[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
EXAMINING NIST'S PRIORITIES
FOR 2025 AND BEYOND
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 22, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-41
__________
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
55-659PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, Chairman
BILL POSEY, Florida ZOE LOFGREN, California, Ranking
RANDY WEBER, Texas Member
BRIAN BABIN, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
JIM BAIRD, Indiana HALEY STEVENS, Michigan
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York
MIKE GARCIA, California DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois
JAY OBERNOLTE, California ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee VALERIE FOUSHEE, North Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California KEVIN MULLIN, California
RICK CRAWFORD, Arkansas JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York EMILIA SYKES, Ohio
RYAN ZINKE, Montana MAXWELL FROST, Florida
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado
DALE STRONG, Alabama SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania
MAX MILLER, Ohio JENNIFER McCLELLAN, Virginia
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia GABE AMO, Rhode Island
MIKE COLLINS, Georgia SEAN CASTEN, Illinois,
BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York Vice Ranking Member
TOM KEAN, New Jersey PAUL TONKO, New York
VACANCY
C O N T E N T S
May 22, 2024
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Chairman, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 19
Written Statement............................................ 20
Statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 21
Written Statement............................................ 22
Witnesses:
The Honorable Dr. Laurie Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce
for Standards and Technology and Director, National Institute
of Standards and Technology, United States Department of
Commerce
Oral Statement............................................... 24
Written Statement............................................ 26
Discussion....................................................... 35
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
The Honorable Dr. Laurie Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce
for Standards and Technology and Director, National Institute
of Standards and Technology, United States Department of
Commerce....................................................... 74
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Report submitted by Representative Suzanne Bonamici, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
``Technical Assessment of the Capital Facility Needs of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology,''
(summary), National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine................................................... 102
EXAMINING NIST'S PRIORITIES
FOR 2025 AND BEYOND
----------
WEDNESDAY, MAY 22, 2024
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:05 a.m., in
room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Frank
Lucas [Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Lucas. The Committee will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess of the
Committee at any time.
Welcome to today's hearing entitled ``Examining NIST's
(National Institute of Standards and Technology's) Priorities
for 2025 and Beyond.'' And I recognize myself for 5 minutes for
an opening statement.
Good morning. Today's hearing will focus on the priorities
of the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the
Fiscal Year 2025. I would like to welcome the Honorable Dr.
Locascio back to the Committee and thank her for taking time to
speak with us today. I look forward to hearing your testimony,
Doc.
It's been almost 2 years since the CHIPS and Science Act
was signed into law. This legislation authorized critical
research and investments to ensure economic stability and
prosperity for the United States. Whether that intent becomes
reality is dependent on an efficient implementation. The CHIPS
and Science Act provided $50 billion in Federal funding for the
Department of Commerce to strengthen the U.S. position in
semiconductor research, development, and manufacturing. NIST is
home to the CHIPS Program Office and is responsible for
overseeing how this funding is allocated and awarded.
Congress appropriated these funds to bolster national
security and ensure that semiconductors can be produced here in
the United States in a cost-effective way. If we can get this
right, the global semiconductor supply will be insulated from
unstable markets and prevent many of the disruptions that
occurred during the COVID epidemic. It would also ensure that
the United States reaps the economic benefits of global
leadership in the field.
We in Congress have a responsibility to ensure this effort
is a success and that our tax dollars are used efficiently,
if--and effectively. If we burden local governments and
industry partners with regulatory requirements and long review
timelines, we risk wasting billions in taxpayer funding and
weakening our competitive advantages over our adversaries.
The CHIPS and Science Act includes ``guardrails'' for
protecting investments in semiconductor manufacturing, new
research security measures, and other provisions that, once
fully implemented, will make it harder for adversarial nations
to compete with U.S. companies.
I hope today's hearing will provide valuable insights into
the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act, as well as an
update of NIST's continued role in strengthening U.S.
scientific innovation and competitiveness.
NIST is one of our Nation's oldest physical science
laboratories. In 1901, Congress established the agency to
support U.S. industrial competitiveness by improving
measurement infrastructure, which at the time was lagging
behind the capacities of other nations. Since then, NIST has
served as ``industry's laboratory'' to advance U.S. leadership
in measurement science, standards, and technology to support
U.S. competitiveness.
Today, serving as industry's lab means prioritizing key
research areas such as quantum information sciences,
microelectronics, advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, and
artificial intelligence (AI). Last year, NIST released the AI
Risk Management Framework (RMF), a set of guidelines required
by the National AI Initiative, a bill by this Committee. I
would like to commend NIST for the transparent, bottom-up
approach it used to develop this framework, which ensures this
voluntary guidance is useful to the broad community of AI
stakeholders. And I expect NIST to continue to use this process
as it develops additional guidelines to help manage risk
related to generative AI.
NIST has been recognized as a leader in the AI space for
quite some time. Decades of NIST R&D (research and development)
has served as the foundation for many AI advancements, and
these capacities are growing exponentially. In October, the
White House issued an Executive order on safe, secure, and
trustworthy development and use of artificial intelligence,
tasking NIST with several new responsibilities to promote the
development and deployment of safe and trustworthy AI. I'm
pleased to see the Administration acknowledging and applauding
NIST's expertise in this space. However, while mighty--while
it's a mighty entity, NIST is a small agency, and its resources
are spread exceptionally thin. I am concerned that some of
these additional responsibilities may well end up taking focus
away from core NIST responsibilities.
In addition, given the short timelines provided by the
Administration in the executive order, NIST is under a lot of
pressure to deliver and can't afford to fumble. But this work
should not be rushed at the expense of doing it right. I hope
to hear your thoughts on addressing these challenges.
My opening statement only touches on a fraction of the work
NIST does, but I look forward to diving into all of today's
hearing. And, again, thank you, Dr. Locascio, for being here
today, and I look forward to your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Lucas follows:]
Good morning. Today's hearing will focus on the priorities
of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
for fiscal year 2025. I would like to welcome the Honorable Dr.
Locascio back to the Committee and thank her for taking the
time to speak with us today. I look forward to hearing your
testimony.
It has been almost two years since the CHIPS and Science
Act was signed into law. This legislation authorized critical
research and investments to ensure economic stability and
prosperity for the United States. Whether that intent becomes
reality is dependent on efficient implementation.
The CHIPS and Science Act provided $50 billion in federal
funding for the Department of Commerce to strengthen the U.S.
position in semiconductor research, development, and
manufacturing. NIST is home to the CHIPS Program Office and is
responsible for overseeing how this funding is allocated and
awarded.
Congress appropriated these funds to bolster national
security and ensure semiconductors can be produced here in the
United States in a cost-competitive way. If we get this right,
the global semiconductor supply will be insulated from unstable
markets and prevent many of the disruptions that occurred
during the COVID pandemic. It would also ensure the U.S. reaps
the economic benefit of global leadership in the field.
We in Congress have a responsibility to ensure this effort
is a success and that our tax dollars are used effectively. If
we burden local governments and industry partners with
regulatory requirements and long review timelines, we risk
wasting billions in taxpayer funding and weakening our
competitive advantage over our adversaries.
The CHIPS and Science Act includes ``guardrails'' for
protecting investments in semiconductor manufacturing, new
research security measures, and other provisions that, once
fully implemented, will make it harder for adversarial nations
to compete with U.S. companies.
I hope today's hearing will provide valuable insight into
the implementation of the CHIPS and Science Act, as well as an
update on NIST's continued role in strengthening U.S.
scientific innovation and competitiveness.
NIST is one of our nation's oldest physical science
laboratories. In 1901, Congress established the agency to
support U.S. industrial competitiveness by improving
measurement infrastructure, which at the time was lagging
behind the capabilities of other nations.
Since then, NIST has served as ``industry's laboratory'' to
advance U.S. leadership in measurement science, standards, and
technology to support U.S. competitiveness.
Today, serving as industry's lab means prioritizing key
research areas such as quantum information sciences,
microelectronics, advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, and
artificial intelligence (AI).
Last year NIST released the AI Risk Management Framework--a
set of guidelines required by the National AI Initiative, a
bill by this Committee.
I would like to commend NIST for the transparent, bottom-up
approach it used to develop this framework, which ensures this
voluntary guidance is useful to the broad community of AI
stakeholders. I expect NIST to continue to use this process as
it develops additional guidance to help manage risks related to
Generative AI.
NIST has been recognized as a leader in the AI space for
quite some time. Decades of NIST R&D has served as the
foundation for many AI advancements, and these capabilities are
growing exponentially.
In October, the White House issued an Executive Order on
``the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of
Artificial Intelligence,'' tasking NIST with several new
responsibilities to promote the development and deployment of
safe and trustworthy AI.
I'm pleased to see the Administration acknowledging and
applauding NIST's expertise in this space. However, while
mighty, NIST is a small agency, and its resources are spread
exceptionally thin. I am concerned that some of these
additional responsibilities may end up taking focus away from
core NIST programs.
In addition, given the short timelines provided by the
Administration in the E.O., NIST is under a lot of pressure to
deliver and can't afford to fumble. But this work should not be
rushed at the expense of doing it right. I hope to hear your
thoughts on addressing these challenges.
My opening statement only touches on a fraction of the work
NIST does but I look forward to diving into all of it in
today's hearing. Again, I thank Dr. Locascio for being here
today, and I look forward to your testimony.
I now recognize the Ranking Member for her opening
statement.
Chairman Lucas. I now recognize the Ranking Member for her
opening statement.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for this hearing today.
I also would like to welcome Dr. Locascio, who is so ably
overseeing NIST.
NIST has a critical mission to play in supporting
innovation and industrial competitiveness by advancing
measurement, standards, and technology. It really has a
sterling reputation and matched by its ability. This small but
mighty agency has been assigned leadership roles in several
high-profile national priorities, which you have outlined, Mr.
Chairman.
NIST has been charged to implement the $39 billion CHIPS
for America program to help reshore American semiconductor
manufacturing. They are also the lead on the $11 billion CHIPS
R&D program that Congress enacted along with the incentives
program. And NIST is at the forefront of our efforts in
national priorities like AI, quantum information science and
engineering, and biotechnology.
What is less known is the myriad of NIST's other critical
activities that support industrial competitiveness, make our
economy function, and protect people's safety and livelihoods.
For example, the stock market operates based on NIST's
extremely precise clocks, as does much of our critical
infrastructure and many of our industries. The buildings we
live and work in were designed to codes and standards that NIST
helped to inform.
NIST plays an important role in understanding how fire
interacts with the built environment at the wildfire-urban
interface. They are leading the effort to strengthen the
credibility of forensic science and standards. NIST has an
immense library of standard reference materials that industry
and regulators depend on, down to the peanut butter in your
kitchen cabinet.
NIST further supports American companies across our economy
by helping our companies maintain U.S. leadership in
international standards setting. As we know, China is ramping
up its own participation in international standards-setting
forums, and their goal is to supersede us.
Instead of supporting this critical agency and putting our
money where our mouth is when it comes to competition with
China, Congress cut NIST's budget and seems poised to do so
again this year. NIST received a devastating 10 percent cut in
the Fiscal Year 2024 budget, affecting programs throughout the
agency. They have already terminated students and postdoctoral
researchers and started to scale back critical programs.
In addition, for the last 20 years, NIST's infrastructure
challenges have been increasing and, despite the work of this
Committee, Congress has not funded any real solution to that
problem. Now the infrastructure issues are coming to a head,
decreasing the effectiveness of the agency, damaging staff
morale, and in some cases putting those staff in real danger.
For the first time this year, the cost it would take to address
the maintenance backlog at NIST will eclipse how much money the
agency spends on its research portfolio.
NIST's role can be abstract, so I'm going to close by
giving a real example of what we're losing. NIST runs the
National Vulnerability Database (NVD), which is used by
governments and companies all over the world to remove
cybersecurity bugs and protect everyone's computers. The NVD is
a critical public good. However, the budget cuts over the last
few years has caused NIST to scale back how it processes
vulnerabilities that go into the NVD. There is now a backlog of
over 6,000 vulnerabilities, and we don't know how harmful they
are. While I'm confident that NIST's plan to address this issue
in the coming months will be thoughtful, we in Congress can't
lose sight of how our dysfunction affects programs that the
public relies on for their safety, security, and overall
wellbeing.
I want to thank Director Locascio for coming before us
today, as well as the staff that work so hard in the public
interest. We value NIST for your steady work, and I hope that
we can do better this budget year so that you are able to do
what you're capable of.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]
Thank you for holding today's hearing, Mr. Chairman. I
would also like to welcome our distinguished witness Dr.
Locascio.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has a
critical mission to support our innovation and industrial
competitiveness by advancing measurement, standards, and
technology. Because of its sterling reputation and ability,
this small but mighty agency has been assigned leadership roles
in several high-profile national priorities.
NIST has been charged to implement the $39 billion CHIPS
for America program to help reshore American semiconductor
manufacturing. They are also the lead on the $11 billion CHIPS
R&D program that Congress enacted along with the incentives
program. NIST is at the forefront of our efforts in national
priorities like artificial intelligence, quantum information
science and engineering, and biotechnology.
What is less well known is the myriad of NIST's other
critical activities that support industrial competitiveness,
make our economy function, and protect people's safety and
livelihoods.
