[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS:
THE ROLE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013
__________
Serial No. 113-1
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland SCOTT PETERS, California
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois DEREK KILMER, Washington
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana AMI BERA, California
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
BILL POSEY, Florida MARC VEASEY, Texas
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming JULIA BROWNLEY, California
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona MARK TAKANO, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky VACANCY
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS STEWART, Utah
C O N T E N T S
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking
Minority Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 8
Written Statement............................................ 10
Witnesses:
Mr. Richard Templeton, President and CEO, Texas Instruments
Oral Statement............................................... 11
Written Statement............................................ 14
Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute
Oral Statement............................................... 24
Written Statement............................................ 26
Dr. Charles Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering
Oral Statement............................................... 38
Written Statement............................................ 41
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Mr. Richard Templeton, President and CEO, Texas Instruments...... 68
Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, President, Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute...................................................... 72
Dr. Charles Vest, President, National Academy of Engineering..... 77
AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS:
THE ROLE OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2013
House of Representatives,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:34 a.m., in Room
2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Lamar S. Smith
[Chairman of the Committee] presiding.
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Chairman Smith. The Science, Space, and Technology
Committee will come to order. I will recognize myself for an
opening statement, then the Ranking Member for her opening
statement.
The topic of today's hearing, the first of this Committee
in this Congress, is ``American Competitiveness: The Role of
Research and Development.'' This is an appropriate hearing
because much of the jurisdiction of this Committee relates to
keeping America globally competitive.
America's ability to compete depends on whether we have the
present vision to conduct the science that will define the
future. As the wall behind me says, ``Where there is no vision,
the people perish''--this Committee's goal, and today's
hearing, is to help define that vision and ensure that America
continues to be the leader of global innovation.
Our first hearing today will begin this process by
examining the positive impact of today's R&D and looking
forward to potential breakthrough innovations in the future.
Americans have always been innovators and explorers. Our
ancestors crossed oceans, opened frontiers and ventured to
explore a new continent and even traveled to the Moon. From the
Lewis and Clark Expedition to the International Space Station,
from the telegraph to broadband Internet, Americans have led
the exploration of the unknown and developed inventions of the
future. In our short history we have produced world-famous
scientists and inventors like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison
and Jonas Salk.
But countless more American scientists who are not world-
famous nonetheless have been changing this world. Have you
heard of William Burroughs, John Bardeen or Ruth Benerito?
According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Mr. Burroughs
created the electronic calculator. Mr. Bardeen worked with the
Nobel prize-winning team that developed the transistor and
helped create Silicon Valley in California and Silicon Hills in
Austin, Texas. And we can thank chemist Ruth Benerito for
developing wrinkle-free cotton, which is in the shirts many
Americans wear today, including mine.
But is America as innovative as it used to be? Some wonder
if America's greatest technological achievements are behind us,
and if other nations like China and India will soon surpass us,
or perhaps already have.
Some nations are creating environments so attractive to
global manufacturers that companies have relocated much of
their activities on foreign soil. Our global trade imbalance is
growing as we export less and import more, and today, this
imbalance includes many high-tech products. Other nations are
changing their policies to become more competitive, and so
should we.
Fortunately, blazing trails into new frontiers is what
America has always done best. To set the stage for this
Congress and to understand where America is heading, we have
very knowledgeable witnesses testifying before us today. Each
of them thoroughly understands both public and private research
and development efforts as well as where our global competitors
are headed. Members of this Committee have the opportunity to
work together on policies that will help America stay
competitive, and today's hearing is a first step.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Lamar Smith
The topic of today's hearing, the first for this Committee in this
Congress, is ``American Competitiveness: The Role of Research and
Development.'' This is an appropriate hearing because much of the
jurisdiction of this Committee relates to keeping America globally
competitive.
America's ability to compete depends on whether we have the present
vision to conduct the science that will define the future. As the wall
behind me says, ``Where there is no vision, the people perish.'' This
Committee's goal--and today's hearing--is to help define that vision
and ensure that America continues to be the leader of global
innovation.
Our first hearing today will begin this process by examining the
positive impact of today's R&D and looking forward to potential
breakthrough innovations in the future.
Americans have always been innovators and explorers. Our ancestors
crossed oceans, opened frontiers and ventured to explore a new
continent and even travel to the Moon. From the Lewis and Clark
Expedition to the International Space Station, from the telegraph to
broadband internet, Americans have led the exploration of the unknown
and developed inventions of the future.
In our short history we have produced world famous scientists and
inventors like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Edison and Jonas Salk. But
countless more American scientists who are not world famous nonetheless
have been changing the world.
