[Senate Hearing 119-45]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 119-45
RESEARCH SECURITY RISKS POSED BY FOREIGN
NATIONALS FROM COUNTRIES OF RISK WORK-
ING AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S NA-
TIONAL LABORATORIES AND NECESSARY MITI-
GATION STEPS
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 20, 2025
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
60-021 WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
MIKE LEE, Utah, Chairman
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho RON WYDEN, Oregon
STEVE DAINES, Montana MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
TOM COTTON, Arkansas MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
DAVID McCORMICK, Pennsylvania ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
JAMES C. JUSTICE, West Virginia CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada
BILL CASSIDY, Louisiana JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, Colorado
CINDY HYDE-SMITH, Mississippi ALEX PADILLA, California
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota
Wendy Baig, Majority Staff Director
Patrick J. McCormick III, Majority Chief Counsel
Jasmine Hunt, Minority Staff Director
Sam E. Fowler, Minority Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
Lee, Hon. Mike, Chairman and a U.S. Senator from Utah............ 1
Heinrich, Hon. Martin, Ranking Member and a U.S. Senator from New
Mexico......................................................... 2
WITNESSES
Dabbar, Hon. Paul M., CEO and Co-Founder, Bohr Quantum
Technology; former Under Secretary for Science, U.S. Department
of Energy...................................................... 5
Puglisi, Anna B., Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford
University..................................................... 108
Richmond, Hon. Geraldine L., Presidential Chair in Science and
Professor of Chemistry, University of Oregon; former Under
Secretary for Science and Innovation, U.S. Department of Energy 118
ALPHABETICAL LISTING AND APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
Dabbar, Hon. Paul M.:
Opening Statement............................................ 5
Written Testimony with attached supplemental material........ 7
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 151
Heinrich, Hon. Martin:
Opening Statement............................................ 2
Lee, Hon. Mike:
Opening Statement............................................ 1
Puglisi, Anna B.:
Opening Statement............................................ 108
Written Testimony............................................ 110
Richmond, Hon. Geraldine L.:
Opening Statement............................................ 118
Written Testimony............................................ 120
Responses to Questions for the Record........................ 155
RESEARCH SECURITY RISKS POSED BY FOREIGN NATIONALS FROM COUNTRIES OF
RISK WORKING AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY'S NATIONAL LABORATORIES AND
NECESSARY MITIGATION STEPS
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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2025
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Energy and Natural Resources,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m. in
Room SD-366, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Mike Lee,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LEE,
U.S. SENATOR FROM UTAH
The Chairman. The Committee will come to order. The Senate
Energy and Natural Resources Committee's hearing on research
security risks posed by foreign nationals from countries of
risk working at the Department of Energy's national
laboratories and necessary mitigation steps. I will give my
five-minute opening statement here in a moment. Then, I will
turn to Ranking Member Heinrich for his opening statement.
Then, I will introduce witnesses and give them an opportunity
to give their five-minute opening statements.
The U.S. Department of Energy oversees 17 national labs.
These labs have been instrumental in shaping America's
technological and military competitive edge. From the Manhattan
Project to cutting edge AI research, DOE's national labs have
pushed the boundaries of innovation and strengthened our
national security. But for those very same reasons, they have
also become a prime target for espionage. Secretary Chris
Wright, at his confirmation hearing just a few weeks ago, said,
``We must protect and accelerate the work of the DOE labs to
secure America's competitive advantage and security.'' I could
not agree more. And that is precisely why we are here today at
this hearing to explore ways that we can secure American
technology for the benefit of our economic and national
security.
For years, the Chinese Communist Party has worked to
infiltrate our national labs, targeting top scientists and
siphoning off American research to fuel China's military
ambitions through programs like the Thousand Talents Program.
The CCP systematically recruited elite scientists, nationals of
the People's Republic of China, who were trained in the West,
built their careers in American labs, and worked with American
funding to develop American technology. And then, the CCP lured
them back to China. It is a deliberate strategy to leverage
U.S. taxpayer-funded expertise for the benefit of the Chinese
military, and tragically, we are starting to see the
consequences. Former DOE researchers are helping China develop
hypersonic missiles, deep earth penetrating warheads, and
advanced submarines. These are weapons designed to outmatch and
deter the United States. Make no mistake, Beijing is actively
exploiting weak security protocols, academic collaboration
loopholes, and U.S. grant programs to advance its military
capabilities, all on American taxpayers' dime.
During his first term, President Trump tightened DOE's
security protocols at the labs. He cracked down on CCP
recruitment programs and ensured accountability at the DOE for
those who approved a researcher from a country of risk working
on DOE projects, making it clear that our national labs
wouldn't be used to strengthen the Chinese military. But
President Biden loosened those restrictions, and the door is
once again open to the CCP, which compels its citizens, by law,
to disclose information that they might have that can benefit
China's strategic goals. That is unacceptable to the United
States. Congress and this Administration must act immediately
to close the gaps, tighten security, and ensure that American
research stays in American hands.
I am looking forward to understanding how the Department of
Energy, under the Biden Administration, allowed foreign
adversaries to infiltrate our most sensitive research
institutions and exploring ways to ensure this never happens
again. If we fail to protect our scientific leadership, our
intellectual property, and our national secrets, we don't just
lose our competitive advantage, we hand it directly to our
greatest geopolitical rival. So I look forward, needless to
say, to hearing from our witnesses today and learning more
about this emerging problem.
Now we will turn to Senator Heinrich for his opening
statement.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARTIN HEINRICH,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NEW MEXICO
Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman Lee, and thank you to
our expert panel of witnesses for coming to speak with us
today.
As Ranking Member of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee, and also a member of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence, counterintelligence at our national
labs is a matter that I believe we should all take very
seriously. But first, I want to discuss another
counterintelligence risk. Last week, the Trump Administration
laid off 1,800 DOE employees. Many of our nation's top experts
in fields essential to our economic and national security, such
as critical and emerging technologies and nuclear safety, were
let go. These employees had top security clearances and were
dismissed without following legal protocol to end those
clearances. And the Trump Administration is now trying to
reverse course and reinstate some of these employees. But you
have to ask, why would they want to go back after being treated
this way? Our best experts have lost trust in the U.S.
Government. President Trump is doing exactly what our
adversaries want. They aren't losing their best experts, we
are. This is a national security threat that will have lasting
impacts on our country for decades to come. I sent a letter to
the President urging the Administration to halt these mass
firings, and I would encourage my colleagues to do the same.
Turning back to the research security at our DOE national
labs, this is a sensitive issue. We want to avoid telegraphing
to our adversaries details on the research our labs are doing
and what security protocols our national labs take to protect
it. We don't want to give our adversaries a blueprint of any
vulnerabilities. This is why we have always discussed this
issue in a classified setting. And quite frankly, I am
disappointed to read some of the witness testimony to which we
cannot appropriately respond in this open venue. But we are
here today, so let's do our best to take care with how we have
this discussion in a public setting.
Additionally, as no one on this panel is currently at DOE
or any of the national labs, I think it's important that we be
briefed by DOE and its Office of Intelligence and
Counterintelligence about how it is implementing recently
passed legislation before using this hearing or any hearing as
an impetus for future legislation.
Most people think about the Department of Energy for its
Manhattan Project beginnings or work advancing energy
technologies. But DOE does much more than just nuclear weapons
and energy. The Department is also the largest supporter of
physical science scientific research in the Federal Government,
conducting research and developing technologies across a range
of fields, from artificial intelligence, to vaccine
development, to astrophysics. The United States has been able
to accomplish breakthroughs in space exploration,
supercomputing, and the human genome project because of the
work at the national laboratories. We have been able to
accomplish so much and be the first to do it, in part because
of the counterintelligence capabilities we possess that have
kept our research safe and secure. The fact that DOE's
Counterintelligence Office is under the umbrella of the
intelligence community is a critical asset that we must
leverage and strengthen.
The threat of foreign espionage is becoming increasingly
more complex and dangerous. We need to adapt. When scientists
or students from other countries want to come and partake in
our world-class research, we must take a serious look at the
security risks involved, especially individuals from countries
we have deemed a national security concern. On the one hand, we
must recognize and embrace that much of America's science and
technology expertise comes from abroad. Immigrants founded or
co-founded nearly half of top startups in the U.S., and
international students earn 60 percent of computer science
doctorates. Between 1901 and 2023, immigrants have been awarded
36 percent of the Nobel prizes won by Americans in chemistry,
medicine, and physics. The Department of Energy would not exist
without the contributions of Enrico Fermi and Hans Bethe--two
immigrants from World War II adversarial nations--to the
Manhattan Project.
So we must be sure that we have strong research security
safeguards in place while ensuring we can be a home to the best
and brightest from around the world. Striking this balance
between international cooperation in science and technology and
our national security is not easy. In the CHIPS and Science
Act, and more recently in the Fiscal Year 2025 Intelligence
Authorization Act, we authorized bipartisan and balanced
research security improvements for the DOE that strengthen
their capabilities in this space.
So I look forward to hearing about how Congress can best
support DOE's efforts in safeguarding our research for the sake
of our country's national security. However, as we all know,
not all threats come from foreign entities. Thorough background
checks are required before any individual has access to
sensitive information. In the past few weeks, we have seen
multiple instances of staffers from the Department of
Government Efficiency--which is not a department--or DOGE, gain
access to information systems throughout the Federal
Government. We have seen instances of staff being able to
access federal payment systems at the Treasury Department, as
well as trying to access personal details of Americans at the
Social Security Administration. Jay Tilden, the Head of DOE's
Office of Intelligence, even had to remind staff that DOGE
employees could not have access to SCIFs without a clearance.
All of this is concerning. Along with my colleagues on the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I sent a letter to the
White House demanding answers regarding DOGE operations and
their seemingly unfettered access to sensitive information.
These are unprecedented risks to our national security, and it
is paramount that we address them immediately.
