[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 142 (Friday, October 11, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H6537-H6544]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT'S SHUTDOWN AND ITS IMPACTS ON OUR DEPARTMENT OF 
                      ENERGY NATIONAL LABORATORIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Perry). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr. Swalwell) 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. SWALWELL of California. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that 
all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their 
remarks and include extraneous material on the subject of this Special 
Order, the Federal Government's Shutdown and Its Impacts on our 
Department of Energy National Laboratories.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from California?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SWALWELL of California. I also want to thank Science Committee 
Ranking Member Johnson for her support of national laboratory 
employees.
  Mr. Speaker, I came to Congress knowing that in the policies I helped 
and worked to enact and the legislative agenda that I would work on 
that I could either help people or hurt people. And the decision for me 
was quite easy, Mr. Speaker: I came to Congress to help people. I came 
to Congress to think big.
  I was very excited when I was told prior to being sworn in that I was 
going to be serving on the Science Committee. I was even more thrilled 
when I learned that I would have the opportunity to serve as the lead 
Democrat on the Energy Subcommittee, knowing that the Energy 
Subcommittee would have partial jurisdiction over two national 
laboratories which are in my congressional district in Livermore, 
California: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Sandia National 
Laboratory.
  These two national laboratories, with about 6,500 employees at 
Livermore and 1,500 at Sandia, work every day to uphold our national 
security mission to maintain our nuclear weapons stockpile and also 
provide for energy security for citizens in the United States.
  Prior to being elected to Congress, I had the opportunity multiple 
times as a city council member in Dublin to visit these national 
laboratories. And since being elected to Congress, I have had 
opportunities to visit the laboratories and also interact with their 
officials here in Washington.
  What I have learned about these employees, these scientists, these 
engineers who work at our national laboratories is they care deeply 
about our country, but they also care very deeply about the science and 
the research that they work on every day and the laboratory environment 
that allows them to do that. So you can imagine how hard it is right 
now. We are in day 11 of a government shutdown, and laboratory 
employees were told about 2 days ago that, effective next week, they 
will be furloughed, too.
  As you all know, Federal workers across our country from almost every 
agency have been furloughed or are working without pay. But at our 
national laboratories, which operate as GOCO facilities, which stands 
for government-owned/contractor-operated, these workers are not Federal 
workers but they are government contractors. They are scientists.

[[Page H6538]]

  It is estimated that Livermore, California, has more Ph.D.'s per 
capita than any other city in the world because of the approximately 
7,500 employees at our national laboratory. It was one of the hardest 
phone calls I have had to take since being sworn in to Congress when 
both laboratory directors called and said that in an hour they were 
going to tell their employees that they were going to be furloughed, 
and that they needed me to do anything I could in the Congress to help 
to get the government up and running and make sure the United States 
pays its bills so that their workers can continue to do the great 
things they are doing at our national laboratories.
  This evening, I look forward to talking about what caused our 
shutdown, the truth behind what has caused the shutdown. I look forward 
to talking about the effect that the shutdown is having on people 
inside and outside of government--employees who are Federal workers, 
people who depend and rely on government services, people outside who 
work as government contractors--with a particular focus on what is 
happening at our national laboratories.
  I also want to offer what I see as a way forward and a way that we 
can get out of this government shutdown, a way that we can get the 
Federal workforce working again, a way that we can make sure that our 
laboratory experts, our scientists, are able to go back to work and do 
great things to keep us safe and secure and move the ball forward on 
our energy policies.
  I also want to tell all laboratory employees that today we submitted 
to Secretary Moniz, Members of Congress from the California delegation 
and Senator Feinstein, a letter asking Secretary Moniz at the 
Department of Energy to allow our national laboratory employees--and 
there are about 30,000 of them across the country who have been 
furloughed--to be paid backpay for the time that they are furloughed.
  I am honored to be joined on that letter by Bay Area House Members 
Zoe Lofgren and also Jerry McNerney, who will join me tonight. I am 
going to yield in a moment to both of those Members and allow them to 
talk about the national labs and the shutdown.
  Congressman Jerry McNerney, who has represented the Tri-Valley area 
prior to redistricting back in 2010, knows greatly about our national 
laboratories. He is a Ph.D. serving in the Congress. He has a Ph.D. in 
mathematics and is somebody who worked as a wind engineer and has 
worked at our national laboratories. He will talk about the effect on 
our national laboratories.
  Another champion of our national laboratories is Congresswoman Zoe 
Lofgren, who also serves on the Science Committee with me. She is 
somebody who has been a champion for our national laboratories, and 
particularly Lawrence Livermore and Sandia. Although they are not in 
her congressional district, I am grateful for her constant support on 
every issue, knowing that she and I share a vision and a goal that one 
day we will realize fusion ignition.

