[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ASSESSING THE THREAT
TO U.S. FUNDED RESEARCH
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
AND OVERSIGHT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 5, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-4
__________
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
58-978 PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
=======================================================================
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. BRIAN BABIN, Texas, Chairman
RANDY WEBER, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California, Ranking
JIM BAIRD, Indiana Member
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
JAY OBERNOLTE, California HALEY STEVENS, Michigan
CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina
DARRELL ISSA, California ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York VALERIE FOUSHEE, North Carolina
SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida EMILIA SYKES, Ohio
MAX MILLER, Ohio MAXWELL FROST, Florida
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia GABE AMO, Rhode Island
MIKE COLLINS, Georgia SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM, Virginia
VINCE FONG, California LUZ RIVAS, California
DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina SYLVESTER TURNER, Texas
KEITH SELF, Texas SARAH McBRIDE, Delaware
PAT HARRIGAN, North Carolina LAURA GILLEN, New York
SHERI BIGGS, South Carolina GEORGE WHITESIDES, California,
JEFF HURD, Colorado Vice Ranking Member
MIKE HARIDOPOLOS, Florida LAURA FRIEDMAN, California
MIKE KENNEDY, Utah APRIL McCLAIN DELANEY, Maryland
NICK BEGICH, Alaska JOSH RILEY, New York
VACANT
------
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight
HON. RICH McCORMICK, Georgia, Chairman
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida EMILIA SYKES, Ohio,
DARRELL ISSA, California Ranking Member
PAT HARRIGAN, North Carolina SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
NICK BEGICH, Alaska LUZ RIVAS, California
C O N T E N T S
March 5, 2025
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Rich McCormick, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Statement by Representative Emilia Sykes, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 12
Written Statement............................................ 13
Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Chairman, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 14
Written Statement............................................ 16
Statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 17
Written Statement............................................ 18
Witnesses:
Mr. John F. Sargent Jr., Retired, Specialist in Science and
Technology Policy, Congressional Research Service
Oral Statement............................................... 19
Written Statement............................................ 22
Mr. Jeffery Stoff, President, Center for Research Security &
Integrity
Oral Statement............................................... 40
Written Statement............................................ 42
Dr. Maria Zuber, E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and
Presidential Advisor for Science and Technology Policy, MIT
Oral Statement............................................... 84
Written Statement............................................ 86
Discussion....................................................... 95
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Mr. John F. Sargent Jr., Retired, Specialist in Science and
Technology Policy, Congressional Research Service.............. 112
Mr. Jeffery Stoff, President, Center for Research Security &
Integrity...................................................... 132
Dr. Maria Zuber, E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and
Presidential Advisor for Science and Technology Policy, MIT.... 139
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Article submitted by Representative Emilia Sykes, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives
``Exclusive: US intel shows Russia and China are attempting
to recruit disgruntled federal employees, sources say,''
Natasha Bertrand, Katie Bo Lillis and Zachary Cohen, CNN... 148
ASSESSING THE THREAT
TO U.S. FUNDED RESEARCH
----------
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 2025
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Rich
McCormick [Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8978.001
Chairman McCormick. The Subcommittee on Investigations and
Oversight will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is
authorized to declare recess in the Subcommittee at any time.
I'd like to now recognize myself for 5 minutes for opening
remarks.
And first of all, I'd like to thank you all, my guests, for
coming here today on my first chair. It's exciting to have here
some delightful experts in our oversight, and it's also an
honor to have my Ranking Member Sykes here with me today.
I want to lay out our objectives and how we're going to run
our Committees from here on out. In reference to former Chair
Gallagher in a Subcommittee I was a part of, we'll start on
time, we'll stay on time, and we'll not use acronyms to the
best of our abilities because most people don't understand
acronyms, even the people that use them, I've found, in the
military.
I even practiced this too, so this is great.
All right. Our country is in a unique position to collect
talent from all over the world. I think this is one of our
greatest strengths for the last several decades, and it's made
us this amazing hodgepodge of talent, and it's really
accelerated our country and technologies and our ability to
lead the rest of the world to collect ideas from all over the
world and to accelerate that process through our educational
system.
It has also made us a target. When you look at the people
who are immigrating here to do education, we have about a
million students here every year. A large portion of them are
from countries that are our peers and our rivals and that take
that technology back to their countries, and we have to be
careful of that or we'll lose our position.
In case you haven't been keeping up with our educational
system, it's ranked, I think, 40th in the world right now. It's
not a good position to be, even when you're in the lead. You
can't just steal talent and stay in front of everybody else.
And when you're giving your information to other countries
willingly--and I think there's something to be gained from
collaboration. I think that's a good thing, but you have to be
careful. You have to be smart if you're running a business or a
country.
I think when we have the unique and changing ways,
especially in advanced technologies, AI (artificial
intelligence), quantum, and everything else that we're teaching
our children in schools now, we have to be very, very quick to
put guardrails on that to make sure that we stay in the leading
edge of technologies and that we continue to be competitive and
actually lead the rest of the world.
One of the things I realized that the CCP (Chinese
Communist Party) has done is they refer to our fruits as their
honey. They literally say they're coming up and suckling at
that nectar if you will, absorbing that pretty much at cost.
They don't have to invest in it. They just get to take it back
to their country and benefit from it. That doesn't necessarily
benefit the United States, though. When you have foreign
companies and professors and other people coming here to pick
the flowers in foreign lands to make honey in China, that
doesn't well--bode well for us. And we need to make sure that
this is not only a quote, but realize that this is the mantra
of the CCP right now.
I think we need to continue to slow the leaks, make sure we
protect our technologies, and provide opportunities for our
homegrown students who will remain in America and be the future
of our technologies when we talk about developing our oversight
for this--for these technologies.
Starting with what is firmly within our control, we should
review Federal regulations that are seen both as too burdensome
and also those that are too lenient, work with researchers and
research institutions to implement new methods to ensure
accountability is enhanced and improved as we go forward. And
we also need to ensure that grant awards have contractual
mechanisms to certify that background checks on staff are done.
And one thing that maybe you don't realize, when I was an
associate professor at Georgia Tech and Morehouse, we had
foreign instructors. We had foreign students, matter of fact, a
large portion of them, and there's a financial advantage to
that. But I was also used as an investigator or to help
investigate from the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) a
foreign national instructor who was then arrested because they
were stealing secrets. This is a real thing, and this--and that
was a couple decades ago. It hasn't gotten better. It's gotten
worse, and we need to be careful.
Our Nation's premier research institutes have been an all-
you-can-eat buffet for other countries right now, and
especially our adversaries. We cannot let this metaphorical
buffet continue, or we risk ceding our dominance in innovation
in scientific research. I look forward to the witnesses'
testimony today informing our Committee on the steps we can
take to reverse these current vulnerabilities and enlighten us
on what we can do better.
[The prepared statement of Chairman McCormick follows:]
Our country is unique in that we attract the most brilliant
minds around the world to study and learn here. This quality
raises the bar domestically and has allowed us as a nation to
be leaders of innovation. Unfortunately, this has also made us
a target. Countries that do not play fair and want to thwart
our intellectual property laws and other domestic protections
are finding unique and ever-changing ways to acquire our
innovations. This not only unfairly inflates the profitability
of these foreign companies, but it also discourages and stifles
progress at home.
America's innovation is threatened by carelessness and the
prying eyes of our adversaries. The Chinese Communist Party
(CCP) has made it clear they are taking an ``all of country''
approach to acquire sensitive information as early as possible
and as quickly as possible. They have referred to the fruits of
our innovation as ``honey'' and told the entirety of their
country: researchers, professors, grad students, companies, and
school children alike that they should ``pick flowers in
foreign lands to make honey in China.'' This is not only a
quote, but a mantra by the CCP to their academic and commercial
base.
The age of this quote and the number of times Congress has
had hearings like this should underscore the fact that research
security is not a new issue. For the last 20 years we as
government have taken the issue seriously, especially as it
applies to the CCP. U.S. taxpayers should not be subsidizing
Chinese research and development, ever. Congress and the
executive branch have made efforts, both legislative and
administrative, to slow the leaks and combat the problem.
Despite research security being directly tied to our
national security and advancement, our efforts seem to have
achieved limited success.
We can look at the following opportunities for improvement:
Starting with ourselves, we should review federal
regulations that are both too ``burdensome'' and ``lenient'' at
the same time.
Researchers and research institutions are not
diligent enough with mitigating threats of research security,
we need new methods to ensure this accountability is enhanced
and iterated on.
Grant awards need to be paired with contractual
mechanisms to ensure oversight is conducted and appropriate
enforcement actions are taken on violators.
Our goal here today is to learn about the state of play and
determine how we can adjust and do better. I fear that our
nation's premier research institutions have been all-you-can-
eat buffets which our adversaries are using to consume untold
numbers of innovative ideas. If this issue is not taken
seriously here, we risk ceding our dominance in innovation and
scientific research.
In today's hearing, I look forward to the witnesses'
testimony informing the Committee on what steps we need to take
next to reverse the current vulnerabilities.
Chairman McCormick. With that, I yield to the Ranking
Member.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you, Chair McCormick, and congratulations
on your chairmanship of this Subcommittee. Your practice rounds
served you well. I also look forward to working with you and
the entire Subcommittee for ensuring that we have robust and
productive meetings in order to help serve the science
community for our country.
Before I start my remarks, I do want to take the time to
express my condolences for the loss of one of the Members of
our full Committee, Sylvester Turner, who passed away last
night. He represented the State of Texas and was formerly the
Mayor of Houston. And my husband and I have known him for some
time, and I can't even begin to express the sadness that we
feel, not only for the city of Houston, for his family, but for
this country who has lost a great man, a great patron, and a
great American. So if you have a moment to send up a prayer or
thoughts of words of comfort for him and his family and his
community, on behalf of the Democrats in this Committee. And
hopefully, I speak for the full Committee in expressing my
condolences.