With that, Chairman, I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Heinrich.
It is, of course, important to remember that the President,
under Article II, is vested with the ``executive Power,'' and
the President has the authority, constitutionally and
statutorily, to decide who can see what within his
Administration, and when he designates someone as having access
to it, they do have access to that.
I want to thank our witnesses here today. Let me introduce
each of them quickly, and then we will turn to each of you for
your opening statements.
First, we have Mr. Paul Dabbar. Mr. Dabbar is the co-
founder of Bohr Quantum Technology and former Under Secretary
of Science at the Department of Energy under the Trump
Administration. As Under Secretary of Science, Mr. Dabbar
managed the national laboratory complex at the Department of
Energy.
Next, we have Ms. Anna Puglisi. Ms. Puglisi is a Fellow at
the Hoover Institute, a public policy think tank housed at
Stanford University. Ms. Puglisi has testified extensively on
this topic we are discussing today. So we will look forward to
hearing your thoughts as well.
Finally, Dr. Geri Richmond is the former Under Secretary
for Science and Innovation at the Department of Energy under
the Biden Administration. Dr. Richmond currently serves as the
Presidential Chair in Science, and is a Professor of Chemistry
at the University of Oregon.
Thanks to all three of you for your willingness to appear
in front of the Committee. We will now turn to Mr. Dabbar for
your opening statement, then to Ms. Puglisi, in order of
introduction, and then to Ms. Richmond.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL M. DABBAR, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER, BOHR
QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY; FORMER UNDER SECRETARY FOR SCIENCE, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Dabbar. Chairman Lee, Ranking Member Heinrich, it is
great to be in front of this Committee yet again, and seeing
many friends here.
America leads the world in discovery and innovation. No one
else comes close. One can see that in the Nobel Prizes
referenced in the introduction. Examples include nuclear power,
generation of chips, fusion, AI, quantum, solar PV, electric
vehicles, gene editing, and chemistry of batteries of all
types. And much of that was spearheaded at the DOE national
labs. But our top adversary, China, puts tremendous pressure in
appropriating this innovation and then manufacturing it.
Examples include nuclear power stolen from Westinghouse,
lithium-ion batteries at CATL, the LFP batteries at BYD stolen
from MIT patents, electric vehicles, solar PV, GPUs,
semiconductors, and they are trying to steal the future of
quantum and fusion.
Let me put this into historical context. When I took over
the role of Under Secretary, I discovered that we had
significant stealing of technology at the labs. Not only that,
but our policy allowed our own researchers to legally be
employed by Communist China at the same time as working at our
national labs. After finding this out and going through the
five stages of grief--I forgot from my academy days that NAVY
is an acronym that stands for ``never again volunteer
yourself''--I started mapping out security policy changes. We
banned talent programs. We banned lab employees from working
with countries of risk. We created the technology risk matrix
to restrict engagement on frontier technologies. We restricted
interactions with China and extended Communist China
fundraising restrictions on university researchers who got DOE
funding. All these felt like bringing back common sense.
However, in the last several years, we have allowed that
risk to increase. The Infrastructure Act funding was given to
Communist-controlled entities in violation of the Act. As
disclosed in the report at the Homeland Security Committee,
Communist Chinese nationals who were employed at DOE labs stole
inventions in violation of U.S. law, and took them to China for
commercialization. They effectively created spy cells by
recruiting new members, and they tried to recruit senior lab
and former political officials. I wrote about that in the Wall
Street Journal, and I submitted that as testimony. We must also
remember that all PRC citizens are required by the Chinese
National Security Law to hand over all information when
directed by the Chinese state.
In addition, DOE has restarted engagement with Communist
China in sharing energy technologies. They have been
proactively meeting with the Communist government to
reestablish transfer of American invention to China. And what
was interesting was that this effort was never publicly
identified by DOE, but many were able to find that in meetings
and articles in local Chinese newspapers, including pictures.
And those officials in Communist China were hailing China
technology appropriation. I do believe that there are plenty of
people who think that this is important to share with Communist
China for various different reasons, but I expect that the
majority of the American people do not want us to turn over our
technology to our adversaries. And I would venture to say that
this is the view of this full Committee.
New controls are needed for science and security, and I
know that Secretary Wright is focused on that. While the
current DOE orders on the DOE website provide a framework for
security and counterintelligence, they provide too much
flexibility and discretion for interpretation by politicals,
careers, and lab employees. I recommend that the new DOE team
roll out significant tightened controls, such as requiring lab
under secretaries to be the sole authorizer, with no ability to
delegate authority for all countries of risk, nationals hiring,
visits by labs or meetings, and also create a list of the
waivers that can be found by this Committee for its oversight.
The Senate should consider legislation mandating security
policies that require administrative policies that politicals
would have little discretion in interpreting. I have also
included in my written testimony an idea for DOE to recover
stolen IP. And the Senate should consider extending the NNSA
lab ban on adversary-nation nationals from the three NNSA labs
to all the labs.
America is the world's greatest superpower in both
technology and in energy. As we invent the future, we should
reengage on strong policies to protect our discovery
leadership.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Dabbar follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Dabbar.
Ms. Puglisi.
STATEMENT OF ANNA B. PUGLISI, VISITING FELLOW,
HOOVER INSTITUTION, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
Ms. Puglisi. Thank you, Chairman Lee, Ranking Member
Heinrich, distinguished members of the Committee and staff,
thank you for the opportunity to participate in today's
hearing. It is an honor to be here alongside the esteemed
experts on this panel. As was mentioned, I am currently a
Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and
previously served as the National Counterintelligence Officer
for East Asia. The views presented here though today are my
own.
My testimony will address why the DOE labs are targeted by
China, and then discuss research security and potential
mitigation strategies. Lastly, I will offer some lessons
learned that include that this is a U.S. problem, not just a
Department of Energy problem. China's government has explicit
efforts to exploit its diaspora. While this must be addressed
and countered, the rights of persons of Chinese ethnicity in
the U.S. must be protected. Finally, we can't protect what we
don't have. We have to invest in the future.
The U.S. science and technology research enterprise, and
especially the Department of Energy labs, set the global
standard for discovery and innovation. Creating a climate to
safeguard science will take a mindset change. Many in the
research community see current policy changes as punitive.
Because of this, it is important to discuss benefits of
collaboration broadly, as they are not the same across the
different stakeholders. An individual researcher can benefit
from a specific collaboration because it brings them additional
resources, prestige, or access to data or equipment, but it
might not be to the benefit of the U.S. Government, national
security, or the U.S. taxpayer. While China is not the only
country that targets the Department of Energy labs, China's
policies to target the Department of Energy complex are a
deliberate state-sponsored strategy to save time and money.
China uses non-traditional collectors--expert scientists,
business people, and students--to acquire technology and
technological know-how. Our current system is not designed to
counter this kind of threat.
Current mitigation tools are tactical and narrow by design
because they are crafted to mitigate behaviors with the
assumption that the actor fully participates in a laws-based/
rules-based system. They are basically designed for traditional
counterintelligence threats that focus on intelligence
officers, military end-use, and illegal activities. The
protections in the CHIPS Act and NSPM-33, and as a result some
of the individual programs that have been put in place by
agencies, such as RTES and NSF SECURE Analytics, are a good
start. However, in my written testimony, I provide some factors
for consideration when determining access to the labs and
funding decisions. Reviewing individual factors can help, but
what we really need is a more comprehensive mitigation
strategy. Piecemeal solutions will not have the desired
outcomes.
I cover these three suggestions in more detail in my
written testimony, but briefly I put forth the following
elements that would make up a national level program. First is
establishing a national center for open-source information.
This would provide detailed information at scale for our
institutions and help them make informed decisions. Second
would be to create a kind of pre-check for collaboration. It is
important to establish an accepted framework of protections and
make those clear--the standards, the norms, and expectations
for visiting researchers, post-doctoral scientists, and
students, and those that agree to those parameters have a fast-
lane for collaborations. And finally, investing in the future--
the investments we make or don't make today will impact our
future competitiveness tomorrow.
So in conclusion, it is important to remember that China
takes a holistic approach to development. It blurs civilian and
military, private and public. This has deep implications for
the DOE complex because it impacts the basis of entry for
Chinese students and post-docs to U.S. labs. China's laws,
which include the ability to compel citizens to share
information, regardless of who owns it, also complicate the
ability for individual researchers to act independently. So
moving forward, I leave the Committee with the following
thoughts. We really must decide what winning looks like, and
this will take a comprehensive strategy. Extreme positions,
such as closing our eyes or closing our doors, only benefit
China. We either discredit all the efforts to address the
problem or we deprive ourselves of the contributions of
foreign-born students or scientists.
And China is not a neutral actor. And why does this matter?
Because China intimidates and harshly silences its critics.
This has only grown in the past few years, and places
individuals in untenable situations. We do our foreign students
and colleagues a disservice by not highlighting this behavior.
So I want to thank the Committee again for continuing to
discuss this issue. These issues will make us uncomfortable
because they challenge assumptions and established norms.
However, we as a nation have to have these conversations if we
are going to protect and promote U.S. competitiveness.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Puglisi follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Dr. Richmond.
STATEMENT OF HON. GERALDINE L. RICHMOND, PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR IN
SCIENCE AND PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON;
FORMER UNDER SECRETARY FOR SCIENCE AND INNOVATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Dr. Richmond. Thank you very much, Chairman Lee, Ranking
Member Heinrich, and distinguished members of the Committee.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Committee
on the important subject of protecting the integrity of the
U.S. research enterprise from inappropriate foreign influence.
As a lifelong scientist--working in science for 50 years
now--and researcher, and also a devoted educator, I understand
the critical importance of talking about this topic for
maintaining the nation's competitive edge in science and
technology and ensuring that our research efforts remain secure
and beneficial to the American public. And may I add, in these
50 years I have seen dramatic changes in how we have interacted
with countries of concern like China. I have seen them change.