  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlelady from California 
(Ms. Lofgren).
  Ms. LOFGREN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, as my friend and colleague Representative Swalwell has 
pointed out, the government shutdown is causing serious damage to our 
country. The shutdown is putting Americans out of work and hurting the 
economy--not only the jobs of Federal employees, but the thousands of 
small businesses who provide goods and services to the government and 
to government employees who are not spending money that they no longer 
are getting in paychecks.
  This harm is being felt across the country by millions of people. The 
closures impact thousands of important programs and services. We know 
parks are closed, stopping travel plans. We know that the Small 
Business Administration is not lending to the tune of a billion dollars 
a month. Federal business statistics are not being released, leaving us 
essentially flying blind when it comes to how the economy is doing. 
Army Corps of Engineers projects are halted. The Consumer Product 
Safety Commission is not reviewing products to keep us safe. The VA is 
not able to decide claims from veterans. We saw the horrifying news 
earlier this week that death benefits for members of our armed services 
and their families were impacted. Meals for seniors are not being 
served, and children are being thrown out of Head Start. These are real 
issues. The economy is being held hostage.
  But what we want to talk about this evening is not just those impacts 
that have been so well covered in the press, but how our economy's 
future is being held hostage by this government shutdown and by a lack 
of funding for science.
  We were very proud in the San Francisco Bay area that we had three 
Nobel laureates just this week--Stanford's Michael Levitt and Thomas 
Sudhof and UC Berkeley's Randy Schekman--for terrific success. They 
were funded not through the labs but through the National Institutes of 
Health.
  However, it is worth noting that this government shutdown is 
resulting in the furlough of 13,000 researchers. It is blocking 
hundreds of projects. The amazing thing to me was that their partner, 
James Rothman of Yale, who shared in the Nobel Prize, because of budget 
cuts and sequester, the research that actually got him the Nobel Prize 
was cut. Because of the sequester, the funding was cut for the research 
that got him the Nobel Prize. So there is an issue here not just on the 
shutdown holding the economy hostage, but also the underlying poor 
funding.
  But let's talk just a minute about the national labs. A lot of people 
don't really know what the labs are. Those of us who are close to them 
do.
  They were founded in 1943, and they were really meant to address the 
need to mobilize the Nation's scientific assets to support the war 
effort. Subsequent to that, they were utilized to bring the smartest 
people in the country together to focus on things that would keep us 
safe. As a matter of fact, they have helped keep us quite prosperous. 
Out of the lab have come things such as optical digital recording 
technology that is behind all music video and data storage, 
communications and observations satellites, advanced batteries now used 
in electric cars, supercomputers that as a society we would be lost 
without. So much from the national labs.
  But one of the things that I think is enormously important and, 
unfortunately, has not received the kind of publicity it should have is 
the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National 
Laboratory.
  At 5:51 a.m. on September 29, there was a leap forward in the fusion 
experiment underway at that national lab. That Saturday shot was the 
latest in a series of carefully designed and incremental ignition 
experiments that have increased the yield. But here is the interesting 
thing. For the portion of the target, the 192 lasers that went into 
that target, there was more energy coming out than was put into the 
target. That has never happened before. So this is not the end of the 
quest to finish that science, but it is a major, major step forward. It 
is something that is actually threatened by this government shutdown.
  I just received a copy of a notice that is going out to Lawrence 
Livermore tomorrow, and here is what it says, from the management at 
the lab to all the scientists:

       This is to remind you that beginning today, October 11, the 
     lab will begin shutting down normal operations. Only 
     essential functions necessary to assure safety and security 
     will be ongoing.

  The lab is shutting down. The employees are furloughed, as we have 
just gotten the most important step forward on this most important 
experiment going on in the United States. How can that be possibly be 
good for the United States of America?
  Of course, Lawrence Livermore is not the only national lab that is 
adversely impacted. Just up the road from my home in Santa Clara 
County, we have the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, with their 
fabulous Linac Coherent Light Source. It is the world's most powerful x 
ray laser. Its focused beam, which arrives in staccato bursts a few 
quadrillionths of a second long, is allowing researchers to probe 
complex ultrasmall structures and freeze atomic motions. They will be 
able to see what is going on at a molecular level in real-time.
  What is happening at the Stanford lab? The same cutbacks that are 
afflicting the Lawrence Livermore lab.

[[Page H6539]]

  Look at some of the things that are coming out of these fine science 
facilities, like the wonderful corkscrewing lasers that can be the key 
to unlimited bandwidth that was recently devised at the Stanford Linear 
Accelerator, and the national lab at Livermore that has developed a 
safe and versatile material known as DNA Tagged Reagents for Aerosol 
Experiments. It is going to be a critical tool for protecting the 
United States.
  All of these things are at risk. And for what? For a stupid, foolish 
partisan fight.
  We could change this this evening, tomorrow morning. All we need is 
to have a bill on the floor to vote to reopen this government and to 
allow these scientists to continue to move forward to change the world 
and to create a brilliant future for our economy and for our safety and 
security.

  So I thank my colleague, Representative Swalwell, who does such an 
excellent job of representing the two labs in his district, as well as 
all the other constituents who are so proud of him here in his service 
in the Congress and for standing up for them--not just for their jobs, 
but for America's future.
  Mr. SWALWELL of California. Thank you to the gentlelady from 
California (Ms. Lofgren), who has been a tireless advocate for our 
national laboratories and is a fighter on the Science Committee day in 
and day out as we wage these battles and try and think big and 
challenge our colleagues to do everything we can to move the ball 
forward so that we can reach that point where we have clean energy 
fusion, where we have a renewable source that is safe and reliable and 
does not require us to look across oceans and time zones to provide our 
country's energy.
  With that, I would like to yield to the gentleman from California, my 
colleague, my former Congressman, my friend, who today is honoring Bow 
Tie Friday as well, the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).
  Mr. McNERNEY. I certainly want to thank my friend and colleague from 
Dublin, California, Eroc Swalwell, for bringing this topic up tonight. 
I want to thank my friend, Zoe Lofgren from San Jose, for being an 
advocate and a champion of the labs long before I got here and carrying 
on that great tradition.