The stock market operates based on NIST's extremely precise
clocks, as does much of our critical infrastructure and many of
our industries. The buildings we live and work in were designed
to codes and standards that NIST helped to inform. NIST plays
an important role in understanding how fire interacts with the
built environment at the wildfire-urban interface. They are
leading the effort to strengthen the credibility of forensic
science and standards. NIST also has an immense library of
standard reference materials that industry and regulators
depend on, down to the peanut butter in your kitchen cabinet.
NIST further supports American companies across our economy
by helping our companies maintain U.S. leadership in
international standards setting. We know that China is ramping
up its own participation in international standards setting
forums with the goal of superseding us.
Instead of supporting this critical agency and putting our
money where our mouth is when it comes to competition with
China, Congress cut NIST's budget and seems poised to do so
again this year. NIST received a devastating 10 percent cut in
the fiscal year 2024 budget-affecting programs throughout the
agency. They have already let go of students and postdoctoral
researchers and have started to scale back critical programs.
In addition, for the last 20 years, NIST's infrastructure
challenges have been steadily increasing and, despite the work
of this Committee, Congress has not funded any real solution to
the problem. Now the infrastructure issues are coming to a
head, decreasing the effectiveness of the agency, damaging
staff morale, and in some cases putting those staff in real
danger. For the first time this year, the cost it would take to
address the maintenance backlog at NIST will eclipse how much
money the agency spends on its research portfolio.
NIST's role can be abstract so I will close by giving you a
real example of what we are losing. NIST runs the National
Vulnerability Database, which is used by governments and
companies all over the world to remove cybersecurity bugs and
protect everyone's computers. The NVD is a critical public
good. However, the budget cuts driven by the majority party
over the last few years caused NIST to scale back how it
processes vulnerabilities that go into the NVD. There is now a
backlog of over 6000 vulnerabilities--and we don't know how
harmful they are. While I am confident in NIST's plan to
address this issue in the coming months, we in Congress cannot
lose sight of how our disfunction affects programs that the
public relies on for their safety, security, and overall well-
being.
I thank Director Locascio for coming before us today and
the other public servants at NIST for their steadfast work.
I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The Ranking Member yields back.
Let me introduce our witness. Our witness today is the
Honorable Dr. Laurie Locascio, who is the Under Secretary of
Commerce for Standards and Technology and Director of the
National Institute of Standards and Technology. In this role,
she provides high-level oversight and direction of NIST. The
doctor most recently served as Vice President of Research at
the University of Maryland College Park and the University of
Maryland Baltimore, and before her time at the university,
worked at NIST for 31 years, starting as a research engineer
and eventually leading NIST Material Management Laboratory.
I now recognize Dr. Locascio for 5 minutes to present her
testimony. Thank you for being here, Doc.
TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE DR. LAURIE LOCASCIO,
UNDER SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR STANDARDS
AND TECHNOLOGY AND DIRECTOR,
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF STANDARDS AND TECHNOLOGY,
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
Dr. Locascio. Thank you so much. Chair Lucas, Ranking
Member Lofgren, and esteemed Members of the Committee, I'm
Laurie Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and
Technology and the Director of NIST, the National Institute of
Standards and Technology. And I really appreciate the
opportunity to be here today to talk to you about the
President's Fiscal Year 2025 budget for NIST.
Our country's prosperity actually depends on NIST. For
example, when $38 billion changed hands online during last
year's holiday shopping period known as Cyber Week, it was NIST
cryptography standards that help ensure the safety of millions
of credit card transactions with retailers. When stock trades
increase, it is NIST's time service based on the world's most
accurate atomic clocks that ensures accurate timestamps on
electronic trades that occur often just milliseconds--
microseconds apart, thereby preventing stock market
manipulation and fraud.
The buildings where our children go to school are made
safer from natural hazards like tornados or hurricanes because
we have learned from NIST investigation of building failures
and then worked to update building codes and standards with our
partners.
NIST is the only Federal laboratory with a mission entirely
focused on driving U.S. innovation and industrial
competitiveness, and we do this through well-understood,
verified measurements and standards that are critical for every
step in the produce development and commercialization cycle
from invention to refinement, manufacture to sales, from
regulation to decommission.
Through our rigorous science, our guidelines, our
standards, we inspire trust in new technologies of product of
quintessential American innovation so that the U.S. economy can
continue to grow and thrive. And today, I'm pleased to discuss
our Fiscal Year 2025 budget request, which would empower NIST
to continue to push forward the U.S. science and technology
innovation engine.
The President's budget requests a total of $1.5 billion for
NIST in Fiscal Year 2025. First, the budget request includes
$50 million to realize the goals of the AI Executive order and
the U.S. AI Safety Institute. We will continue to conduct
research for AI system evaluation and develop the technical
guidance we need to measure and manage risks.
The budget request also includes an increase of $13.9
million for quantum to engage in standardization efforts to
support U.S. industry in moving quantum technologies out into
the marketplace and advanced cryptography to mitigate
cybersecurity threats posed by new quantum computers. But to
conduct our world-class science, meet future needs and emerging
technologies, and provide a safe working environment for our
staff, NIST facilities are in dire need of updating and
maintenance. And therefore, the Fiscal Year 2025 budget request
includes $311.5 million to address NIST facility needs,
including completion of the modernization of our radiation
physics building. That's a facility that supports critical work
in national security and healthcare and energy, as well as
funding to modernize our IT (information technology) networking
infrastructure and begin to address this enormous maintenance
backlog.
The budget request also also includes $212 million to
support the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, or
MEP, and Manufacturing USA. Funding for MEP will help narrow
the workforce gap, mitigate supply chain vulnerabilities, and
provide that critical cybersecurity training to small- and
medium-sized manufacturers. The funding for Manufacturing USA
would help to accelerate manufacturing technology deployment
and also address workforce gaps and support a new AI-focused
manufacturing institute, as well as our current
Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Institute.
NIST is at a critical point in our history. We've enabled
trusted weights and measures for almost 125 years in every
single sector of our economy from agriculture to AI. But we
need additional support to deliver for the Nation so that the
United States can maintain its leadership amid rising global
competition. There is so much work to do, and I can guarantee
you that we are ready to go, but we need your help through
fully funding the President's Fiscal Year 2025 budget request
for NIST.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Locascio follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Lucas. Thank you for your testimony.
And I now recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Dr. Locascio, this year's budget request, as you noted,
includes $13.9 million for quantum science. Earlier this
Congress, the Science Committee passed the National Quantum
Initiative Reauthorization Act, with resounding--I would say
very resounding bipartisan support. It builds off the original
act to ensure that the United States has the continued support
and investments needed to maintain our leadership in quantum
sciences and technology.
The bill specifically expands NIST's role, giving it the
authority to establish quantum centers to accelerate this work
in quantum sensing, measurement, and engineering. Could you
please speak to the critical role that NIST plays in supporting
a robust quantum research and development ecosystem here in the
United States?
Dr. Locascio. Yes, thank you so much for that question.
NIST has a very rich history in quantum science and technology,
having four Nobel Prizes in that area. We're very proud of the
work that we've done, and we have the best, most accurate
quantum clocks in the entire world.
Since the passage of the NQI, we have really in the United
States built a very robust science--the science behind quantum
technologies. And now we're on the verge really of accelerating
that into the marketplace via engineering, so take that science
into engineering and into the marketplace.
With the passage of the NQI, NIST was also given the
requirement to develop the Quantum Economic Development
Consortium, and so we established that, the Quantum Economic
Development Consortium. And what that's allowed us to do is
really bring together this emerging marketplace, bringing
together all the players, the people who are making the new
discoveries that they want to transition out into the market
and talk to them about what are the critical potential supply
chain gaps? What are the critical standards we're going to need
in the future quantum marketplace? And so not only have we
developed this very robust science portfolio that has led to
great advances in sensing and computers, but we also are now
helping them come to the market.
Chairman Lucas. By the same token, Dr. Locascio, what are
some of the potential consequences that may arise if we do not
reauthorize the National Quantum Initiative or the United
States fails to maintain its leadership in quantum sciences and
technology?
Dr. Locascio. Well, I know we all know that China is
rapidly improving their R&D capabilities. They now surpass us
in the number of scientific publications. They are ahead of us
in certain areas of quantum like quantum communications. The
United States remains at the forefront of quantum computing,
but there is a serious investment in China to try to outcompete
us in this space. And so we need further investment and
authorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act,
reauthorization, in order to continue on this path of taking
the science out into the marketplace and then developing a
thriving market for the United States.
Chairman Lucas. Dr. Locascio, last year's budget request
asked for an increase of $5 million for AI research. This
year's request is an increase of $47.5 million. This is a
substantial jump. As you know, NIST was tasked with several new
responsibilities in the President's Executive order, as well as
standing up the U.S. AI Safety Institute. Given NIST's current
resources, how is NIST meeting the directives in the Executive
order and the corresponding 270-day timeline without losing
sight of its core mission? That seems like an ambitious
requirement.
Dr. Locascio. It is, and we are on target to meet all of
the Executive order tasks. As a matter of fact, last week, or a
few weeks ago, we released four documents that were in the
Executive order, including one on synthetic content and one on
international standards related to AI, as well as a generative
AI Risk Management Framework. So we are on task and will
complete all of the tasks on time for the Executive order. In
the meantime, we just released the vision paper for the AI
Safety Institute yesterday, and we are in the process of hiring
and building out the capacity for the AI Safety Institute.
Chairman Lucas. Similarly, are existing AI R&D programs
being transferred to the U.S. AI Safety Institute?
Dr. Locascio. I would say we're building new capacities in
areas that we do not have currently for testing large language
models and valuation of large language models, at the same
time, building out the safety science behind AI. And so that's
really--I would say new capacity that we're hiring, so new
hires for the AI Safety Institute in those specific areas, at
the same time, using existing staff expertise and knowledge to
complement that.
Chairman Lucas. So how are the mission and goals of the
Safety Institute separate or different from the work the
Information Technology Laboratory has been leading for years?
Dr. Locascio. So you've known us for years in AI. You said
that in your opening statement, sir. And we are very proud of
the fact that we build out this great research and effort that
we're building on to deliver, for instance, the AI Risk
Management Framework. We will continue to do that kind of
research to support the development of measurement science that
underpins AI. At the same time, out of that is built the AI
Safety Institute. It's a new capacity for studying specifically
the science--the safety science behind AI.
Chairman Lucas. So my final question would have been why is
the Safety Institute necessary? I think you touched on that in
the last sentence.
Dr. Locascio. That we're building new capacity that we
didn't have, and it complements existing capacity that NIST
does have, and we'll continue to do both.
Chairman Lucas. My time has expired. I recognize the
Ranking Member for 5 minutes.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you,
Doctor.
You know, this Committee is a bipartisan Committee. We have
great consensus on the Quantum Initiative and AI and the like.
We want the United States to be successful, we support science,
but we can only authorize, we don't appropriate. So I want to
ask you some questions about the budgetary impacts and what we
want to accomplish. I would like you to share with us three
things. What did you have to do to live within the 2024 budget
cut? What will happen to NIST in terms of delivering its
mission if we have a CR (continuing resolution) at the end of
this fiscal year? And the Appropriations Committee has now
targeted NIST for a 6 percent cut. What will happen to NIST in
terms of its ability to deliver its mission in that case? So
those are really three questions.
Dr. Locascio. So with regard to the budget cuts, we had to
execute on them late in the year, and therefore, we really had
to figure out where we could pull that money from this late in
the year. And so we had to stop hiring and filling gaps, for
instance. We were doing hiring in our core standards programs,
and we had to stop that. We had to shed students and postdocs.
We had been building that next generation in many different
areas like electric vehicle standards. We were unable to
continue to support efforts in those areas, and in many other
areas, including building out new capacity for clinical and
biological standards. So it really put a big halt on the
momentum moving forward in several critical areas, including
the ones that I mentioned. But that was really what we could do
in the emergency situation that we were given with only 6
months left in the year.
Moving forward, what we're looking at is some pretty
drastic cuts----
Ms. Lofgren. With a CR, what would happen?
Dr. Locascio. And--we have to plan for the existing budget,
of course with the CR, and so we are planning for that now.
What happens is we now have to think about what kind of impact
that has on our staff. We were able to protect all of our staff
in this past 6 months. We did everything that we could to cut
existing contracts and grants and new hires, but we were able
to protect the existing Federal staff. Moving forward, I would
say with potential budget cuts on the horizon, that would be
very difficult and really eat into the bone on critical
programs to support everything from agriculture to construction
to clinical healthcare, and our standards are very, very wide-
ranging. And I'll also say that it will cut into the bone in
areas like our time efforts.
Ms. Lofgren. So the 6 percent cut, would that result
probably in reduction in force of your staff?
Dr. Locascio. We will have to look at that for sure, yes.
We will have to consider that. And I'll say that several times
it was said that we are lean and mighty, and we're proud of
that. We are lean and mighty, and we work very hard to be the
best bang for your buck, that we are not loaded in any sense of
the word, and everybody is doing everything they can to make
these programs happen. But it really does cut into the bone
when we have to get into those deep cuts.
Ms. Lofgren. I was very disappointed with the news that the
CHIPS Program Office wasn't going to move forward on the R&D
Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) that would have supported
industrial or competitive R&D facilities. Now, I understand the
reasoning behind the decision. There has been significant
demand for the fabrication incentives. And, of course, NIST
didn't count on Congress redirecting a large portion of the
funds toward a specific project that, in my view, should have
been funded by the Department of Defense (DOD).