For years, this Committee has led the way in promoting
sensible and responsible research security policy. America did
not become the world leader in science because we cowered from
our adversaries. We became the world leader because we created
a welcoming research environment that set the standard of how
global science is conducted. And while we are proud of these
values, we are also aware that adversarial governments,
including the People's Republic of China (PRC), often take
advantage of our system and exploit its openness. But our
response should not be to let our opponents fundamentally
change our American scientific culture, and in turn, make it
difficult for our researchers to address our most pressing
national challenges.
As a proud Representative of Ohio's 13th Congressional
District in northeast Ohio, I know what's at stake. Ohio's 13th
is home to a tech hub that received $51 million in CHIPS and
Science investment to leverage Akron's national leadership in
polymer science and sustainable polymers. From sustainable
tires to cutting-edge polymers, the next generation of rubber
and plastic products will happen in my district.
This opportunity was not, however, created in a vacuum. It
was made possible by fundamental researchers around the world
working together on chemistry and engineering. Researchers at
the University of Akron worked on these fundamental chemistry
problems within a global science community, and we have
benefited from international partnerships, and we welcome the
best minds from around the world to allow our Nation and our
expertise to grow.
Of course, we recognize that there are valid research
security concerns, and this Committee has worked in a
bipartisan way to address these issues, including through the
landmark CHIPS and Science Act that was passed in a bipartisan
way, and we will continue to fight to maintain the CHIPS and
Science Act. I know we heard some contrary conversation
yesterday at the address from the President.
Among its many actions, CHIPS and Science authorized the
National Science Foundation (NSF) to maintain a research
security office that works closely with law enforcement
intelligence communities to address many of these concerns from
a Federal agency perspective. This office, in conjunction with
efforts from other SST (Science, Space, and Technology)
agencies in the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy (OSTP), has created research security training modules,
created frameworks to assess grant proposals for national
security risks, and issued commonsense disclosure forms for use
across grantmaking agencies.
Since the Committee began looking at this issue in 2018,
universities have also stepped up to the plate, examining their
own research enterprise and identifying ways to make it more
secure. MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), for
example, compiled a report in 2022 that investigates how our
premier research institutions can promote research security
while preserving open scientific research, open intellectual
exchange, and the free flow of ideas and people. I look forward
to hearing about Dr. Zuber's experience co-chairing the
National Academies' roundtable where academies, industry, law
enforcement, and intelligence community worked to come to a
common understanding of research, security threats, and best
practices.
It is my hope that this Committee continues to be a
productive place to hold these very important conversations,
particularly as we are witnessing attacks to the very core of
our Federal research enterprise. Just as we must be clear-eyed
about the threat posed by foreign adversaries, I hope my
colleagues on both sides of the aisle don't shy away from
speaking out when their own government weakens the United
States' standing on the international stage. If we do not
maintain American leadership in science and technology (S&T),
we will lose what is worth protecting in the first place. And
if we don't lead, someone else will follow. I would prefer the
United States leads.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Committee
Members, to the staff for what I know will be a productive
Congress. Thank you to our witnesses for being here. And, Mr.
Chair, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Sykes follows:]
Thank you, Chairman McCormick--and congratulations on your
Chairmanship of this Subcommittee. Also, thank you to our
witnesses for appearing today. For years, this committee has
led the way in promoting sensible and responsible research
security policy.
America did not become the world leader in science because
we cowered from our adversaries, we became the world leader
because we created a welcoming research environment that set
the standard of how global science is conducted. While we are
proud of these values, we are also aware that adversarial
governments, including the People's Republic of China, often
take advantage of our system and exploit its openness. But our
response should not be to let our opponents fundamentally
change our American scientific culture, and in turn, make it
difficult for our researchers to address our most pressing
national challenges.
As a proud representative of Ohio's 13th District, I know
what's at stake. Ohio's 13th is home to a Tech Hub that
received $51 million in CHIPS & Science investment to leverage
Akron's national leadership in polymer science. From
sustainable tires to cutting-edge polymers, the next generation
of rubber and plastics production will happen in my district.
This opportunity was not created in a vacuum. It was made
possible by fundamental researchers around the world working
together on chemistry and engineering. Researchers at the
University of Akron worked on these fundamental chemistry
problems within a global science community. We have benefited
from international partnerships, and we welcome the best minds
from around the world to grow our national expertise.
Of course, we recognize that there are valid research
security concerns, and this committee has worked in a
bipartisan way to address these issues, including through the
landmark CHIPS and Science Act. Among its many actions, CHIPS
and Science authorized the National Science Foundation to
maintain a Research Security Office that works closely with law
enforcement and intelligence communities to address many of
these concerns from a federal agency perspective.
This office, in conjunction with efforts from other SST
agencies and the White House Office of Science and Technology
Policy, has created research security training modules, created
frameworks to assess grant proposals for national security
risks, and issued common disclosure forms for use across grant-
making agencies.
Since the Committee began looking at this issue in 2018,
universities have also stepped up to the plate, examining their
own research enterprise and identifying ways to make it more
secure. MIT, for example, compiled a report in 2022 that
investigates how our premier research institutions can promote
research security while preserving open scientific research,
open intellectual exchange, and the free flow of ideas and
people.
I look forward to hearing about Dr. Zuber's experience co-
chairing the National Academies roundtable, where academics,
industry, law enforcement, and the intelligence community
worked to come to a common understanding of research security
threats and best practices. It is my hope that this Committee
continues to be a productive place to hold these important
conversations, particularly as we are witnessing attacks to the
very core of our federal research enterprise.
Just as we must be clear-eyed about the threat posed by
foreign adversaries, I hope that my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle don't shy away from speaking out when our own
government weakens U.S. standing on the international stage. If
we do not maintain American leadership in science and
technology, we will lose what is worth protecting in the first
place.
Thank you, I yield back.
Chairman McCormick. Thank you, Ranking Member Sykes. It's a
pleasure. And with that, I recognize Chair Babin. And thank you
for joining us today this morning, sir, for your opening
remarks.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, really appreciate
it. And the first thing I want to say is--excuse me. Man, I'm
sorry. I want to thank Ranking Member Sykes for that news, very
sad. I want to express my condolences at the loss of former
Mayor and our fellow Member of this Committee of Sylvester
Turner. I'm absolutely shocked. I knew he had been having some
health problems, but I did not know that we were going to lose
him at this early date like this. I just want to say how sorry
I am about it. I've worked with him for several years now and
really appreciated his service as Mayor of Houston. He was a
go-to guy, and he was nice. He was always a gentleman. I just
want to say how much I appreciated his service. I'm sorry for
his family and just shocked that we've lost him. And anyway,
thank you for telling us about that.
I want to thank our witnesses as well for being here and
joining us to discuss a very serious, relevant topic, the
security threats to our Federal research enterprise. America's
leadership in science and technology was built on the
foundation of Federal investment in basic research. These
investments have enhanced our national security, strengthened
our economy, and improved the lives of our citizens. Our unique
research ecosystem, which combines Federal, academic, and
private R&D (research and development) efforts, drives
America's advancement in science and technology. However, for
this system to work, we need a degree of open science that
facilitates collaboration and transparency. The challenge is
ensuring this openness does not compromise our research
security.
Although the United States has greatly profited from
international scientific collaboration and the contributions of
foreign-born scientists, other countries, both friend and foe,
are also benefiting from U.S. investments. And while our goal
is to ensure that all federally funded scientists adhere to the
U.S. principles of scientific fairness and integrity,
regardless of race or citizenship status, it is important to
recognize that not all nations share these values.
As this Committee is well aware, the Chinese Communist
Party, or CCP, is determined to surpass the United States as
the global leader in science and technology by 2050 and by any
means necessary, including espionage, theft, or forced
acquisition. And I think history has borne that out, that
they're willing to do whatever it takes.
The theft of our basic research poses a significant risk to
our global competitiveness, handing our cutting-edge
innovations to adversaries and undermining both our economy and
our ability to lead in discovery. This is no idle threat, and
it creates a serious strategic challenge. The CCP has been
explicit about its efforts to steal our research results to
further its technological progress.
A 2023 survey by the Center for Strategic International
Studies (CSIS) found 224 reported instances of Chinese
espionage directed at the United States, and more than 1,200
lawsuits were filed by U.S. companies against Chinese entities
for intellectual property (IP) theft since 2000. In fact, even
the Chinese consulate was closed in Houston, Texas, where my
district is, from Houston over to Louisiana. It was closed back
during the first Trump Administration for some of these very
reasons. For the instances of espionage where the actor and
intent were known, 49 percent of incidents directly involved
Chinese military or government employees, 46 percent involved
cyber espionage, 29 percent sought to acquire military
technology, and 54 percent targeted commercial technologies.
This Committee has passed multiple bills to protect
American research. Some of this legislation directed the Office
of Science and Technology Policy to coordinate efforts and
standardize requirements across all Federal science agencies to
provide a strong framework for research security. However, the
previous Administration failed to execute this framework within
the directed timeline, missing deadlines by over a year in some
cases, and provided little to no coordination and no community
engagement.
The government needs clear and uniform guidance for our
agencies and researchers, and I'm confident that this second
Trump Administration will continue the good work of its
previous term and reopen communication channels. Effective
communication between law enforcement agencies and universities
is paramount to securing our research enterprise. Universities
need to know when researchers are targeted by nefarious actors,
and law enforcement should be aware of the participants and
conflicts of interest within our academic research ecosystem.
This collaboration should also extend to our technology
transfer systems. Startups are an important part of our S&T
enterprise and present a vulnerability that our global
competitors are exploiting. While universities can track
licenses derived from on-campus research, they lack
transparency about the startup's investors. For instance, a
foreign entity could access sensitive research through early
investment in a startup before the technology license is even
granted, thereby avoiding a review by the Federal Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS. Clearly,
this is a complex task that requires thoughtful consideration,
but I believe that we are up to this challenge.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today and how
we can assess and monitor these threats to our scientific
research enterprise. And, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to yield back.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Babin follows:]
I want to thank our witnesses for joining us today to
discuss a very serious and relevant topic: the security threats
to our federal research enterprise.