                              {time}  1945

  What I would like to do tonight is talk about my experience at the 
lab.
  When I first got my Ph.D.--and I won't tell you how long ago it was--
I started working for Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. I 
will tell you that there were a lot of great things about that 
experience. My colleagues were Bill Sullivan and Don Lobitz. There was 
Paul Veers. They were tireless; they were very well educated; they 
worked hard; and they were very inspirational to me as a young Ph.D. 
Our boss, whose name was Dick Braasch, went out there and delivered us 
the resources that we needed in order to carry out the research that 
was ahead of us.
  In using that money and in using those tools and in using that 
resource, basically we developed wind energy technology from the very 
ground up. We were working on vertical access windmills, and we 
understood and worked very hard on the aerodynamics in order to 
understand exactly how to design blades to best maximize power and how 
to best maximize energy production from windmills so that wind turbines 
could be designed economically and make money. Now we see wind energy 
is a tremendous success. We see new windmills going up by the 
thousands--giant windmills that are 2,3, 4 megawatts. If you drive 
underneath them, they are just an incredible sight to see.
  I just loved the experience, and I hope that we can continue to 
provide the resources for young scientists and young engineers who 
understand and who have the passion to go out there and make a 
difference and discover new technology and develop new energy sources 
and develop new health technology so that we can move forward.
  The United States of America is truly the leader in this kind of 
technology. We lead in health care. We lead in health science. We lead 
in energy development. We lead in all kinds of sciences. Our 
universities are tremendous resources, but our laboratories are where 
the seasoned scientists go and produce real technology that can be 
transferred to the public sector.
  Right now, if you look in Livermore, which is right outside of my 
district, there is a technology transfer operation. There is a 
cooperative organization between the laboratories--Sandia National 
Laboratories; the Livermore National Laboratory in the city of 
Livermore; in the city of Davis; Berkeley National Laboratory; Berkeley 
University; and so on. All of these institutions are working together 
with private companies to develop this technology and to transfer it 
into the private sector to give our businesses and our companies the 
edge they need to become successful and to create jobs and to lead our 
Nation.
  One of the things they are doing in Livermore that is so exciting, 
which my colleague Zoe Lofgren talked about, was the National Ignition 
Facility, the fusion facility there in Livermore. If you don't know 
about fusion, I will back up a little bit. ``Fusion'' is when you break 
apart a uranium or a plutonium atom to create energy. It is a source of 
what you call the atomic bomb nuclear power, but fusion is the other 
side of the scale at which you actually fuse nuclei together to form 
bigger nuclei, and even more energy is released. The prototype is the 
hydrogen bomb. What they are doing in Livermore is actually trying to 
understand how to contain fusion energy. There is an unlimited amount 
of fusion fuel out there. The ocean. It's heavy water. The ocean 
contains heavy water. It contains tritium.
  So it is a matter of understanding this basic force of nature and 
controlling this basic force of nature. As Zoe Lofgren mentioned a few 
minutes ago, what happened in Livermore just this last month was that 
they were successful in creating more energy in the fusion reaction 
than was put into the energy. It was put in the reaction.
  So we see progress being made month by month, year by year. I've been 
out there to that facility. I've met with these scientists. I've met 
with the leaders. I can tell you that they have the same exact 
environment of just encouraging young scientists to do their best to 
make a difference, to understand science. It is very exciting for me to 
see that, and I would love to see that operation, that type of research 
continue at our national laboratories.
  Los Alamos Laboratory, in Albuquerque, is also another fine 
institution like Sandia National Laboratories, like Livermore National 
Laboratory, and like Argonne Laboratory. There are several across the 
Nation. They do basic research, and they do basic development. My 
understanding is that the United States, with the NIP facility, have 
about a 5-year lead over other countries--over China--which are 
desperately trying to catch up with us.
  When we furlough those scientists, when we stop that process, we set 
back our scientists for not just the amount of time they are laid off, 
but we stop the infrastructure. When you develop the technology that 
they have developed, this is several years of lead time to get the 
mirrors, to get the amplifiers that they use for this equipment. When 
you tell your suppliers, Well, we are not going to be using you for the 
next few months, those suppliers go away.
  It takes years to develop the new technology, the new infrastructure, 
for these scientists to be able to purchase these items that are right 
now available. As we furlough these scientists and shut down that 
program, those people are going to go away. Maybe they will find 
customers in China. I hope not. So this is very, very critical for our 
national energy security and for our national security to keep on top 
of that and to not let that lapse.
  The labs do other very useful things, like nuclear arms reduction. 
Some of the nuclear inspectors are from the Lawrence Livermore National 
Laboratory. We have chemical weapons inspectors. I would bet some of 
the inspectors who are getting ready to go to Syria right now are from 
these laboratories. I would bet a bottom dollar on that. If you are 
worried about cybersecurity, if you know the threats that we may face 
in our country with cybersecurity, then you are going to want to know 
what they do at the Livermore National Laboratory and at the Sandia 
National Laboratories. They have some of the top--I don't want to call 
them ``hackers''--they have some of the top

[[Page H6540]]

folks who really understand how to get into computer systems and how to 
protect them and how to attack if they need to attack. We have some of 
the very best people in the world at these laboratories who are working 
on cybersecurity. We want to make sure that we continue to employ those 
folks and to get the best we can out of these folks who have so much 
passion on this subject.