Dr. Locascio, what will the United States lose by not
supporting industrial R&D in the next generation of
semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing equipment?
Dr. Locascio. I will say that that was a very, very tough
decision for us to make. You're right that we had to reallocate
that funding into the secure enclave, and we're working very,
very closely with our partners in DOD and ODNI (Office of the
Director of National Intelligence) to make that happen. At the
same time, we really had to weigh all of our options, and we
did have to back off of the NOFO 3, which was the R&D
facilities. That's hard. It's hard because that was something
we were very excited about doing. The companies were very
excited about working with us on that. And that really is--R&D
is really the future. That's what we're talking about here. So
manufacturing incentives are critical to bring that kind of
capacity here to the United States. R&D is all about the
future.
I will say that there was a lot of confusion when that was
announced. That affected the $11 billion in R&D funding. That
was not affected, and so the R&D funding and the $11 billion is
still being planned for and allocated. And so please, please
tell your constituents to work with us on the R&D funding as
well.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time is expired.
Chairman Lucas. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Babin, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Babin. Yes, sir. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
NIST has--and thank you for being here.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Babin. Appreciate it. NIST has a long history of
leading, in cooperation with NASA (National Aeronautics and
Space Administration), the development of cybersecurity
standards for the space domain. Recently, NASA and the
Department of Commerce began working on developing a lunar time
standard to enable future exploration of the Moon. As we've
seen recently, agencies like the FAA (Federal Aviation
Administration), FCC (Federal Communications Commission), DHS
(Department of Homeland Security), and even other elements of
the Department of Commerce are seeking out ways to get more
involved in space. And given NIST's expertise and coordinating
nonregulatory standards-based solutions for complex challenges,
can you take a moment to discuss NIST's future plans as they
relate to space, briefly?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that. And we are working very--
as hard as we can coordinating with our Federal agency partners
to examine their needs and have developed some work with NASA
in cybersecurity guidelines for space. We'll continue to work
with our partners as needed in that space and many others. But
the standards that are required, of course, they're driven by
the industry as well, and so we convene with our partners who
are in that aerospace industry----
Mr. Babin. OK.
Dr. Locascio [continuing]. And talk to them about what
needs they're seeing on the horizon.
Mr. Babin. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much.
Question two, when the Administration lobbied for CHIPS
funding, one of the primary rationales was that it had to be
done ASAP. There was no time to deliberate or delay. And while
tentative awards have been issued in recent weeks, many awards
are still under negotiation. Several news reports have
highlighted the fact that the Administration is placing
conditions on the funding such as childcare requirements;
climate and environmental responsibility reviews; diversity,
equity, and inclusion (DEI) mandates that were not in the CHIPS
and Science law. This is in addition to the strings attached in
the bill like union construction mandates, buyback
restrictions, and profit sharing. Ironically, we seem to have
reinforced or even added to the issues that pushed many of
these companies overseas in the very first place, cheaper
labor, cheaper construction costs, faster production, and more
innovative environments.
So, Dr. Locascio, how much funding from the CHIPS and
Science bill falls under NIST's purview? And how much of that
funding has been awarded, obligated, and outlaid so far?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that question. We've had
incredible response on all of our notices of funding
opportunities, and we are on track for delivering and having
all of that money announced by the end of the year this year,
but very, very robust interest, and we are working with
companies very closely and helping them to refine plans moving
forward.
I'll also say that in the CHIPS R&D area, we are also on
track for delivering announcements on the vast majority of that
funding in this fiscal year.
Mr. Babin. Well, I assume awards are still being negotiated
because of these conditions placed on applicants that were not
required by the CHIPS and Science Act. Is--yes or no? Are they
still being negotiated?
Dr. Locascio. We're negotiating all the terms----
Mr. Babin. OK.
Dr. Locascio [continuing]. Financial terms, et cetera,
still, yes.
Mr. Babin. OK. Well, one last one. We know it is critically
important that we're prepared to deploy quantum-resistant
cryptography in the near future. NIST has been leading the way
in testing and standardizing algorithms designed to withstand
attacks by quantum computers. Do you expect NIST to release its
finalized standards this year? And can you please speak to why
it is important that we begin preparing the quantum transition
now?
Dr. Locascio. Yes, it's very, very critically important. As
a matter of fact, we've all heard about the fact that other
countries are hoarding information right now in case there's a
quantum computer in the future that can break that code. And so
these post-quantum cryptography standards that NIST is in the
process of developing are very important so that we can start
to protect our information now. So we are on track for
delivering the first standards in the summer this year, and
we're really happy about the work and the engagement that we've
had. We're working with large companies and small companies to
try to make sure that implementation can also happen very, very
quickly once the post-quantum cryptography standards are
developed and out there.
Mr. Babin. OK. Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back. The gentleman's
time has expired.
The Chair recognizes the gentlelady from Oregon, Ms.
Bonamici, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Ranking
Member. Thank you, Dr. Locascio. Nice to see you. Welcome back
to the Committee.
NIST provides some expert scientific guidance for the most
critical technological challenges. And you do have an
impressive record at NIST of accomplishments, considering
limited resources. The CHIPS and Science Act, which, as you
know, is--was authored primarily by this Committee, outlined
three notices of funding opportunity and the creation of a
National Semiconductor Technology Center, or NSTC, to
incentivize commercial semiconductor innovation and onshoring.
So Oregon has a very robust semiconductor ecosystem that is
well equipped to achieve the goals of the NSTC, so, needless to
say, we've been following this very closely. And following up
on Ranking Member Lofgren's question, NIST has been directed to
distribute the funding and oversee NSTC development. And last
month, the Department of Commerce unexpectedly announced that
it was canceling that third planned Notice of Funding
Opportunity focused on research and development. This change
could prevent semiconductor design companies from accessing
critical funding needed to support our leadership and
innovation. And, as you just noted, R&D is the future.
So, Dr. Locascio, in light of the cancelation of that
Notice of Funding Opportunity, how is NIST planning to leverage
chips precompetitive R&D programs like NSTC to support
commercial R&D? And what is the expected timeline and criteria
now for NSTC technical center facilities selection?
Dr. Locascio. Yes, thank you for that question. So we are
planning on making a lot of announcements in the next few
months regarding funding opportunities, basically early
research opportunities, as well as announcements on how we plan
to go about infrastructure development for the NSTC, and so
watch for that. That's coming. We're excited. We believe we're
on a good track, and people will be very excited in the
community.
And I'll also say that we have three other programs within
the research and development. The second one is the National
Advanced Packaging Manufacturing Program.
Ms. Bonamici. Right.
Dr. Locascio. That is also a $3 billion program. And we are
building out infrastructure for that as well, so I would like
people to watch out for that. We'll be making announcements on
that this summer, also infrastructure for NSTC, infrastructure
for packaging, as well as research opportunities that industry
and academia and all research entities can contribute.
Ms. Bonamici. And can you be any more specific than the
next few months?
Dr. Locascio. We will have very, very shortly our
description of what we would like to see, basically the model
that we would like to see, what we would like to see for the
infrastructure that we're building out, the capabilities that
we will be building out. And then by the end of the year, we
will be making announcements regarding our infrastructure.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And then following up on Chairman
Lucas' question, NIST has also been tasked with building out
the AI Safety Institute. And just yesterday, it released a
strategic vision that outlines a broad goal for the program.
NIST's Fiscal Year 2024 budget, though, saw a $30 million
reduction in its scientific and technical logical research
account, which funds AI activities. So the agency is planning
is to pull funding from other programs to make up for the
shortfall. Considering these budget constraints, how does NIST
plan to fulfill its mandate to conduct AI testing, evaluation,
verification, and validation research? And how will the scope
of the Safety Institute need to be scaled back if funding
remains low?
Dr. Locascio. So we did ask for a new budget request to
increase the funding for the AI Safety Institute. Right now, we
have $6 million that we are spending on the AI Safety
Institute, as well as the funding that we're spending on the
NIST laboratory research to support, for instance, AI Risk
Management Framework and the application of the Risk Management
Framework, as well as measurement science behind measuring the
different parameters or the different characteristics of
trustworthy AI.
We had to prioritize, and it's going to be very, very tough
moving forward if we don't get additional funding for the AI--
--
Ms. Bonamici. I appreciate that. And, real quickly, NIST
does research on the impact of hazards in buildings and
communities. As someone who represents a significant portion of
the Oregon Coast off the Cascadia Subduction Zone, do hazards
include tsunami?
Dr. Locascio. The hazards right now do not include tsunami.
We do research on wind events and hurricanes, tornadoes, et
cetera, and earthquakes with NEHRP (National Earthquake Hazard
Reduction Program). And then we also do research on fire, so
WUI (wildland-urban interface), but our work has not yet
extended into tsunamis.
Ms. Bonamici. Maybe we can talk about that later.
And, as I yield back, Mr. Chairman, I just want to note
that Congress has continued to task NIST with high-profile
responsibilities, but we have failed to provide the agency with
the resources that it needs. And I request unanimous consent to
enter into the record a National Academies report highlighting
the urgent need to sustain funding for NIST facilities to
support mission priorities, including U.S. leadership in
semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
And I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. Seeing no objection, so ordered.
The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Webster, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Webster. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Great hearing.
Dr. Locascio, in your kind of long biography of things that
have happened to you, and one of those was the appointment to
the Department of Pharmacology at the university you were at.
And that has to do with standards in some cases, standards for
diet and other things. Is that--what did you do there?
Dr. Locascio. So at the University of Maryland, I was Vice
President for research, and I was a Professor in pharmacology
and also in bioengineering, so I acted as a Professor in that
department.
Mr. Webster. So were you a part of--you know, because the
Federal Government, the USDA (United States Department of
Agriculture), others, set standards, including consultation
with pharmacology and other people. They set standards for
people's diet. And I was just at a meeting. I was really
concerned about what they said. Like 77 percent of young adults
are not qualified--from a dietary standpoint are not qualified
to serve in the military. And so I just wondered if you've had
something to do with making recommendations as far as that's
concerned.
Dr. Locascio. Not in that capacity, but I would say that
NIST does develop standards related to dietary content, so
content of foods, and I think it's a really important part of
our portfolio that people don't know about. We work with NIH
(National Institutes of Health) and FDA (Food and Drug
Administration) and others to prioritize which standards we
should develop so that we can measure the content of food.
Mr. Webster. Yes, because I wasn't familiar with that until
this meeting. They brought up not only NIH, but also NIST as
being sort of the standard setters or whatever of what--and so
many people in America are overweight or pre-overweight or
developing that which causes not just a problem, but it could
be a lifelong problem. It seems like some of these things that
are--think about Ozempic. That--it's like a lifetime drug that
you have to take in order to solve some of those problems. And
I just wondered if, in doing that, you would--did you get
recommendations from the pharmaceutical industry on what the
proper diet would be?
Dr. Locascio. So we work with, as I said, the other
agencies who are mostly responsible for that, and we also work
with stakeholders as well in the development of our standards.
And so we do look at, for instance, fat content and different
matrices, different food matrices, but we also look at safety
of various foods, for instance, contaminants in infant formula.
So we have a wide range of standards that you don't hear very
much about, but they're critically important for protecting our
food supply and also knowing what goes into our food supply.
Mr. Webster. Well, in a sense, you can see physically, the
results of some of the misuse of that or whatever in the size
of people and weight and so forth, but maybe we don't know
about that. I appreciate that.
I had one of the questions, but I don't think it's going to
be--it's a long one, so I'll yield back my time. Thank you a
lot.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from North
Carolina, Ms. Ross, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Ross. Thank you, Chairman Lucas, Ranking Member
Lofgren, for holding this hearing. And thank you to Dr.
Locascio for being here today. It's always a pleasure to see
you. And I thank you for coming to North Carolina as well.
Across the United States, cyber attacks are increasingly
posing a great threat to public utilities, infrastructure,
businesses, and more. And we touched on it with space and some
other areas. But just this week, the EPA (Environmental
Protection Agency) issued an alert warning community water
systems of the rise of attacks on our Nation's water
infrastructure. Yet your agency that's tasked--or was tasked
with developing cyber standards and best practices just had its
budget cut. And now more than ever, it's essential for us to
fund NIST and prioritize your work on cybersecurity, AI,
quantum computing, manufacturing, and much more.
So I want to go into this EPA warning. So as I mentioned
earlier, EPA issued an enforcement alert on Monday, outlining
the urgent cybersecurity threats to community drinking water
systems. Cyber attacks on drinking water systems have a
potential to disrupt both communities and critical
infrastructure. Can you speak briefly about what NIST is doing
to collaborate with water and wastewater systems to develop a
reference design for practical cybersecurity solutions for
water and wastewater utilities of all sizes?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that question. So, yes, we
developed the Cybersecurity Framework about 10 years ago now, I
believe, specifically for critical infrastructure, including
water. And since then, we have recently updated that this year,
Cybersecurity Framework 2.0. One of the things that we really
emphasized in this is that it is for all sectors, and we're
trying to make it much more easily usable for really everybody
in every sector. Some of the things that we revised in the new
Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 is the idea of governance, that the
person at the top of the organization needs to have a handle on
cybersecurity and understand the cybersecurity risks associated
with what they're doing and manage to that risk.