America's leadership in science and technology was built on
the foundation of federal investment in basic research. These
investments have enhanced our national security, strengthened
our economy, and improved the lives of our citizens.
Our unique research ecosystem, which combines federal,
academic, and private R&D efforts, drives America's advancement
in science and technology.
However, for this system to work, we need a degree of open
science that facilitates collaboration and transparency. The
challenge is ensuring this openness does not compromise our
research security.
Although the U.S. has greatly profited from international
scientific collaboration and the contributions of foreign-born
scientists, other countries--both friend and foe--are also
benefiting from U.S. investments.
While our goal is to ensure that all federally funded
scientists adhere to U.S. principles of scientific fairness and
integrity, regardless of race or citizenship status, it is
important to recognize that not all nations share these values.
As this Committee is well aware, the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) is determined to surpass the U.S. as the global
leader in science and technology by 2050 by any means
necessary, including espionage, theft, or forced acquisition.
The theft of our basic research poses a significant risk to
our global competitiveness, handing our cutting-edge
innovations to adversaries and undermining both our economy and
our ability to lead in discovery.
This is no idle threat and creates a serious strategic
challenge. The CCP has been explicit about its efforts to steal
our research results to further its technological progress.
A 2023 survey by the Center for Strategic and International
Studies found 224 reported instances of Chinese espionage
directed at the U.S., and more than 1,200 lawsuits were filed
by U.S. companies against Chinese entities for intellectual
property theft since 2000.
For the instances of espionage where the actor and intent
were known, 49% of incidents directly involved Chinese military
or government employees, 46% involved cyber espionage, 29%
sought to acquire military technology and 54% targeted
commercial technologies.
This Committee has passed multiple bills to protect
American research.
Some of this legislation directed the Office of Science and
Technology Policy to coordinate efforts and standardize
requirements across all federal science agencies to provide a
strong framework for research security.
However, the previous Administration failed to execute this
framework within the directed timeline--missing deadlines by
over a year in some cases--and provided little to no
coordination and community engagement.
The government needs clear and uniform guidance for our
agencies and researchers. I am confident this second Trump
Administration will continue the good work of its previous term
and reopen communication channels.
Effective communication between law enforcement agencies
and universities is paramount to securing our research
enterprise.
Universities need to know when researchers are targeted by
nefarious actors, and law enforcement should be aware of the
participants and conflicts of interest within our academic
research ecosystem.
This collaboration should also extend to our technology
transfer systems. Startups are an important part of our S&T
enterprise and present a vulnerability that our global
competitors are exploiting.
While universities can track licenses derived from on-
campus research, they lack transparency about the startup's
investors.
For instance, a foreign entity could access sensitive
research through early investment in a startup before the
technology license is granted, thereby avoiding a review by the
federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Clearly, this is a complex task that requires thoughtful
consideration, but I believe we are up to the challenge.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on how
we can assess and monitor the threats to our scientific
research enterprise.
Chairman McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And right now,
I'd like to recognize Representative Lofgren for her opening
statement.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Chairman McCormick and Ranking
Member Sykes. I really do hope that research security will
remain a bipartisan and productive topic for this Committee. We
have an impressive legacy of legislation and oversight on
research security for years. On both sides of the aisle, we
have maintained a deep understanding of and respect for, which
the Chairman has just mentioned, the spirit of openness that
animates fundamental research. Republicans and Democrats alike
have taken threats to research security seriously, while
understanding that in order to be the world leader in science
and discovery, we must welcome international collaboration
while guarding against espionage.
One year ago, we sat in this hearing room and discussed the
progress that had been made on research security. Honestly,
it's difficult to have that same conversation today without
acknowledging how different our scientific enterprise looks.
The past 6 weeks have seen a widespread attack on Federal
science. Science agencies froze their awards at the order of
President Trump and Elon Musk, and recipients of these
prestigious grants were worried not only about continuing their
work, but honestly, about paying their bills. They now only
have certainty for as long as the temporary restraining orders
last.
Scientists across the Federal Government were fired in
sweeping terminations of probationary employees. And it's worth
noting that, you know, probationary employees are people who
received a merit-based promotion and were in a probationary
status for the promotion, so we have singled out the most
meritorious scientists for termination. And the Administration
is demanding that more be fired. This will impede agencies'
ability to disburse congressionally authorized grant money,
among other crucial functions. The rug has really been pulled
out from under our Federal scientific enterprise, which had
been the envy of the world. Now, it will be naive to think that
this won't affect our ability to attract and retain talent,
both American and foreign-born.
This Committee has a lot to be proud of when it comes to
commonsense research legislation. CHIPS and Science bolstered
our research security resources, our agencies' resources. It
catalyzed cross-governmental harmonization of research security
policies. More needs to be done. Unfortunately, even the
progress that has been made will be undercut due to recent
decisions.
CHIPS and Science established a research security office
within NSF. This office was seriously impacted by the
probationary firings and the resignations amidst the hostile
environment Elon Musk and DOGE (Department of Government
Efficiency) has created. CHIPS and Science also mandated that
NSF run the SECURE (Safeguarding the Entire Community of the
U.S. Research Ecosystem) Center to support and empower research
institutions to mitigate foreign interference. That center
lacks a permanent Director, and NSF can't hire one while the
hiring freeze is in place. Now, while probationary employees
are being hired back this week because of the court decisions,
there's no guarantee that the agency will get through the
coming firings without again compromising the research security
office.
NSF is a pretty efficient agency. Only about 5 percent of
its budget is spent on agency operations and awards management.
By firing NSF employees and coercing others to resign, this
Administration harms our ability to distribute grant money to
meritorious cutting-edge research, and it's kneecapping our
research security capabilities. We might consider the title of
this hearing ``The most pressing threat to U.S.-funded research
is coming from inside the house.''
For years now when we sat for these hearings, Democrats and
Republicans celebrated the fact that the United States was the
chosen home of world-class talent. We took pride in the fact
that nearly 80 percent of foreign-born STEM (science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics) Ph.D. recipients
chose to remain in the United States. If the destabilization of
our research ecosystem continues, we will tarnish our
reputation, and we will invite brain drain.
I firmly support the bipartisan work that the Science
Committee has done to bolster research security. I hope we can
all stand up for that work and insist that existing laws are
enforced, and where there are remaining vulnerabilities, I hope
we can work together the way we have for years to find
commonsense solutions that respect the openness of science
first articulated at the Presidential level by Ronald Reagan in
1985. I fear that unless Republicans and Democrats alike stand
against the destruction of our scientific enterprise, we will
cede our leadership to China in ways that no research security
policies can prevent.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:]
Thank you, Chairman McCormick and Ranking Member Sykes. I
really do hope that research security remains a bipartisan and
productive topic for this Committee. We have an impressive
legacy of legislation and oversight on research security. For
years, on both sides of the aisle, we have maintained a deep
understanding of, and respect for, the spirit of openness that
animates fundamental research. Republicans and Democrats alike
have taken threats to research security seriously, while
understanding that in order to be the world leader in science
and discovery, we must welcome international collaboration.
One year ago, we sat in this hearing room and discussed the
progress that had been made across the federal government on
research security. It is difficult to have that same
conversation without acknowledging how different our scientific
enterprise looks today. The past six weeks have seen a
widespread attack on federal science. Science agencies froze
their awards at the order of President Trump and Elon Musk, and
recipients of these prestigious grants were worried not only
about continuing their work, but about paying their bills.
They now only have certainty for as long as the temporary
restraining order lasts. Scientists across the federal
government were fired in sweeping terminations of probationary
employees, and the Administration is demanding more workforce
cuts, which will seriously impede agencies' ability to disburse
Congressionally authorized grant money, among other crucial
functions. The rug has been pulled out from under our federal
scientific enterprise, which hasbeen the envy of the world. It
would be naive to think that this will not affect our ability
to attract and retain talent, both American- and foreign-born.
This Committee has a lot to be proud of when it comes to
common sense research securitylegislation. CHIPS & Science
bolstered our research agencies' resources and catalyzed cross-
governmental harmonization of research security policies.
Unfortunately, the progress will backslide due to recent
decisions. CHIPS & Science established a research security
office within NSF, and this office was seriously impacted by
the probationary firings and the resignations amidst the
hostile environment Elon Musk and DOGE has created. CHIPS &
Science also mandated that NSF run the SECURE Center to support
and empower research institutions to mitigate foreign
interference. That Center lacks a permanent director, and NSF
cannot hire one while the hiring freeze is in place. While
probationary employees are being hired back this week, there is
absolutely no guarantee that the agency will get through the
forthcoming RIFs without again compromising the research
security office. NSF is an incredibly efficient agency--only 5%
of its budget is spent on agency operations and awards
management.
By firing NSF employees and coercing others to resign, this
administration is gutting our ability to distribute grant money
to meritorious, cutting-edge research and kneecapping our
research security capabilities.
I think that we should reconsider the title of this
hearing. The most pressing ``threat to U.S. funded research''
is coming from inside the house. For years now, when we sat for
these hearings, Democrats and Republicans celebrated the fact
that the United States was the chosen home of world-class
talent. We took pride in the fact that nearly 80% of foreign-
born STEM PhD recipients chose to remain in the U.S. If the
destabilization of our research ecosystem continues, we are
actively tarnishing our reputation and inviting brain drain.
I firmly support the bipartisan work that the Science
Committee has done to bolster research security. I hope we can
all stand up for that work and insist that existing laws are
enforced. Where there are remaining vulnerabilities, I hope we
can work together the way we have for years to find common-
sense solutions that respect the openness of science first
articulated at the presidential level by Ronald Reagan in 1985.
I fear that unless Republicans and Democrats alike stand
against the destruction of our scientific enterprise, we are
ceding our leadership to China in ways that no research
security policies can prevent.
I yield back.
Chairman McCormick. Thank you, Ranking Member Lofgren. I
appreciate your remarks today.
With that, Mr. John Sargent, who is not new to the halls of
Congress, has only recently retired from Congressional Research
Service, where he provided Members of Congress and their staffs
with research briefings and expert insight on the litany of
science and technology issues and policies. In addition to
being a long-term expert on our niche issues here in SST, Mr.