  Now, Zoe Lofgren also mentioned the Stanford Linear Accelerator, 
SLAC. They have an x-ray laser. X-rays are incredibly hard to control, 
and designing an x-ray laser which makes laser beams which are 
monochromatic and coherent is an unbelievable achievement. The things 
that they are going to be able to do with that are beyond what we can 
imagine today. So keeping those types of operations in progress are 
absolutely essential.
  We don't want to be laying these people off. We don't want to be 
giving them the message that their work is not essential. We don't want 
to be giving them the idea that, Well, maybe I would be better off in 
the private sector; maybe I would be better off making big dollars 
instead of working on things that are so important to our national 
security.
  If you have watched in the last few months, I have been doing 1-
minute presentations on science achievements in this country, science 
achievements that are funded by the National Science Foundation and the 
National Institutes of Health. We have seen things like the Boltzmann 
equation move forward, which explains how gases behave, how they expand 
and contract. We have seen how statistics are used in neuroscience, how 
differential equations are factored to get new insights into the 
behavior of nature. These are ideas that are funded through grants from 
the National Science Foundation and also from the National Institutes 
of Health. They fund things on cancer, on understanding epidemics in 
order to keep us safe. If you understand what is happening in the 
biological world, there is always a threat of a new virus.
  These folks are understanding that. They are giving us the tools to 
protect ourselves, and I think it is absolutely essential that we 
restore funding to the pre-sequester levels for the National Science 
Foundation and for the National Institutes of Health.
  We see our colleagues--well meaning, I know that--who want to reduce 
the size of government. They want to reduce funding for science for the 
National Science Foundation and for the National Institutes of Health, 
and they think there are no consequences. There are consequences. The 
consequences are going to be that we see less science in this country 
and that we see more science in other countries. So we need to work 
together to find a solution.
  Yes, we are absolutely willing to negotiate. Just don't hold a gun to 
our heads. Don't hold us hostage. Don't make this extortion. Come to us 
with reasonable ideas. We will sit down with you at any time, at any 
place, and if you want to demand that we eliminate the medical device 
tax, we will even be willing to talk about that but after we get the 
government functioning, after we pay our obligations. Then we can talk 
about things that we want, like funding for the National Science 
Foundation, like funding for the National Institutes of Health. Those 
are the things that we want to see. There are so many other things that 
have been reduced, like food stamps and the WIC program.
  We want to make sure that our voices are heard and that the extortion 
sort of tactics that we have seen from the leadership and from the far 
right wing do not hold sway so that we can negotiate fairly, so that we 
can use the rule of law, so that we can use the traditions of this 
tremendous body--the House of Representatives--and the United States 
Senate within the standard practices of bringing bills to the 
committee, of negotiating, of adding amendments, and then of voting on 
them, and moving those forward to the Senate to agree and then to the 
President. That is the regular order. That is the order we want to use. 
That is the order that has been used in this country. If you decide 
that that isn't the way to do it, then we are going to fight you tooth 
and nail.
  I want to thank my colleague again, Eric Swalwell. I see another 
colleague who represents Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, 
which is where I used to work. I appreciate the true effort tonight.
  Mr. SWALWELL of California. Thank you to the gentleman from 
California. His passion for our laboratories, for science really shows. 
I am so glad he talked about what the Democrats have already done as 
far as compromising. That is really important here because I had a town 
hall last weekend. I went home on the one day we didn't have votes, and 
I went to the City Hall Chamber in Dublin, California, the council 
chamber there.
  A number of folks rightfully asked me, What are the Democrats willing 
to give up in these negotiations?
  I think it is important for folks to know that the Democrats have 
already made concessions, that we have made very, very difficult 
concessions. The best way to describe those concessions is with that 
ugly, terrible word called ``sequester,'' which has been across-the-
board cuts, and they have hurt our national labs with these deep, deep 
cuts.
  This chart here demonstrates it better than anything I have seen, 
which is that you have the President's budget, which is about $1.2 
trillion. Then you see the 2011 debt limit deal at $1.6 trillion. You 
see Paul Ryan's budget at $967 billion. Then, across the Capitol, the 
Senate passed a budget at $986 billion. To get a budget to keep the 
government running, you need what I call the Holy Trinity. You need the 
Senate, the House, and the President to all agree on one number.
  You have the President, who wanted something in the low trillions. 
You have the Senate that compromised at $986 billion. The House has 
said that we will take $986 billion, and the President has now agreed 
that he would take $986 billion. The House has one very, very harsh 
exception. It will take $986 billion, but it started with wanting to 
repeal the Affordable Care Act. The Democrats have compromised. This 
chart shows that we have made deep and hard concessions during this 
budget negotiation. The biggest one, as I mentioned, is this mindless, 
across-the-board cut called ``sequester.'' Now, sequester is not 
targeted cuts. We are not going after bad programs. Rather, we are 
taking good programs, and we are taking bad programs, and we are seeing 
across-the-board cuts. It is indiscriminate.

  At our laboratories, they have programs called LDRD, Laboratory 
Directed Research and Development. In the private sector, many 
companies allow their employees, especially in high-tech and 
innovation, about ``20 percent time,'' is what they call it. Google 
calls it ``20 percent time.'' So, for one day a week, effectively, an 
employee is allowed to work outside his assigned area--his subject 
matter, his expertise--on something that he thinks can move the ball 
forward in his industry. So ``20 percent time,'' they call it. At the 
laboratories, they call this ``LDRD.'' They are given about 8\1/2\ 
percent. So it is an over 50 percent less cut than what you are seeing 
in the private sector. It is 8\1/2\ percent that they are getting at 
our national laboratories. Because of these sequester cuts, that 8\1/2\ 
percent has been cut by more than half. Now they are below 4 percent 
for their LDRD, and the LDRD work at our national laboratories has 
produced some tremendous results in science.