And so we have multiple things that we're working on. One
is trying to make sure that resource is disseminated and that
people understand how to use it. And No. 2, we work with
sectors specifically in our National Cybersecurity Center of
Excellence to dig into areas like infrastructure to work with
the community, bring them in, and really triage a specific
sector working with them side by side using the Cybersecurity
Framework as the basic guidance.
Ms. Ross. Well, we appreciate that and think you should get
the money to do more of it.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Ms. Ross. So my second question is about the importance of
the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. And it cannot be
understated. Since 2000, the North Carolina Extension
Partnership, led by NC State University, has created $2.9
billion in added income to our State's economy. The CHIPS and
Science Act updated the Manufacturing Extension Partnership
program to create a pilot program for expansion awards to
existing centers. And NIST issued a request for application for
this program in February 2023 and started supporting the
development of the national supply chain operation and
intelligence network. Can you provide the Committee with an
update on this expansion and the award pilot program?
Dr. Locascio. Yes, thank you for that question. So we are
really proud of the work that's done out in our MEP centers in
every State and in Puerto Rico, working side by side to help
our manufacturers--small and medium manufacturers be
successful. And the supply chain funding is really important,
the supply chain optimization network, we gave $400,000 to each
one of the centers to build out capacity to understand the
supply chain in their region and connect that information
regionally to understand and map out the supply chain.
So we're excited about that work. That is now feeding back
to NIST, but we have not built a data base. We don't have the
funding to build out a data base to link that nationally, but
we're very happy about where we started, and that is that each
center is now building up capacity to understand the supply
chain risk in their own region.
Ms. Ross. Well, thank you. And, Mr. Chairman, yet another
reason why this Committee needs to tell the appropriators to
fund NIST.
I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. Very politely worded by the gentlelady,
whose time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Garcia, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Dr.
Locascio, for your testimony. As an appropriator, I can assure
you we will fund NIST. The question is how much.
Thirty-nine billion on CHIPS, and there's been some
preliminary memorandums of terms (PMTs) announced that sums up
to roughly about 75 percent of that total obligation. What we
are hearing from smaller companies is a barrier--or they're
mostly around barriers to entry. Not everyone is Intel, not
everyone is AMD, and not everyone is BAE. And some of these
smaller companies which may actually have discriminating
technologies to help us go faster or help us keep a
technological advantage over our international competitors or
break our dependencies on other countries for semiconductors
are not able to participate.
And one of the concerning things that I'm seeing is that a
lot of these awards are being subject to either terms and
conditions, or requirements and priorities or preferences that
actually are outside the scope of what Congress intended CHIPS
to be.
About a year ago, Department of Commerce put out a Notice
of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, which basically outlines
several requirements and preferential processes that are in
fact outside the scope of the enacted law and went as far as to
say that applications that do not meet priorities--and that was
emphasized and italicized--will not receive funding. And when
you read these terms, roughly 13 of them strongly encouraged,
support, or promote a policy in the NOFO. Nine of them direct
applicants to comply with non-statutory labor or environmental
policies.
And so what I'm worried about is that we are quite
literally turning people away, turning companies away that may
actually be able to provide enabling scope or very unique
capabilities either in the R&D side or on the capacity side as
these big companies scale up. It's one thing, you know, to
mandate a renewable energy clause or a community investment
clause for these bigger companies, but to do so for some of
these smaller companies is quite onerous and frankly
prohibitive.
So, one, I guess I want to hear in profit sharing, I mean,
we're requiring a lot of these companies to do profit sharing,
right? These are the bigger companies usually. This is not
traditionally what--something that we envision as a Manhattan
Project mindset to behave like, environmental policies, project
labor agreements being imposed as conditions of award,
prevailing wage requirements. And in some of these cases we had
a company who said, hey, we were trying to apply and we were
told that we not only had to comply with prevailing wage
requirements, but they were asking us to do it retroactively
even though we started investing in this--and capitalizing in
this infrastructure in this building. Before CHIPS was even
enacted into law, they wanted us to retroactively apply
prevailing wage requirements.
So, one, I guess my question is, have you been getting this
feedback and hearing this feedback? Because with all the
discussions that we're hearing and with FRA (Fiscal
Responsibility Act) and the reductions in some of these
appropriation bills, the goal is to get $39 billion to behave
like $50 billion. And if we add layers of red tape and
bureaucracy and onerous T's and C's, terms and conditions that
out are outside of the scope or intent of Congress on the CHIPS
Act, what we're going to end up with is $39 billion end up
behaving like $25 billion or less. And that is not what we
envision. That's not what I signed up to when I voted for CHIPS
Act. The sum of the parts has to be greater than the whole
here.
So, one, are you getting that feedback from small
businesses? Two, what could be done besides just throwing more
money at it? Can we look at the policy and regulatory side of
this so that we're actually encouraging people to participate
and not driving their companies into the ground as a result of
that participation?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that question. So they are sort
of multiple points that you've made there. But, first, I want
to say that economic and national security is really our No. 1
priority. And I can't talk to the specifics of each deal, but I
will say that I've met with many, many people, and I was
recently told by someone in the venture area that our
negotiations are very, very tough, that we are absolutely
getting the best bang for the dollar, the best buy for the
taxpayer dollar. We take that very, very seriously about
getting the most out of these dollars. And I'll say that's
true.
I also do want to speak to the small business issue that
you brought up. First of all, I want to say that we do have a
new Notice of Funding Opportunity related to small businesses
specifically, and I encourage you to look at that and to point
your constituents to that as well. It's high dollars for small
business, for SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research), and
it's about $54 million, and we'll award about 24 grants. So
it's good money for really solid projects in small business.
And we're looking forward to the great response we've already
gotten from that, so please, I'll point you to that as well.
I also say that in R&D there are going to be multiple
capabilities that we are developing that specifically focus on
small businesses and people that don't have the resources to
access maybe the building out of capabilities to do
prototyping. And so that is going to be very, very critical
research to support small businesses. And they're one of the
key groups that we have in mind as we're thinking about how
we're going to spend our R&D money.
Mr. Garcia. OK. Thank you. And I've got a meeting with Mr.
Mike Schmidt tomorrow. I can do a deep----
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mr. Garcia [continuing]. Dive on all those things.
Appreciate the time.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Garcia. I'm out of time. I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman's time has expired. The Chair
now recognizes the gentlelady from North Carolina, Mrs.
Foushee, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Foushee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Dr. Locascio,
it is good to see you again, and thank you for appearing here
today.
The rapid acceleration in AI capabilities that we are
experiencing has made it more important than ever to consider
fundamental questions about research methods, research
priorities, and the potential impacts of new AI systems and
models for society at large. Thankfully, NIST has become a
leading voice in working to answer these questions.
The agency has an indispensable role to play by ensuring
that the Federal Government's approach to AI research is rooted
in objective scientific analysis and rigorous scientific
methodology. Recent developments, however, have created an
unfortunate degree of uncertainty surrounding the process and
structure for NIST's AI work. I am concerned about ambiguities
in the scope and direction of the AI Safety Institute, as well
as the institutional relationship between the Safety Institute
and NIST. The agency's AI work is too important to allow these
questions to linger.
So my first question is what steps are you taking to ensure
that NIST staffers assigned to work on AI topics are not
diverted from the core functions to support the Safety
Institute?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that question. And yes, as I
explained a little bit earlier, and I hope I can make this
clear--that we have two lines of effort, actually more than
that because we've many, many AI projects that we fund related
to research and development in our laboratory programs. But the
AI RMF is NIST's piece of work that gained so much attention
nationally and internationally and is really the basis of
building trust in AI systems. And out of that, we will continue
in that work to build out the capacity to do the research that
allows you to measure individual characteristics and individual
parameters like explainability and security and bias. And those
will continue to build out the measurement science for that in
the laboratories.
The AI Safety Institute is going to be focused very clearly
on safety science, so really trying to understand and define
the safety science, working with the international community,
and then doing testing of large language models to carry out
testing and evaluation to make sure that they're safe for use.
So that's the first work that the AI Safety Institute is going
to be doing.
The NIST work will continue. We will continue to look at
every single one of those parameters that lead to trust in AI.
And the two will complement each other I think very, very
robustly.
Mrs. Foushee. Thank you for that clarification.
At a Science Committee hearing on AI risk management last
October, I expressed concern that the AI safety discussion has
a tendency to fixate on speculative future dangers rather than
the concrete, tangible harms confronting us right now. I
believe that just as strongly today. So I was disappointed to
see that the AI Safety Institute Consortium did not dedicate a
single one of its five working groups to a primary focus on the
societal impacts of AI in areas such as bias, privacy, or
transparency. Can we be confident that the work of the Safety
Institute will focus on tangible risks that impact people
today, rather than becoming sidetracked by speculation about
so-called existential risks?
Dr. Locascio. I can promise you that NIST will continue to
do that work, and we will continue to do it with fervor. I can
also promise you that everything that we do will be science-
based and science-backed.
Mrs. Foushee. And one final concern, just yesterday, the AI
Safety Institute released a strategic vision document outlining
its vision, mission, and strategic goals. The document asserts
that the Safety Institute will, and I quote, work with NIST
labs to conduct pre-deployment assessment of a range of
potential risks in AI systems. And it explicitly identifies
risks to human oversight or control as one of those risks. So
I'm not sure what to make of this. Do you really believe that
there is a valid scientific basis to ask NIST lab scientists to
study the risk that an AI system might somehow escape human
control?
Dr. Locascio. I really appreciate that question. I do. And,
as I said, we will follow the science and make sure that
everything we do is rigorously backed by science.
Mrs. Foushee. Thank you, Dr. Locascio.
That's my time, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Oklahoma, Mrs.
Bice, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Bice. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to follow up
on a line of questioning that my colleague, Mr. Garcia from
California, actually started. I'm a Commissioner on the
National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. And in
a meeting last week, we actually had a conversation around
small business and the impact they're having in this arena. But
we also talked about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and the impact
of the sunset of bonus depreciation. The--some businesses that
are investing in biotech innovation that were using this
depreciation to help offset CapEx (capital expenditures) now
don't have that opportunity. And there are concerns with the
sense of that program that these small businesses may not be
able to survive. Many of them have large investments,
especially with biotech.
And so my question to you is, is this something that your
organization is sort of looking at? You talked about small
business grants in the SBIR program and what you're doing from
that front, and I think that's incredibly important work, but
these types of tax policies continue to help those businesses
make sure they can achieve. Can you talk a little bit about,
you know, your support or not of those types of programs?
Dr. Locascio. I'm sorry, I will have to get back to you on
that question. But we are not generally involved in those kinds
of conversations.
Mrs. Bice. Well, I think the question is with especially
innovation companies, small businesses, that bonus
depreciation, allowing them to offset the tax liability, 100
percent allows them to reinvest. And certainly with the
expensive equipment that they tend to be purchasing from a
biotech standpoint, those tax policies are incredibly
important, and your organization wants to ensure that these
innovations are continuing to thrive, right?
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mrs. Bice. So I think that that's an important point. If
you are investing in these--through these SBIR programs, but
they're hitting that valley of death because they've had to
spend $50 million on equipment, it's sort of all for naught.
And so we need to be mindful of that when we're giving these
grants out, that we're doing it in a way that also subsidizes,
you know, the other tax policies that are being put forward.
Dr. Locascio. Well, thank you so much for that question,
and we will get back to you.
Mrs. Bice. I see your staff behind you shaking their heads,
so I appreciate that.
I also want to follow up on your organization is certainly
a lead in America for setting norms and standards for biotech
research and development. With increasing responsibilities in
critical and emerging tech, specifically biotech, how is NIST
prioritizing international partnerships to engage and ensure
that the U.S. Government is among the leading voices in the
global dialog on standards and norms in biotech?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that question. We are actually
very, very engaged nationally and internationally on
biotechnology standards. As you know, the standards system in
the United States is private-sector-led. We are working with--
ANSI (American National Standards Institute) are the convener
on the ISO (International Organization for Standardization)
Biotechnology Committee, and that is a really important
committee for pushing out biotech standards that are relevant
for all areas, including healthcare, of course, but also other
areas of biotechnology development.
Mrs. Bice. What would be the risk to national security if
we are not at the forefront and engaging in this conversation
to try to set those norms and standards?
Dr. Locascio. Absolutely, we have tremendous risks if we're
not at the table, and so we convene very, very closely with our
partners. For instance, one of the things that we have in the
NIST laboratories is the ability to do a lot of consortia
convening, and so we have several consortia around problems
that are specific for the industry and the biotechnology
community, including what are the upcoming standards needs that
might emerge out of gene editing or out of flow cytometry or
out of tissue engineering. So we sit with our other agency
partners and with our stakeholders, as well as ANSI and discuss
those very, very important issues around standards that the
United States would like to support on the international scene.
Mrs. Bice. As we continue on the Biotech Commission to look
at what the United States can do to be on the forefront of
this, I look forward to working with your organization in
making sure that that voice is heard loud and clear because
there are others across the world that also want their voices
heard----
Dr. Locascio. Of course.
Mrs. Bice [continuing]. And may not be in the best interest
of this country. So I appreciate your time today. Thank you for
being with us.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield.