Sargent earned a degree in systems engineering from University
of Virginia.
With that, I yield for your comments.
TESTIMONY OF MR. JOHN F. SARGENT JR., RETIRED,
SPECIALIST IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY,
CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE
Mr. Sargent. Thank you. Chairman McCormick, Ranking Member
Sykes, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you
for the opportunity to testify today on this issue, which is of
vital importance to U.S. national and economic security.
Let's get right down to it. China is not our friend. I wish
they were, but they're not. China is an ascendant economic and
military power that seeks global tech leadership in emerging,
enabling, and critical technologies. China has also become an
aspiring hegemonistic power. China first seeks regional
domination in East Asia and, from there, world dominance,
economically and militarily. The path to their aspirations
depends on technological preeminence.
To realize this future, China is doing three things in
particular. They are building a world-class military and
drawing up battle plans against the United States, Taiwan, and
their regional neighbors. They have adopted a comprehensive
whole-of-nations strategy to acquire foreign technology and are
making massive investments to develop new technologies
indigenously. And they have adopted a civil military fusion
strategy to deploy this technology in both their commercial
industries and their military industrial base. More than ever,
the future of national economic and military power will be
built on technological leadership.
Speaking broadly, we have it and they don't. That makes
American companies, laboratories, and universities China's
primary targets for the acquisition of leading-edge technology.
And China uses a wide range of--excuse me--tools to get it,
illegal and legal, among them, espionage, theft of U.S.
intellectual property, forced technology transfers from U.S.
companies, talent recruitment programs, and sending students to
study STEM in the United States, some acting as spies.
The Soviets sought military superiority, the Japanese
economic superiority. China seeks both. China is not only a
potential military adversary like the Soviet Union during the
cold war, it's an economic juggernaut, second in GDP (gross
domestic product) only to the United States, and larger than
Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom combined. And unlike our
relationship with the Soviets, we are actively engaged in trade
with China, further complicating the relationship and our
ability to limit their access to U.S. technology.
We have a myriad of academic relationships with China as
well, many on the cutting edge of research and development, and
we are educating hundreds of thousands of the best and
brightest minds from China at American universities, many in
our top graduate science and engineering programs. Much has
been done over the past 8 years to better protect U.S.
universities and their research from nefarious actors, and yet
here we are again, still trying to tamp down the seemingly
ceaseless efforts of China and other adversaries to acquire
U.S. scientific knowledge.
Too often, government efforts have met resistance from the
academic community, which in large measure would prefer to go
about its business with no restrictions. I believe this
attitude is detrimental to U.S. national security. It should be
a core patriotic duty of every U.S. university to support,
protect, and defend the country that provides them with a home,
physical security, civil liberties, and protection of their IP,
as well as billions of dollars in research and development
funding and billions more for the education of their students.
America needs its academic community as a full partner in
the protection of our country and its investments in academic
research. We need a sea change in the way researchers
understand their obligations to the country. They need to bring
an attitude toward making this work for America, not just a
check-the-block exercise to be met with minimal compliance. We
need the academic community to work with the Federal Government
to further develop and strengthen research security protocols,
and we need to more fulsomely implement what is already in
place.
Similarly, we need to better protect private research. For
this, we need U.S. industry to step up as well, especially
given the growing magnitude of the private sector's investment
in R&D and its work on the bleeding edge of dual-use
technologies. In addition, we should consider whether new
regimes are needed altogether.
Perhaps most importantly, with respect to research funding,
the U.S. Government should start with the rebuttable
presumption that science and technology cooperation with China
is not in the national interest of the United States. We should
be asking first whether any proposed research with China is
absolutely indispensable to U.S. national security, the U.S.
economy, or U.S. public health and the environment; second,
whether China is the only partner in the role with whom we can
do such proposed research; and third, whether the proposed
research advances U.S. national security, economic, or public
health interests more than it does China's. And every decision
we make needs to be informed by the answer to whether our men
and women in uniform will face these U.S.-funded technologies
on the battlefield. In the immortal words of Thomas Jefferson,
``Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.''
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Sargent follows:]
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Chairman McCormick. And thank you for your testimony.
Mr. Jeffrey Stoff is the Founder and President at the
Center for Research Security, a not-for-profit organization
dedicated to the protection of research and innovation from
harmful foreign influence and interference. Mr. Stoff
previously spent over 18 years in the U.S. Government as a
China analyst and is recognized as an expert in technology
protection issues.
Please give your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF MR. JEFFERY STOFF, PRESIDENT,
CENTER FOR RESEARCH SECURITY & INTEGRITY
Mr. Stoff. Subcommittee Chairman McCormick, Ranking Member
Sykes, distinguished Committee Members, thank you for the
opportunity to testify today on this critically important
topic. Over the last 15 years, I focused on China's research
ecosystem and its state-driven technology transfer apparatus.
While in government, I worked closely with most Federal
agencies that fund scientific research, as well as law
enforcement and intelligence components. That support exposed
me to deficiencies and vulnerabilities in both academia and
government, which I describe in detail in my written testimony.
For several years, starting in 2019, a few colleagues and I
exerted considerable effort compiling analyses, briefing
government leadership, and proposing programmatic changes to
address knowledge gaps and structural impediments to
safeguarding innovation security. Unfortunately, most of those
efforts fell on deaf ears. My frustrations with continued
inaction by agencies charged with protecting Federal research
investments and our national and economic security drove me to
leave Federal service in 2021 after 18 years.
It is past time we have candid and perhaps uncomfortable
conversations on how China's largely unfettered access to our
research ecosystem undermines our national and economic
security and that China exploits and corrupts our research,
often through the willing participation of U.S. institutions.
And because universities are primarily run like businesses in
that bringing in revenue is their primary objective, the
financial incentives of universities often run counter to U.S.
national and economic security interests.
Academia continues to demonstrate a systemic disregard for
national security considerations and an indifference to or lack
of awareness of ethical risks when collaborating with China.
These issues persist in part because of a lack of regulatory
oversight regarding fundamental research, which worked fine
through the cold war but now fails to address geostrategic
realities. Even where there are rules in place in terms of
Federal grant contract conditions, the evidence suggests
continued and widespread noncompliance by academia.
Currently, only NASA (National Aeronautics and Space
Administration) and the Department of Defense (DOD) have
certain research funding restrictions concerning collaborations
with China. No other activities or sources of funding are
proscribed. Researchers and institutions are free to partner,
collaborate, establish cooperative programs, et cetera, with
any PRC entity of their choosing. Academia has claimed that
they now understand the risks much better and have a good
handle on security concerns. Empirical studies I've produced
and data I compiled in my written testimony prove otherwise,
such as low estimates of over 27,000 articles published in just
the past 5 years involving collaborations between U.S.
institutions and PLA (People's Liberation Army) entities, PRC
defense weapons design and production facilities, state-owned
defense enterprises and key defense research universities.
Additionally, neither academia nor the U.S. Government has
taken any observable policy measures to mitigate PRC practices
that undermine research integrity issues.
In addition to academia's disclosure failures to the
Department of Education on foreign sources of funding as
required by law, nondisclosures on Federal grants of current
and pending support, often coming from China, persist. Many of
those grants could have gone to other universities that didn't
have this PRC support. For the universities acting in good
faith, losing out on these grants can result in smaller budgets
and fewer resources to hire Ph.D. students, attract top talent,
et cetera, which in turn makes them less competitive on future
grant proposals. This also translates to fewer opportunities
for our children in the United States and an erosion of STEM
talent pipelines.
Compounding these issues are structural problems in the
government to identify and mitigate threats from China and
monitor and force academia's noncompliance. These include each
agency has its own research security and due diligence process.
A lack of interagency data sharing results in duplicative risk
assessments when done at all and inconsistent standards for
assessing risks across Federal agencies. The U.S. Government
also has few resources or processes in place to monitor for
national security risks post-award of a grant or contract. And
further handicapping these efforts is a dearth of subject
matter expertise within both the intelligence and law
enforcement communities.
A key recommendation in my testimony is to consolidate
government research security functions into a centralized
organization that closes persistent knowledge, regulatory, and
policy gaps; creates efficiencies and cost savings; builds
subject matter expertise through training analysts and
investigators; bolsters compliance monitoring and enforcement;
serves as a resource to assist universities in conducting risk
assessments; disrupts China's unfettered access to federally
funded research; and imposes real costs to China when it
violates values of integrity and reciprocity.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stoff follows:]
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Chairman McCormick. Thank you for your testimony.
And now Dr. Maria Zuber is a Professor of geophysics and
Presidential Advisor for Science and Technology Policy at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And from here on, we can
actually use MIT as an acronym since I've just explained it.
Most people have never heard of it. She's a leading university
voice on research security and co-chaired the National
Academies' National Science, Technology, and Security
Roundtable. We welcome your remarks.
TESTIMONY OF DR. MARIA ZUBER,
E.A. GRISWOLD PROFESSOR OF GEOPHYSICS
AND PRESIDENTIAL ADVISOR FOR SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY, MIT
Dr. Zuber. Chairman McCormick, Ranking Member Sykes, and
Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to
testify today.
Striking the right balance on how the U.S. research
enterprise should interact with China is critical to U.S.
national security and competitiveness. Getting that balance
right is not easy or obvious. We know that China is an
economic, geopolitical, and military rival and that China has
sought to advance through illicit means. Even now, when China
has considerable strengths of its own, it tries to take undue
advantage of U.S. research efforts. Yet cutting all ties to
China would likely hobble the U.S. competitiveness as much as
it would harm China.
Finding the right balance starts with clearly assessing
current practices at U.S. universities. While many universities
were slow to appreciate the threat posed by China, that has
changed. From what I have seen as co-chair of the
congressionally mandated National Academies' Roundtable on
Science, Technology, and Security, universities are now largely
aware of the legitimate concerns about China, and they have put
in place new procedures, still a work in progress, and many
coordinate regularly with law enforcement.