                              {time}  2000

  I just want to go through some of them.
  The gentleman from California talked about nonproliferation and what 
the research has done at the National Laboratories as far as reducing 
the stockpiles across the world.
  Well, because of the LDRD work, what we have seen is that we are able 
to better test nuclear weapons and verify countries in the numbers they 
are claiming they have for nuclear weapons across the world because we 
have this LDRD research.
  Also, we are able to provide cleaner energy vehicles because of LDRD 
research. The Volt, the Chevy Volt, for example. The Chevy Volt would 
not be able to cruise on battery power were it not for the advanced 
cathode technology that emerged from a National Laboratory.
  Also, airport security. We are all so thankful and grateful that at 
the airport they are able to detect many of

[[Page H6541]]

the explosives that terrorists would seek to use to take down an 
airplane. LDRD we can thank for much of the research that has come out 
that makes our airports so much safer.
  I was a prosecutor for 7 years. In so many cases, whether it was 
homicides or sexual assaults, we were able to put perpetrators away 
because of DNA research that was conducted at our National 
Laboratories. To DNA testing we can now add human antibody detection, a 
precise method of catching suspects and attaching them to crime scenes. 
This was something I was able to use in a courtroom to great effect. 
That science is so powerful when you have so many questions of who 
committed the crime that all jurors can accept the scientific research 
that has come out of LDRD and the DNA advances that we have seen there.
  I want to yield now to a colleague of mine from New Mexico who 
represents the Albuquerque area and the other Sandia laboratory, our 
sister over there in New Mexico. I have Sandia and Livermore and the 
gentlelady from New Mexico has Sandia in New Mexico. I am going to 
yield to her and have her tell us about this shutdown and what effect 
it has had on our National Laboratories, particularly in her district.
  Ms. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM of New Mexico. Thank you very much to my 
friend and colleague from California.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to the hard work of the 
men and women at New Mexico's National Labs who protect our Nation's 
security and help grow our economy.
  Sandia National Labs in my district is home to 9,000 of those 
dedicated public servants. These are the best and brightest physicists, 
chemists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. They have chosen 
to serve our country instead of taking more lucrative jobs in the 
private sector because they are passionate about the lab's mission.
  Sandia is a national security asset that uses technology to find 
solutions to the most challenging problems that threaten our Nation. 
Their work supports numerous Federal, State, and local government 
agencies, companies, and organizations.
  During the BP oil spill, Sandia employees were called in to help cap 
the well. The work they do is absolutely remarkable.
  Since 1976, Sandia has received 101 coveted research and development 
100 awards, often referred to as the ``Oscars of invention'' or the 
``Nobel prizes of technology.''
  While New Mexico's National Labs have been able to use carryover 
funds to stay open during the shutdown for the past 11 days, that money 
is quickly running out. Within the last week, employees at both Sandia 
and Los Alamos National Labs received letters informing them that they 
would face furloughs if the government doesn't reopen soon.
  Despite the fact that they play a crucial role in our Nation's 
security, the employees at New Mexico's National Labs are technically 
not Federal employees. As a result, the legislation we passed to 
provide back pay to furloughed Federal employees, which I was proud to 
support, unfortunately does not protect employees at these labs.
  Earlier this week, Congressman Lujan and I, along with Senators Udall 
and Heinrich, sent a letter to Energy Secretary Moniz requesting that 
he allow the labs to use their funding to back pay any employees 
furloughed because of the shutdown.
  I remain hopeful that the furloughs can be avoided because I have 
heard stories about the damage that they can do, and I have seen 
firsthand the damaging and devastating effect that the other Federal 
furloughed employees and their families have suffered in Albuquerque, 
my district, and the entire State of New Mexico.
  In fact, last Sunday in Albuquerque, I hosted a roundtable meeting 
with lab employees, furloughed Federal employees, and members of the 
business community. They told me that any missed or delayed paychecks 
would prevent them from paying their mortgage payments, household 
utility bills, car loan payments, and credit cards on time.
  But they are not just worried about their pay; they are also worried 
about their careers. Lab employees who hold security clearances are in 
danger of losing their clearances if their credit scores are impacted 
because they cannot pay their bills.
  After the meeting, I reached out to community partners to see if they 
would be able to help us in any way. Several credit unions, banks, 
utility providers, and other community partners reached out because 
they all want to help.
  If nonprofits in the business community can step up, then it is time 
for Congress to step up too. We need to do our job, we need to pass a 
funding bill to keep New Mexico's National Labs open. National Labs 
should not be forced to operate under the threat of shutting down just 
because a few dozen reckless Tea Party Republicans decided that 
destroying the Affordable Care Act was more important than keeping the 
government open.
  New Mexico's National Labs deserve and require the certainty and 
stability of a full funding bill and so does the rest of the country. 
We need to vote on the Senate passed clean funding compromise right 
now.