Chairman Lucas. The gentlelady's time has expired.
The Chair would now recognize the gentleman from Illinois,
Mr. Casten, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Casten. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Locascio, nice to see
you here again.
Dr. Locascio. Good to see you.
Mr. Casten. I wonder if you could just speak briefly to
what NIST is doing in detecting, monitoring, quantifying
methane emissions and what you're doing with industry in that
front?
Dr. Locascio. Sure. Yes, thank you for that question. I
believe last year we talked a little bit about some of the
discoveries and the new technologies that were discovered in
our labs that led to Nobel Prize that allowed us to do field
monitoring of methane emissions, and we continue to do that
work making that technology much more robust.
But we also have ongoing work within the NIST labs--
actually, it's been going on for about 15 years now--and that
is studying methane emissions and CO2 emissions
around cities. And so we have sensors that we have deployed
around cities in the United States, and we study emissions, and
then we compare that data with the other methods that are
atmospheric methods, for instance, to detect emissions, as well
as use the tracking data for weather conditions and wind
conditions that can allow us to really go back and understand
where the initial plumes, for instance, came from.
Mr. Casten. So I want to--I appreciate that. And I want to
stay with the initial plume question because I've----
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mr. Casten [continuing]. Seen two sort of contradictory
pieces of information recently and hoping you can clarify.
Dr. Locascio. OK.
Mr. Casten. The--you know, and we've--you know, we know
that we have to cut methane because of its greenhouse gas--
massive greenhouse gas potential. We're also trying to get a
methane fee. And the--I've seen a lot of research saying that
it's actually fairly difficult to get enough granularity on
methane tracking to identify the specific source, this--you
know, where you can assign some culpability.
As--against that, we had Administrator Nelson in here a few
weeks ago, and he said that he felt like the satellite
monitoring we have is actually good enough that we can get at
that level of granularity. I'm not asking you to contradict,
but do you feel at this point that we have enough granularity,
or do we need to do more research to get that granularity so
that we can actually identify where these sources are and shut
them down?
Dr. Locascio. Well, I definitely don't want to contradict
what he said, but I will say that one of the things that we're
trying to elucidate in the research is to do both top down and
bottom up. So satellite tracking, as well as understanding
what's going on on the ground to try to understand the
resolution that we can get on the ground with on-the-ground
sensors.
Mr. Casten. OK. So your work is all ground-based?
Dr. Locascio. No, we collaborate in the development of
sensors that are deployed in--as well.
Mr. Casten. OK.
Dr. Locascio. So we collaborate with NASA and NOAA
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration).
Mr. Casten. So then who would be tracking the international
releases? Because like, you know, we're--you know, these
conversations we're having about should we be exporting LNG
(liquefied natural gas) from a climate perspective depends a
lot on whether--what we know about leakage rates in other
countries. Is that NIST that would be running that? Is that
NASA? Who's--who would be the agency that's able to answer that
question of what is the----
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mr. Casten [continuing]. Leak rates of methane around the
world?
Dr. Locascio. I am going to have to get back to you on that
one.
Mr. Casten. OK.
Dr. Locascio. I want to make sure I have a definitive
answer for you.
Mr. Casten. OK. Well, I would appreciate doing that because
we----
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Casten [continuing]. You know, we know we have to shut
this down. And depending on the answer to that question, LNG
exports are either a massive climate disaster or a good way to
displace dirty coal. We have heard both arguments, and I'd like
to have scientists answer that question rather than politicians
if we can.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Casten. What about just in the little time we've got
left, the--your ability to track sort of the larger global
balances? Like do we have a good global methane balance that
takes into account not only human-based activity, but
permafrost melts and what--like do we have a good handle on the
overall accounting at this point?
Dr. Locascio. I have a team who's working on that, and we'd
love to give you a briefing on where we are----
Mr. Casten. OK.
Dr. Locascio [continuing]. And--right now.
Mr. Casten. OK. I would love to do that.
Thank you. And I yield back.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Franklin, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Franklin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Dr.
Locascio----
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Franklin [continuing]. For spending time here with us
this morning. I'm on the bipartisan AI Task Force that crosses
a lot of different Committees, and we try to meet weekly. We
get various stakeholder groups in. And what has been a common
theme, no matter which stakeholder group we speak to, NIST
comes up as a common convener or a point of common interest or
where a lot of the lines intersect. So you are a small but
mighty agency, and there's a lot of pressure on you. And I'm
sure you're aware of that, but just know that everyone out
there is looking for great things from you as we try to get our
arms around AI and particularly how we curb it and set the
right kind of standards and put guardrails in place.
But in its role as the Federal AI standards coordinator,
what mechanisms is NIST using to raise awareness of AI
standards activities and also to foster coordination amongst
the various Federal agencies?
Dr. Locascio. So thank you for that question. We just
released a new report as a result of the Executive order. We
released, as I mentioned, four reports, and one is on global AI
standards. That really summarizes what we would like to do
moving forward with the state of the sciences, where we may be
ready to come up with standards sort of categorizing these as
urgent and the science is there versus urgent and the science
isn't there yet, where we need further research in order to
promote the standards development. But we are very much on
track working globally with our partners around the world,
thinking about how do we get the AI Risk Management Framework
and risk management into the standardization process, and we're
working on that.
The good thing is that from the very beginning when we
start any program, we do a lot of outreach, as you know. And so
we asked stakeholders in the United States, but also we asked
stakeholders globally for their input into our programs. And
the reason why we do that is so that when we release the
Cybersecurity Framework 2.0 or the NIST AI RMF framework, we
already have people who are ready to adopt it in with our like-
minded partners and allies ready to adopt it into their global
processes. And so we're really proud of the way that we do our
work that really ensures that we're prepared to come to the
standards table with something that has a lot of adoption and a
lot of interest.
Mr. Franklin. Well, on the topic of international
influence, it's no secret the Chinese are trying to, you know,
wedge their way in there. They're investing a lot. What do
you--can you elaborate a little on the threat of the United
States not maintaining its global leadership position there?
And what specifically is China trying to do that would not be
in our interest?
Dr. Locascio. So I think we all know about China's massive
investments. The United States has been investing a lot more in
AI through the private sector than China has. But I'll say two
things. When it comes to international standards, you
absolutely have to bring the best technical solution to the
table, or you fail. And so one of the really important things
for the United States is to make sure we have that very, very
robust R&D, or when we go to the standards table, we won't have
anything to contribute. That will not be in the best interest
of the United States.
One of the things that China is doing is investing in their
R&D to try to make sure they can come up to a level to compete
in the international standards arena. That's one thing that's
happening. But the other thing is that we have to make sure
that when we are at the standards table, they're very clear--in
China standards 2035, there was a very clear, deliberate
intention to be the gold standard for the world in many areas,
including the critical and emerging technologies like AI.
Recently, the United States put out a national standard
strategy for critical and emerging technologies for the U.S.
Government, and we just have to be strategic and make sure that
we can get all the right people to the table with the best
technologies and outcompete that way.
Mr. Franklin. OK. Thank you.
And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Dr. Locascio. But there's a lot at stake, clearly.
Mr. Franklin. There is, yes.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Michigan, Ms.
Stevens, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Stevens. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Doctor
and Director Locascio. This has just been a fantastic hearing.
I wish the entire Congress was listening to you and your
expertise and mastery of your department and craft.
As we know, in 2019, there was a NIST green paper on return
on investment, which we always appreciate, you know, return on
spend, the taxpayer spend. And NIST called for more nonprofit
foundations to support Federal R&D agencies by employing
mechanisms that Federal agencies cannot always readily pursue,
such as receiving and actively seeking gifts and other monetary
donations from private sector--or private donors and
organizations.
So the--we know that the Center for Disease Control and the
National Institutes of Health have longstanding foundations
that are just, frankly, key supporters of the incredible and
important and amazing work that these agencies do. And then
just this month, the Department of Energy appointed an--the
inaugural board of their nonprofit foundation, as authorized in
the CHIPS and Science Act, representing just an exciting time
for the furthering of DOE's mission.
So, Dr. Locascio, just thinking blue sky here, how would a
nonprofit foundation help accomplish NIST's mission?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you so much for that question. It is
something that we have been thinking about for a long time as
we watch our other agency partners have such success with their
foundations in really promoting their mission and augmenting
their ability to do their work. We believe that we would have
the same great success in using a foundation to augment our
work if there is a NIST foundation to support.
Ms. Stevens. Right, but you can't do that on your own. You
need action from this----
Dr. Locascio. That's----
Ms. Stevens [continuing]. Body and what you're sitting in
right now.
Dr. Locascio. We do.
Ms. Stevens. Yes. Yes, well, and look, you know, we've just
been bouncing back and forth in this hearing about the funding
and really drilling down in deeply important ways from biotech,
to you're building infrastructure, to a very important CHIPS
and Science Act. And, you know, we've spent a lot of time in
this Committee over the years on CHIPS and Science. And just
just a point of reference, we haven't fully funded the science
part of CHIPS and Science, which would certainly go to support
NIST MEP and some various other subagencies within your
department.
And we've got to be honest with ourselves here because
CHIPS, straight up, $52 billion put into the marketplace, over
$200 billion in private-sector contributions in just a few
months' time. This is industrial policy that works, that allows
us to compete. We can't complain, when--you know, we, as the
United States Government, have failed to do our part. We have a
remarkable private sector in this country that is innovative,
that is doing so much, but if we fail to step up, we are going
to be in constant catch-up mode.
I don't want to be at all thinking about AI standards that
are developed by adversarial nations, by China and quantum
technologies and quantum chips and the like. We need to be in
acceleration mode. I come from the industrial heartland, and
that's deeply critical.
And just with the remaining time, you know, we're thrilled
about the new Manufacturing USA Institute, you know,
particularly on digital twin, and just wondering if you could
lend some insight into why digital twin was selected as the
focus and--for CHIPS and how lessons could be learned to apply
to other sectors.
Dr. Locascio. So thank you for that question. We are
absolutely thrilled and so is the industry and the
universities. Really the entire sector is excited about this
announcement that we are putting $285 million into a Digital
Twin Institute. It's a gamechanger. It allows you to create a
virtual world of the process that you're trying to change or
the manufacturing process or the manufacturing floor. So in
other words, what that allows us to do----
Ms. Stevens. It saves money.
Dr. Locascio. It saves money. It saves time, it saves
money, and it allows people to do things much more efficiently
and effectively. And it is so exciting, and we've gotten great
response.
Ms. Stevens. Yes, well long live Manufacturing USA, and
we're so excited to see this NOFO come to fruition and your
work continued to advance and go forward, if only you had the
full funding.
And with that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
Collins, for a----
Mr. Collins. Thank----
Chairman Lucas [continuing]. Very thoughtful 5 minutes.
Mr. Collins. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point
out that I had a very good visit the other day with Dr.
Locascio. Thank you for coming by. You know, and I mention that
because in these hearings, we only have like 5 minutes, and
it's just cramming things through, and you really don't get the
opportunity to just sit and talk and learn more about what your
agency--what your organization is doing. And I appreciate your
time.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Collins. I look forward to getting out and visiting
with you on location as well. I hope we make that happen.
I wanted to follow up real quickly on what Mrs. Bice was
talking about. I know she was talking about accelerated
depreciation where you could write off 100 percent of some of
these--this equipment that you're buying. But, as a small
businessman myself, and having testified with Ways and Means on
some of these tax policies, R&D is huge. And I know you've
talked about that today. But that R&D tax write-off credit is
so huge for small businesses that are cash strapped. And if
they're going to make a calculated guess on trying to do
something that they don't know if it's going to work or not,
that R&D tax credit is just so important. So I encourage you if
you get the opportunity to mention that and keep touting that
for us because we need to get that back.
I did want to ask you a question, though. In December, my
bill, the Testing Rapid Analysis and the Narcotic Quality, the
TRANQ Research Act, it was actually signed into law, which
requires NIST to support research into the deadly drug xylazine
and support law enforcement's battle against Biden's opioid
crisis. Would you please give me and the Committee here an
update on the status of implementing the requirements in this
bill?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that question. And I really do
hope that you can come out to NIST to see the amazing progress
that we've made since the TRANQ Act was passed. We have done an
enormous amount of research, and we're working with States. The
work that we're doing is really on the detection part where we
get early detection on emerging drugs, emerging drugs that are
appearing on the market, and then we can feed that back to both
law enforcement and public health officials so that they can be
prepared for a next wave of an emerging illicit drug on the
market.
The work is critically important. We can even see tracking
of where these are coming from into various regions in the
United States, what supplies are linked to each other, and so
all of the data that we're getting is going to be critically
important moving forward for the health of our Nation in a
very, very difficult crisis.
Mr. Collins. Right. Because, you know, I mean, we have
Narcan that can protect them against fentanyl, even though they
may go through two or three cans. But, you know, these--our law
enforcement, they don't have a clue what's going to happen when
they pop that trunk, if any dust comes up and it's mixed with
anything that they've laced it with because we know these drug
cartels now are lacing all kinds of different additives in
there. So I appreciate your hard work on that.
I also wanted to give you a minute--I don't know if you've
talked about it or not--small business side, the Manufacturing
Extension Program that you alluded to when we were talking in
my office. I'd love to hear a little bit more about it, at
least let the Committee know.