MIT has been a leader in responding to the changing nature
of China. MIT was the first university to cut ties with Huawei
more than 6 years ago. We created a special review process for
research collaborations with China in 2019 and issued a public
report laying out our approach to China in 2022. At MIT, any
proposed collaboration with China is reviewed for its potential
impact on national security, economic security, and human
rights.
We do not believe, though, that research collaborations
should be cutoff entirely. Properly structured engagement can
be beneficial to U.S. researchers. Collaboration is also a way
to stay abreast of developments in China, which is now a leader
in key fields. There are also still some areas like climate
science, food safety, and certain areas of health where there
is much to gain from joint work and little risk. This is all
publishable basic research.
Research funding from China should, of course, be
disclosed. Congress has usefully clarified and tightened
disclosure requirements in recent years, and National Security
Presidential Memorandum 33 (SPM 33), with input from both the
Trump and the Biden Administrations, and from me, by the way,
provides an effective framework for disclosing foreign
collaborations.
Perhaps above all else, it has been a critical competitive
advantage to the United States that we are able to attract the
top scientific talent from around the world, including from
China. The vast majority of Chinese Ph.D. students, more than
80 percent remain in the United States after getting their
degrees, and more likely would if our policies were more
supportive. Students pose a relatively low security risk since
they work in an environment where research is published. Visa
applicants should be more rigorously vetted, but I am not aware
of evidence that students are extensively involved in illicit
activities. If such information exists, I'd love to see it.
In my written testimony, I go into some detail on existing
policies to protect U.S. technology, where they could be shored
up, and where they should be left alone. But I'd like to close
here with a broader point. Protective policies are needed, but
they're not enough. We have to strengthen our own research
enterprise. One need look no farther than the recent
announcement by the China--Chinese AI firm DeepSeek to know
that restrictions may buy us some time but they will not
prevent Chinese technological advancement.
We must win this race by running faster, not just by trying
to trip up the competition. We must continue to ensure that the
United States is a magnet for the world's top talent by
investing in U.S. science and technology and by offering
reliable funding for competitively awarded research projects.
That means taking steps like funding the National Science
Foundation, as envisioned in the CHIPS and Science Act that
this Committee helped draft on a bipartisan basis. Instead, we
seem to be fighting about how much to slash its budget and
personnel, including personnel hired to bolster research
security.
We shouldn't be naive about China, but that includes not
denying its strengths. We're not going to compete successfully
just by building a moat around the United States. We'd better
be sure that everything we need from others, especially talent,
can get across that moat, and we'd better be sure that nothing
inside our moat is deteriorating.
Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Zuber follows:]
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Chairman McCormick. Thank you to my witnesses for your
opening remarks, and now I will recognize Representative
Harrigan from North Carolina. Welcome to our Committee, and I
look forward to your questions.
Mr. Harrigan. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of
our witnesses for your testimony today.
I wanted to talk about Chinese espionage in science and
academia from the CSIS report and give you a couple examples
here that will frame my question. In January 2020, a Harvard
University professor and two Chinese nationals, Yanqing Ye and
Zaosong Zheng, were indicted for attempted theft of biological
research. Dr. Lieber was a participant in the Thousand Talents
Plan, while actively accepting National Institutes of Health
(NIH) and Department of Defense funding. Ye, a lieutenant of
the PLA, compiled information on U.S. military projects for the
CCP. Zheng committed the theft of 21 biological research vials
to promote Chinese projects.
In July 2020, Saw-Teong Ang, a University of Arkansas
professor, was indicted for wire fraud for his acceptance of
U.S. contracting funds related to NASA and the Air Force while
being simultaneously employed by Chinese entities.
In August 2020, Zhendong Cheng, a professor at Texas A&M,
was charged with wire fraud for concealing his affiliation with
Chinese universities and enterprises while accepting a NASA
grant. His position allowed him access to sensitive NASA
projects. He was also a participant of the Thousand Talents
Plan.
I have only 5 minutes, so I cannot read the other countless
examples of CCP infiltration into our national research
apparatus, but my team compiled 58 different instances of
various forms of research espionage that has occurred just in
the last 6 years. So after reading this report and after
listening to your testimony today, it is incredibly troubling,
and I simply want to know one thing. Why do we still have any
Chinese nationals inside of our research institutions,
especially within institutions that participate in research
that is critical to our national interests and our national
security? Mr. Sargent?
Mr. Sargent. I have no idea. I have no idea. I don't think
it makes any sense at all. I think we need to be far more
secure in who we allow into this country and who we allow to
conduct research, especially on U.S. taxpayer-funded dollars.
And I think it's very dangerous for us not to carefully vet all
the people that are coming to the United States to study to
make sure that they in fact are not linked to PLA institutions
or universities.
And one thing we know for sure is that not only is China
after our technology, they are constantly adapting and adopting
new strategies to acquire it, so we can't think we have now,
after 4 years of efforts, reached the pinnacle of security and
put everything in place we need to do because the Chinese are
going to adapt to it, and they're going to find ways around it.
So we need to--as I say, you know, eternal vigilance is the
price of liberty, and we've got to continue to remain vigilant.
And, again, going back to the answer to your question, I don't
think they should be.
Mr. Harrigan. Thank you. Mr. Stoff?
Mr. Stoff. Obviously, I think this is a very complex issue.
I think that definitely--and I agree with Mr. Sargent that at
least within critical technology fields, within STEM fields, a
far more rigorous process--and I talk about this in my
testimony--that needs to be done that requires the kind of
vetting and due diligence and assessments that have.
There may be other areas--like, from my perspective, any of
the humanities and social sciences and other things, I--that's
not a concern to me. The Chinese should come here and learn how
our democratic governance systems work, our legal structures,
things like that. So I think a complete and total ban doesn't--
isn't necessarily--meet the objectives that you're seeking.
But I also want to point out something that I think is not
really well understood, and that is the examples that you're
describing relate primarily to these constructs of economic
espionage, espionage, and intellectual property theft. And most
of the problems and the threats that were occur--that's
occurring on campus are none of those things. They're not
illicit. And the scale and scope of the other ways in which
they're acquiring technology and knowhow, is often not
espionage, and that is completely underrepresented, not
understood in the scale and the scope, and we need to be more
diligent about that.
Mr. Harrigan. I have very limited time, so, Dr. Zuber, I
don't know that we're going to get to you, but I think we've
got to keep in mind here, we've got access, and we have
placement with all of these individuals, and the CCP will exert
leverage. That is a problem for our country. We need to deal
with this, and we need to deal with it swiftly in our research
institutions.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman McCormick. The gentleman's time has expired.
With that, I recognize Ranking Member Sykes for her
questions.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you. Dr. Zuber, I am extremely concerned
that the weakening of our scientific enterprise will lead to
self-inflicted research security catastrophes. On Friday, CNN
reported that the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has
determined that China and Russia are attempting to recruit
Federal employees who have been laid off. Scientists are
specifically being targeted by Chinese institutions, as seen in
advertisements to recruit researchers in institutes in China. I
ask unanimous consent to enter the article and the
advertisement into the record.
Chairman McCormick. No objections.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And as the Trump Administration casts off scientists and
destabilizes research in the name of efficiency, our
adversaries celebrate and look to fill that vacuum. Dr. Zuber,
can you please describe the relationship between funding our
research enterprise and bolstering research security?
Dr. Zuber. OK. Thank you for that question. So absolutely,
I mean, the fundamental basis of my testimony was that we
absolutely need compliance. We absolutely need to keep critical
and sensitive research secure, agree with that, but we're not
going to get there if we don't invest, OK? So last week, also
in the first round of funding cuts, the NSF SECURE Center,
which was noted in the Member statements, had five out of their
nine employees laid off in the probationary. They may get one
back, OK? So in a very--area that we all consider high
priority, they're laying off people.
So I mean, count me at the front of the line that the
Federal bureaucracy could be more efficient and ought to be
more efficient, but it ought to be done thoughtfully and
strategically, and we ought to be thinking about what functions
the Federal Government really ought to be executing and what
functions should be done by others, and then we ought to
identify the jobs and the employee talent that is needed to
fill those roles.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you, Dr. Zuber. And thank you for
highlighting that in your testimony. And I do want to ask you
all a question, and if you can answer it in maybe 15 words or
less.
Yesterday, during the joint address to Congress, President
Trump said, quote, ``You should get rid of the CHIPS Act.''
Your response to that in 15 words or less?
Mr. Sargent. I would be happy to start. So I covered the
CHIPS Act for the Congressional Research Service. I know it----
Mrs. Sykes. You're getting a little bit beyond your 15
words. We don't have the time.
Mr. Sargent. I think we need to be very judicious in what
we choose to accept and reject in the CHIPS Act.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you. Mr. Stoff?
Mr. Stoff. I think it needs to be continued, and it's
really important for our innovation and security.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you. Dr. Zuber?
Dr. Zuber. It needs to be continued, and there's $13
billion of R&D investment, and we have to train a new
generation of chip makers in this country.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you very much. We have heard rumors that
DOGE has arrived at the National Science Foundation. This is
extremely worrying under the guise of making government more
efficient. I think we all have the idea to make government
efficient and to curb waste, but as we've identified, some of
this has been more of a wrecking ball rather than a scalpel.
When it comes to research security, that means that any
information shared between Federal science agencies and
universities could be ripe for--by hacking of our--by our
adversaries, including China and Russia. Would you have
concerns if the information at MIT, Dr. Zuber, has transmitted
to NSF will transfer to nonsecure data servers, and what is the
risk of research security-related information being accessed by
unvetted DOGE representatives and potentially foreign
adversaries?
Dr. Zuber. OK. Well, what I will tell you is that at MIT,
we don't do any classified research on campus. When technology
gets to the point where it gets complex and concerning for
either economic or national security, we send it to a
classified area. So nothing on campus is classified. However,
it is intellectual property, and if it were to get out, it
would compromise the IP of the creators, and it could
potentially give somebody maybe a 6-month to a year head start
on something. But ultimately, everything we do on campus is
unclassified, so it's going to get out there eventually.
Mrs. Sykes. And, Mr. Sargent, if you can do it in 10
seconds--not my rule, but the Committee's--do you have any
concern about keeping this data private?