Have you heard of William Burroughs, John Bardeen or Ruth Benerito?
According to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Mr. Burroughs created
the electronic calculator. Mr. Bardeen worked with the Nobel prize-
winning team that developed the transistor and helped create Silicon
Valley in California and Silicon Hills in Austin, Texas. And we can
thank chemist Ruth Benerito for developing wrinkle-free cotton, which
is in the shirts many Americans wear today.
But is America as innovative as it used to be? Some wonder if
America's greatest technological achievements are behind us, and if
other nations--like China and India--will soon surpass us, or perhaps
already have.
Some nations are creating environments so attractive to global
manufacturers that companies have relocated much of their activities to
foreign soil. Our global trade imbalance is growing as we export less
and import more, and today, this imbalance includes many high-tech
products. Other nations are changing their policies to become more
competitive, and so should we. Fortunately, blazing trails into new
frontiers is what America has always done best.
To set the stage for this Congress and to understand where America
is heading, we have very knowledgeable witnesses testifying before us
today. Each of them thoroughly understands both public and private
research and development efforts as well as where our global
competitors are headed.
Members of this Committee have the opportunity to work together on
policies that will help America stay competitive. Today's hearing is a
first step.
Chairman Smith. That concludes my opening statement, and
the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Johnson, is recognized for
hers.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Chairman Smith, for
holding this hearing, and thank you also for yesterday's
bipartisan retreat, which was delightful.
Chairman Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Johnson. I am looking forward to these very
distinguished witnesses today and hope that all of us will
listen attentively. I know that we will hear from our witnesses
about the critical importance of federal research and
development investments, and I look forward to their testimony.
As the competition for scarce resources has intensified,
there have been some who would describe the research community
as just another special interest lobbying group to share the
pie. I could not disagree more. They should have special
interest and self-interest, and I hope they do, whether they
are representing universities or high-tech companies. But to
label them as nothing more than another special interest group
is, at best, misleading. Without dismissing the value of many
other investments we make with our limited discretionary
budget, there is probably no single investment we make, other
than education, that has done more to ensure our Nation's long-
term economic vitality than the investment in R&D.
This holds true for the very long-term investments that the
Federal Government is uniquely suited to make in exploratory
research where we have no idea what, if any, applications will
result. But it also holds true for the financial and
intellectual partnerships we build with the private sector to
address more mid-term R&D challenges. All of these investments
yield immeasurable benefits to our economy and our society in
terms of companies built, jobs created, and a society made
healthier, safer, and more secure. They also have the secondary
benefit of training the next generation of scientists and
engineers who will contribute in all of these ways to their own
generation, and I am particularly pleased to see a few of them
sitting out there I hope will be some of those in the future.
Some specific examples of groundbreaking innovations and
companies that would not have been possible without federal R&D
investments include the Internet, GPS, Google, the iPhone, and
God, what we would do without barcodes? I expect that we will
hear more examples from the witnesses, and we could probably
spend our entire two hour hearing reading off such a list.
And yet, I fear, some of my colleagues in Congress would
still be unimpressed. We will still hear arguments that the
Federal Government's role should be restricted to so-called
basic research because the private sector can do the rest
alone, that everybody has to take a cut, that the 8.2 percent
cuts looming on March 1 may hurt a bit but are better for the
country in the long run.
I happen to believe personally that we can invest it in
unemployment and food stamps or we can invest it in our future
that would eliminate the need for both. So let me attempt to
briefly preempt some of these arguments. R&D is not a simple,
linear process from basic to applied to development and so on
to a final commercial product. It also doesn't go in only one
direction. R&D is part of a complex innovation process with
many feedback loops. There is no clear line at which the public
role ends and the private role begins and there has not been in
any of our lifetimes. That is why partnerships between the
public sector, namely our federal agencies, and the private
sector, such as Mr. Templeton's company, Texas Instruments, are
so important.
Second, I would like to say a word about the consequences
of sequestration. At the risk of repeating myself, we would not
just be turning off the lights on many groundbreaking research
facilities and experiments today, we would be eating our seed
corn for tomorrow. We would know that at the end of the tunnel,
the lights are out. What talented young person would see a
future in scientific research after sequestration does its
damage?
Our witnesses were asked in their testimony to speculate on
what kind of breakthrough technologies we might see in the next
5 to 20 years. I think if any of us knew the answer to that, we
would really be rich. That is the point. We don't know what
directions our research might take, what unknown applications
and innovations will be developed, and nor did our predecessors
when they invested in what we have today. We cannot afford to
overestimate what the private sector is prepared to do on its
own, and we cannot afford to underestimate the negative
consequences for the Nation's R&D enterprise of letting
sequestration go forward.