Dr. Locascio. Yes. Thank you for that. I just wanted to
mention one more thing on the plumes. We are also studying that
kind of plume--where--when you open a can, where you get
exposures from for the safety of our professionals who are
responding or reacting.
But with regard to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership,
yes----
Mr. Collins. Partnership, yes.
Dr. Locascio [continuing]. They're out in every State,
boots on the ground. One of the things that they are trying to
do is making sure that innovations can happen in small
manufacturing businesses, and so we really are out there
supporting that, new innovations. And the yield on that--on the
taxpayer dollars, they're very, very high, and we're very proud
of that. But it's really out there to be a resource for
manufacturers so that they can thrive and grow. And one of the
new things is the supply chain optimization network so people
can understand their supply chains and where there might be
weaknesses in supply chains.
Mr. Collins. Yes. Yes, AI is so incredibly----
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mr. Collins. It's advancing so incredibly fast now,
especially in the supply chain world----
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mr. Collins [continuing]. That it's--and I don't like to
harp on it too much, but I do because we use it in our
industry----
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mr. Collins [continuing]. But those two tax credits could
really----
Dr. Locascio. Great.
Mr. Collins [continuing]. Even be used in that partnership
you're talking about as well.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr.
Amo, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Amo. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
And thank you, Dr. Locascio, for being here. And I'm
grateful for all of the work you do to drive innovation at
NIST. It's clear to me that your work helps determine the
success of many industries of the future.
You know, one of the ways that I know that NIST drives
innovation is what we just heard referenced and you addressed
is the Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Centers like
Polaris MEP in my home State of Rhode Island provide small- and
medium-sized manufacturers with technical assistance they need
to grow in a rapidly changing marketplace. Recently, Polaris
helped Chi Kitchen, a woman-owned family business in Pawtucket,
streamline its manufacturing process, increasing overall output
by 70 percent. And they make kimchi. So as a kimchi fan, this
is welcome news.
And Polaris MEP in Rhode Island received a $400,000
expansion award to expand its supply chain services because of
the transformative investments enacted by the CHIPS and Science
Act. So, so far--and, you know, you know all of this--this
Federal funding has helped Polaris provide supply chain
assessments for local businesses and connect Rhode Island
companies with local suppliers and other MEP centers looking
for suppliers.
So, Dr. Locascio, I was interested in just getting an
update more broadly on the MEP Expansion Award Pilot Program
and how you see that going moving forward.
Dr. Locascio. Yes, thank you for that question. And, yes,
the expansion pilot program is going very well. People have
responded very well out in the States in the centers. And so we
have been thinking about what a possible next expansion program
could be if we had the funding. Really building on the supply
chain is one critical possible new program but also really
anything that fits within our current pillars that we're trying
to accomplish within MEP, including how to best innovate in
manufacturing and also how to build the workforce in
manufacturing. But, right now, we don't have any future plans
for another expansion pilot program. We're really happy with
the success of what's happened with the existing one.
Mr. Amo. Well, thank you. And I hope we're able to invest
in programs like that for, you know, growth and further
innovation.
In--shifting gears a little bit, in the President's Fiscal
Year 2025 budget request, an additional, you know, $47.7
million was set aside for NIST artificial intelligence
activities, including the Safety Institute that we've discussed
today. And we know that this work is going to help develop and
standardize evaluations of artificial intelligence systems.
I think it's clear that Federal funding for this activity
is essential because AI systems can fail or intermittently
produce unintended results. And, unfortunately, the
Appropriations Committee, the Republican-led Appropriations
Committee budget caps for the commerce bill require and result
in a 2 percent cut from last year's bill.
So, Dr. Locascio, just, you know, with the time that I have
remaining, can you share how a funding cut would negatively
affect the AI Safety Institute on the progress you've made to
date in your goals to establish safety standards and guidelines
for industry?
Dr. Locascio. I appreciate the question. It's a big job
that we were asked to do for the country for AI. It's a big new
job. And it's going to be very difficult to do that very big
job for the country with the expectations on our shoulders if
we cannot fund it, if we cannot get the funding to do what we
have to do.
I will say we are fully on track to meet the President's
Executive order requirements and stand up the AI Safety
Institute, but so much more is asked of us. And we don't want
to let down the country, and we definitely are working as hard
as we can to do what we can with the money that we have. We can
do more with more.
Mr. Amo. Well, thank you. And I'm grateful for your efforts
to help our Nation continue to out-innovate, to outpace the
world, and I hope we give you the resources you need to do just
that.
With that, I yield back the remainder of my time.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Weber, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Weber. Thank you.
Dr. Locascio--is it cah-scio or cay-scio?
Dr. Locascio. Lo-cah-scio.
Mr. Weber. OK. I knew that. Dr. Locascio----
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mr. Weber [continuing]. It's crucial that the United States
not only lead the world in AI but trustworthy AI, and our great
staff has put together some questions here. One of the
questions is how does the United States compare China--to China
in building safe and trustworthy AI systems? So my question
really gives me food for thought. How do you define safe and
trustworthy?
Dr. Locascio. Oh, that's a very, very good question. So
when we released the NIST AI RMF, AI Risk Management Framework,
we defined the characteristics that describe a trustworthy AI
system, and those include things like security and accuracy or
bias and fairness and explainability. There are a number of
different factors that we have to understand how to measure
associated with our AI systems in order for people to really
trust them when they use them. And so we are way ahead of the
world in terms of really trying to build out a framework for AI
risk management to help people manage and mitigate the risks
associated with AI systems.
I always say that while we are ahead, the future is not
known. So it really depends on how much we want things to
happen in this country. If we are supporting our research and
development, if we are supporting the development of standards,
and if we are really cooperating with our international and
like-minded partners and allies, that helps us in the creating
the future that we want to have happen in the United States for
AI.
Mr. Weber. That brings up--you're talking about partnering
with, you know, our partners around the world. So you're not
only defining safe and trustworthy for the United States, but
do you have a grid or whatever the term is so you can--do you
revisit that periodically? Do you see what other countries are
doing? Of course, China being our biggest adversary, do you
watch what they're doing? Do you--how often do you revisit
that?
Dr. Locascio. Yes, absolutely, we revisit that. We do work
very, very closely in many, many different international fora
working with our partners, comparing what we're doing with what
they're doing. We work in a lot of international standards
committees to try to figure out the lay of the land to see
where things are going. We have our finger on the pulse in all
of the places that we participate.
You also asked me to define safe. And I will say that
people are in the process of defining safe, as people are still
debating the definition of AI. So there's a lot going on
internationally to come up with common terminology for what we
mean by safe and what we mean by trustworthy, and that debate
continues. It's very, very----
Mr. Weber. Do you link countries in with the not-so-safe or
not-so-friendly like Iran and North Korea and Russia? Or where
do they sit in that grid? Or do you know?
Dr. Locascio. We don't work with them, clearly, on these
kinds of issues, so----
Mr. Weber. You don't even spy on them a little bit?
Dr. Locascio. We work in public fora, so----
Mr. Weber. Well, it's no secret that one of China's
strategic goals is to become a leader in international
standards setting, and so how are you able to--if you don't
work with them, and I get that you don't obviously, how are you
able to gauge that and stay ahead of that?
Dr. Locascio. Sure. Thank you for that question. So I will
say that China participates in international standards bodies,
and so we do engage with China and international standards
bodies, and we see what they bring to the table in terms of
standards that they would like to see be globally adopted. So,
yes, we do have an understanding of what China and all the
other countries that participate in the international standards
development organizations around the globe----
Mr. Weber. Would you say it's 20 or 30 or 40 countries that
y'all work with in developing standards?
Dr. Locascio. I guess what I would say is that we have
partnerships, and those partnerships are very robust, and
that's a certain number of countries. And then we participate
in international standards committees with many, many, many
countries----
Mr. Weber. OK.
Dr. Locascio [continuing]. Around the globe.
Mr. Weber. I'm going to do one real quick, short question,
hopefully. So with China's reputation of stealing intellectual
property, do you have safeguards against the way that we
develop our standards?
Dr. Locascio. Standards are developed in an open and
transparent way, but we absolutely have safeguards to protect
our research.
Mr. Weber. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr.
Tonko, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you, Chairman Lucas and Ranking Member
Lofgren, for this important hearing today. And thank you, Dr.
Locascio, for your leadership and dedication to scientific
excellence at NIST. It's great to see you again.
I proudly represent what I believe is the Nation's premier
semiconductor innovation ecosystem in our capital region of New
York, a region perfectly suited, I believe, to host the
forthcoming National Semiconductor Technology Center. I'm
deeply invested in the success of this industry and in
expeditiously breaking ground on CHIPS-funded projects.
However, I've heard serious concerns from constituents
regarding the sustainability and the workforce challenges that
come with these projects. And I believe communities and workers
deserve to know what specific commitments that companies can
make or have made in exchange for billions of public dollars.
As I'm sure you know, the semiconductor manufacturing
process is incredibly water-, energy-, and chemical-intensive.
Carbon emissions have more than doubled for making the most
advanced chips. And in the face of our current climate crisis,
it is critical that fabs innovate to require less energy going
forward. Similarly, the heavy reliance on toxic-forever
chemicals such as PFAS during the fabrication process is a
known and well-established hazard for community members,
workers, their families, and indeed the environment.
So, Dr. Locascio, what percentage of the $11 billion that
Congress was allocated toward semiconductor research and
development will specifically go toward developing
environmentally sustainable and health-protective semiconductor
manufacturing technology?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that question. And I don't have
a percentage in front of me of what we will invest, but I can
say that we will be investing. You mentioned PFAS specifically.
We are working to invest in PFAS replacement science, so the
discovery science behind PFAS replacement. That, of course,
would be a farther-out solution. We have to do the basic R&D
right now. I can tell you that we are committed to supporting
that research and development.
At the same time, we need sooner mitigations, and so we'll
be supporting the research into techniques for mitigating PFAS
release into the environment, as well as other toxic chemicals.
Mr. Tonko. Thank you. And just how is the Department
thinking about sustainability as it applies both to incentive
awards and monitors compliance with those awards?
Dr. Locascio. The companies produce an environmental plan,
and we work with them to assure that they can meet the demands
of those environmental plans. And the environmental plans we
have, as was shown on the Notice of Funding Opportunity in the
first Notice of Funding Opportunity, we've asked to consider
the use of aggressive use of renewables and water reclamation.
Mr. Tonko. And is the compliance outcome rather strong or--
--
Dr. Locascio. The response is excellent.
Mr. Tonko. OK. That's encouraging. And how does the
Department plan to measure and track and even report publicly
on compliance? And can you give us any details as to what the
consequences might be when companies are indeed in violation?
Dr. Locascio. So we have a very long tail to the compliance
piece, obviously, and we're setting up the program right now
for managing the compliance on the back end of the awards. We
are tranching out the money, so if people do not meet the
requirements of the agreement, then we can, for instance, not
proceed further with the next tranche of money. So we have
plans in place that we can mitigate, but we also will be
working with the companies to make sure that they do meet the
agreement that we set forth.
Mr. Tonko. Right. As we all know, the investments here have
been historic in nature. And as the taxpayers contribute to
that futuristic vision, I think it's critically important to
make certain accountability, you know, effective use of these
dollars is key to the process from determination of the awards
to the compliance. So I'm happy to hear that there's this
structured approach and look forward to the updates as to
compliance and, you know, compatibility with the goals of
effective use of these dollars. It's a pathway to a future that
makes us robustly competitive and environmentally sound.
So with that, I--thank you for your leadership and the
Department in that regard.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Frost, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Frost. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Dr. Locascio. It's exciting to see that CHIPS
Act investments are working. The semiconductor industry expects
to add about 200,000 jobs over the next 5 1/2 years, almost
doubling their needed workforce. So we're seeing a lot of those
investments in central Florida in places like NeoCity down in
Kissimmee.
Meanwhile, organized labor has a long history of creating
stable, high-quality talent pipelines. What is NIST doing to
make sure that the semiconductor companies are not wasting or
refusing opportunities to partner with unions on workforce
development?
Dr. Locascio. So workforce development is critical. We've
seen estimates somewhere between 50,000 and 200,000 new jobs
that we're creating, and we want these to be good jobs, so we
are working with communities, we're working with labor, we're
working with everyone that we can to make sure that we can help
support a robust workforce. And that's what's best for the
companies. If they know that they can have a good workforce
that we can develop, workforce training programs that can
supply the well-trained workforce, retrain, upskill, and train
and then retain, that's really the magic of trying to make the
workforce happen for CHIPS for America. And we're investing
about $250 million from the incentive side, and we're setting
up a new workforce Center of Excellence on the research and
development side to support workforce goals.
Mr. Frost. That's great. And I'm an enthusiastic supporter
of Federal investment in central Florida's semiconductor
industry, but I also support Federal accountability for the
semiconductor industry as well. The national median wage for
semiconductor assemblers is just $18.13 an hour. That's about a
buck more than the starting salary at Universal Studios, which
I frequent. I love the rollercoasters. This is a fraction of
the six-figure salaries that the industry promises. So how will
NIST ensure that the jobs created by CHIPS and Science can
sustain communities and families?
Dr. Locascio. There are many, many aspects of the
investments that we're looking at in terms of how we can
benefit the communities around the new manufacturing sites that
we're building, the new R&D sites that we're building. We want
to see this really spread out to make a whole ecosystem and
economy, a new burgeoning economy in the United States built
around the semiconductor industry that we are investing in.