Mr. Sargent. Of course I do.
Mrs. Sykes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back. Thank you
for cooperating with me.
Chairman McCormick. And obviously, 5 minutes is not much
time. We'll do a second round of questioning if anybody's
interested to stay on. It'll be rapid, but I just want to make
sure that--she's being great, respectful. Thank you, Ranking
Member, for staying in your time limit. We'll have a second
round for people who want to ask additional questions.
With that, I recognize Chairman Babin for his questions.
Chairman Babin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
Mr. Stoff, why is it important for agencies to share
information regarding research security threats to each other?
Is there a better system that the Federal Government could
adopt to analyze research security threats?
Mr. Stoff. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. Yes,
yes to all. There are--it is essential, both from a compliance,
monitoring, enforcement, investigative function to have
interagency share in ways that they're not really doing very
much now because of different sharing rules, authorities, what
have you. And this is a particular problem with academic
research because a lot of the issues in the compliance or
threats that are coming are often involving more than one
Federal funding agency. You know, there are a lot of scientists
that get money from NSF but also Department of Defense or NIH
or others. And so it is really important that there has to be a
much more centralized sort of structure where these can work in
a more efficient way where data is shared.
Similarly, I think the U.S. Government needs to do a much
better job at sharing not necessarily specific details, but the
trends and patterns of behavior when they investigate a lot of
these activities. And they, in my opinion, have not done a very
good job, particularly law enforcement, explaining to academia,
hey, there are all these things that are happening or
behaviors, not all of which is illicit but compromises the
integrity, the value system, the honesty that you depend on to
conduct research and in a trusted fashion.
And we see that, and I've seen that. When I worked in
government, I supported a lot of these investigations. Many of
them never become an actual public record or an indictment or
what have you. And so there's all this information that's not
being adequately shared, so you need to have both. And having a
centralized structure--in my written testimony, I talk about
basically building a national center. A crude analogy would be
an NCTC (National Counterterrorism Center).
Chairman Babin. OK. Thank you very much. And Mr. Sargent,
under the first Trump Administration, OSTP established an
interagency working group on research security under the Joint
Committee on Research Environments (JCORE). Under the Biden
Administration, this effort was discontinued. Could you
describe the purpose and the role of JCORE Subcommittee on
Research Security to coordinate activities for identifying and
addressing threats to our academic research enterprise?
Mr. Sargent. Honestly, that's not an area of my expertise.
However, I will just say that, having had extensive experience
with the National Science and Technology Council, of which
JCORE is a part of, that the purpose of these interagency
activities is the sharing of information, the coordination of
best practices, so I imagine that's what they were doing in the
context of our research security.
Chairman Babin. Right. OK. Thank you. And then finally, Dr.
Zuber, what resources are available to universities for
assessment, identification, and analysis of research security
threats, and how are these tools informing and promoting
information sharing of risks among universities?
Dr. Zuber. OK. There's a--senior research officers of the
research universities coordinate information. The presidents
coordinate information. The NSF SECURE Center, DARPA (Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency) has put out guidance, and
the NIH had put out guidance, and the DOE (Department of
Energy) had put out guidance. But it's--in many cases, it's
vague. And National Security Presidential Memorandum 33 was
meant to standardize a lot of the reporting across and the
implementation, which is underway but still not finally there.
So if it were done properly, that would theoretically take care
of all of the compliance that is--the lack of compliance that's
accidental, OK, where people thought they reported something,
but they reported it there, not here, OK? It would not take
care of somebody who truly wants to do something wrong, OK? And
those are actually difficult to root out.
But the--you know, we're still--despite two Presidential
Administrations that have gone over and SPM 33, the guidance is
still sufficiently vague that, you know, universities are
supposed to put a research integrity plan in place, but they
don't tell us what the plan should constitute and how a
university can certify that it's actually meeting those
criteria that it has to.
Chairman Babin. Thank you. I see the others nodding their
heads. Would you like to add into that as well?
Mr. Stoff. No, I just--I strongly agree with Dr. Zuber that
a lack of clarity, a lack of guidance, a lack of granular sort
of level, what is it that we need to do, what are the tools,
infrastructures that need to be placed? The SECURE Center may
be able to start addressing those issues, but this has been
going on, as Dr. Zuber said, for multiple Administrations, and
there's still a lot of work that needs to be done, and I don't
think we have the time to kind of do this as slow rolling as we
have.
Chairman Babin. Yes. And I'm out of time, Mr. Chairman. I'm
sorry, so I yield back, unless you'll----
Chairman McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will have a
second round for anybody who wants to participate. I just want
to keep this on track if you don't mind, sir.
Chairman McCormick. With that, we recognize Ranking Member
Lofgren for questions.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I see a lot of agreement among our witnesses. We do
need clear standards, we need clarity, we need adherence, we
need to protect our country. I think there's bipartisan
agreement on those things. But as Ranking Member Sykes
mentioned in her statement, there is an unconfirmed report that
DOGE has arrived at NSF. Now, reportedly, one of the Musk
hackers setting up shop at headquarters is Edward Coristine.
Coristine is better known in his various online communities by
the moniker ``Big Balls.'' Now, this 19-year-old is allegedly
gaining access to NSF data systems. I'll try and be brief when
I go through the laundry list of reasons why I believe this
teenager is unfit to serve in government.
I am advised that Mr. Big Balls started a company called
Tesla.Sexy LLC, a site that allowed users to share images
confidentially. The URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) created
redirected images hosted on his website and apparently included
references to the sale of child sexual abuse material, among
other really horrible topics. It's reported that in 2022 he was
fired from an internship after leaking confidential business
information to competitors. He bragged about this online,
boasting that he had access to every single machine. It's
reported that he also participated in chatrooms with U.S. law
enforcement that have monitored his cybercrimes, investigating
cybercrimes. And now, apparently, he has access to government
data systems, most recently, allegedly, NSF.
NSF hosts personally identifiable information of employees,
principal investigators, confidential business information,
trade secrets when relevant to project proposals and controlled
unclassified information related to law enforcement, sensitive
information.
Dr. Zuber, you have plenty of 19-year-olds working at MIT
labs. If an MIT student admitted to stealing data from a lab in
order to share it with people not authorized to access it, do
you have disciplinary procedures that would prevent that
student from ever accessing sensitive information again?
Dr. Zuber. Well, so all this is alleged. I----
Ms. Lofgren. Correct.
Dr. Zuber. I can't vouch for it. But we do have
disciplinary procedures. It's actually potentially a research
integrity violation, and we have--you know, there are very
clear rules for how to deal with research integrity. And when
there is a finding, there are consequences.
Ms. Lofgren. Let me just say, as a hypothetical because
these have been reported. Obviously, we haven't done an
independent investigation. But if someone with the alleged
background that I've just outlined had access to sensitive
information at U.S. research agencies, would that be a cause
for concern?
Dr. Zuber. Well, even if there were no research involved,
if there was access to personally identifiable information of,
you know, any member of our community or any community, that
would clearly be a great concern.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Sargent, you're an expert on our science
and technology enterprise, and you feel strongly that certain
information must be stringently protected, and I agree with
you. What do you think about allowing an individual access to
our science agencies' controlled unclassified information if
that individual had a history of sharing confidential business
information with competitors, or if that person had been known
to host images with titles alluding to child sexual abuse, or
if that person participated in forms monitored by law
enforcement during cybercrimes investigations? If that were the
background, would that cause concern?
Mr. Sargent. Absolutely.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, I would just like to say, Mr. Chairman,
that while we are of one mind that we must protect ourselves
from threats from those abroad, we ought to be alert to the
threat that is being posed by this army of teenage and 20-
something hackers that have invaded our government, that are
accessing our private information, and including our science
information, including individuals such as Mr. Big Balls, who
is now apparently rooting through the NSF data base.
And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman McCormick. Thank you, Ranking Member. Just to
clarify as Chair, just to make sure we're on the same page, my
Committee staff has just been officially told that no one from
DOGE has entered the NSF. That's official. Eighty-four of 86
probationary employees at NSF have been reinstated. No grants
at the National Science Foundation have been canceled. There is
no funding freeze. All those things are now official.
Since January 20, nearly 500 awards have gone out, and more
than 200 panels have taken place. I just want to make sure that
we're clarifying the details since we're getting real-time
information, just don't want to confuse or confound any real
information. And I'm not trying to make this partisan. I just
want to make sure it's factual. Thank you.
With that, I recognize myself for 5 minutes of questions.
Mr. Sargent, this is somewhat of a rhetorical question, but
are American graduate students any less intelligent or
qualified than Chinese graduate students?
Mr. Sargent. I always forget that. Mr. Chairman, I love
rhetorical questions.
Chairman McCormick. It's a yes or no question, sir.
Mr. Sargent. American students are as capable as Chinese
students, or more so.
Chairman McCormick. Of course. And I wouldn't want to be
the person who said they weren't. But then, why do you think
that certain universities insist on hiring Chinese graduate
students when there are plenty of American students available?
Literally, up to 50 percent of all graduate students hired are
from foreign areas, that go back to foreign areas. Why do we
keep doing that?
Mr. Sargent. Well, a good question. Part of it is momentum.
A good deal of universities' prestige is the ability to attract
the best international students, and it allows for these
connections and relationships to be made back to the home
countries of these students. And so by continuing to recruit
them and allowing them to, you know, be a part of our
university education system, they develop these relationships,
and these relationships go on long beyond the time that those
students are there because those students then matriculate out,
and they go into other positions in academia, they go into
industry, and those ties allow that university to benefit from
that relationship.
Chairman McCormick. So there's probably a financial
incentive of some kind because, otherwise, it doesn't really
make sense, right? A lot of that talent goes back to their
foreign national lands, and then a lot of talents goes out into
the community, but they're not really citizens unless they so--
go down that path.
Mr. Sargent. It's almost always follow the money.
Chairman McCormick. Very good. Putting research security
aside, what is the long-term impact of U.S. students if
universities continue to fill graduate posts with foreign
nationals? In other words, we're not filling it with Americans.