With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
Prepared Statement of RAnking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson
Thank you Chairman Smith for holding this hearing, and thank you to
our distinguished witnesses for taking the time to appear before the
Committee this morning. I know that we will hear from all of our
witnesses about the critical importance of federal research and
development investments, and I look forward to your testimony.
As the competition for scarce resources has intensified, there have
been some who would describe the research community as just another
special interest group lobbying for their share of the pie. I could not
disagree more. Yes, they have some self-interest, whether they are
representing universities or high-tech companies.
But to label them as nothing more than another special interest
group is, at best, misleading. Without dismissing the value of many
other investments we make with our limited discretionary budget, there
is probably no single investment we make, other than education, that
has done more to ensure our nation's long-term economic vitality than
our investment in R&D.
This holds true for the very long term investments that the federal
government is uniquely suited to make in exploratory research--where we
have no idea what, if any, applications will result. But it also holds
true for the financial and intellectual partnerships we build with the
private sector to address more mid-term R&D challenges.
All of these investments yield immeasurable benefits to our economy
and our society in terms of companies built, jobs created, and a
society made healthier, safer, and more secure. They also have the
secondary benefit of training the next generation of scientists and
engineers who will contribute in all of these ways to their own
generation, and so on.
Some specific examples of the groundbreaking innovations and
companies that would not have been possible without federal R&D
investments include the internet, GPS, Google, the iPhone, and
barcodes. I expect we will hear more examples from the witnesses. We
could probably spend our entire two-hour hearing reading off such a
list.
And yet, I fear, some of my colleagues in Congress would still be
unimpressed. We will still hear arguments that the federal government's
role should be restricted to so-called basic research because the
private sector can do the rest alone. That everybody has to take a cut.
That the 8.2 percent cuts looming on March 1 may hurt a bit but are
better for the country in the long run.
So let me attempt to briefly preempt those arguments. R&D is not a
simple, linear process from basic to applied to development and so on
to a final commercial product. It also doesn't go in only one
direction. R&D is part of a complex innovation process with many
feedback loops.
There is no clear line at which the public role ends and the
private role begins and there has not been in any of our lifetimes.
That is why partnerships between the public sector, namely our federal
agencies, and the private sector, such as Mr. Templeton's company, are
so important.
Second, I'd like to say a word about the consequences of
sequestration. At the risk of repeating myself, we would not just be
turning off the lights on many groundbreaking research facilities and
experiments today, we would be eating our seed corn for tomorrow.
What talented young person would see a future in scientific
research after sequestration does its damage?
Our witnesses were asked in their testimony to speculate on what
kind of breakthrough technologies we might see in the next 5-20 years.
I think if any of us knew the answer to that, we'd be rich. That's the
point--we don't know what directions our research may take, what
unknown applications and innovations will be developed.
We cannot afford to overestimate what the private sector is
prepared to do on its own. And we cannot afford to underestimate the
negative consequences for the nation's R&D enterprise of letting
sequestration go forward.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
Let me introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Mr.
Richard Templeton, Chairman, President and CEO of Texas
Instruments. Mr. Templeton has served as Texas Instruments'
Chairman of the Board since April 2008 and President and Chief
Executive Officer since May 2004. In addition to his work with
Texas Instruments, Mr. Templeton also serves as the Chair of
the Task Force on American Innovation, a broad group of
stakeholders that support scientific research. Mr. Templeton
earned his B.S. in electrical engineering from Union College in
New York.
Our next witness is Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, President of
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute since 1999. Prior to her
tenure, Dr. Jackson served as the Chair of the U.S. Nuclear
Regulatory Commission. She also has had an extensive career
working in several prestigious physics laboratories researching
subatomic parties. Dr. Jackson earned her Ph.D. in theoretical
elementary particle physics from MIT.
Our final witness is Dr. Charles Vest, President of the
National Academy of Engineering. He was elected to this
position in 2007 and is serving a six-year term. Dr. Vest also
is the President Emeritus of the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and earned his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from
the University of Michigan. Prior to his time in the academic
world, Dr. Vest was Vice Chair of the U.S. Council of
Competitiveness for eight years and a member of the President's
Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology during the Bush
and Clinton Administrations. Both Dr. Vest and Dr. Jackson were
also distinguished members of the panel that authored the
original 2005 National Academy study Rising Above the Gathering
Storm. This study recommended ways to keep American
economically prosperous.
