I was secretary, we initiated a quadrennial energy
review, which had the idea of looking at whole of government
and looking at an extended period of time, like a 5-year
horizon, which was very important. And I might say, that seemed
to strike a chord because we had--and you know, in what was a
difficult political environment, we had 21 recommendations from
that review passed into law by the Congress. So--because I
think that leads to a, you know, completely nonpartisan
approach to meeting these needs.
So, today, just as one example of this need for
integration and looking ahead, I mentioned a couple of times a
critical technology that is getting more and more attention in
the Congress, carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere and
the upper oceans. We did a portfolio analysis. DOE has a huge
role. NSF has a huge role. Agriculture has a huge role.
Interior has a huge role. NOAA (National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration) has a huge role. I think that's the
kind of perspective we need to bring to more of our critical
challenges in terms of bringing it together, putting it before
Congress, and going forward based upon sound analysis, and I
think garnering, I would hope, strong bipartisan support.
Mr. Lucas. My exact point.
Dr. Arnold, my time is expired, and I regret that.
Dr. Arnold. That's fine. I don't have anything to add
here.
Mr. Lucas. I yield back, Vice Chair.
Ms. Stevens. Great, and thank you so much.
With that, our Madam Chairwoman Johnson has returned, and
I will pass the running of the hearing back over to her.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much, Ms. Stevens, and
thank you for filing in during my wi-fi failure. Let me thank
all the witnesses as well.
Let me say that when I think about reimagining our
innovation future, one of the things that's in my focus is how
we need to be more inclusive in our approach to innovation. By
inclusion, I mean by gender, ethnicity, race, and disability,
and institutional and regional diversity, diversity in
expertise and in perspectives. I think about listening to those
in our communities who might have something to say about the
nature of our challenges and our research agenda, but who
aren't traditionally connected to our local research
institutions.
That's just not a moral perspective, but it's also an
economic and national security imperative. And I just wanted
[inaudible]----
Mr. Bera. Looks like we may have lost the Chairwoman.
Ms. Stevens. I was going to say, I think her wi-fi went
out again, and I know we've been having problems with that in
various office spaces and whatnot. So, we need--what we'll do
is we'll----
Mr. Bera. Do you want to recognize Ms. Bonamici, who's
next?
Ms. Stevens. Yeah, we'll just have to let Ms. Bonamici
take it over.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Vice Chair Stevens, and thank you
to Chairwoman Johnson and Ranking Member Lucas, and thank you
especially to our witnesses for joining us today.
This hearing is about our innovation future, so as a
Member of the Education Committee, I want to first note the
importance of well-rounded education and educating students to
be innovative, and to be able to, as Dr. Arnold noted, solve
problems in new ways. A student may become interested in math
by playing an instrument or learning chess strategy, by growing
a garden or glazing and firing pottery can spark a child's
interest in science. We need intellectually curious critical
thinkers to solve the challenges we face and it is at our peril
if we don't recognize that, which is why I'm leading a
bipartisan call for robust funding to Title 4A grants under the
Every Student Succeeds Act to support that well-rounded
education that will educate students to be creative and
innovative.
So, moving on, the United States has the ability and the
obligation to lead the world's efforts to curb greenhouse gas
emissions, and addressing the climate crisis is our next
moonshot innovation challenge. Our Nation does have some of the
world's best scientists, researchers, programmers, and
engineers in the world. We can and should take bold action that
is informed by their sound peer-reviewed science.
I have two questions for Secretary Moniz, so I'm going to
state the two questions and then turn the time over to you to
answer them.
Secretary Moniz, you in your testimony noted your work at
the Department of Energy to develop mission innovation to
accelerate clean energy research development and demonstration.
We are anticipating that the Biden Administration will soon
announce our next Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC)
under the Paris Agreement, so how would you recommit or how
would recommitting mission innovation contribute to a whole of
government approach under an ambitious NDC accelerate our
transition to 100 percent clean energy economy? So, that's my
first question.
Then the second question, Secretary Moniz, following up on
your comment about regional approaches. I appreciate that you
highlighted that. In northwest Oregon, for example, we
recognize the tremendous potential of marine energy, but the
same researchers--resources are not accessible in landlocked
States. So, regions differ in energy resources, markets, and
innovation ecosystems. So, as part of mission innovation, as
you mentioned, you proposed funding during the Obama
Administration to support those regional clean energy
innovation partnerships. Last year, I introduced the Regional
Clean Energy Innovation Act, which is modeled on this idea.
So, how can the Federal Government better harness and
align local, State, tribal, regional, and national solutions to
advance the deployment and commercialization of clean energy
technologies and help innovative concepts avoid that
commercialization valley of death? And I'll turn it over to
you, Secretary Moniz, for your response.
Mr. Moniz. Well, thank you, Congresswoman. Very good
questions.
Let me say on the first question on mission innovation, I
do expect, as you implied, that the administration will put
forward a very ambitious NDC probably next week, and it will
have an extraordinary challenge for the electricity sector by
2030, and then, of course, economy-wide reductions. If I had to
guess, it would be north of 50 percent reductions economy-wide
in line with the EU, for example.
Now, as I said, to reach that, we need what I called
supercharged innovation for this next decade that will include
international collaboration, and I think now that we have
rejoined the Paris Agreement--and I will give a shoutout to the
Deputy Secretary, Dave Turk, who when I was Secretary already
was playing a role in stewarding mission innovation, and he
continued to do that at the IEA (International Energy Agency).
So, I think Dave could play an important role in our getting
back into mission innovation. But importantly, expanding its
scope.
I mentioned two areas. Carbon dioxide removal is
absolutely essential if we are going to meet net zero, and
almost by definition, if we're going to get eventually to a
negative economy, we need negative carbon technologies. That's
a perfect area for international cooperation.
Another more challenging organizationally, but I believe
the advanced nuclear technologies--and by the way, that
includes one from Oregon----
Ms. Bonamici. Right.
Mr. Moniz. Yeah. Seriously need a public/private
partnership because enormous amounts of private capital have
gone in, but they have to get over the hump in terms of
demonstration.
On the second issue I'll be very brief, but you said it.
The low carbon solutions will look entirely different in
different parts of the country, No. 1, and therefore, we should
have some regionally driven innovation that will look at the
solutions most appropriate to that part of the country,
engaging their own innovation institutions to advance that.
Secondly, I believe the regional innovation centers, as I
said, will be very important for the inclusive nature that we
need of our system, and although it's the opposite end in a
certain sense of the commercialization, I would say that
starting in the 1970's--while I have to say it wasn't very
popular at some of our leading research institutions, I was and
I remain a major fan of F-score as a way of reaching areas and
young students' talent that we need to bring into the system. I
believe that can be a very effective mechanism as well.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, and as I yield
back, I want to say if I had more time, I would ask Dr. Arnold
about the importance of childcare, which I know you mentioned
in your testimony.
But I will yield back and submit a question for the
record. Thank you.
Ms. Stevens. That's a great one, Rep Bonamici, and thank
you for that.
I see we've got Chairwoman Johnson in the Committee Room.
All right. Chair Johnson? I know we had Mr. Posey next in line
here, which we can pass it over to Mr. Posey and then jump back
to Chair Johnson so she can finish her questions. But however
you'd like to proceed, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much. Who is the next
witness? I have changed locations.
Ms. Stevens. We had Mr. Posey up next for questions.
Chairwoman Johnson. Mr. Posey is recognized.
Mr. Posey. Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I must
say, I appreciate your passion toward the subject of
innovation.
And I hope we all recognize that China's economic and
military goals are one and the same. Through economic
dominance, they hope to achieve military superiority. So, this
has been mentioned by two of the speakers already, intertwines
with our national security.
Mr. Augustine, in your testimony you state that America is
on a path to lose its lead in science and technology to China.
What are your recommendations as to make America competitive
well into the future, and to fix our Nation's Pre-K through 12
public school system, particularly in STEM? Would you be
willing to give us more specific recommendations?
Mr. Augustine. Thank you, Congressman. I'd be happy to do
that. Perhaps the--there are two missing links--I know there
are many, but two major ones that are science and technology
competitiveness. One is a lack of investment and the second
is--seems--the ability to produce scientists and technologists
from domestically born children at scale. And certainly, there
are some outstanding young people with some outstanding
schools, but on average, by international standards we're
failing.
Part of the issue is having teachers who aren't qualified
in science and technology. Too often middle school children
have teachers who are the football coach and they've been given
a book on algebra and said go teach algebra. We have too many
teachers not qualified to teach the subject they're teaching in
the STEM area. And that certainly has to be fixed.
The problem, for once, is not money. We spend more money
per student in pre-K through 12 than any other Nation but one,
Switzerland. And our problem, I think, is to bring the free
enterprise system, parts of it, to our public education system,
which means that one has rewards for outstanding performance
and accountability for poor performance. Somehow, that has been
very hard to do because we have--I think it is 14,000 public--I
should say independent public school districts.
I'm optimistic that we can solve the financial part of
this issue. The K through 12, and you said pre-K through 12,
which is really important because too many of our young
children start first grade 2 or 3 years behind, and pre-K is
just essential if we're to solve this problem.
So, thank you for that question, Congressman.
Mr. Posey. Thank you for your answer.
You also mentioned in your testimony and you mentioned it
orally, a balance between technological breakthroughs of
warfare history, they're the stirrup, the longbow, gunpowder,
the cannon, machine guns, tanks, battleships, aircraft, nuclear
weapons, rockets, and night vision, stealth, space, robotics,
autonomy, and cyber. And I'm just wondering what you see as the
next technological breakthrough, and do you see the United
States taking the lead with it?
Mr. Augustine. One of the wonderful things about
technological breakthrough is that most of us can't foresee
them, and I'm afraid I'm in that category. But to try to answer
your question, there are some areas that certainly stand out as
being at the leading edge of science today, and I defer to some
of my colleagues on the panel. But artificial intelligence
stands near to the top--as does quantum science with its
several applications. We often talk about quantum computing,
but there are many more applications. Robotics, autonomy,
autonomous vehicles are being seen already, and certainly
biomedical sciences--that's where I think the really big
breakthroughs are going to come in the decades ahead.
One of the great things about some of the proposals that
have been made for legislation would be to have the NSF put
together a group of people who are really qualified to answer
that very tough question, and see if they can come to a
consensus, and then readdress it periodically.
One of the important things in my last 19 seconds of your
time, I would just point out is that, as my colleagues have
said, being first in research is of the utmost importance.