  I thank the gentleman from California for his leadership in 
protecting our national security interests and the labs in my home 
State.
  Mr. DeSANTIS. I thank the gentlelady from New Mexico. I am glad she 
brought up the examples of the toll that this shutdown is taking on our 
National Laboratory employees.
  We are hearing back at Livermore, at Sandia, and at Lawrence 
Livermore so many examples like what the gentlelady mentioned with 
security clearances. You wouldn't think about it. But when thousands of 
employees have security clearances that depend on them continuing to 
have financial stability, that stability is threatened when our 
National Laboratories furlough them and they are unable to meet their 
debts and obligations and pay their bills and keep their families 
running.
  The gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney) also talked about the 
effects of furloughing these scientists. When you furlough scientists, 
you also furlough scientific progress.
  I mentioned the town hall that I had last weekend in Dublin, 
California. Lab employees from Sandia and Lawrence Livermore showed up 
for that town hall. I am going to fly home this Sunday, and we are 
going to host another town hall at Lawrence Livermore and Sandia. It is 
going to be at 1:30 on Sunday. We have alerted laboratories to that 
town hall, and I look forward to talking to them. I hope to have a more 
positive update than what I can provide today. I hope that I can tell 
them that the shutdown will not continue; that they will be able to 
continue their work at our great National Laboratories.
  Now, I talked a little bit about how we got here. That we had a 
budget from the President and the Senate at $986 billion, but the 
House's budget wouldn't accept only $986 billion; it wanted to repeal 
and defund the Affordable Care Act.
  The reason I am so hopeful that we hold firm in the Senate, and that 
the President continues to hold firm and insist that we pass what is 
called a clean budget at $986 billion, is because of the dangerous, 
dangerous precedent it would set should we allow either side to try and 
seek concessions or seek a ransom for simply doing their job of 
providing a budget.
  Our job being here in Congress and working under article I of the 
Constitution requires us to pass a budget that funds the government to 
pay the debts and obligations of the United States.
  It would be a dangerous precedent if we had an environment where 
every 45 days, 60 days, or if we ever got back to passing a budget on 
an annual basis, that one side in one Chamber attempted to use that 
budgeting process to revisit and try and resettle scores that have 
already been settled.
  That is so obviously occurring here with the Affordable Care Act. 
This is a provision that was initially brought up and contemplated in 
the 2008 campaign for the Presidency, where one person, one candidate, 
said that if he was elected he would seek to bring our country for the 
first time in over 100 years since it was first proposed affordable 
health care for all. That person was overwhelmingly elected to the 
Presidency--Barack Obama.
  In 2010, the Congress, the 111th Congress, passed the Affordable Care 
Act. It was signed into law by the same President who campaigned on it.

[[Page H6542]]

  In 2012, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who was appointed by 
a Republican President who served before President Barack Obama, wrote 
a majority opinion that said that that law, the Affordable Care Act, 
was constitutional.
  That same President who ran on the Affordable Care Act in 2008, who 
signed into law congressional action in 2010, who saw it upheld in 2012 
by a Republican-appointed Supreme Court chief justice, ran for 
reelection, and again was overwhelmingly elected.
  The Affordable Care Act will do many great things to provide 
affordable, quality health care to many Americans. But like every 
government program, it will not be 100 percent perfect. It too will 
require fixes and updates.
  Just recently, Social Security celebrated a birthday. It is in its 
late 70s now. Social Security is not the same program that it was over 
70 years ago. It has gone through different modifications and changes 
through the years. Just as the Affordable Care Act, we owe it to the 
American people to look at it as it is implemented, to look how it is 
helping people, to look at where glitches are and what we can do to 
make it work.
  We must mend any problems with the Affordable Care Act, but not end 
it. We must not use the Affordable Care Act as a way to hold up a 
budget that provides so many jobs for the Federal workforce, so many 
services that come from the greatest government that presides over the 
greatest democracy in the world, so many services being held up for so 
many people across our country.
  It would be a dangerous, dangerous precedent if we allowed either 
side to do this. Let me just offer an example: if we were to make 
concessions on this budgeting process--say at the very best buy us a 
45-day continuing resolution where the government would be funded for 
another 45 days--what would the other side ask for next? Would it ask 
for us to privatize Social Security, something they attempted to do in 
2006 but weren't able to do? Would they ask us to turn Medicare into a 
voucher system, something that they are not able to achieve because of 
a majority in the Senate and a Democratic President who has vowed not 
to let that happen?
  But also think and reverse the situation: imagine if you had a 
Republican in the White House, a Republican-controlled Senate and a 
Democratic majority in the House. Imagine if that Democratic majority 
tried to use the budgeting process to achieve what it couldn't achieve 
at the ballot box. You can imagine the different scenarios where we can 
try and do this--whether it is passing background checks, something 
that has frustrated so many House Democrats that we couldn't get that 
passed in the Senate; whether it is passing an assault weapons ban, 
something that so many House Democrats would like to see renewed, as we 
had back in the '90s. It could be comprehensive immigration reform, 
something that our country is calling for. People are coming to our 
capital asking to have a roadmap to citizenship in reforms and work 
visas. We can't do that legislatively right now. But imagine if 
Democrats had a majority here and a Republican in the White House, and 
they said: No budget; we are shutting down the government until we get 
what we want because we couldn't do it at the ballot box.

  We have never operated that way, and I hope we do not continue to 
operate that way, and that more reasonable minds come forward and allow 
us to put our National Laboratory employees back to work, allow us to 
put our Federal workforce back to work.
  This shutdown is affecting and hurting real people. I mentioned in 
the beginning of this hour that I came to Congress to help people, but 
right now it is hurting innocent Americans.
  Even though the Federal Government is closed, essential services must 
continue so hundreds of thousands of Federal employees are being forced 
to work but with no paycheck. How can we treat such dedicated public 
servants this way?
  We saw just last week as an erratic driver tried to drive through the 
barricade on Capitol Hill that our brave men and women of the Capitol 
Hill police force rushed to protect the doors of democracy. And what 
thanks did we give them in return? We told them to keep working, keep 
protecting this House, but we are going to hold your paycheck.
  Many more aren't even allowed to work in the Federal Government, 
denied the chance to do the jobs they love, serving on behalf of the 
American people, and they are left worrying if they will ever get paid 
or if they are going to be lost.