Before I recognize Mr. Templeton, I just want to call
attention to Members on their desk, they should have an op-ed
from today's Politico that was written by two of our witnesses
today and which is well worth reading. It is called ``A
Critical Role in Innovation'' by Richard Templeton and Shirley
Ann Jackson.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Templeton, we will begin with you.
TESTIMONY OF MR. RICHARD TEMPLETON,
PRESIDENT AND CEO, TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
Mr. Templeton. I want to thank Chairman Smith, Ranking
Member Johnson and of course all the Members of the Committee
for convening this hearing so early in the new Congress on such
an important topic. I really am honored to be here today with
Dr. Jackson and Dr. Vest, really well-known innovators with
great, keen insight into policy.
Over the last 50 years, scientific and technological
innovation has been responsible for as much as half of our
economic growth. The United States has been a clear net global
winner during this time, and while there are a number of
factors that can explain that, I actually believe the
investments by the Federal Government in basic research at our
universities and at our federal labs were a critical factor in
determining our success.
I would point out as we think about this topic, this phrase
of research and development, or R&D, is used inseparably many
times, and I think it is important to point out that inside of
research and development, there is something called basic
research, and to get a sense of that, it is really something
that is done to discover basic principles without necessarily
having a commercial purpose in mind. It could take 5 to as much
as 15 years for that to pay off, or perhaps never. But when
those basic principles are discovered and successful, they can
have enormous dividends.
For example, the Space Program and the Defense Department
propelled many of the advancements in the semiconductor
industry where today U.S.-headquartered firms hold nearly half
of the worldwide market and support nearly 250,000 direct jobs.
The Internet is another wonderful example.
Basic research requires significant funding from the
Federal Government because it can take the long-term view and
make the scope of investment needed. This funding goes to
universities, not to companies. I offer the Committee four
points to consider when you think about research funding.
First, the United States was a clear winner of the first
round of the innovation game. We are home, as was noted in the
opening comments, to some of those most innovative companies in
the world, names like Apple, names like Google, names like
Intel, and we of course like the name of Texas Instruments on
that list. The United States is the net winner economically
because these companies are headquartered here in the United
States and they are not headquartered somewhere else. They are
here in many ways because the basic research many years ago was
done in the United States. We had the best research
universities, which in turn attracted the smartest people from
around the world to want to go practice at those best
institutions.
Second point, that this game is changing in round two. The
relative advantages that the United States has had over the
last 50 years have significantly weakened. Today we risk that
the next generation of these companies will in fact be started
up and headquartered somewhere else. So there is really a few
simple reasons as to why that could take place. First, other
countries have seen the United States playbook and they are
very interested in being able to replicate it. They see the
benefits that it has yielded and they are busy putting in place
programs to provide incentives for companies to try and start
in their countries. The second element that has weakened the
U.S. position is that federal investment in basic research, in
physical sciences and engineering, as a percent of GDP has
fallen to less than half the level since 1970. If you contrast
that by some very key competitors, key competitors meaning
countries like Korea or China, they are actually increasing
their R&D in physical sciences as a percent of GDP. Lastly is
skills. Our industry works because we have great minds, and
there are two issues here. First, our immigration policies do
not encourage today the best minds to come to the United States
and in fact stay in the United States, and also the best minds
have got other choices around the world. In fact, today we
educate some of these best minds and then we show them the door
to return home. Secondarily is our own K-12 STEM systems are
faltering and we have to get that turned around.
The third point that I would like to point out is that the
stakes in the next round, the next 50 years, are even higher
than they were for the last 50 years. Leadership in
nanoelectronics will impact many aspects of our economy: health
care, energy, transportation, safety, security and much more.
China and Korea understand that the country that leads in
nanoelectronics will reap the economic benefits the way the
United States has dominated the last 50 years, or the
microelectronics era.
Fourth point: I think there are four areas that changes in
policies need to be focused to change the outcome. First, the
federal funding in basic research. Even in tough economic
times, we must protect the investments in the future. Second,
we must make a priority for world-class STEM education, that is
K-12, in the United States. This needs to be a national
imperative, implemented on a local basis. Three, high-skilled
immigration reform. I appreciate the leadership that, Mr.
Chairman, you have shown, Ms. Lofgren, on the issues, and we
look forward, hopefully, to a resolution to that. And then
fourth is comprehensive tax reform for U.S. companies to build
to compete globally. The world has changed considerably since
1986, the last time taxes were reformed. We must have an
environment where U.S.-headquartered companies can compete
effectively on a global basis because that is where 95 percent
of the world's population is.