That's where the ideas come from. My background is mostly in
business, but research is where the foundation is. But ideas
left in the research lab are of little value in terms of
winning wars or succeeding in the market.
I see my timer is at zero, so thank you, Congressman, for
your question.
Mr. Posey. Thank you, Mr. Augustine. I yield back, Madam
Chair.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
Our next witness--Mr. Bera.
Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Look, this is a great conversation. One thing that I'd add
to Mr. Augustine, when I think about my public school
education, I also had wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, which I
do think we've really disadvantaged a generation of kids by not
having that exposure to the arts and--you know, where you have
to use your imagination.
Now, I went on to medical school, and when I was training
at UC (University of California) Irvine, most of the Ph.D.'s
that we were training with were going on an academic track.
They'd go into academia, and then join faculty and go on a
tenure track. Fast forward to my professional life prior to
coming to Congress as an associate dean and faculty member at
the University of California, Davis Medical School, most of the
Ph.D.'s that we were training there were now actually getting
their training and they were going to go into the private
sector or startups--not all of them, but many of them, you
know, were going in that space.
And you know, I think the right mix--and again, Mr.
Augustine, you touched on this a little bit--is how do we get
that blend of academia, and you know, private sector
innovation? When I think about academics, we are doing research
and discovery just for the joy of solving these problems, not
necessarily thinking about how we are going to commoditize it
and bring it to the masses. Private sector is thinking about
how you commoditize it and get it to folks.
So, maybe I'll start with Dr. Arnold and then to the rest
of the panel. You know, one of the areas that I have thought a
lot about is this area of technology transfer, and private
institutions can do technology transfer a little bit easier
than public taxpayer-funded institutions. Yet, I'd be curious--
and again, maybe starting with Dr. Arnold, what things should
we be thinking about doing to make that tech transfer, you
know, a little bit tighter and easier?
Dr. Arnold. Right. Well, first of all, let me just say I'm
the mother of a young man who got his education and tech
through the U.S. Army, so that's a wonderful training place for
hands-on technology, and he built the Mars rover at JPL (Jet
Propulsion Laboratory) after leaving the Army. So, there are
wonderful careers in hands-on technology that young people
should know about and should be ready for, and we shouldn't
have to rely just on the military to train these people.
Now, to answer your question, I am--what should we do to
promote tech transfer in places is make it easier. Technology
is not useful until someone uses it. Academics are very fond of
saying this is useful for something, but they have no clue what
it takes to get it into the hands of real users.
On the other hand, the young people who actually do the
development of the technology, who invent it, want to do that,
and so, to the extent that we can support the transition of
some of these young graduate students into the entrepreneurial
space, we should do that, as often happens in California.
California has a thriving ecosystem for that. To the extent
that we can do that in other parts of the country, all the
better. I think you'll see that the students have the passion
and work ethic needed to make that happen in the right
environment.
Mr. Bera. Dr. Jahanian?
Dr. Jahanian. Yes.
With respect to your comment about education, I just want
to add one point and then I'll talk about technology transfer.
I think we're at a point in this country that we need to
be reimagining not only K through 12, but also higher
education, because we're going to have to break down
disciplinary siloes. I think some of the most important
advances that we're making, both on the discovery side as well
as on innovation and its impact on society, are inherently
becoming interdisciplinary, bringing people from different
perspectives. So, one of the important things to recognize is
that it is the convergence of disciplines that's really
catalyzing now some of the innovation that we're seeing.
Very briefly with respect to your very profound question
in regard to technology transfer, what I can tell you in my
experience over the past 25 years in academia is that U.S.
academic institutions have come a long way. We do have one
challenge, which is something that I mentioned, and also
Secretary Moniz mentioned, which is that we need to expand the
geography of innovation in the U.S., and the best place to do
it is to look at where the concentration of research is
happening. In fact, in the U.S. today, we have about 200
institutions that are receiving more than $50-plus million in
R&D, and that could be an innovation center that could catalyze
innovation, working with the private sector, working with the
economic development in the regions, and so on.
So, one really important concept to recognize is that
going from lab to market doesn't happen on its own. We need to
create the conditions. We need to create the environments to
facilitate transfer of knowledge from lab to practice, from lab
to market, creating new industries and products.
With respect to the universities, at Carnegie Mellon, for
example, we have created a culture of innovation such that our
faculty, students, and researchers don't just think about
foundational versus use-inspired research. They think about the
entire continuum. But most importantly, we have direct
engagement with the private sector, and the private sector is
often involved in research with us, especially in the area of
use-inspired research, creating much more flexible policies for
faculty members to be able to transfer their knowledge to
practice, to be able to leave the university and come back.
Again, at our institution and I know many other institutions in
the country, we've made that possible.
The final point related to the students is that our
students in this next generation are hungry for the kind of
use-inspired work that you described.
So, I think our challenge at universities has been--and I
think we've come a long way, is to create an entrepreneurial
culture in the university, such that those who want to engage
in it, whether they're undergraduates, masters, or Ph.D.'s, can
do so. I am very optimistic about how far this country has come
in terms of being able to facilitate this. We have some work to
do, but there are some terrific examples of successes in this
country in terms of the innovation ecosystems that we've
created at universities that involve the community, leading to
economic development and job creation that could be replicated
across the country, hence expanding the map of innovation.
Thank you for that question.
Mr. Moniz. Madam Chair, may I add a brief comment?
Chairwoman Johnson. Yes.
Mr. Moniz. Just to say that I agree with all of that, but
I don't want to lose sight of the fact that as has been said,
the most important vehicle for tech transfer from the
university is the moving van which takes our graduates to their
next job.
Chairwoman Johnson. OK. Mr. Clerk?
The Clerk. Mr. Babin is next.
Mr. Babin. Yes, thank you so very much, Madam Chair, and
Ranking Member Lucas. What fascinating testimony here. I want
to thank our witnesses for being here today. One of the
greatest assets we have here in this country, as we've just
heard so eloquently, is our vibrant venture capital market, the
private sector. When we fully utilize the R&D capabilities of
industry, we have the ability to dominate global innovation in
science and technology. The partnership we have with the
private sector is a unique advantage that we have, and one that
sets us apart from other countries, who heavily subsidize R&D
investment that is almost solely reliant on government funding.
And now, thank you, Dr. Jahanian, for what you said, but I
would like to ask the same--this question here of Dr. Arnold
and Mr. Augustine. How do we make certain that we fully utilize
this unique edge and partnership that we have with industry,
and how can the government improve collaborative efforts with
the private sector? I heard Dr. Jahanian, and I'd like to hear
both of your opinions. Thank you.
Dr. Arnold. Thank you for the question, Representative
Babin. I've worked extensively with industry over the years.
The problem, of course, is that industry has outsourced much of
their fundamental research, and they have very short timelines
for solving problem, and I'm talking about the big companies.
And that's usually not the best partnership with, let's say,
you know, elite laboratories that are trying to do the cutting
edge research that will change the world in 10 years, or 20
years. So there's a mismatch of time scales for industrially
sponsored research. However, to the extent that companies are
investing in the next generation of technology in their spaces,
that seems to work very well, when the timelines are loosened a
bit.
Mr. Babin. OK, thank you. And Mr. Augustine? I think
you're unmuted, Mr. Augustine. Go ahead.
Mr. Augustine. Can you hear me now?
Mr. Babin. Yes.
Mr. Augustine. OK, good. Such an important question. My
background is in industry, government, and academia. I've had
three careers, and our system of producing new ideas and
putting them in the market is really a three-legged stool. It
depends upon these three elements. It--the government is going
to have to be the funder of default of basic research. Industry
just isn't going to do that under today's rules, with today's
taxes and so on. So the government is going to have to fund
basic research. That research will best be performed at our
universities and National Labs. It used to be performed in
industry, but industry can no longer afford long term
investments of that type, high risk.
When I first entered industry, the average shareholder
held their stock for 8 years. Today they hold it 4 months, and
they don't care what happens to the company 8 years from now.
So industry will invest heavily in development, but not in R.
So that's so important that the government fund R. Academia and
the National Labs perform R, and then transition it to
industry. And to pick up on Ernie's point, I've always felt the
best way to transfer ideas between those three elements is to
transfer people, and so the more easily that we could make it
for people to move among those three elements, one to the
other, I think we'll find transitioning much easier. Thank you
for a great question.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir, and I think I've got time for one
more. The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) and
intelligence agencies have warned Congress about the threat of
foreign espionage of U.S. science and technology, particularly
on university campuses. So China's investment in development,
and not on basic research, implies that they are building their
technological success on the basic research developed in the
United States, and around the world. We've seen infiltration of
Chinese influence in our university systems in several
different occasions at our top institutions. So how do we
ensure that foreign nationals from China coming to study at our
universities do not undermine our open system of research? And
what is the right balance for protecting U.S. basic research
while continuing to promote an open science system that has
made our scientific enterprise the best in the world? Dr.
Arnold, I'd like to have you start with that.
Dr. Arnold. Well, Representative, I work in a field where
the openness is a great benefit. It causes all boats to rise.
And it's not related to national security. So I see the huge
benefits of having fully open science, and I don't worry about
infiltration from China because, frankly, the talent of the
students who come make that research go forward. On the other
hand, I recognize that there are areas of research where
perhaps the openness should not be as open, and I'll leave the
answer to those who know that better.
Mr. Babin. OK. Anybody else like to take a stab at it?
Mr. Moniz. Go ahead, Farnam.
Dr. Jahanian. I was just going to say that, as you said,
that we need to preserve and enhance the research, education,
and innovation ecosystem that has fueled our Nation's
prosperity since World War II. This is a model that we know has
worked, and it is not a surprise that others are trying to copy
it. Having said that, your question is very profound, and it's
really important. There are areas of research in which openness
is so important to the long term success of our own science and
discovery enterprise, but we also recognize that foreign
influence in the form of intellectual property theft, cyber
attack espionage, other broad-scale state-sponsored efforts are
a direct threat to our Nation's security and economic
prosperity. And it would be a mistake to think that this is
only happening at universities. This is happening across the
board, and we have to be ready for it.
I can give you my assurance that academic institutions in
this country, including Carnegie Mellon, my home institution,
are taking significant steps to protect against these
challenges when it's appropriate. Again, openness, as Professor
Arnold mentioned, is so important to the research enterprise of
this country that has served our national security and economic
prosperity so well. As examples of things that we're doing,
we're being very diligent in protecting against some of these
challenges, in working with other institutions; working with,
obviously, policymakers; building awareness; increasing
coordination; training faculty and staff; reviewing
collaborations, contracts, and foreign gifts; reviewing,
updating, and enforcing conflict of interest policies;
implementing foreign travel safeguards and protections;
developing requirements and vetting them; and so on.