I have seen the threats become even stronger, and they are as
much of a concern to me now as they were when I was Under
Secretary.
The United States has long been a global leader in
scientific discovery and technological innovation. It is one of
the reasons why we are able to attract the best and the
brightest in the world. According to a 2024 report from the
National Science Foundation, foreign-born workers make up 19
percent of the overall STEM workforce, as Senator Heinrich
pointed out, and 60 percent of the doctoral level scientists
and engineers in computer science and mathematics in the U.S.
were born outside of this country. We are an open, innovative
society. It is the key driver of our economic success. At the
same time, I realize, as we had at the Department of Energy
when I was there, the actions of certain foreign governments
pose unacceptable risks to the scientific enterprise.
During my tenure on the National Science Board under
President Trump and now recently as Under Secretary for Science
and Innovation at the Department of Energy under Biden, I saw
firsthand the growing threats to the U.S. leadership in science
and technology. As this Committee well knows, the U.S.
enterprise would not function without foreign-born scientists
and engineers, but we also cannot afford to have things stolen
from us--properties stolen from us by nefarious acts that
threaten our U.S. economy and our national security. We must
strike a careful balance if we are to protect national security
interests without stifling the innovation that has long been
our nation's greatest strength. During my time as Under
Secretary, DOE and its 17 national laboratories worked
diligently to achieve the balance by aggressively strengthening
research security through rigorous background screening, expert
controls, and collaboration policies to mitigate risks of
intellectual property theft and undue foreign influence. For
example, DOE developed a science and technology risk matrix, as
noted, to protect emerging technologies, and it continues to be
updated. This matrix provides a guidance to address potential
concerns associated with economic and international
competitiveness by identifying the risks associated with a
given topic and the resulting level of controls that are
required.
DOE also developed a comprehensive and rigorous approach to
research, technology, and economic security--what I will refer
to as RTES policy, established new procedures for reviewing
financial awards and loans, and created a new RTES office to
continue to evolve DOE's enhanced due diligence process, engage
with external stakeholders, and review DOE national lab
agreements involving foreign entities. These actions were
supported by security directives from Congress--thank you--and
administrative actions by the National Security Presidential
Memorandum, which was worked on both in the Trump
Administration and the Biden Administration--NSPM-33. Together,
these measures are helping the Department and its partners
mitigate risks that malign foreign governments pose to our
research ecosystem, supply chains, and intellectual property.
For most U.S. universities--research universities--the
level of due diligence required by NSPM-33 and DOE's updated
policies is a newer paradigm. I saw this when I was on the
National Science Board and I have seen it now. Research
universities serve a critical interface between government,
industry, and academia, and since I am back in academia, I know
this, going back to my home. That is why during my tenure as
Under Secretary, DOE focused heavily on helping universities
develop their own procedures for fostering secure, yet open
scientific collaboration, and training researchers on best
practices. I am proud of the way many university
administrations have stepped up to this research security
challenge, including my own at the University of Oregon.
Security is in the DNA and the structure of our national
laboratories. It has been historically at our national
laboratories and in DOE. It has not been the case at
universities. That's why it's so important for us to work with
them.
So as this Committee is evaluating research security
measures of the U.S. science and technology research
enterprise, I have offered several recommendations that are
important to consider. While I cannot speak to the status of
DOE activities in my current capacity, I can assure the
Committee that regardless of the Administration, the Department
of Energy and its national laboratories take the responsibility
to protect the scientific integrity of our nation's assets
seriously. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today on this important issue, and I look forward to our
discussion.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Richmond follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
The Chairman. Thanks so much to all of you for your opening
statements. We will now proceed to five-minute rounds of
questions alternating between Republicans and Democrats, and I
will begin that now.
Ms. Puglisi, I would like to start with you, if that's all
right?
Last week, the New York Times published an article in which
you were prominently featured. You were featured discussing how
the CCP has used legal threats to intimidate American
researchers, including yourself, in an effort to suppress
research that exposes its influence operations. Now, if the CCP
is brazen enough to do this, to try to pressure and influence
American researchers, what does that say about the ability they
have to exert pressure on Chinese nationals from the People's
Republic of China working within U.S. national labs, and
especially keeping in mind that those individuals, if they are
residents of China, what does that say about their ability to
have pressure brought to bear on them given that they are
subject to Chinese laws that can compel them to cooperate with
PRC intelligence-gathering operations?
Ms. Puglisi. Thank you for that question, Senator.
I think, you know, it really highlights a disturbing trend,
right? I believe that, you know, we have talked a lot about how
the hope was that as we moved forward with engagement and
collaborations that China would change, and its laws and rules
and norms would become more like our own. Unfortunately, that
is not the case. And so, I think, as I mentioned in my opening
statement and in my written testimony, the importance of
talking about this behavior, and that if we ignore the
pressures that these scientists and students are under, we
really do them a disservice and we do our own society a
disservice because then we become more like them.
But it really, you know, I think, highlights as well that
it's really hard, you know, for us to understand that kind of
pressure and that we need to put in place those guidelines to
both foster those collaborations, but also to protect that
technology and to ensure that that does not happen.
The Chairman. But needless to say, the pressure that could
be brought to bear on Chinese nationals at these labs is
immense.
Ms. Puglisi. Yes, it is. And I think it highlights, as we
have seen over the past year, the articles and stories about
extralegal behavior, not only for scientists, but on different
campuses of, you know, China's actions.
The Chairman. Now, Mr. Dabbar, your testimony states that
the Department of Energy under the Biden Administration
restarted engagement with China to share U.S. energy
technologies developed in our national labs. In at least one
instance, in 2023, a Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientist
went to China, where he advised the Dean of the School of
Energy, Power, and Engineering at--University, who also happens
to be an affiliate of the foreign influence arm of the Chinese
Communist Party on how best to construct an engineering lab for
the school. Do you think U.S. national labs should be engaged
in these efforts with our greatest global adversary, and should
American taxpayers be funding such support that ends up
benefiting our adversaries in this way?
Mr. Dabbar. No, Senator Lee, I don't think we should. They
have been very clear that they want to dominate the tech space.
And as I listed in my testimony, there is a long series of
technologies, including in energy, that were invented at the
DOE national labs and invented by American companies that was
stolen. And so, it is a long track record on this topic of much
of which they are selling to the world was invented in America.
And so, I think we need to be much more cognizant of this
topic, and I think more controls are needed on this, as I
mentioned in my testimony.
The Chairman. So that's an expensive proposition, losing
valuable research for which we have paid dearly, and having it
go to our greatest geopolitical adversary isn't an ideal
outcome. In fact, quite far from it. This can have devastating
consequences.
Now, Section 436 of the Fiscal Year 2025 Intelligence
Authorization Act, which barred foreign nationals from
adversarial nations from accessing our national laboratories
received unanimous approval from the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, by a vote of 17 to 0, but it was blocked from the
National Defense Authorization Act due to opposition from the
former Chairman of this Committee. The provision included a
waiver process allowing exceptions when the Secretary of Energy
determined the national or economic security benefits
outweighed the risks. Now, given these strong bipartisan
concerns, would you support enacting similar safeguards to
protect our most sensitive research while allowing for limited
high-level exceptions?
Mr. Dabbar. I would, Senator. Obviously, it's a bipartisan
topic. The way the current DOE order is written--that was done
when I was Under Secretary--basically required sign-offs to
have any Chinese interaction. I believe a lot of it was
delegated down to lower levels, which basically opened the
doors, as far as I could tell from my conversations with DOE. I
think we need to potentially do exactly as the Intelligence
Committee looked at, which is flip it. Instead of authorizing
and sign-offs, is to do it the other way, where the base case
is to ban that from adversarial nations, and to give waivers as
required. I think that's a better way, given decades of Chinese
infiltration and attempts.
The Chairman. Leaving the default at ``on'' is dangerous,
in other words.
I see my time is expired. We will turn the time over to
Senator Heinrich.
Senator Heinrich. Thanks, Chairman.
Ms. Richmond, you and I have interacted at some of our
nation's most cherished national labs, places like Los Alamos.
Do you have thoughts on what the current dismissals at DOE and
NNSA could mean for our national security in the long term, and
in particular for workforce morale?
Dr. Richmond. Yes, Senator Heinrich. Thank you for that
question.
I agree, and you know, I hope you all know how committed I
was in my position and now with regards to national security
and the concern of China stealing our most valuable assets. But
these cuts, particularly in the security area, but also having
to do with our energy infrastructure, the cuts there, too, give
me even greater concern because they are immediate, because to
be able to work at NNSA, but also to be able to handle
classified information, requires a tremendous amount of
background checks, polygraphs. They ask all your neighbors, and
so, my neighbors are sick of being asked for all these things I
have done. But the point is that when we make these cuts, even
if we say come on back after this weekend cut, what are the
chances that we have increased the risk of someone being hired
by China to come over and share what they have been doing? I,
too, have been recruited. I got a letter not too long ago that
was like, for one hour's work, I could take $40,000.
Senator Heinrich. Yes.
Dr. Richmond. Now, you know, I don't have a mortgage to
pay, but there are other people that do. So I just have to say
that these cuts, and especially how they are going to impact
the energy infrastructure----
Senator Heinrich. Yes.
Dr. Richmond [continuing]. I think it's time for us to go
to the new Administration and to Secretary Wright and ask what
was the process to decide how to do that, to make these cuts,
because the process that we have at the Department of Energy to
make cuts--and we do make cuts of our federal employees--is
based on budget priorities. When we develop our budgets, we set
the priorities, and if your part of DOE does not fit into those
priorities of the White House and also the Secretary of Energy,
then you eliminate those people, but you do it in almost a two-
year process while you develop this budget.
Senator Heinrich. Yes.
Dr. Richmond. Because the priorities are changing all the
time.