And as was brought up a few times, not only is it $50
billion, but this is extensively matched by private investment,
which will help us enormously grow out and see the----
Mr. Frost. Yes.
Dr. Locascio [continuing]. Vision of CHIPS for America.
Mr. Frost. Of course. And, you know, we deserve to know
what commitments companies are making in exchange for the
billions of dollars the CHIPS Act is giving, Congress and
President Biden is giving. Recent funding award PMTs have not
required disclosure of specific commitments for the minimum
number of jobs created or minimum wages or benefits for each
position. What's your process for tracking employment and wage
outcomes when it comes to CHIPS funding recipients?
Dr. Locascio. I would like to follow up with you on that.
Mr. Frost. Yes, of course.
Dr. Locascio. I can give you more specifics at a later
time.
Mr. Frost. Yes, that'd be great. You know, I recently had a
roundtable with Congressman Darren Soto with a lot of our local
labor leaders, and one of the large concerns that they had--
they're excited about the CHIPS and Science money, but they
felt like--and they've spoken with a lot of other labor leaders
across the country--that they're not being included in the
bidding process for a lot of these large projects going on. I
know this is really important to the President. He's the most
prolabor president in our country's history. But how can NIST
ensure that the bidding process for these projects using
Federal money are open and inclusive? Again, you know, these
unions are not looking to be handed a contract, but they want
to be a part of the bidding process. A lot of times they don't
find out until after the project's already started.
Dr. Locascio. So I will say that we've made extensive
efforts in inclusivity and in trying to be inclusive in all of
our awards. We have an office specifically focused on that, so
the outreach has been very, very robust.
Mr. Frost. So what can be the best way that Members of
Congress can advocate to make sure that their unions are
included in the bidding process?
Dr. Locascio. That's a good question, and I would love to
get back to you on that as well.
Mr. Frost. Awesome. Yes. Thank you so much for the
incredible work that you do and proud of the work that the
Biden Administration is doing around CHIPS and Science money.
Again, we're seeing so much of it come to central Florida,
giving kids and teens pathways to good careers without having a
4-year college degree, which I think is amazing. And so we just
want to make sure we have equity within that, so we'll follow
up with y'all on ways that Members of Congress can help in
ensuring that the bidding process is open and equitable. Thank
you so much.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Frost. I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
Kean, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Dr.
Locascio, for your testimony today.
New Jersey excels in various high-tech industries, and we
maintain a strong foundation in research and development. The
State's well-trained workforce and advanced educational
institutions make it an ideal location for semiconductor
manufacturing and technological advancements.
I'm proud of the fact that, according to the National
Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, New Jersey ranks
sixth in the Nation for business R&D performance. Thirty-seven
percent of New Jersey's higher education degrees are in science
and engineering fields. New Jersey offers NIST a highly
qualified and skilled and diverse workforce, well versed in
cutting-edge technologies and research. The State's numerous
advanced educational institutions and R&D facilities provide a
rich environment for standards setting and innovation in
semiconductor manufacturing and other high-tech industries.
I've got a couple of different questions in one or two
fields for you. On December 8, 2023, NIST issued a draft
framework to provide guidance to Federal agencies on what to
assess when considering whether to exercise march-in authority
as provided in the Bayh-Dole Act and explicitly included price
as a factor for the first time since the act was passed in
1988--excuse me, 1980--with strong bipartisan support. The
authors of the Bayh-Dole Act have stated the law makes no
reference to a reasonable price that should be dictated by the
government and that this omission was intentional. Aren't you
concerned that the Administration's proposal to consider price
as a factor for exercising march-in rights will send us back to
a time when government-funded research just sat on a shelf not
benefiting anyone?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that question. I do appreciate
it. So we did issue--first of all, I just want to go back and
say that we had a notice of public rulemaking, and then we
finalized the rule last year and did not make any changes in
the march-in wording in the final rule as compared with the
original Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, so that remained intact. We had
50,000 comments as a result of the rulemaking. And this
guidance is not rulemaking. It's completely voluntary. But we
were asked in those 50,000 responses by really all sides--that
people wanted more clarity on how people would make a decision
on march-in. And so that's what this process is about is about
providing voluntary guidance that we're working on with the
interagency. When we released this guidance, we got 31,000, I
believe, responses on the guidance itself from really
approaching all sides.
I will say that the guidance you mentioned that Bayh-Dole
never included price, it included a totality of circumstances
including consideration of price. But that's really what the
guidance talks about is this totality of circumstances, and
people should also consider if there are other ways to achieve
what we want to achieve and also consider the fact that
innovation could be harmed if Bayh-Dole is invoked. So it talks
about consideration of factors. It talks about innovation. It
also talks about totality of circumstances. And it is a
voluntary guidance for agencies.
Mr. Kean. The authors of the act, Bayh-Dole, said that the
law makes no reference to a reasonable price that should be
dictated by government and that this omission was intentional.
On a different issue on the Manufacturing Extension
Partnership program. Since 1988, NIST has provided advice and
expertise to U.S. manufacturers through the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership. How will NIST and MEP help U.S.
manufacturers and businesses more broadly take advantage of the
current and upcoming advances in artificial intelligence?
Dr. Locascio. So MEP in particular is focused on trying to
help new innovations reach the small and medium manufacturers.
And we're really excited about the opportunities that obviously
AI could present to manufacturers. At the same time, we just
released this new Notice of Intent to release a Notice of
Funding Opportunity for a Manufacturing USA Institute
specifically focused on AI for resilient manufacturing. And we
do hope that will feed into anything that we could provide for
the Manufacturing Extension Partnership as well.
Mr. Kean. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Ohio, Mrs.
Sykes, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you, Chairman Lucas and Ranking Member
Lofgren, for convening this Committee today. Certainly good to
see you, Dr. Locascio, and thank you for being here to talk
about the National Institutes of Standards and Technology and
the critical work that you all are doing. I'll give you an
opening to take a breath because I know you've been here for
quite some time.
As you know, Director, Ohio is one of four States that will
receive up to $8.5 billion that the United States Department of
Commerce and Intel has proposed in direct funding under the
CHIPS and Science Act to help strengthen the U.S. supply chain,
particularly in chips manufacturing. This investment is
expected to create thousands of jobs in manufacturing and
construction. And we've also taken on the moniker of the
silicon heartland. And in fact, as a part of this investment,
Ohio Intel plans to design and--excuse me, Intel's design and
build partner signed a project labor agreement with the North
American Building Trades Union for the construction of these
two, if not more, facilities in central Ohio.
It is certainly important that we collaboratively promote
the growth of the semiconductor technical workforce, and we
know that there are a lot of jobs in the semiconductor
manufacturing process, but also we have to build the facilities
that will build and make the chips.
So what role do you foresee labor unions and academic
institutions like community colleges and other entities across
the region help develop a pipeline of skilled workers in Ohio?
Dr. Locascio. So, first of all, thank you for that
question. We are so excited about the investments that we're
making across the country now, and we've already announced
investments in 11 different States, Ohio of course being one.
And one of the things that we are very excited on is that we
are creating good jobs and that we are building out the skilled
workforce. Community colleges are going to be a really
important part of that. As a matter of fact, I just recently
visited a community college on one of my last site visits.
And just the enthusiasm and the excitement for the
semiconductor industry, one wonderful byproduct of the CHIPS
Act is the excitement in young people to really get into the
field or the excitement of adults in different fields to
retrain and get into this field. So community colleges are
going to play an essential role. And I haven't been asked about
that yet today, and it is such an important thing that we
really want to make sure that we are working very closely--and
we are--with community colleges to retrain, upskill, and train
that next generation of workforce.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you very much because I would say one of
the things I hear from every industry that comes into my office
is that they are looking for skilled, talented workers.
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mrs. Sykes. And there certainly are pipelines to get people
into the workforce that don't require 4-,5-, 6-, 10-year
degrees.
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mrs. Sykes. I'm sure you've heard that quite a bit as well.
My next question is about one of the most important
programs that NIST administers, and that is the Manufacturing
Extension Partnership. These partnerships helped manage
networks of regional partners that provide training and
technical assistance to manufacturers and small businesses that
are the backbone of our economic engines in our State. And Ohio
has three of these MEPs, six regional partners to support
statewide assistance. And northeast Ohio's MEP is called
MAGNET, or the Manufacturing Advocacy and Growth Network.
And, as you know, manufacturing is a significant part of
northeast Ohio's economic engine, and we are very proud of the
work that we have done. We like to say that we have built
everything you need in the United States in northeast Ohio, but
mostly tires and rubber.
But, Dr. Locascio, can you talk to me a little bit about
the NIST plans to support the MEP program and what Congress
could be focusing on to ensure that NIST can continue to
support our manufacturers as they grow to advanced
manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you so much for that question. We are
excited honestly about the progress of MEP over the past many
years and excited about their strategy moving forward, which
really does integrate that idea of how do you innovate at that
scale. And so we are there to help them figure out how to make
that next innovation, how to pivot if they need because they
aren't successful in the current environment, how to develop
that skilled workforce that they need in their locality. That's
how we partner with the centers in the States. And we're
working very hard to make sure that partnership is very robust
and they can move forward.
I will say one of the things that we've done recently as
well is try to make sure that our small and medium
manufacturers are cyber secure because after they build this
incredible new manufacturing facility, the last thing we want
is for everything they have to be lost through a cyber attack,
so that's one of the things we're working on as well.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you again for your work and leadership.
Mr. Chair, I yield back.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Chairman Lucas. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr.
Baird, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Baird. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member,
appreciate you holding this session. And, Madam Director, we
appreciate you being here.
My question deals with the fact that CHIPS in Science Act,
you know, there's a grant program, and so you have to agree if
you accept that grant, in some way, shape, or form to do a
profit-sharing agreement with the Federal Government. And
according to the CHIPS office briefing materials, the funds the
government receives from this upside sharing will be reinvested
in the semiconductor industry. So when the Department of
Commerce executes these upside sharing agreements, does the
Department ever stipulate where the funds will go?
Dr. Locascio. So we would be happy to have a very robust
conversation with you about that specific issue if you'd like
to engage on that. That's way far in the future, but we would
be very happy to have that discussion now, clearly.
Mr. Baird. Super. I'd look forward to that.
Then in that same vein, do you ever get any kickback from
the applicants about these grants being used possibly to fund
their competition? Do you have any----
Dr. Locascio. I think----
Mr. Baird [continuing]. Kickback on that?
Dr. Locascio. We have not gotten direct feedback from any
of the people that we've funded, any of the companies that
we've funded about funding their competition, no.
Mr. Baird. So then I want to move to another area. You
know, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 provided $14
million to set up a new Manufacturing Institute, which NIST
recently noticed to focus on using AI to improve the resilience
of U.S. manufacturing. Would you mind elaborating on that and
the goals for this new institute?
Dr. Locascio. Absolutely. It took us a long time to really
come to this particular topic, but we are so excited. After
engaging in many, many dialogs, we've come to the realization
that AI is transformative and potentially very much
transformative for manufacturing. And that's from talking to
small and medium manufacturers, from academia, from really
everyone in all walks of life in the United States.
We know AI is potentially transformative. How it can
transform the manufacturing floor, it could really help them do
their job much more efficiently and much more quickly,
including better understanding of supply chain and supply chain
issues but also the design of the manufacturing floor and how
the process takes place and how you are optimizing different
processes for efficiencies. We've gotten great enthusiasm from
the community after we released the Notice of Intent and look
forward very soon to be releasing the Notice of Funding
Opportunity for that institute.
Mr. Baird. Well, you answered my next question. I was going
to ask how the industry responded to your notice.
Dr. Locascio. It was a really robust response. People are
very excited about it. And it's a transformative technology for
the industry for sure.
Mr. Baird. And it's a rapidly growing technology, and so it
has the potential to be used inappropriately, so it's really
good that that we're and you are making plans to deal with that
and to move forward and have the industry involved at this
time. So thank you for those answers.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Baird. And with that, I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
McCormick, for 5 minutes. Oh, sorry, I got out of balance here
in my focus. The gentlelady, Ms. Lee, is recognized----
Ms. Lee. I looked around. I was like----
Chairman Lucas [continuing]. For 5 minutes.
Ms. Lee [continuing]. Where anybody from Georgia?
Thank you, Chairman Lucas.
It's a pleasure to see you again, Dr. Locascio. Of course,
a little over a year, we were here discussing NIST priorities
for Fiscal Year 2024. In that time, a lot has changed in the
world, but the work you all and your agency do continue to
prove essential in advancing technologies and standards that
directly impact the daily lives of constituents like mine to
improve not only the quality of products and services and
infrastructure, but also improve the quality of life and the
standard of living.
Dr. Locascio, of the $17 million requested for NIST's core
AI research, how does your agency look to utilize that funding
to include artificial intelligence literacy efforts focused on
the ability to comprehend the basic principles, concepts, and
applications of artificial intelligence, as well as the
implications or limitations and ethical considerations
associated with its use?
Dr. Locascio. So thank you for that question. We just
recently put out a synthetic content paper which describes
really three pillars that are important for synthetic content,
and one is digital literacy. The other two are understanding
content provenance and detection of synthetic content. We
really focus on the first two, the detection of synthetic
content, as well as the labeling of content to identify content
provenance, including metadata and watermarking.