We need to double down on what we do best: leading the
world in innovation, creativity, and finding solutions to
society's most pressing challenges. In fact, many international
students that come here want to stay, and they contribute so
significantly to the culture of our academic institutions and
our entire Nation. Our research enterprise has been so
successful because we are solving some of the most pressing
challenges for society.
So instead of hoping that others will lose, I think we
need to double down in the belief that when we win, when
America wins, the world wins. We need to continue to ensure
that our Nation remains a welcoming place for those who want to
maintain our competitiveness, be part of our society, and
contribute to it. And also, that's part of the reason that I
believe we should not retreat from global engagement. We
shouldn't change how we do research. We must not cripple the
engine that has delivered amazing benefits to the country,
while recognizing that we do have challenges--in the private
sector, and academic institutions, and the government.
And the very final point I want to make is that the
biggest threat to our economic prosperity and national security
at this point in time is cybersecurity, without any doubt, the
cyber threat to this country. We need to absolutely double down
to deal with cyber issues. Thank you.
Mr. Moniz. My----
Mr. Babin [continuing]. Time.
Mr. Moniz. My simple point was that we can't kill the
golden goose, so we need to support the open system, but what
we also need to do is to get the clock speed up from that basic
research to the ultimate products so that it is, in fact, a
material advantage to us to have that open fundamental research
system.
Mr. Babin. Thank you very much, and I'll yield back, Madam
Chair.
The Clerk. Mr. Bowman is next.
Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you
to all of our witnesses providing testimony today. I would want
us to maybe shift our paradigm a bit. It's good to think
globally, but I also want us to think about the untapped and
unlimited potential we have here in our country. I would
propose that our golden goose is in our historically
marginalized communities, our red lined communities, where we
have historically underinvested in our schools and in our
neighborhoods, particularly in our pre-K to 12 school system.
And I'm so happy that so much of this conversation has
focused on our pre-K to 12 school system because, you know,
I've had the privilege of working in pre-K to 12 schools for 20
years, in all Title I school districts, and I've worked in
elementary, high school, and middle schools. I've been a middle
school principal for over 10 years, and I could tell you that
our kids are ready, willing, and able for more science and
technology in the classroom, they're ready, willing, and able
for more innovation. They are curious, they are collaborative,
they are creative problem-solvers, and they are waiting for us,
as the adults, to get our act together and bring them more
curricula and instructional opportunities. So I think a focus
on K to 12 with regard to science, with regard to arts--we
spoke earlier about hands-on learning. Our kids are ready for
all of this, and they're tired of the mundane, rudimentary
education that we've been giving them for the last 20 years, so
it's great to hear you all speak about the importance of K to
12 education.
Dr. Arnold, thank you so much for your testimony, and
thank you for highlighting the difficulties that marginalized
children face in pursuing STEM careers. For example, if they
fall behind in math and science in middle school, as you
mentioned. I recently proposed a green stimulus investment of
$1.16 trillion over 10 years to make each of our public schools
a healthy, zero carbon center of the community, and a big part
of that vision is seeing our schools as living labs and putting
our young people at the forefront of the sustainable energy
transition. Given your work in biology, engineering, and green
energy, I'm wondering if you could talk more about how solving
the climate crisis is an opportunity to engage children on a
deeper level here, to ignite their passion for learning across
a variety of STEM fields, and to set them up for a variety of
careers?
Dr. Arnold. Representative Bowman, you've seen it with
your own eyes, the children are passionate about making the
world a better place, and they've always been, right? Remember
how we were. Unfortunately, my generation is leaving them a
world that doesn't look like a better place. We may be leaving
behind a world that is worse in some ways than the one I
entered, and I feel ashamed about that. I would like to see
those children empowered--again, the word is empowerment--
empowered to make decisions about the future, about their
education, about their careers that will enable them to make a
difference.
Science and technology is an incredibly powerful way to do
that, and that's what I tell the young people. They need to
know that, through science and technology, they can make an
impact on these major problems, and what better challenge than
climate change? Because that touches everything.
Mr. Bowman. So just a follow-up question, if I'm a teacher
in a second grade classroom, and I want to introduce my
students to the world of science to put them on a pathway
toward solving the problems that we all know are pressing, not
just climate change, but other problems as well, what is the
best way I might do that, Dr. Arnold? And then others can chime
in.
Dr. Arnold. Well, I'm not sure I'm the best second grade
teacher, but I have raised three sons who are all curious. I
found that just taking them out and showing them the world. and
not being afraid of it, teaches resilience, curiosity and
willingness to test the unknown. We've--we tend to often imbue
our children with fear rather than confidence, and fear of the
future is not an effective way to instill creativity. So
confidence, getting out into the world, making things happen,
seeing things happen, getting out into nature, observing.
Observing with your own eyes, building with your own hands,
it's a very hands on thing, science is, so anything that can do
that, get them out of the Zoom room, and out of the classroom,
and into the real world helps.
Mr. Bowman. Thank you so much. Secretary Moniz, did you
want to jump in with a quick response?
Mr. Moniz. Well, I would just add that, again, I was not a
second grade teacher, but my grandchildren are--have just gone
through that phase, and I think the big thing is science is
fun. Science is remarkable, and I think it goes back to what
Norm said earlier, that's the teacher cadre that we need, that
has the confidence, the interest, the excitement, to say, wow,
you know, if we get these kids to see what science is about,
remarkable stories, I think we'll get a new generation.
Could I also add that I think it's very important, of
course, the role of parents and mentors, et cetera, and on the
climate side we are going through a big change in which people
of our generation see with their own eyes that climate change
is not only an issue for their children and grandchildren, it's
for them too, because we are paying a lot. I mean, look, the
recent Texas stuff would be an example of terrible results. And
so maybe that will help the mentors also understand that this
is important for the kids, to have that STEM education.
Mr. Bowman. Awesome. Thank you so much. I yield back.
The Clerk. Mr. Baird is next.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Madam Chair, and Ranking Member
Lucas, for having this important kind of a session. I've really
enjoyed hearing from Mr. Augustine in the past, and again
today, and I really appreciate all of the witnesses and their
testimony. I think we've touched upon some very important
things to help keep our country in a leadership role,
particularly in STEM education, because it's so important to
our future. It's becoming increasingly important, and a matter
of national security. So with an institution like Purdue
University in my district, and I might mention that they just
recently was ranked fifth as the most innovative university in
America by U.S. News and World Report, but I only mention that
because they have the research part that's adjacent to the
University. It really provides innovators the opportunity to
take the information they get out of the lab and have a space
to work, and be innovative, and develop their own company. So
it really takes the lab research, and the results there, and
puts it into practical application. And so I think that's
really important to our growth and development in this country.
I also really appreciate what Dr. Bera had to say, and
also Representative Bowman had to say, regarding stimulating
young kids, and utilizing their curiosity that was mentioned in
order to do the pipeline and build a pipeline with young people
that want to be in the STEM education. If you tell them that
you want to make them STEM researchers and so on at a very
young age, I'm not sure how excited they'd get about that. But
what I have experienced in some of these facilities that I've
seen, getting the hands-on, the opportunity to challenge
themselves, and something exciting really does stimulate them,
so I guess, Mr. Augustine, I'm going to start with you. By the
way, I really appreciated having access to the ``Perils of
Complacency,'' but would you care to elaborate on--are there
other ways that we could stimulate these young kids? I'm
thinking about Boy Scouts, the FFA, 4H, where they get that
hands-on experience, that's already in place. What's your
observations or experiences there, Mr. Augustine?
Mr. Augustine. Well, thank you for that question. As a
former President of the Boy Scouts, I appreciate the comment.
They had merit badges in science, and aviation, and space, and
you name it. There are many organizations outside of schools as
you suggest that are doing wonderful work, and if it could be
made available on a broader scale--I think of such things as
the Challenger Center, I think of such things as FIRST
Robotics, started by Dean Kaman. FIRST Robotics has a program
that goes all the way from preschool through high school, and
it starts out with a LEGO competition, building robots. And
when you see these kids working on these things, they're so
excited. It's unbelievable how they get into it. I think
emphasis on these out of school things could be very, very
important.
I think there's another factor that gets into the
preschool part of it. We're operating our science and
technology enterprise with one hand tied behind our backs. And
I say that because 58 percent of our college graduates are
women, but only 19 percent of our Ph.D.'s in S&T are women. 40
percent of the students in our pre-K through 12 public school
system come from under-represented minorities. They produce 7
percent of the Ph.D.'s in science and technology. If we could
just get more of these young kids interested, keep them
interested and excited, we could solve much of the problem we
have with China. I think back to my own career. Who would have
ever thought that a kid from Colorado would help put people on
the Moon? This is exciting stuff. Thank you for your question.
Mr. Baird. Absolutely, and you know, you talk about women
in the STEM programs, Representative Stevens, and I see she's
on here, we sponsored a bill way back in the last Congress that
encouraged young women to get involved in the STEM program. I
am sorry that I don't--I've got several other questions, but
I'm out of time, and so I really appreciate the other witnesses
and their testimony. I found a lot of interesting comments that
you made, and I appreciate it. I yield back.
The Clerk. Mr. McNerney is next.
Mr. McNerney. Well, first of all, I want to think the
witnesses. Great testimony, and it's great to see you all in
front of us today.
Dr. Moniz, we have to focus on mitigation and adaptation
for climate change, but is it now the time for serious
investments in climate intervention, i.e. geoengineering
research, so that we have that as an option in the future? You
will need to----
Mr. Moniz. Sorry, I was muted, I was muted. Yes, a very
important question. First of all, let me make the--first of all
a distinction. There's sometimes confusion, I don't mean in
this Committee, but--between carbon dioxide removal and
geoengineering. I think on the carbon dioxide removal we need a
big push in this decade toward demonstration and deployment so
that we can address legacy CO2 in the atmosphere and
the oceans. Geoengineering gets into much more difficult
issues. I personally support highly regulated R&D getting into
perhaps localized demonstrations, but maybe we need a structure
like NIH review boards, for example, to do that. I--to be
perfectly blunt, I sure as hell hope we don't need it, but I
think we have to do cautious and prudent investigations in case
we need band-aids for a while as we address the core issues of
mitigation.
Mr. McNerney. Well, moving on to fusion, what do you think
the state of affairs is with regard to fusion as a potential
energy source, including low energy nuclear reactions?