Senator Heinrich. And one of the things that I think it's
important to share with folks is that one of the--probably the
leading red flag for someone being a risk with respect to
recruitment is financial distress. So we just created a whole
bunch of people with really important clearances, really
important expertise, who are all under financial distress. We
created a bunch of targets for the CCP. And I think, I just--I
am aghast at how unthoughtfully this is all being carried out.
Mr. Dabbar, good to see you again. I want to ask you to
sort of walk us through what currently happens--well, talk
about how the intelligence officers at the labs, the lab
directors, and then DOE intelligence coordinate and then what
happens when they don't all line up and agree.
Mr. Dabbar. Yes, Senator. So obviously, this has been a big
focus. There's a classified report from MITRE that's out there
that has evaluated the details of that. I think that's kind of
safe to say, and they have obviously had some recommendations
on that particular topic.
In general, what happens is that the intelligence component
of the DOE has local officers at each of the labs for
counterintelligence. They will do the screening of employees,
if people are traveling, interactions, grant security
clearances. And so, they do that interaction as part of that
intelligence component with the lab complex. In general, that
works quite well. DOE's intel arm is quite well-integrated with
that effort. And I think the biggest challenge on this is not
the structure of it, but as I was mentioning, who has the
approval, right, to allow this interaction to happen. I will
give an example. I have been told many times that any lab
employee can actually do a recommendation and potentially, I
have heard, even a sign-off on people coming to visit a lab.
And so, if there is a PRC citizen who is employed at the
lab, they could recommend another PRC group coming from China
to enter the lab. And if the authority has been delegated down
to the lab, sometimes these things are happening at a higher
rate than maybe some people at headquarters might like. And so,
who has authority in the sign-off and the interaction of that,
I think that's the core practical issue that probably deserves
to be raised to a more senior level than has, I believe, been
delegated.
Senator Heinrich. If you have specific examples of that, I
would appreciate if you would share them with this Committee.
Thanks.
The Chairman. Senator Cotton.
Senator Cotton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
From my work on the Intelligence Committee over the last 10
years, and now as Chairman, I can tell you this issue is of
critical concern to me. Our national labs are where we develop
some of the scientific research and capabilities that are the
envy of the world, but they lack security measures. And I can
say that it's not just me, it's many other members of the
Intelligence Committee. Five members are on this Committee.
There is a reason why we passed legislation last year,
unanimously, that would have stopped scientists from China and
Russia and even Iran and North Korea and Cuba from being in our
labs.
Mr. Dabbar, do you know how many Chinese and Russian
scientists were in our labs in the last Fiscal Year for which
we have data?
Mr. Dabbar. If I have seen your past testimony, I think the
number is around 8,000.
Senator Cotton. Eight thousand. Out of a total of how many?
Do you know?
Mr. Dabbar. Well, total lab employees are probably----
Senator Cotton. No, total foreign visitors.
Mr. Dabbar. Oh, I am not certain about that.
Senator Cotton. Forty thousand. So one out of every five
foreign scientists in an American national lab is Chinese or
Russian. Do you know how many American scientists get to go to
equivalent sites in China and Russia?
Do you know, Mr.----
Mr. Dabbar. I think it's less.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cotton. If I put the over/under at 0.5, would you
bet the over or the under?
Mr. Dabbar. Maybe even under.
Senator Cotton. Ms. Puglisi, how many American scientists
get to go to the equivalent sites in Russia and China?
Ms. Puglisi. Senator, I currently don't have that number.
However, I think that's a point that I have made before this
Committee and others is that it's not reciprocity. I mean, true
collaboration comes from transparency and reciprocity. And
that's one of the things that we are not seeing.
Senator Cotton. I couldn't agree more.
Ms. Richmond, do you think one out of every five foreign
scientists at a Chinese or Russian equivalent site is American?
Dr. Richmond. I don't know those numbers, I'm sorry----
Senator Cotton. Yes, there is zero reciprocity on this
issue. Why would we allow Chinese and Russian scientists into
our national labs, to say nothing of Iranians and Cubans and
North Koreans, when they don't allow our scientists there? We
have told the directors of these labs for a long time, the
Intelligence Committee, that if they do not get a hold of this
problem then the Congress will solve it for them. And the
legislation that we introduced and passed through the
Intelligence Committee last year, although it didn't get passed
into law, will be brought back up this year. And I am going to
champion that on this Committee and on the Intelligence
Committee because we have to put an end to this threat.
There are a lot of great people working in the Department
of Energy, to include at our labs and at the Office of
Intelligence and Counterintelligence, one of the very best of
our small intelligence offices around the government, but there
are too many people that have this ``open science'' mindset,
this naive ideological commitment that we have to allow these
foreign adversary scientists into our labs, no matter what the
risk.
Mr. Dabbar, who has the final word on allowing such a
foreign visitor to visit his or her lab?
Mr. Dabbar. So the order is flexible on who has the
authority. Previously, when we instituted it, when I was Under
Secretary, it was required to be up at my level, and we were
able to squash a lot of the thousand talents programs. We found
many, many people working for China, including joint nuclear
weapons work. That's a pretty stunning comment I just gave that
we found at one of the labs. I believe--I was told in my
conversations with DOE recently that a lot of that has been
delegated down to the individual lab level, and I am not
exactly certain----
Senator Cotton. And again, we have great people working at
our individual labs, but by and large, the directors of these
places tend to come from a scientific background, is that
correct?
Mr. Dabbar. Yes, sir.
Senator Cotton. They are not coming from the intelligence
community. They are not coming from law enforcement.
If a foreign national is excluded from one lab, is he
therefore excluded from every other lab?
Mr. Dabbar. I am not certain how it's currently being
executed.
Senator Cotton. I think the answer is no.
Mr. Dabbar. Yes.
Senator Cotton. If one of our lab directors says no, this
guy from Russia is too dangerous a risk and can't be here, he
can just turn around and try to go to one of the other labs as
well.
Is it fair to say that sometimes there is a little bit of
competition between these labs for money or prestige or talent?
Mr. Dabbar. Senator, in one of my times, one of my many
times of uncovering things with intelligence,
counterintelligence at the labs, we found a Chinese national
who had been hired at one of the DOE labs and then they used
that to shift to NIST in Colorado and use the--of having been
hired at a DOE national lab to join a very important quantum
effort at NIST. And as soon as we found that out, we had to
reach out to Commerce very quickly and point out that we were
sorry that this person had gotten that role and basically, we
allowed them to end up at another lab.
Senator Cotton. Thank you.
I just want to thank the Chairman for having this hearing.
This is not something that we discuss much in a public setting.
We have examined it very closely for years on the Intelligence
Committee. But it is a grave national security threat. It is a
threat to our prosperity as well because so much of these
technologies end up getting commercialized. And to be clear,
what we are talking about here, again, is foreign nationals.
There has been a lot of testimony, or a lot of statements from
members and the witnesses about the history throughout American
life of foreign-born, naturalized scientists. We are not
talking about that. We are not talking about someone who has
raised their hand and taken the oath of affirmation to become a
citizen or even a legal permanent resident. We are talking
about foreign nationals coming to our lab. This is a grave
threat and we can't allow it to continue.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Wyden.
Senator Wyden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good to have all our guests, and especially good to be able
to welcome Dr. Geri Richmond, who is a long-time expert in
security and also a long-time University of Oregon Duck, and we
welcome you.
Dr. Richmond. Go Ducks.
Senator Wyden. Let me, if I might, ask you about what we
learned at DOE in the Pacific Northwest here very recently.
There were abrupt and significant workforce reductions last
week in the office that carries out the critical work to keep
our electric grid reliable. My take is that this raises
national security issues. It raises fundamental issues for our
economy. What are the implications of something like that, Dr.
Richmond?
Dr. Richmond. Well, thank you, Senator Wyden, it's good to
be here with you too.
I think that in terms of our power, our energy
infrastructure, and particularly the cuts at BPA, as well as
the 1,800 people that were just cut off at the Department of
Energy with no clear understanding of the procedure, or why, it
really is going to--I believe as a citizen, that it's going to
not only compromise the safety of our grid, but also will drive
up energy prices. I believe that it will delay current projects
in communities and that it will disrupt our supply chains.
These are, again, my personal opinions, having served as the
Under Secretary for three years, but I think it also is sowing
confusion and chaos among the federal workers because they are
learning about things in the news, and I can't confirm what's
in the news either. But the point is that it's just leading to
a lot of confusion.
For example, with BPA, there were a number of employees
that were cut. And as a Pacific Northwesterner, like you,
that's really chilling because BPA is so important.
Senator Wyden. Let me see if I can get a couple of other
questions in real quickly.
When you went through the process of getting your security
clearance, did you have to disclose all of your foreign
financial conflicts of interest and contacts with government
officials?
Dr. Richmond. Yes. In fact, because I have worked in so
many different countries--over two dozen developing countries,
in particular--I had to list all the countries I had been to,
whether they had paid for my travel support--which most of them
did not--whether I had any kind of a conflict of interest with
them, with any type of financial support from them continuing,
what all my finances are with regards to all of the investments
that we have. We had to declare all those. We had to be cleared
for a general counsel. I had to get a polygraph test.
Senator Wyden. I think I got the drift.
Dr. Richmond. Okay.
Senator Wyden. If a U.S. Government official had
significant business dealings with the government of China or
failed to disclose all of these contacts with Chinese
government officials, could that derail their access to
sensitive Department of Energy secrets or classified
information?
Dr. Richmond. Yes, and in fact what happened in the
laboratories, during my time, was you had both the IN and also
the lab leaders talking about when there is a concern about a
person being in the laboratory. And what they go through is,
who is going to come onsite, what is their background, what
kind of access would be controlled if they did come onsite, and
this is for visitors also, and what projects can they work on,
and what partnerships do they have? If there is a disagreement
between those two entities in the laboratory, then it gets sent
up to me. I did not have any concerning ones that came up to
me. And the laboratory said this at the HSST hearing, the
director said this last week.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Dr. Richmond.