But digital literacy is critically important, and I think
the best way that we can promote that is by being as
transparent as possible and communicative as possible about the
risks of AI, how we can measure those risks, and let the public
know essentially what they can do to mitigate the risk, as well
as organizations, how they can partner with us to help mitigate
the risk and let the public know that as well.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. There are well-known environmental and
health risks associated with the toxic substances used in
semiconductor fabrication. While the climate crisis requires
urgent action, there is currently no such thing as a truly
clean fab with respect to the safety of community workers,
their families, the environment. Notably, the semiconductor
industry called EPA's proposal to regulate PFAS catastrophic
because the fabrication process relies so heavily on these
toxic-forever chemicals. What percentage of congressionally
allocated funding toward semiconductor research and development
will specifically go toward developing environmentally
sustainable and health-protective semiconductor manufacturing
technology?
Dr. Locascio. And thank you for that question. So I'll just
say on the R&D side, let me stay there for a minute, on the
CHIPS R&D side, we are working on the development of new
funding opportunities specifically for replacement of toxic
chemicals. And we are also working at the same time--because we
know that's a long-term effort, it's R&D--we're also funding
the development of new technologies for mitigation and capture
and reuse and recycle.
We also have to keep our eye on sort of the long game and
make sure we can fund that early research to think about what
we want to do in the future as far as replacement of toxic
chemicals for the semiconductor industry. And we have good
support from the industry to do that.
Ms. Lee. How's the Department of--the Commerce Department
prioritizing research in developing technology for truly green
and clean fab?
Dr. Locascio. How are we funding that? We are going to be
funding some of that through our chips R&D funding, and you'll
see funding opportunities that will come out soon for our
academic partners, as well as our industrial partners to
participate in those funding opportunities.
Ms. Lee. And how's the Department weighing the use of
toxics in manufacturing applications to steer Federal
initiatives? Or incentives, excuse me.
Dr. Locascio. I'm sorry, can you repeat that question?
Ms. Lee. Yes, I was asking you, so how is the Department
going to weigh like the use of toxics and the manufacturing
applications to steer Federal incentives?
Dr. Locascio. OK. So we do ask for environmental
sustainability plans, and we're working very closely with
companies on their environmental sustainability plans and that
mostly involves like energy and clean energy and also reclaimed
water.
But I'll also say that we're working with the companies on
worker safety specifically, for instance, talking about worker
safety committees that can protect the exposure of anybody
who's working in the fabs.
Ms. Lee. Thank you. And thank you so much for your time and
for your testimony today.
I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. And the gentlelady from Pennsylvania yields
back. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
McCormick, for 5 minutes.
Mr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And, Ms. Lee, I'd note that you're wearing a color not only
representative of my party, but also of my good Georgia
Bulldogs, so maybe there's where the confusion lies.
You mentioned the CHIPS Act, and I thought it was
interesting, the excitement that you have how that's going to
develop things. But one of the things I've noticed--and I would
like you to comment on since you mentioned it--was where the
production of the chips are. TSMC is obviously located in
Taiwan. China has said by 2027 we want Taiwan. We don't have
any chips that are being produced in America of the AI nature,
nor do we have any ground broken on any factories that produce
AI. If 90 percent of the world's AI chips are produced in
Taiwan and 100 percent of the chips produced for the United
States are produced in Taiwan, what's the plan?
Dr. Locascio. I really appreciate that question. We are
working as hard and as fast as we can and pushing the companies
as fast as they can to get these manufacturing facilities on
the ground in the United States. It's essential to our economic
and our national security. And you articulated it very, very
well. And that's our goal is to try to make sure that we can
get these----
Mr. McCormick. So tied in with your previous question,
answer, and even along the lines of DEI if you will, which I'm
not commenting one way or another on, but just the concept of
what limits a company from expanding and building a plant. And
if they're limited by regulation that says you have to have
this, this, and this in order to build this plant and it's
limiting their ability to actually produce something that is
transformational to our technologies, wouldn't it be better to
lift those regulatory burdens that create obstructions to
building AI plants that will literally be transformative and
keep us competitive, especially in a strategically
disadvantaged arena such as China taking over Taiwan, which can
be disruptive to the entire world? Wouldn't we want to lift
those regulations that would inhibit those productions?
Dr. Locascio. So thank you for that question. And first, I
want to say it's not regulatory. We don't have regulations in
place for the things that you spelled out that are in our
Notice of Funding Opportunity. And we are working very, very
hard with the companies to make sure that they can very
aggressively develop their plans and and meet the demands to
get these factories, get these manufacturing facilities up to
speed on American soil.
As I said, very clearly articulated the need, and the
companies are ready and they're moving quickly. And there is--
--
Mr. McCormick. So let me ask you this real quick because,
obviously, we only have so much time. It takes about 2 years
from my understanding from breaking ground to actually being
completed and being up. Obviously, it's a meticulous
fabrication process----
Dr. Locascio. Yes.
Mr. McCormick [continuing]. Of minutiae with
nanotechnology, atomic structures, etching with lasers that are
incredibly precise in a very clean environment. If it takes 2
years, and we know that we're about 3 years off from where
China says I'm going to have Taiwan, can you give me a
timeline--when you say you're pushing, you're trying to get
these companies, what are they giving you as a timeline for
breaking ground?
Dr. Locascio. Each deal is clearly very different, but we
are working hard, for instance, to make sure that we have a
NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) team in place that can
work side by side and work very closely to try to get that.
Mr. McCormick. I know you're working hard. What's your
timeline?
Dr. Locascio. I can give you a timeline for what we are
hoping to achieve by various timeframes. Twenty-thirty is our--
--
Mr. McCormick. Twenty-thirty. Now, given the timeline of
China----
Dr. Locascio. I'm----
Mr. McCormick. Go ahead.
Dr. Locascio. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Sorry.
Mr. McCormick. Go ahead.
Dr. Locascio. Continue.
Mr. McCormick. Given the timeline of 2027 being their
timeline, 2030 being ours, that doesn't match up very well. Can
you give me an idea how we're going to adjust to the foreign
strategic disadvantages we have?
Dr. Locascio. So--excuse me, I interrupted you, so I
apologize for that.
Mr. McCormick. Go ahead.
Dr. Locascio. One of the things that we're doing is there
are multiple sites, multiple locations, multiple large
manufacturing facilities that we're funding. We want everything
to be online by 2030, so that means there's a lot happening
before that. So we are working with the companies to, for
instance, try to make sure that they're doing their most
advanced manufacturing on our soil.
Mr. McCormick. OK. I'm going to have to--I got 23 seconds
to kind of summarize this. Obviously, we're concerned about
truth versus development and rapid pace. But 3 years--that 3-
year gap between 2027 and 2030 is simply not going to work for
us. If you think what's at stake, how fast this AI development
is happening, how it's going to transform the industry and the
world in its entirety, how much we've come in just the last 2
years of AI development, we cannot afford that 3-year gap. We
need to move fast. We have to have a better strategic plan. And
I'm imploring you to approach the Administration to streamline
this process and get going so we can get in as strategically
advantaged place for the future. Thank you. With that, I yield.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Mullin, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Director Locascio, thank
you for testifying today.
Earthquakes cost the United States an estimated $15 billion
in building damage and related expenses each year, and my
district in California is nearly guaranteed to experience a
magnitude 6 or greater earthquake over the next century. In
2015 and 2017 the Advisory Council on Earthquake Hazards
Reduction stated that a national assessment of earthquake
resilience must be conducted to identify priorities and funding
levels for the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program.
But the GAO (Government Accountability Office) found that, as
recently as November last year, this assessment hadn't been
started yet and that there are no plans to do so until 2028.
So, Director Locascio, can you tell us what support NIST
needs from Congress to prioritize and carry out a national
earthquake resilience assessment?
Dr. Locascio. Thank you for that. Right now, we're in the
process of preplanning and trying to understand how much that
would cost, and we don't have that cost assessment yet. But we
do not have the funding to do the assessment at this time, but
we are planning to try to understand what that would require.
And happy to give you a briefing on that if you'd like like.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you. I'll take you up on that. Thank you
very much for that.
And earthquakes do pose a big threat, but increasingly,
we're seeing a rise in other natural hazards such as flooding
and windstorms due to climate change. Following a natural
disaster, we want our communities to be able to recover
infrastructure and critical services as quickly as possible.
So, Director, can you describe how NIST is working with
communities to increase post-disaster resilience, both to
improve the re-occupancy time of damaged buildings and the
restoration of lifeline infrastructure such as water and power?
Dr. Locascio. So thank you for that question. We have quite
a bit going on in community resilience. We have a community
resilience planning tool, so basically following a disaster,
the steps that you can take in order to rebuild the community.
And it deals with both buildings and infrastructure. It's
really built on the knowledge that we've gained from numerous
investigations that we've done, which have included how
communities have fared in the aftermath of these hazards.
Mr. Mullin. Thank you for that, Director. Thank you for
your leadership.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Mullin. And with that, I yield back.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman, Mr. Williams, from
New York for 5 minutes.
Mr. Williams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Williams. And thank you for being here today.
You know, we have an exciting program going on in our
district, which is the investment by Micron to produce memory
chips in central New York. And this is literally a once-in-100-
year transformation of our area. And so thank you for your role
in seeing that through. The $6 billion grant that the Secretary
has directed is much appreciated and will be put to good use.
It may not be known, but the reason memory chips are so
critical for not only strategically in the United States, but
specifically for artificial intelligence is Micron is the
leading producer in the world. The most advanced memory chips
in the world are produced by Micron. It's the only American
company that is producing memory chips. And they specifically
have the capability of this wide--I think it's called wideband
access, but it's the ability to read and write in much bigger
chunks, which is critical for the pace of artificial
intelligence in that kind of processing. So anyway, we're
excited about that. It's going to have a huge impact in what
I'm calling the silicon empire, which is this incredible
revitalization of central New York. So thank you for that.
Can you please tell me, Dr.--I'm sorry--Locascio, what role
does NIST play in the development of domestic semiconductor
fabs? Just refresh me on your role in this, please?
Dr. Locascio. On our role in CHIPS for America?
Mr. Williams. Yes, specifically for the CHIPS for America--
--
Dr. Locascio. Yes, so----
Mr. Williams [continuing]. And the Science Act.
Dr. Locascio [continuing]. The two different pieces of
CHIPS for America are our CHIPS Program Office and the CHIPS
R&D Office. Both of their directors report up through me to the
Secretary. I have numerous other activities and engagements
trying to work with the teams to make sure that we're investing
in the right places at the right time.
Mr. Williams. When you took this role, did you realize
you'd be presiding over this enormous effort and budget?
Dr. Locascio. I didn't. I didn't know that. And then it
came, and I think we were able to respond very quickly and I'm
very proud of the job that we're doing.
A lot of people have said, can you really do this AI thing?
But I just say look at CHIPS for America. We were able to do
that. It came at us very quickly. We were able to produce, and
I think the country is going to be in really great shape once
we complete the CHIPS for America program, and so we want to do
the same thing for AI.
Mr. Williams. Well, I'm very--I would agree with you. You
guys have done a very good job----
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Mr. Williams [continuing]. And I appreciate that.
I want to just shift gears a little bit and ask your
insight on cybersecurity because I know that's a part of the
work that you do at NIST. I'm seeing numerous posts about
concern for security of our electric grid, for example, or
other parts of our industrial infrastructure. Is there anything
that you can tell me about your role in that and maybe current
threat or threat evaluation? What should we be concerned about?
Dr. Locascio. So yes, we released the Cybersecurity
Framework and the Cybersecurity Framework 2.0. Specifically,
the initial draft was really focused on infrastructure. We work
closely with the other agencies who are--CISA (Cybersecurity
and Infrastructure Security Agency), for instance, who are
clearly also----
Mr. Williams. Concerned about that issue, sure.
Dr. Locascio. Clearly leading the task. But our
Cybersecurity Framework has been very important for industry to
be able to follow to try to figure out the risks and mitigate
the risks associated with potential cyber attacks. And so we
work very closely with companies, with other agencies in that
endeavor.
Mr. Williams. So I've actually used that framework for
the----
Dr. Locascio. Excellent.
Mr. Williams [continuing]. Industrial controls, and it is
an excellent framework, and it's a great use of government, of
government leadership instead of--you know, it's equipping
industry to solve these problems and using the best minds, the
best research that you have oversight over to provide that
tool. So, I mean, I can say firsthand that it's excellent work,
and it's necessary because there's a lot of change going on.
And IT/OT (information technology/operational technology)
convergence, that has a huge impact on cybersecurity both
positively and negatively, and the framework is very helpful.
So thank you for appearing today. Thank you for your
time.(information technology/operational technology)
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Lucas. The gentleman's time has expired.
I'd like to thank----
Dr. Locascio. Thank you.
Chairman Lucas [continuing]. Dr. Locascio for your valuable
testimony today and your 2 1/2 almost hours of patience with
the questions. And I appreciate the Members for those
questions.
The record will remain open for 10 days for additional
comments and written questions from the Members. This hearing
is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:20 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by the Honorable Dr. Laurie Locascio
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
Report submitted by Representative Suzanne Bonamici
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[For full report, see http://nap.nationalacademies.org/26684]
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