So my conclusion, investing in basic research at our
universities has been critical to America's success over the
past 50 years, and I believe it will be more important going
forward, and I am certainly happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Templeton follows:]
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Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Templeton.
Dr. Jackson.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON,
PRESIDENT, RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE
Dr. Jackson. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson,
distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you on American competitiveness,
the role of research and development.
I have to say that Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
graduates have been an integral part of America's promise
through discovery and innovation since the university was
founded in 1824. More importantly, America's health,
prosperity, security and global leadership depend upon our
strength, as you have heard, in science and technology. Our
investments in scientific research and education have made a
difference in people's lives. Let me illustrate.
The New York Times reported that in October 2004, in
Afghanistan, a mortar severely injured a U.S. Marine corporal,
Isaias Hernandez. He is an example of so many of our wounded
warriors. Shrapnel tore away 70 percent of the muscle in his
thigh and fractured his femur. He endured four years of
surgeries and physical therapy to little effect until Dr.
Stephen Badylak of the McGowan Institute of Regenerative
Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh implanted in the
corporal's thigh a new gel-based therapy called the
extracellular matrix derived from pig bladders. After about 6
weeks, the implanted mixture spurred the growth of muscle
tissue, tendons and vasculature and restored physical strength.
This work is part of a government-supported regenerative
medicine research program at Pittsburgh.
Now, this and much more is the kind of work that faculty
and students at Rensselaer do, at MIT do, understanding the
role of the extracellular matrix in cell signaling and tissue
regeneration, developing enzyme-based coatings that kill
antibiotic-resistant bacteria on contact, bioengineering
synthetic heparin, all dependent upon federal support of
research across the life and physical sciences, chemical and
biological engineering, industrial engineering, nanotechnology
and data analytics. Life-changing, job-creating, security-
sustaining, scientific discoveries and technological
innovations have rested on strong collaboration among business,
government and academia. This three-way partnership has created
an innovation ecosystem that has driven our economy, prosperity
and well-being for decades.
Federal investments in scientific research and development
built the foundations for a broad range of industries. Many
leading U.S.-based global companies including Texas
Instruments, Genentech, Google and Cisco Systems all trace
their roots to federal research investments.
As you have heard, China, India and other nations are
emulating our model by making concomitant investments to gain
the benefits we enjoy. If we are to remain globally
competitive, we must sustain and enhance the U.S. innovation
ecosystem. This requires four things: first, strategic focus to
choose important and promising areas to explore and develop and
match them to the talent, resources and opportunities we have
or can attract; second, game-changing idea generation that
arises out of basic research that pushes the boundaries of
human knowledge; third, translational pathways that bring
discoveries into commercial or societal use; fourth--capital,
financial, infrastructural and human capital to support the
development and exploitation of promising new technologies.
We need a new financial model for technology-based startups
that overcomes the so-called valley of death. We need tax
reform. We need physical capital including shared
infrastructure, which allows new technologies to be improved
and scaled for the marketplace. For example, the Computational
Center for Nanotechnology Innovations, a joint effort of IBM,
New York State and Rensselaer, holds one of the world's most
powerful university-based supercomputers, used for research by
our faculty and students and by companies of all sizes to
perform research and development and to tap the expertise of
Rensselaer scientists and engineers. We must draw more young
Americans into STEM fields. We must improve science and
mathematics education for all of our children. Retaining high-
caliber talent from abroad is important, especially those
obtaining advanced degrees in science and engineering from
American universities. Advanced manufacturing requires that we
make comprehensive education and retraining a priority.
Now, we remain the world leader in scientific discovery and
technological innovation but the health of our innovation
ecosystem is in jeopardy. As the Congress debates funding for
research in these austere times, we know that there are
significant challenges, but the nations that invest in
research, educate the next generations and make commitments to
build effective innovation ecosystems will be the global
leaders of tomorrow.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Jackson follows:]
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Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Jackson.
Dr. Vest.
TESTIMONY OF DR. CHARLES VEST,
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING
Dr. Vest. Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Johnson, honorable
Members, it is a privilege to be here today.
Today, the process of R&D that we have been discussing
moves new scientific knowledge and new technology developments
to marketed products and services at an ever-accelerating
speed. It is an increasingly complicated process. It is a
globalized process that is at once both highly competitive and
cooperative, and it is a process driven by basic research--and
one that would ultimately die without basic research.
Some examples of 20th-century innovations that all began
primarily with university research include computers, lasers,
the Internet, the deployment of the Worldwide Web, the basics
of the GPS system, numerically controlled machining for
manufacturing, the genomic revolution and most of modern
medicine. I contend that there is not a job in America today
that does not depend directly on one or more of just these six
examples.