Colleagues, I am asking these questions for several
reasons, and one of them is, according to public reporting, Mr.
Elon Musk is running DOGE while remaining Tesla's largest
shareholder. And according to that public reporting, Tesla has
invested billions in China and makes one million cars a year at
a factory in Shanghai on land owned by the Chinese government.
Finally, according to public reporting, Tesla's contract allows
the Chinese government to revoke Tesla's lease on the land at
any time if it determines doing so is in the public interest.
Now, on this Committee, every one of us works for the American
public interest, and given that as our highest priority, I
intend, colleagues, to come back and ask further questions
about this in the days ahead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Wyden.
Senator McCormick.
Senator McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to
our panel. Grateful to the witnesses for coming to discuss such
an important issue for our national security, but also for
Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh is the home of the National Energy
Technology Laboratory. Many employees from the Princeton Plasma
Physics Laboratory commute across the Delaware River to call
Pennsylvania home. And we must ensure that this critical
national research and these wonderful assets are secure from
foreign adversaries, and that America remains the global leader
on energy and other advanced technologies.
So I really share the concerns raised by so many today
about the continued theft of American research and innovation
by the Communist Chinese Party. It is a huge national security
risk for all the reasons we have talked about, but it's also
the stated goal to dominate the commanding heights of
technology and to use that technological supremacy to undermine
America's economic might, its geopolitical position, our very
way of life, and that research and technology theft is a well-
documented key pillar of the CCP strategy. So with forced
technology transfers, IP thefts, scientific espionage, not only
providing the CCP with advantages in economic and
environmentally important technologies, it's also undercutting
American workers in Pennsylvania and in other places. We are
essentially paying for the R&D that China steals to beat us in
the market space. How can American companies compete in that
environment?
So let me start with you, Ms. Puglisi. You pointed out that
because the CCP does not play by the same rules in science and
technology, that our often-narrow research security tools are
outmatched by China's efforts to steal American technology and
know-how. How can we make the jump from piecemeal solutions,
some of which we have discussed here, to a national strategy
for mitigating these threats?
Ms. Puglisi. Thank you, Senator, for that question.
I think it's important to highlight, first, and the reason
why--what creates this challenge is China takes a very hybrid
approach. It takes a very holistic approach to its S&T
development. And so, oftentimes, you know, we try to separate
things out into complete buckets. And so, to have a national
approach, what we need to do is recognize how different this
system is, and to look at the individuals and the companies
that we are dealing with holistically, and acknowledge those
ties to the Chinese government, and in moving forward, how
policies that are across both our infrastructure and in
commerce that recognize that these are supported, that they
oftentimes don't have to make market-based decisions, that
individuals--and we know this--are sent to study here, to work
in the laboratories for a purpose. And we just have to be much
more deliberate about the way we look at people's backgrounds.
And to begin with, I think putting in place very clear
guidelines, because, you know, our system has been built on
trust, right? And I have been in the lab. I have worked in the
lab, and no one wants to believe that their collaborator is
stealing their technology or the student that they are
supporting is doing that or has some other alternative motives.
And so, we must make it very clear.
Senator McCormick. And yet, we know they are.
Ms. Puglisi. Yes.
Senator McCormick. In many cases they are.
Ms. Puglisi. And unfortunately, this has been the case, and
it is well documented. I know the other witnesses have talked
about this. I, myself, have written a lot about this. And so, I
think the starting point is being very clear--what are those
assumptions that we are making?
Senator McCormick. Yes.
Ms. Puglisi. And you know, sometimes we can't get to yes
with some of these collaborations.
Senator McCormick. Yes.
Ms. Puglisi. And that's why we have to engage, you know,
with the research community to really make clear on that and--
--
Senator McCormick. Thank you. I am going to just move on to
one more question here if I can.
Ms. Puglisi. Okay, sorry.
Senator McCormick. Thank you.
Ms. Puglisi. Yes.
Senator McCormick. Mr. Dabbar, good to see you again.
Many research institutions, just following up on this
question, including the national labs, are engaging in research
collaboration with third parties--I don't think we have talked
about that much--here in the United States and overseas, and
those third parties can also be exploited by our adversaries to
steal sensitive research, particularly the CCP. What policies
should DOE put in place to ensure that the research
collaborations and joint research projects that may be outside
the labs don't create additional security vulnerabilities? What
authorities and directives can Congress use to help on that
mission?
Mr. Dabbar. So that certainly happens. Let me give you an
example. We do accelerator technology with our European
friends, where they ship us some accelerators sometimes and we
ship them some equipment sometimes. We generate IP in some of
these very large pieces of equipment that could have dual-use
points, and sometimes the Chinese go into Germany, to a lab in
Germany, to try to appropriate IP that we invented at one of
our national labs. I know that happened. I have specific
examples of that. So I do think of any of our collaborations
with our allies, we need to push the ball. I think we have
pushed a ball of awareness of them in Germany, France, and
whatnot, that China is trying to steal stuff, and that if they
want to work with us, and if we are going to share technology
with them, they have to meet the same sort of standards that we
have for ourselves.
Senator McCormick. So I think it's fair to say, regardless
of how tight our security is in our own labs, if we have third
party research efforts underway that are not equally strong in
the security measures, then there is a back door where some of
the same challenges of IP theft and so forth can occur.
Mr. Dabbar. Absolutely, Senator. I will pick on one thing
that Senator Risch has been doing on fusion. America is about
to break some major bounds on fusion in this next four years.
There is going to be some major examples. They are trying to
steal it from us and our international collaborations on
fusion. And so, that's something that historically was more
open science, and I think very clearly both domestically as
well as international, that needs to be greatly enhanced since
we are about to accomplish quite a bit.
Senator McCormick. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Gallego, you are up next.
Senator Gallego. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perfect timing.
And thank you to our Ranking Member, also.
Our national and energy security should always be, of
course, top-of-mind. And I was proud to be a leader in passing
the Fiscal Year 2025 NDAA. Among many other things, that bill
enhanced vetting and limited the entrance of certain foreign
nationals to DOE lab facilities to protect national security.
But as former Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee
on Intelligence and Special Operations, I also know exactly how
important it is to be deliberate in the way we discuss
sensitive operations, especially in open settings. As we do our
duty to oversee national labs in this Committee, we must not
give away information that our adversaries could use against us
or actively gather.
So I have a couple questions for Dr. Richmond. In United
States military operations, our armed forces work with
interpreters and local allies who make our operations more
secure and successful. I certainly experienced that in Iraq in
combat with local nationals, as well as foreign nationals, and
third-party companies. And so, we have talked a lot about the
risks of foreign infiltration in our DOE labs. Can you expand
on the risks of siloing ourselves too much and missing vital
information from our allies and foreign-born scientists?
Dr. Richmond. Yes, thank you, Senator, and thank you for
your service also.
I think that we cannot closet ourselves. I have to say that
before the wall came down in Europe, I was actually in East
Germany and I got to see--it was weeks before the wall came
down--and I could see what a closeted country looks like and I
have also done the same in Cuba. We have to rely on
intelligence from other countries too. We have to decide
whether we trust it or not. We have to decide what we are going
to do with it. But I am going to go back to your comments,
ma'am, because we need a coordinated effort across all agencies
and universities if we are going to use what intelligence we
have in order to move forward. And the armed forces play a
critical role in that, and as you know, if we did not have that
outside information, those partners with us, it would be tough
to go forward.
Senator Gallego. And even along the kind of siloing of
information and sharing of information, from my experience,
kind of, as the past Chairman of Intel/Special Operations, I
even had complaints from our Five Eyes nations, people that we
are supposed to share our most intricate and sophisticated
intelligence with, that we still are in such a silo that we
couldn't really share our intel across platforms fast enough
for them to actually use it as actual intelligence. When it
comes to sharing with our close Five Eyes partners or other
intelligence treaty nations, do you see that also still being a
problem in terms of some of the research that's found in maybe
the UK, for example, not being as quickly transferable or
easily shared for us to actually consume, use, or effectively
continue the research on?
Dr. Richmond. Well, I think it's important--thank you for
that question. I think it's important for us to add to this
conversation this issue of open science. Open science is
science that's going to end up in literature, it's going to be
published together. That kind of collaboration happens at the
laboratory because it's natural to do that, whether it be in
fields like I have worked in with lasers and optics and other
fields too. We have to have that open science. So what I fear
is the discussion of really restricting the labs to even things
in personnel, even things that are truly open science, then my
concerns are there. So I don't know if that went to your
question, but it's a point I feel is really important for this
Committee, many who are not scientists, to understand what the
open science is as opposed to something that is truly an
economic threat to us.
Senator Gallego. And your testimony outlines multiple
measures, including a risk matrix to protect emerging research
and tech at DOE. Are you also concerned that any of those
security measures will be disrupted or dismantled under new
agency leadership that does not really understand the goal and
intent of that matrix?
Dr. Richmond. As a citizen myself, yes, I am concerned
because when you have--what we have always found, and when I
have gone into the SCIF--and we are not going to divulge any
classified information--first of all, we do have people from
other countries that are helping us in the intelligence for
some of these countries. But the point is that we really have
to be able to go forward in a manner that allows us to share
the information that we need and be able to go forward. I am
not sure if that quite went to your point.
Senator Gallego. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. Senator Risch.
Senator Risch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
holding this meeting. Look, this is a really, really important
issue that gets almost no attention. I have been 17 years on
both the Foreign Relations Committee and the Intel Committee,
and we have watched this cancer grow over those years, and it's
not going away. It's getting worse and worse. So I am going to
start at 50,000 feet and bring this down. In 1983, I traveled
in China. I left China thinking, you know, we are never going
to have to worry about this. They had no plumbing. They had no
toilets. They had no phones. They had nothing. It smelled. It
was terrible. That was in 1983. If you go there today, it's
like America. Now, it took us over 200 years to get where we
are. And it has taken them only a handful of decades to get
where they are. Are they that much smarter than we are? We all
know better than that. They stole every good idea that we have,
except for democracy and respect for human rights.