Mr. Moniz. OK, well, let me first declare that I'm on the
board of one of the privately funded fusion companies in
Southern California, in fact. The fusion--first of all, a lot
of people are surprised that fusion has probably attracted--
alternative fusion concepts has probably attracted $1-1/2
billion of private capital. It's an unknown story, and that's
happened because the progress is quite stunning. The company
that I'm associated with, TAE, for example, put out a press
release last week kind of admitting that we have reached stable
temperatures approaching the 100 million degrees needed for DT
fusion. At MIT there's a spinout that within months will be
testing novel high temperature superconducting magnets that can
make a compact tokamak design feasible.
So we are--what I would say is in this decade we'll know
if this dog hunts. And if it does, it is a big, big deal,
because, of course, it doesn't have the challenges of fission,
which is also doing remarkable things, remarkable innovation in
advanced small fission reactors. But fusion would be an even
greater breakthrough, and just change the--it would literally
change the world.
Mr. McNerney. Thanks. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about
fusion too.
Mr. Moniz. Yeah.
Mr. McNerney. Dr. Jahanian, as co-Chair of the Artificial
Intelligence Caucus, I want to make sure that we in Congress
are taking the necessary steps to make sure our Nation stays
competitive in AI. What metrics should we be examining in order
to evaluate U.S. competitiveness in AI against significant
players like China?
Dr. Jahanian. Thank you very much for that question. As
you know, advances in AI are probably among the most important
developments in scientific discovery and innovation over the
past probably quarter century, among a handful of others.
Before I get to your question, I do want to highlight an
important thing about AI, which is connected to basic research
and importance of investing in foundational research.
You know, we all look at AI and think that it just came to
fruition overnight over the past few years. The truth is our
Nation is leading it because for the past 40 to 50 years we
have invested in foundational research that has led to
artificial intelligence. And, in fact, some of the advances in
machine learning, deep learning, and so on, have happened as a
result of these major investments that the National Science
Foundation, and then other mission-oriented agencies, including
DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), DOE, and NIH
have made in advancing AI. The importance of that is really
something that I want to get across, because that 30 or 40
years plus investment in research is now bearing fruit, and
it's having impacts in various areas, as you know, from
healthcare to manufacturing, in national intelligence, national
defense, and so on.
With respect to metrics, I think there are a number of
them. One is we really do need to make sure that our production
of talent in this country matches the pace and scale and scope
of innovation that's needed. The second thing that's important
is to look at the application of AI in various areas, as I
mentioned, whether it's in healthcare, whether it's in
manufacturing, whether it's in smart transportation, whether
it's in energy and climate, and so on, and develop metrics
around that to see the progress that we're making.
The last point that I want to make is that we need to be
very cognizant of what's happening in the rest of the world,
and continue to out-innovate and outpace our competitors.
Because of the importance of AI, we see massive investments, as
others have alluded to, by our partners and competitors across
the world, including China, so we can't take our eyes off the
ball.
Mr. McNerney. Thank you. Well, my time has expired. I'm
embarrassed that I didn't get to ask a Nobel Prize winner a
question in the Science Committee, but I'll submit something
for the record. Thank you. I yield back.
The Clerk. Mr. Sessions is next.
Mr. Sessions. Chairwoman Johnson, thank you very much, and
our Ranking Member Lucas, thank you for doing this. To each of
our three important people who are providing testimony today, I
want to focus, if I can, on two issues. No. 1, I would like it
to be said that if it's just a snapshot today, one would assume
that we've been laggards and not paying attention to this issue
for the past 15 years, when in fact we have, and we've done a
number of things, including, as an example, the NIH, taking
them on a 5-year model where we did not make them come up and
beg under discretionary spending. We put them on mandatory. We
gave them the money and said, ``Please come to us to keep us
updated. Don't come to us to beg to get money'', and we did
that. Second, we did right to try. We've done a number of
things that have been very influential. We funded genome
project years ago that would lead us to where Francis Collins
is not today, but where he has been, that helped us at the time
of the pandemic.
So I would like for it to be noted in the record that for
quite some period of time, between the Energy and Commerce, the
Science Committee, and the Rules Committee that we pushed an
aggressive agenda, including the Budget Committee, where we
doubled--this is not a new term--doubled back in 1997 the NIH
and other funding. Now, that said, thank you very much, we
appreciate you being here.
Dr. Moniz, this may be directed directly at you and
Professor Augustine--Mr. Chairman Augustine. Please know that
I've heard the discussion now about TAE, the company which Mr.
Moniz, that you are affiliated with, and thank you very much,
that is directly related to fusion. But another example I'd
like to bring up is a company called Urenco, and Urenco is the
world's leader from back in World War II of uranium enriched
services. Urenco is, by and large, until they get pushed out of
European countries that don't like atomic energy or fusion--
they exist in New Mexico, and they are the world's leader, by
far, in these uranium enriched services. Close to fusion, not
the same thing, but they have to begin with the same product.
My point to you, and question now, with 2 minutes left,
and I apologize, although we just went through, with Mr.
McNerney, a little bit extra time, I'd like for you to discuss
why in the world would we pay our labs or people here to
compete against someone like TAE and Urenco when they've
already solved the problem, and they, because they're in a free
enterprise system, are driven to making things better every
day, why would we pay $50 million to Oak Ridge Labs to try and
learn how to do what we already know? Mr. Moniz?
Mr. Moniz. Thank you, Mr. Sessions. First of all, on the
fusion side, I should say that if I just use the company that
I'm affiliated with as an example, it's a partnership with the
labs, actually, has also been very important because the
Department of Energy has provided large-scale computational
services. And that, together with a partnership with Google on
machine learning, all these things come together for the
progress, so it's really an ecosystem there.
On the enrichment side, Urenco, as you said, is certainly
the leader in the West for sure. If I may note, however, we
have a, in my view, pressing need in the United States to
deploy an American enrichment technology because that's the
only way we can serve our national security needs, and those
national security needs range from making tritium for the
nuclear weapons stockpile, eventually to making fuel for
nuclear propulsion, and, in the near term, producing what's
called high assay LEU (low-enriched uranium), 20 percent,
roughly speaking, enrichment in order to satisfy some non-
proliferation objectives, and to support the innovation going
on in fission because most of the new designs that are being--
and many are supported by the Department of Energy--almost all
of them require this so-called high assay LEU. So we need to
focus on getting an American technology out there to meet our
national security needs quite separate from competing in the
commercial market.
Mr. Sessions. Well, OK, so--but we go to SpaceX to get the
commercial market for what we need for NASA and other things.
Mr. Moniz. Yeah, well, the--I mean, the--this national
security service could be provided by a commercial entity, as
long as they are using American technology, and American
equipment, and American uranium because all of that is required
by our non-proliferation agreements.
Mr. Sessions. Well, they're in New Mexico, and doing quite
well. They're a----
Mr. Moniz. Yeah.
Mr. Sessions [continuing]. Big power organization. Look,
I'm just trying to get the concept, not the specifics, but
sometimes in the concept you have to use an example, and that's
why I tried using an example, TAE. You gave a great answer. I
will just go to the premise, Mr. Augustine, and Ms. Arnold. I'm
not trying to ignore you at all, because I think you bring a
lot of common sense as much as anything. Norm, you bring a lot
of realistic ideas about specifics. Should we be funding,
through the Federal Government, things where there already is a
world leader in trying to understand it, as opposed to spinning
off our limited--or lots of resources, but the limited
resources of trying to compete, as opposed to go build
something. I'm worried about the competitive model, about
government against something that's already been solved. Norm?
Mr. Augustine. Well, thank you for the questions. If I
could go back to the first part of your comments, they were so
important, your Committee has played a key role in trying to
keep America ahead in science and technology, and I think
what's happened over the years, the past dozen years or so you
mentioned, is in one word China. China has come along so fast
that that it has become a concern. Secondly, I think that
regarding your second part of your comments, fusion is the
ultimate answer to the energy problem for the world. And it's
come very slowly, tough technical issues, but there are
projects in being--progress being made.
Turning to the issue of fission, which we tend to neglect,
small modular reactors offer a great deal of promise, another
new development. We have to pick and choose--there's no such
thing as second place, if it's an area that's of critical
importance to us. I would say microelectronics.
Microelectronics are the heart of all modern technology, if you
really get down to the fundamentals. But we build now only 14
percent of the microelectronics in the world. Now, that might
be an area where we would want to build up our own capability
even though others have ample capacity. But there's no sense
reproducing things that our allies, reliable allies, are
producing. Thank you.
Mr. Sessions. Ms. Arnold?
Dr. Arnold. Thank you. I think that the general idea that
you're putting forward is that we shouldn't reproduce what
already is happening in private industry as long as it's
happening well, and there are many examples where private
industry is fully capable of developing the technology, and, in
fact, better capable than a research laboratory would be doing,
so I'm all in favor of that. But you also have to supply people
to support those industries, so the education of those people
is critical. No technology exists as a silo.
Mr. Sessions. Well, and that's the last point--Chairwoman
Johnson, I just would request 15 more seconds. And this is why
we made permanent R&D tax credit, so that companies could go
and plan it in their long term strategy, as opposed to
``worrying every year'', so I think we're going to get there.
Chairwoman Johnson, thank you. Our three witnesses I find
leading edge in the world, and I appreciate all three of them.
Norm, thank you for your service to the Boy Scouts of America.
Chairwoman Johnson. Thank you very much.
The Clerk. Mr. Foster is next.
Mr. Foster. Well, thank you, especially to all our
witnesses, for your great written testimony. I stayed up far
too late last night getting through it all. There appears to be
a real appetite right now on both sides of the aisle to
increase Federal funding for scientific research. You know,
this obviously could result in a fantastic opportunity to
propel forward enormous advances in science and research
nationally as a sort of second Sputnik-like moment.
Now, some of those proposals involve significant--renaming
and mission change in our scientific enterprises, while others
see the existing structure as primarily sound, but historically
under-resourced, and basically just want to increase the amount
of money there. And I guess Secretary Moniz has mentioned this,
and I just was wondering if we could go through the witnesses
and ask what your thoughts are on this general area, whether
the first priority is just ramping up the budgets for the
existing program versus structural change in this. And I guess
I--we'll start with Mr. Augustine, who was a practicing
engineer during the first Sputnik moment.