Now, predictions of future technologies are very difficult.
When I graduated from undergraduate school at West Virginia
University as a mechanical engineer in 1963, none of us talked
about going into the information technology industry because
the IT industry did not exist, but our generation invented it
and it became the dominant source of employment for engineers
in the intervening years. So I am a true believer that if we
invest well in basic research and education, we undoubtedly
will be surprised by what the new innovations are that actually
arise.
Let me say three barriers to continued success of our
wonderful American innovation system. Our K-12 system is
failing far too many of our young people. Our current federal
policies, as has been said, make it difficult for brilliant
foreign graduate students to stay on in the United States yet
such immigrants from the recent decades have contributed hugely
as professors and especially as entrepreneurs to our system.
And our federal R&D tax credit, among other things, needs to be
made permanent.
I was asked to comment on National Academy's reports, and I
want to cite three that are particularly relevant to the topic
of this hearing. I start with our 2005 baseline report, Rising
Above the Gathering Storm, and thank this Committee for
supporting the authorization, passage and reauthorization of
the America COMPETES Act that is largely based on it. Our
findings and recommendations in Rising Above the Gathering
Storm are as relevant today as they were when they were
drafted, and indeed, you heard that from Mr. Templeton. This
report offered four broad recommendations, each backed by
specific evidence and 20 specific action items, but the big-
picture items were four: move K-12 STEM education in the U.S.
to a leading position by global standards, double federal
investments in basic research in physical sciences and
engineering over seven years, encourage more U.S. students to
pursue science and engineering careers, and rebuild the
competitive ecosystem through reform and tax, patent, immigrant
and litigation policies.
The second report I would note just came out this last June
titled Research Universities and the Future of America, a group
that was chaired by Chad Holliday, former CEO of Dupont. It
presented a bipartisan congressional group that requested it
with 10 breakthrough actions vital to our Nation's prosperity
and security. Now, one of the things that is somewhat unique
about this report, and we are very proud of it, is that it
proposes actions not just by the Federal Government but by
state governments, business and universities themselves as
well. The report recommends that the Federal Government should
adopt stable and effective policies, practices and funding for
university-performed research and graduate education. It also
recommends reducing or eliminating regulations on university-
sponsored research that increase cost and impede productivity.
We are very grateful to Representative Mo Brooks, who has
requested the GAO to determine ways in which this regulatory
burden might be reduced.
Now, what actions are other countries taking? A couple of
years ago, the then-Premier of China, Wen Jaibao, said flatly,
``I believe firmly that science is the ultimate revolution.''
China's policies, investments and rapid progress derive from
such beliefs of their political leaders. Just in January of
this year, the European Union announced that it would fund two
huge science projects, each at 1 billion euros, to ``keep
Europe competitive, to keep Europe as the home of scientific
excellence.'' And looked at broadly, R&D investments by both
industry and governments use to be totally dominated by the
United States. Today, worldwide R&D investments are about a
third in North America, about a third in Europe and about a
third in Asia. This is a sea change. A final report at the
request of the Department of Defense, the National Academies
recently issued a report, ``The S&T Strategies of Six
Countries: Implications for the United States. It provides an
overview and analysis of programs of China, Singapore, Russia,
India, Japan and Brazil.
Finally, I would like to comment that in a lot of these
discussions, and Ranking Member Johnson really headed me off at
the pass because she clearly understands it very well, there is
a lot of confusion of terminology of basic research, applied
research and so forth, and I would like to use with the
Chairman's permission, just a little bit of time to give you a
perspective on this. Basic research is the search for knowledge
by scientists of the natural world and how it works. Applied
research, often conducted by engineers, suggests taking that
knowledge, scientific knowledge, and conducting further
investigations to forge into a useful application. Development
moves the actual design to a mockup of a real product. So basic
research gave us the electron and the structure of DNA, applied
research gave us high-strength steel and the original Internet,
development allows us to produce and market a new aircraft or a
new computer system.
But things are changing. Today, much of what we do, I like
to use the term ``use-inspired basic research.'' This is work
that is driven for--driven by the quest for an ultimate
application goal but requires new fundamental, scientific and
technological knowledge to get there. Use-inspired basic
research gave us the transistor but it also gave us a lot of
new discoveries about materials and quantum physics. Today,
use-inspired basic research is giving us applications of new
genomic understandings to medical treatment.