So how did that happen? Well, it happened because America
is so open and so free that we just open the flood gates. And
today, this problem of the people coming into the labs is
joined with the question of people that come into the colleges
and universities. They are identical problems, and the numbers
are stunning. Americans have no idea that there are hundreds--
hundreds of thousands of Chinese students studying in America,
and we have a tiny fraction of that. And as Tom Cotton pointed
out--he went and dug out the figures--of the thousands of
Chinese people who visited our labs, and zero Americans have
visited their labs. I am intimately familiar with the INL, of
course, you know, the birthplace of nuclear energy on the
planet. And I talk to those people all the time. I have never
met a person who has set foot in a Chinese laboratory.
So this is the problem--we have given away the farm. And I
would disagree with Ms. Richmond about open science. We should
never have given them that, but that ship has sailed. The open
science is there. It's all over the internet. It's everyplace.
But they have used it to bootstrap themselves up where they
are.
So let's change lanes for just a second and talk about who
we are dealing with. A student who comes here, or for that
matter, an engineer who comes here and goes to one of the labs,
may have no malign ideas whatsoever. But for a person who lives
in a communist, autocratic country, nothing belongs to them.
Their property doesn't belong to them, their thinking doesn't
belong to them, their intellectual knowledge doesn't belong to
them. It belongs to the Chinese Communist Party, because in
those states, the state doesn't exist for the people as it does
in a democracy like we have, people exist for the state, and
the state always comes ahead of the people. And so, they take
these people--when the students go home, they are debriefed by
the Chinese Communist Party, and every scintilla of information
they have then belongs to the Chinese Communist Party.
And I mean, it's two different systems. There is absolutely
no question about it. But again, it's really time to slam the
door on this thing. I have preached about this for years. And
with all due respect to the scientific community, I can't get
it through their head that this is a national security issue.
They say, well, we are all on this planet together. The
knowledge we have helps everybody. Well, yeah, to a degree. If
we are fighting polio, that's true. But not when we are
designing quantum computers. It's not like that at all. And we
shouldn't be sharing that information at all.
So, and by the way, I get real pushback from the colleges
and universities. Why? There are millions of dollars being
transferred from China to the colleges and universities. And
those colleges and universities get very defensive of the
grants and that that they get from the Chinese Communist Party.
Anyway, that's where we are. Folks, how do we get the word
out to the community, and how do we get the word out to
Americans that this is a huge problem? And I have only got a
few minutes left. Start down here and give me your 30-second
take on that.
Ms. Puglisi. Okay, thank you, Senator.
First, I just want to add that the whole issue of basic
science comes up quite a bit, but it's important to note that
collaborations are very important, and I, myself, have been a
proponent for open science. However, I think what is lost in
that conversation is that not everything is shared. And that is
the challenge because what is happening is that the time and
resource-intensive parts of that basic research, oftentimes,
the data, the know-how, the access to how do I actually do
something, and oftentimes what doesn't work is what is stolen.
And so, those are the kinds of things, I think, that we really
need to focus on and have that conversation.
Senator Risch. Ms. Richmond, I am almost out of--I am out
of time--give me a short shot and I am going to give you----
Dr. Richmond. Yes, let me say, I am glad to meet you. I
have been through Chinese laboratories, back in 2010.
Senator Risch. I have met somebody, finally. All right.
[Laughter.]
Senator Risch. I have met one. How many people in America,
330 million? All right, I've got one.
Dr. Richmond. Yes. But the point is, things are changing--
--
Senator Risch. By the way, did you get into the Wuhan lab,
because we are really interested----
[Laughter.]
Senator Risch. Probably not.
Dr. Richmond. You know, I can't read Chinese, so I have no
idea what lab I was in. Okay?
But the point is, you raise a very important point. Things
are changing. Your issue about the open science is right, but
on the other hand collaborations are really important too. But
again, I believe that we need to have a full discussion of this
out in the open. Universities need to--and faculty at
universities need to understand that they could be involved in
the areas of high-performance computing, AI, quantum,
bioscience, biotech, accelerator science, battery science, that
we at the labs consider to be extraordinarily high-risk, so
that they can understand that they are----
Senator Risch. You got that exactly right.
Dr. Richmond. Yes.
Senator Risch. Paul.
Mr. Dabbar. Senator, I think this is a big but narrow
topic. America is the bright light to recruit people from all
around the world who want to work at the DOE national labs and
people want to become Americans. And I think that's good. When
I was there, we had four lab directors who were naturalized
citizens from the UK and Canada and Germany and so on, and that
is excellent, right? They came here. They became American
citizens. We are still a very small percentage of the world in
terms of population in the big scheme of things, and I think
doing that, and all the other people underneath them, with
citizens from all over. China is the topic----
Senator Risch. China is a problem because those people
can't stay here. We all know what happens to their families if
they say, hey, we are giving up China, and we are going to
become a U.S. citizen. They will start--well, anyway, I don't
want to go into that. They do bad, bad things to their
families.
So my time is up. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Cortez Masto.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you. I appreciate the panel
discussion today. It's good to see some of you again.
Let me start off with the Nevada National Security Site.
Most people don't have it in their backyard. I do. Most people
don't grow up next to it. I did. Most people don't have family
and friends that work there. I have and still do. So this is an
issue that is important for us in Nevada, and I appreciate the
conversation today.
Dr. Richmond, let me start with you. In your testimony you
outlined various legislation like the CHIPS and Science Act and
the Fiscal Year 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that
address research security concerns that we have talked about,
right, that are getting ready to go into effect. Specifically,
though, you mentioned that DOE was getting prepared to
implement Section 3112 of the NDAA, which would ban foreign
nationals from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran from
accessing the national laboratories operated by the National
Nuclear Security Administration without secretarial waivers. So
given the enhanced research security measures outlined in the
Fiscal Year 2025 NDAA, how do you think these new regulations
will affect the mission at Nevada's national laboratories, such
as the Nevada National Security Site, which we know is
essential for maintaining our nation's nuclear weapons
stockpile.
Dr. Richmond. Well, thank you, Senator, for that question.
As you may know, Director Hruby--Jill Hruby--was the one that
oversaw NNSA while I was in my position, so I don't have all
the depth of knowledge that she would have, but I do think that
the lab directors that spoke last week at HSST, even Dr. Kim
Budil was there, and she does oversee Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory. And all five directors that were there--
three or four of them were NNSA labs--they are ready to do it
and have accepted it and we will have it done by April 15 or
whatever the deadline is.
Senator Cortez Masto. Okay.
Dr. Richmond. What impact that has, I can't speculate on
it, but I think they are ready to take it on. The concern is,
though, that they are now going to have to fire, I think, a
number of people. I think it was close to a thousand or
something like that, and that, again, compromises our security
because those people could easily be picked up by our
adversaries.
Senator Cortez Masto. Can I touch on that, because I only
have so much time, and that was my next question because we are
now implementing legislation to address foreign nationals
coming into our labs, but what we are not doing is addressing
the workforce that is necessary. Now, I have heard all of you,
and we have had this conversation before about STEM, making
sure our kids are exposed to it, that they want to go into that
area of science. We want to make sure that they are now
stepping into, as they graduate, jobs like we have at the test
site. What does it say to them that we have just done this
wholesale firing of people, particularly in my state. People
are paying attention--their family members, their friends, they
know what is going on. What does that say to our ability to
develop that workforce for the future in these STEM courses?
Dr. Richmond. Okay, I will put my academic hat on now.
People are scared. Students are scared. Parents of students are
scared. Spouses are scared about paying mortgages, that all the
energy that they have put into this passion they have for
science is now being questioned for its value. It's very
personal.
Senator Cortez Masto. Let me touch on one final thing. We
have talked about foreign nationals, and I agree that we have
to address it. We have passed legislation to do just that, but
there are other security challenges we are not even talking
about--cyber threats. Where are we talking about cyber threats
here? And should we be addressing that as Congress as well?
And let me open it up to any of the panel members: talk to
me about cyber threats. What should we know that we are not
talking about today that is the next step for us to implement
when it comes to our national labs?
Ms. Puglisi or Mr. Dabbar.
Ms. Puglisi. That's a very important point and that's why I
advocate that we really need a holistic, comprehensive program
that looks across the board, and cyber would be one of those,
and also, both external and internal to understand, okay, who's
sharing what with whom. So that's one. And I just want to pull
the thread on the collaborations because that's an important
point and why we really need to demand that reciprocity and
transparency because it can't be a one-way street, right? And
we talked about how many people are in our labs, how many
people in their labs, I mean, these are serious topics and
serious countries do serious things. And so, we need to ensure
that there is that reciprocity of, not only people, but
information. And one of the challenges, I think, with China is
they are coming down on open science--access to their data,
access to academic papers, you know, that does not demonstrate
to me a place that has a serious desire to do true
collaborations.
Senator Cortez Masto. Thank you.
I know my time is up. Mr. Dabbar, do you have anything?
Mr. Dabbar. So Senator, this is a university example, but
not a lab example. This just goes to show you that you need to
have strict controls, and sometimes things can go wrong. We
found a cybersecurity effort that was funded by DOE at a
university in which all the principal investigators were PRC
nationals. Electric grid cybersecurity funded by DOE at a
university with PRC nationals developing the software for
cybersecurity for the electric grid. We stopped that as soon as
we found out that that had been done, and I won't go through
the details, but it's an example that people were not thinking,
okay, at the Department, when they were issuing funding of
something that I think is pretty commonsense.
So I think this comes back to rules and proper oversight so
that people down below don't do things that wouldn't pass, you
know, kind of commonsense for, I think, anyone in this room.
Senator Cortez Masto. But if we don't have the staff to
catch it. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator King.
Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The focus today has been on national security, as well it
should be. That's one of our jobs around here. On the other
hand, there is an opportunity cost of excluding talent that
could be important in furthering our own interest in terms of
technological development.
Ms. Richmond, talk to me about that. It seems to me what we
really need to do is try to find a path between total exclusion
and not being cognizant of national security risk, but not
exclude people who can make a significant contribution to our
national welfare. Do you see what I am trying to find?
Dr. Richmond. Yes, so, Senator King, thank you for that
question. There are so many examples of where Chinese citizens
have made--I would be happy to give the Committee many
examples, especially of Chinese researchers who continue to
contribute in our laboratories and also our universities. It is
a balance. And particularly for our universities, we have,
while I was Under Secretary, we started the RTES Office, which
is Research for Technology and Economic Security. And that is
basically to make sure that we don't have things happen like
happened in your Administration, which would check every one
that's a PI going in for a grant. In the FOA that goes out, it
is checked to make sure that it is very clear that we are going
to ask this kind of information when you apply for a grant.
Then, when the selections are made, look to see who the PIs
are, are they ones that are safe to go forward with? Is the
topic one--what about the topic, because the security for some
topics----
Senator King. But universities don't have the security
clearance apparatus----
Dr. Richmond. No.
Senator King [continuing]. That the national labs have.
I believe that there may be more risk, frankly, on the
university level than there is at the national labs because at
the national labs you have a whole--you have
counterintelligence at Department of Energy and you have those
kinds of examinations.
Dr. Richmond. And that's why we are working with them and
that's why we are sharing the risk matrix with them as well. I
was on a video call recently to talk about what they need to do
in proposals with their PIs to give them guidance on making----
Senator King. Mr. Dabbar, how do you think we should strike
this balance?
Mr. Dabbar. Yes, so, one of the orders that we also
implemented was banning giving money to university researchers
if they were also taking money under the Thousand Talents
Program. We had found out that during the previous
Administration, that they had allowed that, so that literally a
researcher could be getting money from the Chinese state at the
same time as from DOE. We decided that was a bad idea. We
actually spent a bunch of time with university presidents
explaining that. They had a lot of worry about that. And then,
at the end of the day, they reached a conclusion that the
Federal Government can decide what to do its money. I know it's
a simple kind of conclusion.
But one of the big things that they found, as a part of our
pushing on this topic, was they found out that they had
researchers who were spending significant time in Communist
China and basically taking their research--it had nothing to do
with DOE, it could have been from anyplace. And they didn't
even know it was happening. I found out at Stanford, for
example, there was a professor who was supposedly full time,
who spent nine months a year in China. And the university
didn't even realize it was going on, even though they were
paying that professor.
So I think awareness with the university system, that they
need to address their own problems, but I do think additional
controls around how the Federal Government money is given to
PIs, the principal investigators----
Senator King. Let's go back to the national labs.
Mr. Dabbar. Yes.
Senator King. If there is a total ban, no Chinese
researchers whatsoever, is that a good policy or would that
cost us some good scientific breakthroughs that would otherwise
be useful? I am trying to find the right line between national
security and opportunity cost of brilliant researchers from
anywhere in the world.
Mr. Dabbar. I think, Senator, given that there has been,
literally, a whole generation of successful efforts by
Communist China in stealing stuff, the Los Alamos Club, but
then the thousand talents. They keep coming at us. I think the
better way of doing it is this proposed legislation from the
Intel Committee that was referenced, which is a ban with
Chinese nationals at the national labs, which are at the very
highest level of the United States with the ability of the
Department of do a waiver. And so, this flexibility----
Senator King. So the default would be no.
Mr. Dabbar. The default should be no, is my recommendation,
which was the Intel Committee's unanimous vote, with the
ability of the Department to grant waivers. So there is still
flexibility in the idea, but once again, I think the DOE
national labs are at the top of the security worries.
Senator King. I understand.
Quick follow-up question. Who is Chinese? There are a lot
of Chinese Americans. Are they swept into this? What's the
definition?
Mr. Dabbar. Yes, so the way the orders are written is, it's
citizens.
Senator King. Chinese citizens.
Mr. Dabbar. Citizens.
Senator King. Okay, so a Chinese American who has been here
50 years or a couple of generations would not be included?
Mr. Dabbar. Citizens is the way that the order is currently
written.
Senator King. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Dabbar. Or Russians, or, I mean, we had an Iranian
trying to get hired, like an Iranian citizen, and we had
concerns on the type of technology and we decided not to let
them in.
Senator King. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Cassidy [presiding]. Thank you.
And I have taken the gavel, just for everybody's
information, while Senator Lee goes to vote.
Let me follow up on that. I don't know the particulars of
it, but by the way, I have been elsewhere, so if I ask
something which is a repeat, I apologize, but I am going to
pick up where Senator King left off. There were two folks who
apparently were American citizens, but who were passing
information to the Chinese Communist Party, that were recently
arrested from the DOD. And I want to say it's out in San Diego.
I am a little vague on all of this, but suffice it to say that
this occurred. So if the restriction is on Chinese citizens,
and by the way, I am Irish American, right? So I am not saying
we have this kind of prohibition upon Chinese Americans. I am
trying to understand this kind of interface where there has
been an infusion of people who now are naturalized U.S.
citizens, but in some way still might pose a security risk.
And so, we want fairness. We want to capitalize upon
incredible human talent, but we don't want to be someone's
sucker. So take into account these naturalized citizens, and
how would we do that, as a follow up to what Senator King asked
in terms of establishing security?
Yes, ma'am, would you like to go?
Dr. Richmond. Yes, so, I think that's a really good
question. So we have, just to put some data out there, of the
Chinese citizenship at graduation. After they have been here
for five years, 88 percent have stayed, and after ten years, 81
percent have stayed. So some--I mean, a lot of them are going
to stay. And the question is, which ones are the ones that you
need to be concerned about? So I think what we have done with
working with the universities and NSF and certainly, Paul, with
your administration work on this too, is the Department of
Energy, back in 2019, and then 2021, every PI, every one that
wants money, has to put down all their connections, okay? And
with regards to money, visits, financial support, all of that
has to be there if you are going to get DOE money.
And I have been in the SCIF where I have been talking to
our intelligence people about someone that may arise that
causes them concern. And those people are also working with our
vetting--RTES group--in order to figure out who those people
are because they--I tell university PIs that if you don't
disclose, and we find out that something is wrong, you are out
of here.
Senator Cassidy. So let me ask you this, though, because I
once read about how the Chinese missile program began because
there was a Chinese American who was doing fabulous work, but
because of a security issue, was not given clearance to
continue and he just wanted an outlet for his intellect. And
so, he returned to Communist China and helped develop their
program. So I guess that brings to mind, is there a way to
discern between those people who are more loyal to China and
those who are more loyal to the United States, but if we shut
off opportunity, they will go where they have opportunity. Do
you follow where I am going there?
Dr. Richmond. Well, Senator Cassidy, that's exactly what we
have been talking about here, is the concern about all the cuts
that are happening in the Department of Energy--300 employees
at NNSA, 1,800 across the Department, and those people have an
incredible knowledge, scientific background, and if they are
just really upset, shall I say, they may decide to do that. So
it concerns me that----
Senator Cassidy. Well, people have got to eat. So they have
got to have a job.
Dr. Richmond. Yes, you have to pay the mortgage. You have
to eat. You can take that contract that I, you know, asked that
I--the letter that I got recently that said $40,000 for an
hour's worth of work in China. We will pay all your expenses.
And you know, for somebody that is mad, is angry at the
government or for----
Senator Cassidy. But that's not actually, that's not my
fundamental question though. I am going back to this person in
the 1940s or 50s who was really seeking opportunity. So is
there a way to discern between those who might be a security
risk and those who are, you know, they are just, they may
leave, but they are going to leave because of opportunity or
other circumstances, not because of their security risk,
fundamentally?
Dr. Richmond. So in the case of the people, again, we go
through with the RTES program and also the risk matrix at the
laboratories, we go through as much information as we can that
they will give us with regards to when they are employed at the
university or, excuse me, employed in the Federal Government to
find out whether they could possibly be a risk.
Senator Cassidy. And of course, this would apply to people
of multiple nationalities. I think I heard you mention as I
walked in, because there are talented people coming into the
United States for graduate school from the world over, right?
Dr. Richmond. Yes, but you don't have to only worry about
if someone has Chinese background.
Senator Cassidy. I get that.
Dr. Richmond. There are American scientists that have
decided they needed the money so they went over to China.
Senator Cassidy. I am a little suspicious about some of the
Canadians----
[Laughter.]
Dr. Richmond. I don't know, I think it's Irish Americans we
need to worry about.
[Laughter.]
Senator Cassidy. You don't have to worry about Irish
Americans for much.
Senator Hickenlooper.
Senator Hickenlooper. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks
to all of you for being here. I appreciate this. I grew up in a
time back in the 60s, where at the height of the Cold War there
was a continuing cartoon series in Mad Magazine where it was
Spy vs. Spy, and there was a white spy and a black spy, and
they were constantly doing tricks with each other in a comical
competition. We are way beyond that. And I think, you know,
when I was just getting--I got a master's in earth and
environmental science, and we had a number of foreign students
within our program, and it was embryonic in that sense of how
much they added from their educational system to things that we
didn't emphasize or didn't understand as well and vice versa. I
got a great appreciation with that.
I taught field geology for a year down in Costa Rica while
I was still a graduate student and saw that culture and got
those exchanges. It's incredibly powerful. I mean, look at the
number of our largest companies that have been started by
immigrants. The amazing innovations and breakthroughs that have
come from people that came to this country because they wanted
to live in a free country. To be quite honest, that magnet is
still very powerful.
But I want to ask each of you, I mean, are we doing enough?
Is the current system sufficient to protect our classified
research from foreign espionage?