                              {time}  2015

  The loss also ripples throughout our economy, affecting businesses 
throughout the country. It is estimated that this shutdown is costing 
the economy $300 million a day. And so you can see, people are asking 
across the country: Will I get paid this month? Will there be enough 
money for food? Can I pay my mortgage this month? I am a first time 
home buyer; some of those FHA loans look very good for me, but they are 
delayed, they are on hold. Will I be able to pay my child's college 
tuition? All of the questions that folks in our Federal workforces, 
folks who are working at our national laboratories are asking.
  Small businesses can't get SBA loans. Small business centers which 
help women and veterans are closed. Our national parks are closed. 
Technology updates for all of our Federal programs are being delayed. 
And mentioned earlier, our cybersecurity centers, employees there are 
going to be furloughed, the cybersecurity centers that work to protect 
our Nation's networks, that work to ensure that nation-states and 
individuals who wish to do us harm aren't able to do so.
  I would like to now yield to the greatest champion in this House to 
end and reduce the effect of poverty on our community and somebody who 
has the honor of representing Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 
which has over 4,000 employees. I have visited that facility, and they 
are doing such great work to advance the progress of science.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).
  Ms. LEE of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for 
yielding, but also for your tremendous leadership on this issue and on 
so many other issues. It is a pleasure to serve with you. You have 
really hit the ground running as a new Member of this great body. I 
also want to thank you for your work on the Committee on Science, 
Space, and Technology. As a fellow member of the Bay Area congressional 
delegation, you have made such an impact and your work is so important 
for our entire California delegation, so thank you.
  My district is California's 13th Congressional District, right next 
door to your congressional district. As you said, it is home to 
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Let me just say first how proud 
I am to represent one of the most esteemed centers for scientific 
research and technological advancement in the world. I have had many, 
many opportunities to visit the lab where I have met some of the most 
brilliant scientific minds on our planet. The employees, the 
scientists, all of those who work at the lab are phenomenal 
individuals, and it is just amazing to see how the scientists and 
engineers especially use our Federal investments in our national 
laboratory system to make unbelievable leaps in every field, from 
nanotechnology and supercomputing to energy efficiency and 
astrophysics.
  The history of the lab is unbelievable. It was established in 1931 by 
Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ernest Orlando Lawrence. The lab has been 
associated with 13 Nobel Prizes. Fifty-seven of the lab's scientists 
are members of the National Academy of Sciences. Thirteen have won the 
National Medal of Science, our Nation's highest award for lifetime 
achievement in the field of science.
  Over the years, Berkeley Lab scientists have discovered 16 elements; 
made the world's smallest motor, 100,000 times smaller than a human 
hair; used ultraviolet technology to bring safe drinking water to 
thousands across the world; and helped decipher the human genome.
  I could go on and on, but we are not here today to laud the 
accomplishments of the national labs in our district, but I think it is 
very important to do that even in this very difficult environment.
  We are here because these institutions of innovation are under a real

[[Page H6543]]