Now, 50 years ago, most R&D was conducted in big companies
in the United States and it followed a sequential, linear
process that you did a lot of basic research, got a lot of
ideas. You sort of let the market figure out which one of these
would be important. You then moved it to applied research, then
you did development, finding the market of the product. Today,
industry focuses primarily on development and it most certainly
does not use this sequential linear process because technology
moves too fast. It can't afford to do--industry can't afford to
do much basic research where it is not clear that company will
receive the payoff, and finally, the results of what we use to
call applied research and development feeds so rapidly into the
basic research itself that you just can't ignore it and follow
the simple linear path.
Now, one of these two European projects I mentioned is to
try to build the most sophisticated computer model in the world
of how the brain works. Now, when you work on a problem like
that, as we do in the United States, though will perhaps not at
the scale the EU will--we will find out--you learn not only
more things about the brain but you learn how to build better
computers and it just circles around and all boats rise. But
the one message I want to leave you with is that basic research
is still done in universities primarily, including this new
world of use-inspired basic research, with good interaction
with companies and so forth produces the indispensable
feedstock for companies and especially for young
entrepreneurial companies that increasingly drive innovation,
new products and jobs.
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Johnson, thank you so much for
the opportunity to be here. I will be happy to answer any
questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Vest follows:]
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Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Vest, and thank you all for
your testimonies today, and I will recognize myself for five
minutes to ask questions.
And Mr. Templeton, I would like to address my first
question to you, and let me preface it by saying this, that in
the United States every year, $400 billion is spent on research
and development. About $140 billion comes from the Federal
Government. Those are huge amounts of money but they also have
the potential to do a huge amount of good. So my question is,
where would you target the government's research and
development funds to get the best returns, and what might those
returns be?
Mr. Templeton. Well, Chairman Smith, I guess the way I
would describe it is, if you take a look at the innovations
that Dr. Vest just described, investment in physical sciences
has really been diminishing over the past 30 years as a percent
of GDP. A lot of the studies, like in 2007 with Rising Above
the Gathering Storm talked about doubling that over the next
seven years. So I think that direction is the correct
direction, and then to the question which is an important one,
how do you shape that or how do you make decisions of where to
apply it, I think we have got some good examples that have
worked well in both federal agencies as well with universities,
and with public companies to have peer-review processes to
understand where are the most promising ideas, and if we had--
someone had noted, if we had an exact view of what the future
was, we would be magical. We are not going to get that but what
we want to do is use our best minds to try to shape that in the
peer-review process. I think that is going to be the best line.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Templeton.
Dr. Jackson, you mentioned in your testimony a few minutes
ago, STEM education--science, technology, engineering and
math--the Federal Government spends more than $3 billion a year
to improve STEM education in our country but we have yet to see
significant results from this investment. Do you have any
suggestions as to what we should do to improve that record?
Dr. Jackson. I do have a few. Thank you. First, I would say
that there are three areas we need to focus on. One is
improvement in K-12 education, the second is stemming losses in
the undergraduate pipeline in STEM education, and the third,
creating appropriate bridges to the next level.
With respect to K-12 education, believe it or not, I
fundamentally am one that says let us get back to basics. I am
a theoretical physicist by background, and one cannot do that
without a very strong, sophisticated math background, but to do
that, one has to be able to do calculus and partial
differential equations and all of that, but one can't do that
without understanding geometry, trigonometry, algebra, etc. One
cannot do those things if one cannot add, subtract, multiply,
divide, understand a little bit about logarithms, fractions,
percentages, etc. So the point is, it is cumulative, so we have
to think about that, as we think about how K-12 education is
structured. Secondly, we need it to be outcomes focused, not
just in terms of testing but in terms of the ability to use
concepts, to use what is learned. Third, we have to strengthen
the teacher corps, and I am one who happens to believe that at
least for upper-level secondary science and math subjects, that
having discipline-based teachers is useful. And finally, we
need to be able to use technology itself in a smart way. We are
educating digital natives. I am a digital immigrant, latecomer,
but we need to be able to use technology to create the right
kind of immersive experiences, to educate those in science and
technology.
The point about the undergraduate pipeline is that there is
a much larger dropout rate than people might realize in the
first two years of undergraduate education, generally, but
including in STEM subjects where students opt--out of those
subjects. So there are beginning to be discussions about
looking at how science is taught in the first two years of the
universities and colleges. And third, when I speak of bridges
to the next level, there really needs to be work that puts the
basics and applications together. That is how we can draw in
young people and they are learning things without even knowing
they are learning. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Jackson.
Dr. Vest, in your testimony you said if we invest well in
basic research and in education, we undoubtedly will be
surprised by what new innovations arise. What are some of those
new innovations?