What is the long-term impact?
Mr. Sargent. Well, it's been self-fulfilling. You know, if
you continue to bring foreign students in because they're the
best, those spots are not available for excellent U.S. students
to go and become Ph.D.'s and themselves become principal
investigators. And so then you find yourself in the position of
not having Americans to fill these positions, and so it's a
self-fulfilling behavior.
Chairman McCormick. And I just want to highlight this. In a
university system that's ranked not even in the top 30 in the
world, the United States, which puts more money into education
than any other country by far, and yet we're spending half of
the research dollars--half of the money that we spend to
develop instructors goes to foreign nationals here in the
United States. We are basically cutting off the head of our
future teachers, researchers, innovators, and we're going to
fall further behind. If we're not even the top 30 and we're
falling further behind, why would we train other countries to
subvert our education system? I don't understand.
Dr. Zuber, one of the things I noticed is that we have a
lot of money from endowments. Even MIT does. I don't know why,
but, you know, they happen to have a lot of pride in their
university. Do you think that that's what they intend? When we
give U.S. dollars, taxpayers say, hey, you know what? I'm going
to give you a lot of money to develop--and I think U.S.
students is what most people think. When they give--when U.S.
citizens give money to an endowment, they want to see a
university develop U.S. talent. And we give money to see U.S.
talent develop. Why are we bringing in so many people from
other countries when you--literally up to 50 percent of the
people? Why do you think that is?
Dr. Zuber. Yes, Mr. Chairman, thank you for that question.
So MIT is 97 percent STEM students, OK, and we accept all the
top U.S. students that apply. And let me tell you, when we have
a FIRST Robotics Competition for middle school students in the
United States, we fill up high school gyms. When the Chinese
hold first robotic competitions, they fill up stadiums, OK? So
it's a question of students going into STEM, OK?
Then, interesting question--or interesting statistic, U.S.
students who graduate, OK, with STEM fields, only 1/3 of them
go into STEM careers. So they're----
Chairman McCormick. I would make the case that part of that
is because of the way we influence our students to begin with.
If you look at even the way that TikTok was used here in
America, a Chinese-controlled TikTok, by the way, they want to
develop influencers in America instead of scientists, whereas
it's used in China on a limited basis to develop people to get
into science. This is a systemic problem in the education
system. And we are in a competition with these folks that are--
we are literally educating and bringing in talent, but we're
then divesting from that in the way that we're giving up that
talent. And I think it's a very dangerous precedent.
I'm going to go ahead and yield because I'm out of time,
and I want to stay on and not be a hypocrite.
With that, Ms. Bomici out of Oregon--Bonamici, sorry, out
of Oregon, my hometown, is recognized.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know you have some
Oregon Connections. And thank you to the Ranking Member. Thank
you to the witnesses for your expertise and being here today. I
want to join the Ranking Member Sykes in sending deepest
condolences to the family of Representative Turner. He will be
missed.
So this hearing, Mr. Chairman, you talked about--I didn't
have a chance to fact-check your numbers and facts about the
NSF, but I do know that they have laid off many people. Even
though they may be trying to bring some of them back, they're
still facing significant budget cuts, as are most agencies, and
the disruption and chaos has been really concerning.
This hearing is titled ``Assessing the Threat to U.S.
Funded Research,'' and it is indeed an important topic, but
threats to American research and research security do not only
come from foreign actors. They also come from the reckless
actions of this Administration that are destabilizing our
scientific enterprise and purging Federal scientists at NOAA
(National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), at NSF, at
NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), at DOE.
And Ranking Member Sykes mentioned that intelligence is already
showing that China and Russia are eager to exploit that by
trying to recruit some of our scientists, particularly
scientists with national security experience.
And I want to note as well, and to follow up to Ranking
Member Lofgren's comments that--about DOGE, the Trump
Administration sent via an unsecure email server the names of
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) employees, which is
incredibly dangerous. You might have seen that there--they seem
to be pretty good at hacking in but not in protecting data
bases. And I'm sure everyone saw the takeover of the screens at
HUD (Housing and Urban Development). They couldn't even figure
out how to get the images off the screen. They had to go unplug
the televisions. So, I mean, my point is, what are these people
doing that--is creating a lot of instability, insecurity, and
uncertainty about the safety of our data and research.
So instead of strengthening our defenses, the
Administration seems to be gutting key research agencies, as I
mentioned, and purging experienced scientists, sending a
chilling message to researchers that their work might be under
constant suspicion.
The so-called China Initiative that was implemented during
the first Trump Administration as an example of mismanagement
and certainly some racial profiling, it disproportionately
targeted scientists of Chinese descent, drove talent away, and
ultimately did more harm than good. The Brennan Center for
Justice rightly called it a failure, warning against reviving
such misguided efforts. And meanwhile, as our institutions are
struggling with frozen grants and reduced indirect cost support
and uncertainty about whether international collaboration will
be discouraged or even criminalized, other nations, especially
China, as I mentioned, have seized on the opportunity.
So the United States cannot afford to keep making these
mistakes. Our science enterprise thrives on openness,
collaboration, and stability, not on paranoia and politically
driven purges. So we need a serious evidence-based discussion.
We all take this seriously. I want to ask you, Dr. Zuber,
because I know you've been at MIT for a while. and we think
back to the China Initiative from the first Trump
Administration. Assuming that there's going to be something
similar, what would you change and what would you keep the
same?
Dr. Zuber. Well, I think, actually, Mr. Stoff touched on
it, I think in his--both in his remarks and in more detail in
his testimony. But the--I mean, the China Initiative initially
focused on espionage, and they started with industry, and then
they moved to universities. And there was very, very little
espionage in universities. The kinds of indiscretions within
universities are transmission of information that will be
published anyway, but it doesn't rise to the level of
espionage. And so these should be adjudicated by agencies, you
know, if you're caught----
Ms. Bonamici. And you talk about the balance that's needed.
Dr. Zuber. If you're caught, you lose funding for 5 years,
and that will take care of that problem. And, in fact, there
was a report by the JASONs that put out--that said this sort of
thing should be treated as a research integrity violation,
which is----
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And in my remaining half a minute,
Mr. Stoff, you advocated basically for cutting ties with
Chinese researchers, but would shutting out top-tier talent
like an AI or quantum computing limit our potential?
Mr. Stoff. Well, I don't necessarily agree that we
completely cut everything off, but we're not even cutting off--
we're not even restricting the most high-risk collaborations or
people. We're still letting them in. We're still collaborating
with defense and weapons programs and state-owned enterprises
in China. So can we start with that? And I would say we need to
start restricting that, and then we can be more nuanced.
Ms. Bonamici. Appreciate that. My time is expired. I yield
back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman McCormick. Thank you. And with that, we recognize
Representative Begich from Alaska.
Mr. Begich. Thank you, Chairman. First question for Mr.
Stoff. China has labeled itself a near-Arctic State and has
invested in Arctic research collaborations with U.S.
institutions. Have Chinese-linked researchers or institutions
attempted to establish partnerships with Alaska-based Arctic
research programs.
Mr. Stoff. Thank you for the question. Unfortunately, I
have no knowledge or expertise in the area with regards to
Alaska, but I can quickly say that China has aggressively done
this with other polar nations like Norway, for example, where
their largest state-owned defense conglomerate that builds
radar systems and communication systems for the PLA established
ground stations for Norway under the guise of scientific
purposes. And this is happening, I believe, elsewhere. I don't
know if it's happening in Alaska, but they have a practice of
doing this, and it's a big problem because they're actually
developing more advanced radar systems as a result.
Mr. Begich. Thank you. And given that Arctic focus, are you
aware of any efforts that the Chinese have made with respect to
Greenland as well?
Mr. Stoff. No, not personally. That hasn't--I haven't
looked into it, but I would be surprised if they were not
pursuing those regions because of their strategic import that
they represent.
Mr. Begich. Let me ask you this. Given that Alaska hosts
key U.S. Coast Guard operations and Arctic maritime research,
are you aware of any instances in which foreign adversaries
have attempted to infiltrate federally funded programs tied to
maritime security?
Mr. Stoff. Yes, that's actually fairly extensive, but we
don't get--we don't have a good handle on it. We do know that a
number of civilian PRC defense institutions that are heavily
involved in PLA, navy, submarine, underwater warfare,
underwater weaponry, systems, communications, et cetera,
collaborate extensively almost without any sort of restriction
with most U.S. universities, some of which even involve
Department of Defense funding. Because it's in a fundamental
research area, as I mentioned earlier, there's really no
regulatory oversight over it.
Mr. Begich. Do you believe that the Coast Guard should be
given additional resources to protect research collaborations
involving Arctic defense infrastructure?
Mr. Stoff. Possibly, but I do think a better approach is
what I mentioned my testimony is if you have a centralized
government entity that kind of does this for all Federal
agencies, it would be far more efficient and effective.
Mr. Begich. Thank you. And an additional question for Mr.
Sargent. Do you believe that Congress should require enhanced
security screening for federally funded researchers in critical
areas such as Arctic security, Arctic energy, or climate
studies?
Mr. Sargent. For U.S. researchers?
Mr. Begich. Yes, or any additional researchers that may be
coming from an--from a place outside the United States but are
working with U.S. researchers?
Mr. Sargent. Yes, absolutely. I think any area that has
potential national security implications, we need to make sure
that the people who are working on them don't have any ties
that make them of--question their loyalty to the United States.
Mr. Begich. So you don't believe the current screening
practices are sufficient in order to address the security
concerns that we have.
Mr. Sargent. I can't speak to the adequacy of the current
security screenings.
Mr. Begich. OK. Thank you. Do you know whether--again, to
Mr. Sargent. Do you know whether Federal agencies have
conducted comprehensive research security audits of
institutions in the Arctic which engage in Arctic science,
climate research, or strategic defense studies? Do you know if
that's happening?
Mr. Sargent. I don't know anything of that nature, no.
Mr. Begich. OK. Thank you. With that, I yield back.
