[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 7 (Monday, January 22, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S346-S356]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BINGAMAN:
  S. 90. A bill authorizing funding for nanoscale science and 
engineering research and development at the Department of Energy for 
fiscal years 2002 through 2006; to the Committee on Energy and Natural 
Resources.


                    NANOSCIENCE AND NANOENGINEERING

  Mr. BINGAMAN. Mr. President. I rise today to introduce a bill 
authorizing the Secretary of Energy to provide for a long term 
commitment in its Office of Science to the area of nanoscience and 
nanoengineering. This new area is of fundamental importance for 
maintaining our global economic leadership in energy technology as well 
in areas such as microchip design, space and transportation, medicines 
and biomedical devices. The fields of nanoscience and nanoengineering 
as so new and broad in their reach that no one industry can support 
them. They are a perfect example how we in Congress can make a 
difference to support our nation's technological leadership, a key 
element of the 21st century global economy.
  The fields of nanoscience and engineering encompass the ability to 
create new states of matter by prepositioning the atoms that make up 
their structure. The physical features that nanoscale R&D will develop 
are on the order of about 10 nanometers or 1000 times smaller than the 
diameter of a human hair. What we are talking about is making materials 
and devices not be miniaturization, which is a top down approach. 
Nanoscience is the bottom up fabrication of materials, atom by atom. 
When you build materials at this level, amazing things begin to happen. 
We are talking about microchips whose features will shrink by a factor 
of 100 below where industry projects they will be in the year 2010. 
These chip features will lead to radical breakthroughs in

[[Page S356]]

speed, cost and density of information storage. In the field of 
medicine and health, we are talking about drugs whose routes of 
delivery are literally at the molecular level. It will be possible to 
custom build proteins and other biological materials for future 
biomedical devices. In the field of energy efficiency, batteries and 
fuel cells can be built with storage capacities far exceeding our 
current state of the art. In the transportation industry, it will be 
possible to make ultra strong and light materials reducing the weight 
in airplanes, cars and space vehicles. All these breakthroughs in the 
diverse industries I have discussed will keep the United States' as a 
global leader in the 21st century economy.
  The Department of Energy and its Office of Science are uniquely 
suited to support this critical research. The Office of Science has 
been at the forefront of conducting nanotechnology research for the 
past decade through its broad array of materials, physics, chemistry 
and biology programs. This authorization bill will carry forth four 
broad objectives of the Office of Science's existing nanotechnology 
effort, (1) attain a fundamental understanding of nanoscale phenomena, 
(2) achieve the ability to design bulk materials with desired 
properties using nanoscale manipulation, (3) study how living organisms 
produce materials naturally by arranging their atomic structure and 
implement it into the design process for nanomaterials, (4) develop 
experimental and computer tools with a national infrastructure to carry 
out nanoscience. Let me briefly comment on the fourth area in this 
list. The Office of Science is the nation's leader in developing and 
managing national user facilities across the broad range of physical 
sciences. It would be a natural progression for the Office of Science 
to develop similar user facilities to advance nanoscience. These 
facilities, located across the United States, will contain unique 
equipment and computers which will be accessible to individuals as well 
as multi-disciplinary teams. In the past, Office of Science national 
user facilities have served as crossing points between the transition 
from fundamental science to industrial capability. I expect that these 
nanoscience user facilities will serve as a similar transition point 
from long term fundamental research into applied industrial know-how. 
Accordingly, in this authorization bill I have allotted portions of the 
yearly budget towards developing these unique user facilities.
  This bill is an important first step in a combined national 
nanoscience effort which will help to maintain the technological edge 
of our U.S. industry. I encourage my House colleagues in the Science 
Committee to also consider this bill with the possibility of joint 
hearings so that we may be enlightened on nanoscience's full potential. 
I also hope that the other federal R&D agencies will make similar 
commitments in their areas of expertise. Maintaining this edge, by 
promoting these long term and high risk investigations is something 
which we cannot expect in the short time frame world of today's 
industry. It is critical that our U.S. government step into this void, 
particularly in the area of nanoscience, and provide the necessary 
intellectual capital to propel our national economy as a leader in the 
21st century.
                                 ______