and immediate threat, thanks to the Republican shutdown of our 
government. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory employs over 4,200 
scientists, support staff, and students in my congressional district. 
Its economic impact is even greater, creating 5,600 local jobs and 
12,000 jobs nationally, with a total economic impact estimated at $1.6 
billion a year.
  If this shutdown continues, the Berkeley Lab will be forced to 
furlough its employees in waves beginning in late October. Not only 
does the shutdown threaten the livelihood of my constituents, the 
scientists, the administrators, and the support staff that keep the lab 
running, it also threatens to stall projects that could be the next 
scientific breakthrough that changes how our world works or produces 
the next Nobel Peace Prize winner. So this is really an absurd price to 
pay for the Republican insistence on keeping people from receiving 
affordable, quality health care. That is where all of this started.
  For the life of me, I don't understand why my Republican Tea Party 
colleagues are continuing these cynical ploys that threaten our 
Nation's competitiveness and force our Nation's most brilliant minds 
out of their labs. We need to end this shutdown. We need to fund the 
entire energy and water bill, which provides funding for our national 
laboratories through the Department of Energy's Office of Science. We 
need an up-or-down vote on a clean budget bill to reopen this 
government.
  Democrats have already--and I know you have heard this over and over 
again, Mr. Swalwell, because you know we have already accepted a short-
term budget bill to reopen our government even though we don't believe 
its funding level is nearly adequate.
  The American people deserve a functioning government, and they 
deserve affordable, quality health care. They deserve both. I hope more 
people are listening and more people understand that we know how to 
open the government. We know how to begin to negotiate on a real budget 
that makes our entire government, including our national laboratories, 
whole.
  And so hopefully this alarm that we are sounding tonight, Mr. 
Swalwell, will continue to wake up the country and continue to ensure 
that people know that we have their backs and that we know how to open 
this government and we want to shut down this shutdown immediately. 
Thank you again for your leadership.
  Mr. SWALWELL of California. I thank the gentlelady from California. 
She is absolutely correct. Democrats have compromised. We have accepted 
a $986 billion sequester budget, which the gentlelady and I do not 
accept. When you cut those programs, we are cutting the opportunities 
to lift people out of poverty. I agree with the gentlelady, we have 
made deep, deep concessions when it comes to a budget. We are ready to 
open up the government and turn the lights back on, but we are doing so 
at a painful price with the budget we are accepting.
  With that, I will close. I want to say to what my colleague from 
Berkeley and Oakland was saying: Keep our national labs open. Keep 
those great scientists at Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, Lawrence Berkeley 
National Laboratory, keep them on the job, moving the job forward on 
science.
  It was alluded to earlier that the National Ignition Facility in 
Livermore, as the government that funds it was unraveling 2 weeks ago, 
at the National Ignition Facility in Livermore, they achieved something 
they had been attempting to achieve for the past 3-4 years. That is 
fusion. For the first time, they have been able to get more energy out 
than what they have put in. This is a remarkable achievement. They have 
achieved fusion, and they are knocking on the door of ignition at the 
National Ignition Facility. They are closer than they have ever been. 
They are closer now to meeting the 84th milestone. They have 84 
milestones they have to meet. They have met 83 of them. They are so 
close to providing this renewable energy resource which will change the 
game on how every person in the world receives their energy, no longer 
requiring us to be dependent on foreign sources of energy if we can 
achieve this and then transfer this technology to the private market.
  The data achieved at NIF is critical for understanding nuclear 
fusion, which we need for keeping a reliable stockpile of nuclear 
weapons. So this is a critical energy issue and a critical defense 
issue. Understanding fusion, as I mentioned, allows us to get closer to 
the goal of civilian fusion energy. And nuclear fusion energy, unlike 
what we currently use, nuclear fission essentially would produce no 
waste or carbon emissions. It is the ``holy grail'' of clean energy, 
and I want to make sure that the scientists at Lawrence Livermore are 
able to accomplish it.
  Sandia also has a facility called the Combustion Research Facility. 
This is a partnership, a public-private partnership with our automakers 
and those who are making automobiles in Detroit. What they are trying 
to do is make the American automobile engine more efficient at the 
Combustion Research Facility. There are important, remarkable 
achievements going on at our national laboratories.
  With the furlough at our laboratory, all of their exceptional work 
will be put on hold. So what does that mean in relation to the National 
Ignition Facility and the Combustion Research Facility? It means that 
work will stop that is being done to maintain our nuclear stockpile; 
the great fusion energy project I mentioned; efforts to understand 
climate change will stop; all while we stand still, other countries 
like Russia and China will zoom past us in science, math, and renewable 
energy.
  And this isn't just what happens today. If these highly skilled, 
highly intelligent employees are prevented from working, they will go 
somewhere else. These people are Ph.D.'s. They will find somewhere else 
to go.
  At the beginning of the hour, I said I would not only tell us how we 
got here, what it means, I would also offer a way forward. The way 
forward, as I see it, is for the Speaker of the House, Mr. Boehner, to 
allow this House to have an up-or-down vote on passing the same budget 
that the Senate has agreed to, the same budget that the President of 
the United States said he would sign. We know the votes are there. 
Twenty-five to 30 Republicans have said they would pass that vote.
  So let's get the government back to work. Let's end the partisanship 
games, the obsession with defunding the Affordable Care Act, and let's 
get the government back to work. In the meantime, a short-term solution 
I have offered is that Secretary Moniz allow furloughed employees at 
all of our national laboratories, at all 17 sites, all 30,000 
employees, to receive back furlough pay.
  I have also worked since January with a small group of freshmen, 
about 30 of us, Republicans and Democrats evenly divided. It is called 
the United Solutions Caucus. We have been meeting almost every week 
since sworn into office, pledging that we will work together and build 
the foundation of a bipartisan relationship. In these trying times and 
dark days over the last 2 weeks, we have met nearly every other day, 
talking about what we can do to work together to turn back on the 
lights of the government for the greatest democracy of the world. This 
group gives me hope.
  Just yesterday, the group met with two senior members, a Republican 
and a Democrat, from the Appropriations Committee. Nobody in that group 
and neither of those senior members want to see the government continue 
to be shut down, so I am hopeful that we can continue to talk. I am 
hopeful that this group can continue to work together, the United 
Solutions Caucus, to provide a way forward, a way that ensures that the 
Federal workforce is back to work; and for my district, ensures that 
those hardworking scientists who want to think big, just like I did, 
the same reason I came to Congress, that want to move the ball forward 
on our nuclear and energy security, that they can go back to work and 
they aren't ever furloughed.
  So I ask my colleagues on the other side: Did you come here to help 
people or did you come here to hurt people? I think you came here for 
the same reason I did, to help people, and so I hope you will prove it 
to the American people. Allow an up-or-down vote; allow us to pass a 
clean resolution; and together, all of us, Republicans and Democrats, 
can help the American people.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

[[Page H6544]]

  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, the Department of 
Energy's National Laboratories are vital to our national security, our 
economy, and our environment. They have often been called ``crown 
jewels'' of our federal research and development infrastructure, and 
for good reason. This is why I am extremely concerned about the impacts 
of this senseless government shutdown on these important facilities--
and this is on top of the harmful cuts that they have already had to 
endure under budget sequestration.
  It is worth reminding my colleagues here today that we have seen how 
our past investments in the national laboratories have paid off when it 
comes to energy development. DOE labs were key to the development of 
high-efficiency gas turbines for coal plants, nuclear reactors, and the 
directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing practices that have led 
to the shale gas boom of today.
  I think it is also important to note that DOE's Office of Science--
which oversees most of these national laboratories--is actually the 
largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the 
nation, and it operates more than 30 national scientific user 
facilities whose applications go well beyond energy innovation. Our 
nation's top researchers from industry, academia, and other federal 
agencies use these facilities to examine everything from new materials 
that will better meet our military's needs, to new pharmaceuticals that 
will better treat disease, to even examining the fundamental building 
blocks of the universe. I believe that this stewardship of unique 
scientific research, including the nation's major national user 
facilities, is another very important role that the Department plays in 
bolstering our national competitiveness today and in building the 
industries of the future.
  It's no secret that Congress's inability to date to come to an 
agreement on a sensible budget plan has led to some devastating cuts to 
many of these important facilities, with serious impacts to our nation 
in both the short-term and the long-term. Until we resolve the current 
crisis, even more of our nation's best and brightest will be forced out 
of work and some of their most critical research tools--for which the 
U.S. taxpayers contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to build--
will have to cease operations. I believe that we are doing damage to 
the seed corn of our future, and as the Ranking Member of the Committee 
on Science, Space, and Technology, I believe that ending this shutdown 
and reversing these drastic cuts need to be our highest priorities 
going forward.

                          ____________________