Mr. Augustine. Well, I was, and thank you. I think that
both are important. Certainly if we don't increase the
financial support for research from the Federal Government,
we're going to be in trouble, and I say that because industry
simply--the old Bell Labs, or the great places like that--Bell
Labs a canonical place, the home of the laser, the transistor,
nine Nobel Laureates, is now owned by a company in Finland. So
the government is really going to be the funder of only source.
You also point to another problem, and that is these three
entities that are involved here, the Federal Government,
academia, and industry, don't work together as well as they
could. The reasons go all the way from excessive regulation to,
frankly, some distrust of one another. And, having been at all
three of those entities, I've found wonderful people, dedicated
people, competent people, but there is a bit of distrust, and
somehow we have to tie those organizations together so that one
plus one plus one is seven, or something like that. I think we
could do it. Thank you.
Mr. Foster. Yeah. Yeah, Frances?
Dr. Arnold. Thank you. I--so structure is important,
right? Money is important, structure is important. Structure
can also be destructive, so it has to be very carefully thought
out how to put together a structure that fosters the
creativity. I personally am a bottoms-up person. I believe that
the creativity lies in individual PIs, individual
entrepreneurs, and individual research scientists in companies,
however, without the structure, much of that goes to waste. So
I'm very interested in seeing how a structure will develop to
make this seamless transition from discovery to getting it into
the hands of people can best be formed.
Mr. Foster. Yeah. Farnam? Whoops, you're not muted--you're
still muted.
Dr. Jahanian. Thank you for that question. There is no
question that we need to increase investment in research in
this country. It's indisputable, as I mentioned earlier. We see
that our adversaries and our partners across the world are
taking a page out of the recipe for success of our country. For
the past 75 years these investments have made us enormously
successful as a nation, and benefited the country in
immeasurable ways, so we need to match the scale and the pace
of the discovery with the investment that goes into it. The
structure, as the other witnesses mention, is extremely
important, and, again, it's because of the pace, scale, and
scope of the discoveries and innovation that we need to be
creative about new structures. However, forcing down certain
structures on agencies has a significant risk associated with
it. We have to be very deliberate about it, and in particular
in the context of the National Science Foundation, since I
understand NSF well, I think providing flexibility to NSF is
going to be, in the long run, extremely important in ensuring
that we cover the entire continuum.
My final point is the reason we need the structure and the
investment is the urgency of the moment, but we can't forget
that the investment has to happen along this entire continuum.
Thank you again for that question.
Mr. Foster. Thank you. And I guess I'm out of time, but
Ernie's already made his feelings known on this in his opening
remarks, I guess, and my time is up, and----
Mr. Moniz. I'm happy to add, but that's up to the Chair.
Mr. Foster. OK. Well, if there are a few seconds left
here, I'd just like to point out the merit in the sort of non-
standard way that the Federal Government can invest in
businesses to help them support research. An example of this
was something NSF used to do called Moses, where they provided
access to foundries, to universities, at a heavily subsidized
rate, and I was sort of heartbroken to see that that seems to
have stopped. But that's an example of Federal investment that
would support something that's not profitable to the company,
but very profitable to the long term health of our country,
simply because businesses have advanced technology and
capabilities that universities can't realistically have. And--
--
Mr. Moniz. If I may just note, of course, the National
Laboratories of DOE provide these tremendous user facilities
that serve about 30,000 scientists per year, an example of
something that would be totally impractical for individual
universities, or companies. If I may add on the first question
that I agree with the need for more resources. We have too many
examples where the number of good proposals to available funds
is such a large ratio that the--those selected are almost
random, by definition, given the pull. We need that, but on the
structure side, again, I would repeat two things. One is I am
very concerned about some discussions going on about NSF
somehow being commercialization driven. I think that would be a
major slippery slope to get onto. And, secondly, there are
areas, let's say in the energy area, where we have
organizations that were put together to address the issue of
oil embargoes in the 1970's, and do not quite reflect the
technology-driven directions we need for addressing something
like climate change.
Mr. Foster. Thank you, and I will yield back.
The Clerk. Mr. Meijer is next. Mr. Meijer, if you're
ready, you're next. If not, Mr. Obernolte would be next.
Mr. Obernolte. Thank you very much, and thank you to our
witnesses. It's been an incredibly fascinating discussion on a
very important topic. I'll direct my question to Dr. Arnold.
And, Dr. Arnold, hello to my alma mater there in Pasadena. You,
in your testimony, talked about the fact that portable
fellowships would be a better way, perhaps, of investing in our
future generation of talent, and I think that that's something
I very much agree with, and something that I think would be a
really interesting innovation, but I think it would cause some
changes in disruption to the existing ecosystem that we have,
where right now institutions, for better or for worse, kind of
compete with each other for grant funding. And this would
create an alternative system where institutions would compete
with each other to attract these fellows. So can you talk a
little bit about the pros and cons of shifting to that kind of
a system? Because I find it a very interesting idea.
Dr. Arnold. What a great question, Representative. I'm at
an elite institution that competes fairly well for NSF fellows.
So there exists a program that provides portable fellowships,
and we compete very well. Some of the concern would be that all
those portable fellowships will go only to those elite
universities. But I don't think that will be the case. I think
that we could triple, easily, the number of portable
fellowships, and provide them more equitably than they are
currently provided, and the students will choose the areas and
the universities that meet their needs. These students know
what the future will look like. These are the brightest
students coming out of undergraduate institutions. They will
create the future. They can choose whom to work for, which
areas to work in, and so it really is a highly competitive way
of distributing the funds.
Research grants are also good, but that structure, again,
is much more set in stone. So professors like I am, we've been
in place for 40 years, and many of us tend to do some of the
same things, and don't move as quickly as the younger
generation does. So if you really want to promote innovation,
give it to the young ones.
Mr. Obernolte. Well, thank you. I completely agree with
you. In your written testimony I noticed that you also said
that a lack of structure and hierarchy is key to promoting
creativity, which is something I also agree with. You know,
however, it has to be said that part of our job as legislators
is to make sure that taxpayer funds are used for their intended
purpose, and are used appropriately and wisely, and sometimes
that's why we need hierarchy and structure. So, you know, when
we get kind of, you know, these two ideas that are in tension
with each other. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit
about how that would relate to this idea of portable
fellowships, because, you know, when we're talking about
funding a student, and not funding a research project, we're
really getting into more of an educational grant than a
research grant. So how would we with these portable
fellowships, how would we ensure that there's accountability?
Dr. Arnold. Well, of course, those grants are actually
administered through universities, and I'm sure President
Farnam Jahanian can discuss this as well. They're administered
through a university, so you will have the same level of
oversight of how the funds are spent. But instead of dictating
the research area and the specific project they might work on--
which I don't think is the role of the government--if we are
going to foster creativity, we have to let the young
scientists, the students, make the choice. And with this
mechanism you are also funding individual scientists through
the votes of the students, whose careers depend on that.
Mr. Obernolte. Sure. I agree with you. I think there's
probably a happy medium there where we choose promising fellows
in areas that we want to increase investment in, such as
artificial intelligence, or nanotechnology, or nuclear energy,
and then, you know, we trust that we've chosen good people, and
that they're going to follow their passion, so I think there's
probably, you know, some happy medium there. But I think----
Dr. Arnold. That's a great idea.
Mr. Obernolte [continuing]. It was a fascinating idea. I
want to thank you for raising it, and thank you to all of our
panelists. I think we all share a passion, as you do, for
increasing investment in basic science in our country, and I
want to thank you for being part of that effort. I yield back,
Madam Chair.
The Clerk. Ms. Ross is next.
Ms. Ross. Thank you so much, and this panel has been
great. I'm from the Research Triangle area of North Carolina,
and we have just amazing students there, and amazing
institutions of higher education, and then, of course, a lot of
innovation. I want to start out my remarks by highlighting an
exceptional constituent of mine who is, I think, an example of
innovation, and creativity, and drawing talent from other
countries. Her name is Sepi Saidi, and she's a visionary leader
in civil engineering, has a women-owned civil engineering firm.
She is a champion of community service, went to NC State, and
came to the United States from Iran, and contributed immensely
to the STEM industry, and nurturing the next generation of
engineers.
I wanted to ask Dr. Jahanian, since you've had a similar
experience to my constituent Sepi, coming from abroad, becoming
an expert and a leader in your field, and in your testimony you
talked about the U.S. needing to better facilitate the ability
of international students who earn advanced degrees in the U.S.
to stay here and add to our talent development. This is vital
to the universities in my district, and to the highly
innovative Research Triangle Park, where there's a real
pipeline from the institutions of higher education directly
into the park. What can you advise these students as they look
to advance their careers? We've taken some steps already this
Congress for Dreamers, and for documented Dreamers, who came
with their parents on H-1B visas, but what can you tell them
about how to navigate our current system for staying in this
country and being able to contribute?
Dr. Jahanian. Thank you so much for that question. And for
sharing the story of a resident of your community, Sepi. I'm
delighted to hear the stories. As you know, and I know other
witnesses would attest to this, there are thousands, and
thousands, and thousands of stories like this. International
scholars make incomparable contributions to United States
leadership in science, in innovation, in discovery, and many of
them, the overwhelming majority of them, after they finish,
want to stay here. In fact, you heard from Norm Augustine
compelling data that 28 percent of U.S. STEM faculty were born
overseas. Nearly half of the Fortune 500 companies were founded
by immigrants and children of immigrants, including founders or
co-founders of eBay, Google, and Moderna. These are amazing
stories. Members of the National Academies are immigrants to
this country.
I'm just going to be very candid, because this is also
personal to me: we invest in these students to come here. They
become part of our society. We should do everything we can to
keep them. I think that has benefited us, without any doubt,
over the past 75 years, certainly in recent decades, and I
think it's been a recipe for success for our Nation. And I
think the more we do to facilitate not only their success, but
to make it easy for them to stay in this country and continue
to contribute to the vibrancy of the economy that's based on
science, and innovation, and technology, the better.
Students reach out to me, and I tell you, it's been
stressful for many students, domestic as well as international
students. COVID has had a dramatic impact on our students,
their mental health, as well as on our doctoral students, in
terms of the progress of their work. So in the short term I
know all academic institutions are doing what we can to support
our students across the board at all levels, but with respect
to the international students I'll go out on a limb and say we
should stamp a green card on these students' diplomas when they
finish in these areas that we have critical needs, and let them
go into society and contribute to the vibrancy of our economy,
and they will continue to play a significant role in the
progress that our Nation makes in addressing significant
societal challenges, as well as in innovation that catalyzes
our economy.
