[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 129 (Tuesday, July 30, 2019)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1015-E1016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         INTRODUCTION OF THE ARPA-E REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2019

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, July 30, 2019

  Ms. JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, today I am very pleased to 
introduce the ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 with my colleague, Mr. 
Lamb, who is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy.
  Even though the agency is still relatively young, ARPA-E has already 
demonstrated incredible success in advancing high-risk, high-reward 
energy technology solutions that neither the public nor the private 
sector had been willing or able to support in the past. Industry 
leaders like Bill Gates and Norm Augustine have repeatedly called for 
tripling this agency's budget given the unique role that it is now 
playing in our energy innovation pipeline.
  ARPA-E's impressive track record now includes over $2.9 billion in 
private sector follow-on funding for a group of 145 ARPA-E projects 
since the agency's founding in 2009. Equally notable, 76 projects have 
formed new companies and 131 projects have shown enough promise to 
result in partnerships with other government agencies for further 
development. Moreover, as of March 2019, ARPA-E projects have helped 
advance scientific understanding and technological innovation through 
2,489 peer-reviewed journal articles and 346 patents issued by the U.S. 
Patent and Trademark Office.
  Yet to date, ARPA-E has only been able to support about 1 percent of 
the proposals submitted for its open funding opportunities, and 12 
percent of the proposals submitted for its focused programs, even 
though the number of promising, high quality proposals that the agency 
has received is many times higher.
  This is why the ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 authorizes 
substantial growth in funding for the agency over the next five years. 
This growth is consistent with the original recommendations of the 
National Academies for establishing and supporting ARPA-E in its 
seminal Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, as well as more recent 
strong recommendations from well-respected bipartisan

[[Page E1016]]

and nonpartisan institutions such as the Bipartisan Policy Center's 
American Energy Innovation Council, the Information Technology and 
Innovation Foundation, and the Energy Futures Initiative.
  I'd also note that in its review of the program released in June 
2017, the National Academies found that a substantial increase in 
funding would be necessary for ARPA-E to be able to sufficiently 
support the scale-up of particularly promising technologies, such as 
advanced technologies for energy storage and power electronics, that 
were previously supported by the agency. But many of these new 
approaches are still too risky to be supported by the private sector 
alone, and too often, other DOE programs remain ill-suited to steward 
them.
  So by authorizing these resources, this bill ensures that ARPA-Eis 
able to fully pursue the development and eventual commercialization of 
truly transformational clean energy technologies, just as DARPA, the 
agency that ARPA-E is modeled, has been able to demonstrate time and 
again for defense applications.
  Other improvements in this bill include explicit authorization for 
ARPA-E to better address DOE's significant nuclear waste clean-up and 
management issues, for which the Department currently spends several 
billion dollars every year attempting to manage with current 
technologies. And it includes authorization for ARPA-E to support 
projects to improve the resilience, reliability, and security of our 
energy infrastructure.
  The ARPA-E Reauthorization Act of 2019 incorporates extensive 
feedback from stakeholders, as well as input we received during a 
hearing the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology held on 
February 26th entitled The Future of ARPA-E. It also incorporates 
constructive language from a bill that I cosponsored with my friend, 
Mr. Lucas, who is now Ranking Member of the Committee, last year.
  This bill is endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National 
Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the Council on Competitiveness, the 
Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), the Association of American 
Universities (AAU), the Association of Public & Land-grant Universities 
(APLU), the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the American Gas 
Association (AGA), the Energy Storage Association (ESA), the Carbon 
Utilization Research Council (CURC), the American Council on Renewable 
Energy (ACORE), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the 
Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), the American Council for Capital 
Formation (ACCF), Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES), 
ConservAmerica, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation 
(ITIF), the Task Force on American Innovation (TFAI), Environmental 
Entrepreneurs (E2), the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Optical 
Society of America (OSA), IEEE-USA, the Task Force on American 
Innovation (TFAI), the Energy Sciences Coalition (ESC), and the Gas 
Technology Institute (GTI).
  Given this broad and deep support from the leading industrial, 
academic, scientific, and environmental organizations of our nation, I 
look forward to advancing this bill through the Committee in the coming 
months. And I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle to build support for this critical investment in our nation's 
clean energy future.

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