Mr. Dabbar. So Senator, I do think, as we have been
discussing, I think a heightened level of awareness because
there has been generation after generation of Chinese just
adapting to try to steal. I would make a broadening point to
your question, which is not just classified, I mean, the
leading renewables lab in the world is in your state. It's not
even close, okay? No other country comes close to that.
And so, just to pick on a topic: perovskites for thin-film
solar may be the next big thing. We don't want that to be in
Xinjiang, produced by coal and slaves, literally slaves, right,
because they are the wrong religion. I thought we were over
that in 1945, but the Chinese are doing that.
Senator Hickenlooper. Right.
Mr. Dabbar. And I am certain they are trying to steal it
from your lab--or your nation's lab.
Senator Hickenlooper. I view it as my lab.
Mr. Dabbar. Yeah, yeah--in your state.
And so, I think as a broadening point--not just
classified--it includes both economic impact technologies as
well as classified.
Senator Hickenlooper. I would agree.
Dr. Richmond.
Dr. Richmond. Yes, I agree with that. And I think what we
are talking about here is an evolving situation, and it will
continue to evolve. So we have to have a system together that
is adaptable, can quickly move----
Senator Hickenlooper. But is our system now sufficient, is
the question, right? We have got to be adaptable, but there are
all kinds of things we can do to improve it, but----
Dr. Richmond. It can always be improved. It can always be
improved, but I think, certainly under the Biden
Administration, we took what we got from the past
administration, heightened it up even more. And as we go
through, we are going to have to look to see how much it needs
to be heightened any more.
Senator Hickenlooper. That's fair.
Dr. Richmond. But again, it's not just classified
information. It's also the AI and many of the other areas.
Ms. Puglisi. And I am going to foot-stomp that. It's
beyond--it's more than the classified information because it's
really a lot of the technologies of the future--it's AI, it's
biotech, it's the new materials in manufacturing. And so, I
think what is really important is to focus on the behavior. And
I think that a lot of the new regulations and rules that are
being put in place are a start and are beginning to do that,
but I think it's going to take time to implement those. And
again, I think we have to take that really holistic look. And
we can't set and forget, right? This is dynamic. The technology
is changing. The vectors--the threat vectors are changing. And
so, it's going to require a constant dialogue.
Senator Hickenlooper. The magnitude of those threat vectors
has never been greater.
Ms. Puglisi. Right.
Senator Hickenlooper. And I think we have to maintain that
sense of urgency that you guys all have shown.
Ms. Puglisi. Yes.
Senator Hickenlooper. So I appreciate that.
Several of you have talked about foreigners coming into our
universities and being more motivated or adding a great deal to
innovation. I think we have got to get back, also, to how do we
get our kids in this country--I mean, the reason universities
are receiving and open to receiving these foreign students is
because we don't have a pipeline that is sufficient to provide
the technology and the STEM kids. We have got to get to them in
elementary school. Do you guys have, do you realize--do you
connect that problem and the solution of it with this issue
about our national security?
Start at this end, this side.
Ms. Puglisi. That's an excellent point. I mean, STEM
education, we should start at K-12 and really do things to
support----
Senator Hickenlooper. K-3.
Ms. Puglisi. Yes, actually, the earlier parts, I mean,
because you hear kids, by the time they are in middle school,
they are saying----
Senator Hickenlooper. Absolutely.
Ms. Puglisi [continuing]. I can't do math.
But that's going to take an effort, and we want to make
sure that we draw from the wide swath of Americans from all
over the country. And so, that starts, you know, with support
from the undergraduate and make people understand what the
possible is and also, I want to--it's the technically
proficient workforce----
Senator Hickenlooper. We are out of time.
Dr. Richmond. So do you realize that our country has the
lowest retention rate in the world for kids that decide they
want to be a scientist at 18 and don't end up being a scientist
at 24?
Senator Hickenlooper. Outrageous. I totally--I do know----
Dr. Richmond. Lowest.
Senator Hickenlooper. Outrageous.
Senator Cassidy. Senator Justice.
Senator Justice [presiding]. Oh, thank you so much, Mr.
Chairman.
You know, I have said this a bunch of times, but I am
probably a new kid on the block, but I am not a kid, you know,
I have got a lot of white hair and I have been around, and
around, and around. I can tell you just simply just this--I
truly believe that energy, absolutely, is the key to just about
every single thing that we have got going. That's all there is
to it.
Now, and if it's that level of key, I have just got to
share with you just a couple things, real quick. First of all,
we have one of these 17 labs in Morgantown, West Virginia, and
we are really proud of that. And I can tell you that I have
just gotten through being the Governor of the great State of
West Virginia for eight years, and to be perfectly honest, we
were able to do lots and lots and lots of good stuff. And
little West Virginia, that a lot of people told a lot of bad
jokes about, to tell you the truth, along the way, became a
diamond in the rough that everybody missed. And with all that
being said, successes like you can't imagine. And we are
really, really proud of exactly what we did.
Now, with that being said, along the way, there was a
gentleman that I ran into way, way, way before I ever became
Governor, and he was a PRC national and just the most
legitimate-speaking gentleman that you could ever be around.
And then, all of a sudden, as I became the Governor, we found
out things that were going on with him in his life and
everything that tied right back to his homeland that absolutely
astounded us. I mean, absolutely a gentleman that--as a guy
that is suspicious of almost everybody a lot of times, but
absolutely trusting in everybody--I believed with all in me
that this guy was the real deal. A guy that absolutely we
trusted in every way. And we were astounded with what we found.
That's all there is to it.
Now, energy is, I think, so important it's off the chart
right now. It's off the chart how important energy is. Do you
realize if you are a business guy--and that's me--do you
realize that we can't cut our way out of these messes? We
can't. We can mind the store and we can surely do a lot better,
but at the end of the day, we got to find a way to grow. And
the way to grow, absolutely, hands down, is energy, period.
That's all there is to it.
So if it is the most important--and it is, it truly is, you
know--then we have got to be on guard and we have got to do
better because the world is trying to absolutely discover or
steal our inner-most secrets all the time--all the time. So
with all that being said, I would say to everybody, from the
guy that's the white-haired guy from West Virginia that's a
business guy, not a politician--I am a guy that talks to you
just with common sense and logic. I would say beware. And
absolutely, we got to do better. And these folks right here are
the key to us doing better in a lot of ways.
So I do have one question, and it just parallels everything
that I have already said because, you see, I really believe
that President Trump, because I am a real friend with the
family, and I am proud of that, and absolutely, I am trusting
of the family, and he is our President and he is now saying to
all of us, look, we have got a problem here. We need to do
better. And so, let's get at doing better. But my question real
fast is just this, and this is to Ms.--is it Puglisi? Did I get
that halfway close?
Ms. Puglisi. Puglisi, yes.
Senator Justice. Okay, you know, and my question is just
this, given your expertise in counterintelligence or research
security, can you provide insight into the extent of
collaboration between DOE national laboratories and the Seven
Sons universities in China, please?
Ms. Puglisi. Thank you very much.
Well, I, myself, have not done empirical research to be
able to give you the exact numbers. There have been a number of
articles that look at those kinds of collaborations. And for
those who are not aware, the Seven Sons are universities that
work directly with the military. And so, you know, this is very
concerning because, you know, China says that it will--it's
civil military fusion. It will use anything that it acquires
and apply it to its military. And so, those are affiliations
and collaborations that we really need to take a closer look
at.
Senator Justice. Well, thank you so much. And I know my
time is expired, but I would say just this--I will do anything
and everything I can do to help all of you in every way at any
time. We have got to become safer and we have got to become
more protective, in my book.
Thank you so much.
The Chairman [presiding]. I want to thank all of our
witnesses for being here today. This really has been a great
hearing, and we are going to keep the record open until close
of business, 6:00 p.m., tomorrow, February 21, for the
submission of written questions for the record for our
witnesses and items included in the hearing record.
I do, before we gavel out, I want to just correct the
record on some things that have been said today.
Over the last week there has been a lot of fairly
misleading and poorly sourced reporting regarding dismissals at
the U.S. Department of Energy, and here are some facts that I
think are relevant and significant, but often omitted.
President Trump and the Department of Energy are committed to
making government more accountable, efficient, and restoring
proper stewardship of the American taxpayer dollar. And the
previous Administration was not a responsible steward of that,
and we are paying the price for it heavily in the form of
inflation. In just four years, the Biden Administration
expanded the Department of Energy's federal workforce, and it
did so by more than 20 percent, adding more than 3,000 federal
employee positions. In the last year alone, the Biden
Administration increased the size of the Department of Energy
federal workforce with 1,000 new employees.
Delivering on President Trump's mandate, supported by more
than 77 million American voters, the Energy Department began on
Thursday dismissing a portion of recently hired federal
employees classified in the Federal Government as probationary
employees. Across the Energy Department, less than 700
probationary employees have been dismissed. These dismissal
numbers pale in comparison to the total amount of positions the
Biden Administration hired over the last four years. They are
also less than the total positions added by the Biden
Administration in the last year.
Now, contrary to many news reports, the Energy Department's
nuclear weapons production plants and nuclear laboratories are
exempt from these dismissals. So those aren't part of it. At
the Energy Department's Power Marketing Administration, PMA,
fewer than three percent of total employees were dismissed and
were primarily administrative roles. Of the more than 70,000
contractors and federal employees at the National Nuclear
Security Administration, or NNSA, fewer than 50 employees were
dismissed. These employees held primarily administrative and
clerical roles. The Energy Department will continue its
critical mission of protecting our national security and
nuclear deterrents in the development, modernization, and
stewardship of America's atomic weapons enterprise, including
the peaceful use of nuclear technology and non-proliferation.
So it is important that we keep the facts aligned. When
people are crying that the sky is falling, it usually is not,
and that certainly is the case here. In any event, I thank the
witnesses for being here today. It has been a good, informative
discussion. We have laid a good record and I very much
appreciate your help.
The hearing stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:44 a.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
APPENDIX MATERIAL SUBMITTED
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