I'm happy to take some of that offline and give advice to
students in terms of how they navigate this, but, honestly, I
think the responsibility is much more on us to create an
environment to enable the success of all the students on our
campuses. My humble recommendation to our policymakers is that
we should make it easy for them to come and stay here. Thank
you for that question.
Ms. Ross. Thank you so much for your response, and we'll
do the best we can. And, Madam Chair, I yield back.
The Clerk. Mr. Feenstra is next.
Mr. Feenstra. Well, thank you to each one of the witnesses
for their testimony, and sharing their extensive research and
opinions with each one of us. I'm excited to be an original co-
sponsor, with Ranking Member Lucas's SALSTA, which helps create
a long term strategy for investment in basic research and
infrastructure to protect the economic and national security of
the United States, and I really am excited about that bill.
I've got a question specifically directed for Dr.
Augustine. Dr. Augustine, your publication on the perils and
complacency, and your testimony mentions taxes and red tape
regulations that hinder research and development carried out by
universities, public and private partnerships. Can you expand
on this a bit and explain which taxes or regulations are most
limiting to this R&D, and then which would you advise reducing
or removing entirely to prevent China from surpassing us in
innovation?
Mr. Augustine. Well, thank you for that question. We have
built many roadblocks. I'm aware of one study that shows that
40 percent of the time of our researchers is spent submitting
reports, bidding on new projects, and administrative functions,
as opposed to performing research, so that's a major thing.
Another factor is the last time I was involved, the NIH awarded
contracts to 17 percent of the qualified proposals they
received, so in the rejection box there is an enormous amount
of opportunity to be pursued.
And turning to taxes, one of the problems industry faces
is the issue that the tax structure discourages long term
investments, and I have a rather radical proposal that I've
been making for years with little impact. Industry takes a very
short term view of the world. The pressure's on for the next
quarter from the marketplace. My proposal is to change the
capital gains tax--I should qualify here, I'm an engineer, not
an economist, but I am a rocket scientist. I would make the
proposal that the tax on a gain, on an asset that's
appreciated, the tax on the appreciation--if the asset is held
10 years, the tax should be one percent. If it's held one month
or one day, the tax should be 99 percent. Then you could draw
whatever line between them--whatever revenue you need. That
would change the way industry would behave entirely.
And I will just quickly tell a story that relates to this.
When I was working in industry, our company decided to increase
spending on research, and we sent the president of the company
to Wall Street to tell what we were going to do because we were
so excited about the opportunities we had in research. The
audience from Wall Street literally got up and ran out of the
room when our president finished talking, sold our stock, and
our stock dropped 11 percent in four days. And we got the
message, don't invest in research if you're in industry. The
industry will invest in development, it has done so, but
investing in research is not going to happen under today's tax
laws and regulatory procedures. So thank you for the question.
Mr. Feenstra. Well, thank you for that information, Dr.
Augustine. I just think it's so important that we have these
public private partnerships, and we see that at our
universities in the State of Iowa. And that's my last question
I want to just quickly note, you know, private/public
partnerships are crucial when it comes to American leadership
in research and development, and one example in my district is
the Critical Materials Institute, led by Ames Laboratory, which
includes Iowa State University on its team. I'd imagine that
the benefits and incentives that an academic institution
assesses before agreeing to enter into a partnership would be
different than those that a private industry assesses. Do both
universities and private industries look for the same type of
incentives to join these private/public partnerships, or
there's differences? And I'd ask anybody on the panel that
question. Any thoughts on that?
Mr. Moniz. Well, yeah, I would just add, Congressman, for
the specific example you put forward, I think right now there
would be tremendous interest because the critical--critical
minerals and metals, we are so far behind the eight ball on
that it's crazy, in terms of the kind of supply chain focus
that I mentioned in my statement that we need. So that's a
critical example of bringing together public and private to
address a serious supply chain issue, and raise some difficult
questions. For example, can we develop environmentally sound
mining to get back into domestic production? You know, the Ames
Laboratory had a very, very critical role in the Manhattan
Project, and that was based upon, of course, domestic mining,
with different conditions than we need today. So that's a very,
very important area, and the Ames Lab is doing a great job.
Mr. Feenstra. Thank you so much, and thanks for the time.
I yield back.
The Clerk. Mr. Kildee is next.
Mr. Kildee. Thank you, and I want to thank the Chairwoman
for holding this hearing, and for really a stellar group of
witnesses for your important, and I think really informative
perspective, so thank you for your participation. Some of you
know, because I mention it nearly every time I speak, that I
come from Flint, Michigan, which, at the turn of the last
century, was really one of the innovation capitals of the world
related to the automotive industry. In Flint we helped put the
world on wheels. If you drive around--in fact, if you drive
around my hometown, you'll see streets named after some of
these great innovators, Chevrolet, DuPont, who once was the
president--Pierre DuPont, once the president of General Motors,
Dort. But, of course, due to pretty dramatic changes,
technology change, globalization, disparate impact of trade
policy, Flint, like lots of other older industrial cities, has
lost parts of our manufacturing base.
But, you know, foundationally we have people with hard
work, grit, determination. That's still intact, and we have
access to great research universities. And Dr. Jahanian, you
know one of them quite well, the University of Michigan. But,
unfortunately, we haven't been able to make this connection to
fully transition to the new economy, or especially to the new
automotive industry. And I think, for example, we all know that
electric and autonomous vehicles are the future of transit, of
transportation and mobility, and it's important that we
transition to these vehicles for safety, combatting climate
change, improving mobility, et cetera, but in many ways we fear
that much of the population is left out. So we can't stop this
change, we don't want to stop this change, this is where the
market is going, but I'm really curious about your perspective
on how we make sure that we all share in this transition, in
this transformation.
I'm working on Federal policy to help target investments
to these older industrial cities, and so in the space of
innovation and invention, I'm curious about how you think those
connections are made. So perhaps starting with Dr. Jahanian,
because you make reference to Pittsburgh, and how it made this
transition from a steel and mining town to one focused on
robotics and AI, a real center of innovation. What are the
lessons, at least from your perspective, that you think could
be applied to other older industrial cities trying to make this
connection?
Dr. Jahanian. Thank you so much for that question, and
there are so many layers to it. As I indicated in my testimony,
one of the challenges we face in this country is that there is
a widening opportunity gap, and that widening gap is
exacerbated, in fact, by advances in technologies, by
globalization, and barriers to access, and these are structural
barriers to access and opportunity. I think it's an issue that
many communities in the Nation face, and certainly I think
Pittsburgh, long before I came here, was facing the same issue
as a result of the decline of the steel industry.
I think Pittsburgh is a great success story, and has come
a long way as a result of doubling down in education and
research, and connecting that to the private sector, and
creating an ecosystem that is catalyzed by not only these
technologies, such as AI, and robotics, and autonomous
vehicles, as you mentioned, but also by the sciences, and in
recent years, as a result of resurgence of advanced
manufacturing. So it's been very intentional, but the
connection between the public sector and the private sector,
and creative public/private partnerships, have been extremely
important. It's not a self-serving comment, but the role that
the university can play in expanding what I refer to as the
geography of U.S. innovation is undeniable. We have
extraordinary concentration of intellectual capital and
capacity for ideas and discoveries that has to permeate and
involve the community.
There's a lot more to say about this, but I want to
acknowledge it's an important issue, and I think expanding this
map would require us to make very targeted investment to create
these innovation hubs around not just the universities, but
also things that are adjacent to them, including incubation
spaces, community and economic development entities that will
essentially connect that technology transfer. It's not just the
push from the university, but it's also the pull, and
connecting all these pieces of the innovation ecosystem
together. I hope that, at least at some level, scratches the
surface in answering your question.
Mr. Kildee. It's very helpful, I appreciate that. And I
know my time's expired, but I do want to say that one of the
weaknesses in communities such as this is that there has been
an attrition in the public, and even in some of the business
sector leadership because of the dramatic changes, and I think
this is the space where academia can help fill some of that
leadership capacity that's required. So, again, a great panel,
I really appreciate all of your input, and I wish I had more
time. I see Secretary Moniz might want to say something.
Mr. Moniz. Could I add one comment? Which is that--just--
as information for now, MIT and Harvard, with partners in
Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, we are looking at a case study of
the transition from internal combustion engines to EVs
(electric vehicles), specifically in that area looking at how
the communities and the workers can be brought along in the
transition, through supply chains and other methods.
Mr. Kildee. Well, I would certainly want to follow up with
that--with you on that, so thank you for that. Again, excellent
panel.
The Clerk. Mr. Meijer is next.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you, and thank you to our panelists for
being here with us today. I represent Michigan's Third
Congressional District. One of my predecessors, Vern Ehlers,
sat on this Committee during his congressional tenure, and it
was during that period that the first publication of ``Rising
Above The Gathering Storm'' was published by the National
Academies in 2007. So this congressionally requested report
looked at improving K through 12 STEM education, developing and
recruiting top students, engineers, and scientists from the
U.S. and abroad, strengthening the Nation's commitment to
funding basic research, and ensuring that the U.S. is the
premier place in the world for innovation.
That seems to be exactly where we are right now, and with
similar sentiments, so I guess my question for Mr. Augustine,
and the broader panel as well, you know, this 2000 report
seemed to have recommended just about the same actions that
we're discussing today, in broad terms, you know, 14 years
later. So I guess what--this is a bit of a compound question,
but what, if anything has changed, you know, how should we take
action to respond to these broader questions of competitiveness
posed by the countries that are emulating our research
ecosystem, and have been robustly investing in R&D?
Mr. Augustine. Yes, it's been about a dozen years ago that
the first ``Gathering Storm'' report was prepared by the
Academies, and, frankly, many of the problems that exist today
are the same ones that we had pointed to at that time. There
has been some progress made, much of it at the State and local
level. I think there have been encouraging signs. The thing
that we did not recognize when we prepared that report was the
speed at which China would move forward. My first trip to China
was 44 years ago, and I saw a few automobiles, every adult was
wearing a Mao suit. And I've gone back every half dozen years
and seen what they have done, and it's remarkable. That's
really the new ingredient here, China.
One recommendation that you provided me an opportunity to
point to from the ``Gathering Storm'' report--or two, really--
one was to increase the investment of basic research
substantially. The other recommendation related to K through 12
education, and had to do with a lack of teachers available to
teach in STEM. Not to just teach from the book, but to excite
the kids about discovery and innovation. And that
recommendation, if I can state it properly after all these
years, was that the Federal Government should fund 10,000
competitively awarded scholarships to U.S. citizens to study
science or engineering, with the agreement that they would
teach at least 5 years at a public school after they received
their degree. Today the average teacher only stays for 5 years,
so the 5 year condition shouldn't worry us. Hopefully many of
them would stay a lot longer than 5 years. And that would have
a huge impact, I think, in enhancing our public school system.