Chairman McCormick. And now Representative Rivas from
California is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Rivas. Thank you, Chairman McCormick and Ranking Member
Sykes.
First, I join my colleagues in expressing condolences to
the family of my fellow freshman colleague, Sylvester Turner.
He will be missed by all of us.
I'd like to start by taking a moment of personal privilege
and thank Dr. Zuber for appearing before the Subcommittee
today. As an MIT alum myself, it gives me great pride to see an
MIT Professor discussing the importance and the challenges
facing the scientific community and the research ecosystem.
Over the last 7 weeks, we have seen a complete disruption
and attack to one of America's pillars for the future, our
scientific and academic community. Our research ecosystem
depends on a steady stream of educated experts. As co-chair of
the bipartisan STEM Education Caucus, I take great pride in
America's leadership to produce the next generation of
researchers and scientists of the future. The future will only
come from early and continued STEM investments in every ZIP
code in America. I have spent most of my career engaging and
preparing students, American students, to get into STEM fields.
It's our responsibility to provide the current and future
workforce with the tools to innovate and create technological
solutions and emerging and essential technologies and
industries like AI, healthcare, and the environment.
However, a major threat to U.S.-funded research is this
Administration's reckless actions that include layoffs of about
800 employees at NOAA, up to 2,000 employees at the Department
of Energy, and more than 150 employees at the National Science
Foundation. Despite those dizzying acts against our Nation's
science corps, one of the most worrying cuts has been the NIH
policy, capping indirect cost at 15 percent. I worry about the
capacity of smaller institutions to keep up, and that concern
has only grown in recent weeks, as I hear from constituents and
organizations serving my district. Indirect costs are
expenditures that aren't tied directly to research staffing or
supplies, but they nonetheless support infrastructure and
activities that are vital to the function of research
institutions.
The reality is that this is a drastic reduction in
reimbursement that will result in more than 800 million in cuts
for my home State of California. This will devastate the
development of lifesaving research, inhibit patient access to
groundbreaking treatments and clinical trials, and will cede
American dominance in biomedical research to our foreign
competitors like China, Russia, and Iran for years to come.
Dr. Zuber, I've joined my colleagues in two letters to the
acting NIH Director, expressing my deep concerns on these NIH
cuts and how they will impact my State and district. Can you
elaborate on how these cuts will impact research universities'
ability to compete and how you anticipate smaller institutions
will be impacted?
Dr. Zuber. OK. Thank you very much. A lot of thoughts
there, and thank you for raising the indirect cost because
people don't understand indirect costs, OK? It's--whether a
cost is a direct cost or an indirect cost, that's determined by
uniform guidance. Both are the costs of doing research. You
could put it in one column, or you could put it in the other
column, but that's what it costs, OK? If we don't get the
indirect cost reimbursement, the larger schools that have
endowments have to use their endowments to cover that. And at
MIT, we already--I won't say subsidize; I will say coinvest in
research 100 percent, OK? So we--our research volume, we put in
an equal amount from our endowment to kind of double the impact
from the Federal and other funding that we receive.
Schools with--either smaller schools or R1 research
institutions with small endowments, especially those with
medical centers, don't have any funds to draw on, OK? So we
would do less research, OK, so less impact in the world. And
MIT grads have started, as you know, tens of thousands of
companies, OK? But it--for schools without endowments and have
medical schools, they're going to be out of business, OK? And
these are economic drivers in their areas and educational--
important educational institutions producing the workforce for
tomorrow. So the impacts are potentially huge.
Ms. Rivas. Thank you. With that, I yield back.
Chairman McCormick. Thank you. And next, we recognize
Representative McClain Delaney from Maryland for 5 minutes.
Mrs. McClain Delaney. So I thank the panelists and our
Ranking Members for convening this important hearing. Can you
hear me? Hi. Hello. So thank--I thank the panelists and our
Ranking Members for convening this important hearing, striking
the right balance between cyber and research vis-a-vis China
and Russia with respect to our research universities. And I
really appreciated Dr. Zuber's comments how there are
legitimate concerns with respect to China with--and research,
but how we cannot, you know, throw the, you know, baby out with
the bath water, and we really need to not cutoff entirely and
really preserve some of this for U.S. competitiveness.
I represent the 6th District of Maryland, and in my
district is NIST, parts of NIH, the National Institutes of
Cancer, Fort Detrick, which deals with some of our pathogens,
you know, our fire academy, and our nearby--my--next door is
NOAA, of course, so research and innovation through these
incredible agencies. And the hiring freezes by Rep. Bonamici is
really important that we drive--continue to understand how
these freezes and cuts will really undercut both our
cybersecurity and other institutions.
But building on some of the--two questions I have because I
have only limited time. In terms of under-resourced
universities--and building on Rep. Rivas' questions concerning
indirect costs, I ask the panel, but Dr. Zuber first, do
indirect costs contribute to universities' compliance with
laws, including those related to research security? And do you
believe that universities should be able to classify research
security support as a direct cost so to ensure the protection
of sensitive research and data?
Dr. Zuber. OK. So I don't know all the details, but I can
tell you that indirect costs, part of it is facilities--the
larger part of it is facilities and taking care of the
buildings that you wouldn't have unless you were doing research
in them, OK? And then the other part is administrative costs.
And those administrative costs, you know, the compliance has
been going through the roof for years and years and years. And
it--you know, more rules come in, and no rules ever seem to go
away, and so you need staff to be able to handle that.
The recent focus on research security has caused a big
increase. We've had to hire a lot more people to do compliance.
And most universities in the indirect cost system are out--
already maxed out in the administrative part, so, obviously, if
you could--you know, it doesn't matter to me if they're direct
costed or indirect costed, but all this has got to be paid for.
Mrs. McClain Delaney. Yes. Well, our research institutions
are our Nation's jewels and why we are where we are in America,
and so just making sure that we are able to protect that
information and those collaborations.
I want to move on to cybersecurity. I worked at the Biden
Administration as Deputy Secretary at NTIA (National
Telecommunications and Information Administration) and actually
worked on a lot of cyber national security issues vis-a-vis
some of--even Huawei and 5G and AI. But just this week,
following orders from Defense Secretary--our Defense Secretary,
DOD's U.S. cyber command suspended operations and planning for
offensive cyber operations against Russia. And we're--weakening
our cybersecurity posture with Russia will hurt our national
security and make us more vulnerable.
Research conversations have largely revolved around a
threat posed by China, but we cannot forget Russia as a serious
threat. I guess I ask all of you, can--well, Dr. Sargent, what
potential is there for harm if the Trump Administration
continues to weaken our offensive cyber operations against
foreign adversaries? And to the panel, can the Federal
Government play a role in bolstering the cybersecurity defenses
of our universities against threats from foreign adversaries?
Mr. Sargent. Thank you for the question. First of all, let
me correct you on one thing. I have not earned my Ph.D. I am
a--just a mainstream engineer, systems engineer from the
University of Virginia. But--and, by the way, let me say, with
NIST in your district, I am a massive fan of NIST. I think
they're an outstanding----
Mrs. McClain Delaney. We are too.
Mr. Sargent [continuing]. Institution with great civil
servant employees who do a fantastic job in a wide range of
areas.
With respect to cybersecurity, I don't think you can begin
to overstate its importance. And the risk that we face from
both China and Russia to our--every system in the United
States, including our water systems, our power systems, our
transportation systems, all of them are at risk. And China is--
I'm told, I don't have any inside information, but I am told,
and I have read that they are dropping all kinds of malware in
our systems so that if we find ourselves in conflict with them,
they can flip a switch and cause a lot of internal damage in
the United States. So I don't think you can overestimate the
importance of cybersecurity.
Mrs. McClain Delaney. Thank you. Any other comments if I
have time?
Chairman McCormick. The Member's time has expired, but
thank you very much.
And with that, I'm going to go and give closing remarks.
First of all, thank you all for being here today. It's an
honor. I know it's at your own expense, and I know that
sometimes it's thankless, but we want to thank you for being
here today. I thank Ranking Member Sykes for being here and
being a joy to work with.
I want to address a couple things that were brought up
during the hearing. Obviously, we talked about NSF funding or--
and also staffing. We understand that DOGE is going to make
some mistakes along the way. I get it. They're being very
aggressive, and they've admitted that they're going to make
mistakes.
I want to address the issue of age. Some people say age is
a concern for DOGE, those members who are--or those people who
are actually doing the hard work and labor, realizing that
Einstein, I believe, was, what, 26 years old when he published
the theory of relativity, that you have--Zuckerberg invented
Facebook at the age of 19, that we have 17-, 18-, 19-year-olds
in school right now coming up with brilliant theories on the
next evolution of science, that my great uncle was, I think,
about 26 years old when he was a division commander as a B-17
pilot and was shot down in the greatest air war of all time and
became one of the senior officers in Stalag III.
Age is not really the consideration when we talk about
people who are going to create and sacrifice in this next
generation. Matter of fact, we should be asking people to step
in earlier. Matter of fact, coddling our kids certainly doesn't
help them do what we need them to do for this next generation
of competition.
And I think the only numbers that we talk about when--it's
not about age, but it's about the numbers we need to say
because our government is far too invested in waste, fraud, and
abuse. and we have a $36 trillion deficit right now. The
interest payments alone on the debt that we have incurred
exceed not only the military investment we do per year, but
also the research we do. If we don't do something to trim the
waste, we won't have the amount of money we need to invest in
the future generations of America.
And I think this hearing is really all about protecting our
investments, the money we spend on education to develop the
next generation of science and technologies. When you talk
about the most transformational technologies that this
generation has ever seen, in AI, in quantum, in other
technologies, they're going to literally change the face--the
way that we employ, the way we explore, the way we create jobs,
and how we fight the next war. We're on the frontline. You are
on the frontline.
And we need to make sure that our peers aren't getting
advantages from our hard work and our investments. And I think
that's what this entire Committee hearing has been about, and I
hope we continue this dialog because if we don't--if we're not
careful about what we do, it will result in some catastrophic
results.
God bless you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for
participating. And with that, we are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
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Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
Article submitted by Representative Emilia Sykes
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