That probably was the most important recommendation of the
``Gathering Storm'' report that was not adopted, so thank you
for the question.
Mr. Meijer. Well, thank you. And I guess, you know, I
appreciate you kind of filling in a little bit more on other
opportunities we have to build on that. I certainly don't want
us to be having the same conversation in another 14 years from
now, talking about the same issues. But I guess I--you know,
using that metaphor of the gathering storm, has that already
passed, and are we in response/recovery mode right now because
of that unforeseen, you know, explosion in R&D investment in
China?
Mr. Augustine. The rate of progress of science and
technology is just so immense it's hard to describe. A friend
of mine who ran Intel a few years ago told me that 90 percent
of the revenues Intel receives on the last day of any year come
from products that didn't even exist the first day of that same
year. That's the kind of a race we're in. Whether we're a year
ahead or a year behind, it's hard to tell. The one thing that's
very clear is that we're in the process of losing, and that
China's got long term solutions. They've got their 14th 5 year
plan. They've made very clear where they're going, and this
Committee has the opportunity, I think to help America get on
that same foundation. One thing I would caution--what is needed
is continuity of funding, and of activity, and of actions.
We've been through the shot in the arm, the doubling of NIH,
the ``shovel-ready'' at the beginning of the Great Recession,
post-Sputnik. What we need is continuity over time, and that
would be, I think, kind of my bottom line, so thank you.
Mr. Meijer. Thank you. Could not agree more, and I yield
back.
Staff. Ms. Wild is next.
Ms. Wild. Thank you so much, I appreciate it. And I thank
you, Madam Chairwoman. I really appreciate this very timely
hearing. I represent a district in Pennsylvania, and I'm so
proud of the many researchers and innovators at Pennsylvania's
companies and universities. I have Lehigh University in my
district, Pennsylvania 7, and it's one of those that are
charting the future of a clean energy and an America that still
leads the world technologically. And in the House, I also serve
on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. And as we confront
significant threats from authoritarian governments around the
world, I believe that collaboration with our democratic allies
is a key to maintaining national and global security, and I
think it has to include research collaboration that advances
American innovation, and ensures international technology
standards that reflect our democratic values.
And beyond maintaining those alliances, I believe it would
be advantageous to global interests, and to accelerating
innovation, to cultivate research partnerships with emerging
economies and democracies. So my question first for Mr.
Augustine is, what role does the international standard-setting
process play in encouraging innovation in critical
technologies? And Part B of that question is what steps should
our government take to encourage American industry and
stakeholder participation in international standards
development?
Mr. Augustine. Another important question. China has
recognized the impact of controlling the standards process. I
would not argue that any one country should control the
standards process, certainly it should be a collaborative
effort to come up with standards. But it's a fact that to be
first, and set the standards, puts you in the driver's seat, in
terms of the marketplace. China is currently putting the effort
in to be first in the standards area. That would be a
significant topic for us to address. Of course, the National
Institute of Standards and Technology plays an important role,
as do organizations throughout the country that support NIST.
Let's see. I forgot the second part of your question. What was
Part B?
Ms. Wild. The second part was just what steps should the
government take to encourage our American industry and
stakeholder participation in standards development.
Mr. Augustine. Obviously, the government plays a leading
role in this. Industry, I must confess, tends to be very self-
serving, companies do, and I think that this is one of those
roles that it takes government to kind of pull things together.
So the beginning of your question, I think it was such an
important point that the United States has one huge advantage
over China, and that is our allies. We can work together with
our allies, whether it's standard setting, or sharing research
results, or educating each other's students--just as an
example, if you take the United States and just two of its
allies, Europe and Japan, they comprise a little over 50
percent of the world's GDP. If you take China and its three
putative allies, North Korea, Iran, and Russia, combined,
they're 17 percent of the world's GDP. So one of our huge
advantages is to work with our allies to build alliances. Share
students, share teachers, share knowledge. And I'm so glad you
raised the question.
Ms. Wild. Thank you so much. Madam Chairwoman, I can't see
the clock on the screen. I'm not sure if I have more time or
not.
Mr. Beyer. You have another minute, Susan.
Ms. Wild. Thank you so much. I have a question for Dr.
Moniz. Given your previous experience leading the Department of
Energy, as we aim to develop and apply critical technologies to
tackle global issues, how can policymakers leverage existing
international research partnerships, and cultivate new ones,
with emerging global economies?
Mr. Moniz. Thank you, Congresswoman. Let me first add one
footnote, if I may, to the discussion you had with Norm, namely
that from the other point of view, namely foreign relations and
geopolitics, I think we've made a major error in dialing back
on scientist to scientist collaboration with our adversaries.
Because, during the cold war, for example, those relationships
were absolutely critical when the, you know, Iron Curtain came
down, in effect. So I think we need to use a lot more of that
kind of collaboration as well for our own geopolitical and
foreign policy objectives. In terms----
Ms. Wild. Thank you for that perspective. I agree.
Mr. Moniz. Yeah. In terms of the--your question, well,
again, in the--if I stay to the energy arena, as I said
earlier, we have a vehicle, frankly, we were the drivers of
setting it up, the so-called mission innovation. It's not--it's
24 countries, allies, and less clear perhaps in that spectrum
there, all committed to increasing the innovation pipeline, all
committed to collaboration. Every thrust is basically jointly
led by countries, and some of it is surprising. For example,
early on Mexico took the lead in mission innovation to work
with the United States and Canada to set up high throughput
novel materials by design for energy technology cooperation. We
chair, with Saudi Arabia, an initiative on carbon capture and
sequestration (CCS). But frankly, it needs more juice. And as I
said, now, with a new administration, rejoining Paris, we
should go in now and take the bull by the horns in terms of
revitalizing and expanding mission innovation into new areas. I
mentioned nuclear, I mentioned carbon dioxide removal, for
example, but we have a----
Ms. Wild. Thank you.
Mr. Moniz [continuing]. We have an opportunity waiting for
us.
Ms. Wild. Thank you so much. I yield back.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you. Mr. LaTurner is next.
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This question's for
everyone. I believe there's a need to prioritize federally
funded basic research, which is one of the goals of SALSTA. I
have concerns about the proposals coming from the
administration and Senator Schumer that will most likely be
funded through reconciliation as a one-time money dump at
levels that aren't sustainable in the long term. You have all
testified to the importance of basic research, but if you
could, in just a few words, can you comment, each of you, on
how long term sustained growth in basic research funding would
help the U.S. remain the global leader in innovation, and the
threats of volatile, unstable funding, the threats that
unstable funding may have on the U.S. research enterprise?
Mr. Augustine. I'll start, if we're going in alphabetical
order, if that's all right. The----
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you.
Mr. Augustine. I'll speak of the importance of continuity
of research and development. Most research projects, from the
time they begin until they produce something in the
marketplace, you're talking about--on the order of a decade.
Some are faster, some are slower, but it's certainly not the
next quarter, or the next year, or the year after that. One
concern is having an adequate amount of funding, and the second
is to sustain it over time, and either one without the other
leaves a rather hollow core. It would be my strong opinion that
we should commit to a long term sustaining of growth. That also
sends a signal back to young people. When you get these spikes
that disappear, and all of a sudden there are jobs then there
are no jobs, young people see that, recognize it, and they say,
``That's not a field I want to go into because it's too
turbulent.'' So that would be my comment, and I'll stop there
so my colleagues have time.
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you.
Dr. Arnold. I agree. It's the volatility that's extremely
harmful because, again, the best people have multiple choices,
and they'll go to more stable or enjoyable careers. Basic
research takes a real commitment to do it, and if the funding
does not make an equal commitment, then we lose the best.
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you.
Mr. Moniz. Perhaps I will just add to that, that--and I
won't repeat the volatility issue, but, as I said, I believe we
need to really--you said prioritize. I think we really need to
keep in mind the broad base of fundamental research as so
important. Examples are myriad. I'll just mention one. GPS
(Global Positioning System) is now so ubiquitous we hardly even
talk about it anymore. Where did it come from? It came from
people bringing together progress in communications, in
satellites, and the atomic clock that was invented to test
Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Nobody was planning on
a GPS system when that happened. So we can afford it, and we,
in fact, can't afford not to, in my view, support this broad
base of fundamental research, even as we then advance in
addition toward the use-inspired research that will spill out
all over the place into commercial products.
Dr. Jahanian. I'll be very brief. You know, the process of
innovation discovery is often marked by long, unpredictable
incubation periods between the initial scientific discovery and
the societal and economic impact that we see. In fact,
sustained investment in basic research is so important because
we can't predict the outcome. Some of the most important
discoveries that we have made that have made fundamental
advances and contributions to the well-being of society, to our
economic prosperity, were not intended initially, in their most
foundational stage of investment, to have that outcome. It's
the unpredictable, unanticipated outcomes that are a result of
sustained investment that often have the most impact. We have
seen this in a broad range of technologies and industries, from
the internet, to semiconductor technologies, to advanced
materials, to nanotechnologies, and so on. So for that reason I
think sustained investment is very important.
Secondly, I want to echo what Ernie Moniz said, which is
that, while we're talking about foundational research, we need
to understand that investment in the entire continuum has to
continue. Furthermore, at this particular moment, there are a
set of technologies that are pervasive, and they're having
disproportionate impact on everything else, including AI,
robotics, biotechnologies, and wireless, and so on, and we
can't lose focus that those targeted investment have to happen
in addition to the investments that we're making in all areas
of scientific inquiry. Thank you again for that question.
Mr. LaTurner. Thank you so much for all of your answers. I
yield back.
The Clerk. Mrs. Fletcher is next.
Mrs. Fletcher. Thank you so much. Thank you to Chairwoman
Johnson, and Ranking Member Lucas, for holding this hearing
today, and thank you to the witnesses for testifying. I really
appreciate your perspectives on our investment in our people,
and in our research, and the things we need to do moving
forward, and I also very much appreciate the important work
that you do, Dr. Jahanian, Dr. Augustine, Dr. Arnold, you are
an inspiration and a role model for many, especially the women
in science who--many of whom live in my district, because I
represent Houston, Texas, where we have a ton of innovation,
and a ton of really critical research going forward. And, of
course, I am focused, as they are, on energy innovation in
particular.
So I want to take the opportunity to start my questions
with Dr. Moniz, and I really appreciate the comments that you
just made, Dr. Moniz, about carbon capture, utilization,
sequestration. I agree that that is really important. We passed
important bills out of this Committee, and out of the House
last year, trying to make sure that we are investing in that. I
wanted to take this opportunity, while I have you here, to ask
you a little bit about hydrogen, because hydrogen is currently
enjoying unprecedented political and business private
investment momentum, with the number of policies and projects
in the world expanding, as I understand it, rapidly. Houston is
home to 48 plants that extract hydrogen from natural gas, and
produces more than a third of the United States' supply of
hydrogen. Several sectors have concluded it's really important,
and timely, and pertinent for the U.S. to scale up technologies
and bring down costs to enable hydrogen to become more widely
used. So I would love to get your thoughts on what further
technology innovation is needed to bring down the cost of
hydrogen, and specifically hydrogen produced from clean energy
sources.
Mr. Moniz. Thank you, Congresswoman. Hydrogen--we're--we
are certainly very, very bullish on--as a very important
innovation direction, and a reason for it, just to--I mean,
you're aware, but perhaps others may not be, that--the thing is
that hydrogen, in a certain sense, like natural gas, is--can
play the role of a fuel in multiple sectors, from power, to
industry, to transportation, and the like, so it could be--it
could play an absolutely critical role.
We think that there are many places in the country, and
you'll be pleased that, of course, Texas is obviously one of
them, where we can see major hubs developing around both
hydrogen and CO2 management at the same time. And
the reason for that is, while there is a lot of discussion
about so-called green hydrogen, electrolysis of water, which we
think will be playing an important role in the future,
innovation is needed to both reduce the electrolyzer costs--
it's like battery costs, et cetera, that have to come down in
time--and innovation that will provide the electricity system
to produce very, very low carbon, very inexpensive electricity
to drive green hydrogen. But we believe there is also a major
opportunity for blue hydrogen, which, as you said, is
extracting hydrogen from methane, which is mostly hydrogen, but
then capturing the carbon dioxide and sequestering it
underground, where, of course, also Texas has got lots of
experience. And right now blue hydrogen is certainly
substantially less expensive than green hydrogen.
So a big issue here is the co-development of the
infrastructures for hydrogen utilization and for large-scale
CO2 management. And Texas, and many other places, by
the way, the upper Midwest, the Appalachian region, there are
many places in the country with also heavy industry that can go
clean in this direction.
Mrs. Fletcher. Well, that's great. Thank you so much, Dr.
Moniz. And if I can just follow up on that, because you
mentioned sequestration, and kind of the Texas geology being,
you know, particularly useful. There's another thing that I've
been hearing lately about our geology, and I've got 30 seconds
left, so I just will follow up with you on your thoughts about
geothermal energy as well.
Mr. Moniz. Well, geothermal energy, if it can be developed
at scale, particularly so-called engineered geothermal systems,
that has the enormous advantage of being a dispatchable
renewable source, in contrast to wind and solar, where, of
course, we have major storage issues that need to be handled,
and reliability issues, grid integration issues because of the
variability. But all of these can come together into a reliable
and resilient system as we go forward. We need innovation. For
example--OK, one more thing. In Texas, for example, we looked
at wind resources for a year, hour by hour, and what we found
were there were as many as nine days in a row with no wind,
essentially, in the State. So that just reinforces we need not
just batteries, but long duration storage and integration with
other sources so that the system is always reliable and
resilient.
Mrs. Fletcher. Well, thank you for that. I agree, we need
a diversity of fuel sources, and it's really important for us
to understand the science of our energy, so I really appreciate
you being here. I appreciate all of your testimony, and your
written testimony. I've gone over my time, so I'm going to
yield back, but thank you----
Mr. Moniz. But I'm going to add one more thing. It's very
important. Many of these approaches, CCS and engineered
geothermal, what's very important, they will also draw upon the
skillset of the oil and gas industry, and so this can be an
enormous continuity of workforce issue as well. Sorry.
Mrs. Fletcher. No, thank you, Dr. Moniz, and I yield back.
Thank you.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Lizzie, very much. I'm Don Beyer,
and I'm batting cleanup, but first I want to thank all of you
for hanging in there for 3 hours. I hope you're at your home or
your office, but you've been very patient, and very brave and
resilient. And let me just begin--Dr. Arnold, you--I'm going to
quote from your testimony. You said, ``It was easier, however,
35 years ago to start a career in academic research. We didn't
spend 2/3 of our time at department meetings, writing
proposals, or making''--``we were complying with regulations.
Instead, we focused on''--``that has degraded.'' Why, or how do
we fix--how do we reform the university? Because this is not
the first I've heard that complaint, that you spend all your
time in committee hearings.
Dr. Arnold. Yes. Well, it's not entirely university's
fault, right? The size of the typical grant from the National
Science Foundation, for which I am hugely grateful, supports at
most one student, and often research group have several
students, so that means that, with these very small grants,
we're always just writing. And then with--along with each
grant, the compliance is very complex. Financial compliance,
research integrity, everything is very complex, and we often
don't have a lot of support. So the university can help by
providing the support, but, of course, that's complex for the
university, and expensive. We're--we end up doing a lot of
things we're not very good at, and it way--and it uses our time
in a way that takes us away from our chief mission. There has
to be some better distribution of some of these
responsibilities.
Mr. Beyer. OK. By the way, we're all very proud of you, as
the first woman to--first American woman to win the Nobel in
Chemistry. It's very cool, inspiration to my three daughters.
And I really want to thank Mr. Augustine and Dr. Moniz for
your leadership on fusion energy. We've actually stood up a
bipartisan fusion energy caucus here on the hill. Had a couple
meetings already. And, Dr. Moniz especially--when I talked to
my pals at MIT, they said fusion energy, which has been 25 to
50 years away every year for the rest of our lives, is now
maybe 5 years away. And the National Academy of Sciences--or
National Academy came two weeks ago and said, you know, the
first power plant could be ready by 2035. And yet our private
sector folks, people like Key A and Conwell Fusion think must
faster. Where what--what's--where's reality lie, in terms of
commercial delivery of fusion?
Mr. Moniz. Well, first of all, I think the--as I said
earlier, the 5 years which are being quoted by those two
companies, and by other companies as well, with novel fusion
approaches, it really is that within 5 years we think that
the--we'll have an answer, yes or no, that the scientific
challenges required for a fusion power plant will be resolved.
If that is resolved--we're optimistic, but if it's resolved
positively, I think it's--personally, and some of my colleagues
on the board may argue with me, but I think it's--in the real
world it's got to be at least 10 years to go through the
engineering, the licensing, the building, the capital raise, to
get a power plant.
But if we have power plants based on that technology that
are coming out in 2035, or even 2040, it is a just--as I said
earlier, a total game changer for where we go with clean
electricity, including a game changer on how you would design
the grid infrastructure. Because having a large number of very
small footprint, high output dispatchable low carbon power is
very, very different system design to having, you know, very,
very low energy density spread out far from load technology. So
it's going to be----
Mr. Beyer. So----
Mr. Moniz [continuing]. It's going to be interesting.
Mr. Beyer. So it would all have to be in Texas, right?
So--but the other piece of this--I can talk to you--I've got a
bill on air capture, you know, of carbon, and of course the
dilemma there is we have to turn it into a refundable tax
credit because there's not much you can do with it. We're
basically going to have to pay the private sector to take it
out. So what I'm told is that the only energy source as
plausible to pull the carbon out of the air is going to be
fusion.
Mr. Moniz. Well, I don't know. We'll see about that. There
are many other approaches going. What I would like to
emphasize, Congressman, is that direct air capture is one of
many, many routes towards removing CO2 from the
atmosphere, including terrestrial approaches. Some of them
involve biology, like new plants with very, very deep root
systems. The Salk Institute actually is developing that kind of
technology. Mineralization technologies. There's really a big
portfolio, and I--what I would urge is significant support
across this broad portfolio. We estimated that roughly $10
billion over a decade would bring a huge number of those
different technology pathways to commercialization in a decade.
Mr. Beyer. So I--this is good time for a shoutout for the
Land Institute in Salina, Kansas that's working on food sources
for perennial plants, so you----
Mr. Moniz. Uh-huh.
Mr. Beyer [continuing]. Get those deep roots----
Mr. Moniz. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mr. Beyer. And one last comment. I know my--Jake LaTurner,
the Congressman, brought up the idea of the long term
commitment to research funding, so it doesn't go up and down.
And, of course, we hear from the National Science Foundation,
NIH, et cetera, the shrinking number of excellent projects that
are approved because of this. The only way to--since one
Congress can't commit the next Congress, the only way to do
this is through so-called mandatory spending. Dr. Moniz, you
were a lead bureaucrat, Secretary of Energy, how do you think
we could actually get mandatory spending for R&D into the
budget?
Mr. Moniz. That was a pejorative description of my job,
but--no--well, let--I mean, I'll just speak again from the
energy area, there are a variety of ways it's been done. For
example, about 15 years ago, maybe, there was a--Congress
approved for 10 years a fraction of oil and gas royalties paid
to the Federal Government would go into an R&D program for--in
that case for unconventional natural gas. So there's an example
of the kind of thing which could be done. Earlier there was
also a discussion of--for example, if you--as one example, if
you had a one mil per kilowatt hour charge on all electricity
delivery going into R&D to manage CO2, that would be
$4 billion a year. One mil per kilowatt hour, which would be,
you know, well underneath the fluctuations in the electricity
bill. So I think there's--I'd love to talk with you, if there
are some options for moving legislatively to create a mandatory
funding stream, for energy and for other areas.
Mr. Beyer. Thanks. We've been working for a number of
years on just a House resolution, which is a sense of Congress,
that is should increase 4 percent per year.
Mr. Moniz. So----
Mr. Beyer. We will definitely----
Mr. Moniz. OK.
Mr. Beyer. Well, look, it's one o'clock. I'm so grateful
for you guys. I think you've heard from Democrat and Republican
for the last 3 hours how fascinating this has been, and I could
take another hour, but I'm not allowed to. So I just want to
formally say that we bring this hearing to the close, that we
very much thank you for your testimony, for all your wisdom,
for your experience. The record will remain open for two weeks
for additional statements from Members, and for any additional
questions the Committee may ask of the witnesses. And, with
that, with my Zoom gavel, I declare this hearing over. Thank
you very----
Mr. Moniz. Thank you all.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you.
[Whereupon, at 12:59 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
[all]