Dr. Vest. Well, ``surprise'' is the keyword, but since this
is one of the questions that was forwarded to us prior to the
hearing, I tried to give it a little bit of thought, and as Mr.
Templeton was reminding us earlier today, it has been often
said that the best way to find out what the future is, is to
invent it, and I guess that is what we are all about. But I
would point out a few areas that I think are likely. One is new
materials. Investment in material science and engineering works
on everything from smaller, faster computer circuits to better
highways to better bridges. Mr. Templeton's company is actually
driven by a philosophy on what is happening in materials
available for semiconductors, for example. The second area is
the combination of so-called big data and the new generation of
artificial intelligence that if we use it well is going to help
us understand the world better, make better decisions and
probably give us dramatic improvements in areas like medical
diagnosis and working together with humans, by the way,
computers plus humans doing better medical diagnoses and better
policy and decision making. Then it is likely that this rapidly
advancing new generation of advanced robotics is going to
affect everything. For manufacturing, not just on the big
fancy, high-tech company side but on the small manufacturing
side as well and also obviously has implications to areas like
defense and highway safety. We are already seeing
controversial--though it may be this growing--importance of
drones, which is a form of robotics, and a new generation of
self-driving cars. There is lots of reasons to sort of
intuitively be worried about that but there is lots of data
that is showing that it could build us ultimately in a couple
of decades a much safer highway system.
And finally, these really unexpected things, there are
these very esoteric fields like quantum computing and
biological computing that just may pop up as reality one of
these days, giving us much better computer security, which we
all know is a big issue, and allowing us to solve more complex
problems than we currently can. But surprise is the big thing,
and I want to just underscore what my good friend Dr. Jackson
said: all this work today by the young people crosses all the
traditional disciplines and it is really these unusual or used
to be unusual combinations of scientific and technological
input that will give us the real surprise innovations. Thank
you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Vest.
The gentlewoman from Texas, the Ranking Member, Ms.
Johnson, is recognized for her questions.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much. And let me express my
appreciation for all of the witnesses.
My question is pretty basic. I was around during the Rising
Storm. We are in the midst of a storm, and I am not sure how
much change we have made, though we try. But the most recent
research that I have read about students getting into college
and then changing from the STEM interest concerns me greatly.
It concerns me because the students who seem to leave those
fields more frequently are the women and minorities, the
growing population. What storm do we need to get gathering here
to see if we can change the course of this? Because I really
sincerely feel this is the future of our Nation and
competitiveness. Anybody who wants to try?
Dr. Jackson. Well, since I do educate a few of them, as I
said, I think we are finding that the first two years seem to
be very seminal in terms of how students are educated, how they
are nurtured. At Rensselaer, we actually have a
multigenerational approach for women in engineering. We have
faculty who mentor postdocs who mentor graduate students who
mentor undergraduates, and what we find is that once the
women--and this is women across all ethnic groups, by the way--
opt truly into science or engineering. They actually graduate
at higher rates than the men. So I think there are subtleties
to how this all works.
There remains a problem with respect to underrepresented
minority males, but it is actually embedded in an issue that
has to do with the fact that young men overall are not
graduating at the same rates as women. So we are undertaking a
special task force at the university to look at this question
about how do we create more stickiness for students in the
first two years, and looking at our teaching methodologies
while at the same time undertaking a particular study about
male students and what is happening with them; and we do think
there are lots of issues having to do with cognition and
learning, how we structure courses. And in fact, I am a member
of PCAST and we in fact issued a report discussing some of
these things.
Dr. Vest. I would only like to add to that that we need to
move our perspective back, not to make an excuse, but we need
to move it back to the K-12 system and build a good continuum
from K-12 through the kinds of things that RPI and MIT and so
many other schools are now trying to do, and I would add to the
very, in my view, correct list that Dr. Jackson gave earlier. I
want to emphasize one of her points and add one thing to it. I
really believe that exposing kids from inner city to
countryside to suburbs to science and math teachers who have
actually graduated in the field they teach. We can do this.
This is the primary A number one recommendation of the
Gathering Storm report and very little happened to it. So the
idea is very simple. We need to deploy a set of scholarships to
attract young men and women to go to college, to major in
computer science or electrical engineering or physics or
chemistry and at the same time be certifiable as K-12 teachers.
Secondly, and I hope I am not getting a little too much to
the political side, I am a big believer that we need to adopt
voluntary standards, voluntary standards across our states in
STEM fields just as we have in mathematics and in English, and
these standards need to emphasize learning science by doing it,
project based, bringing the excitement, the sense of discovery.
This is what is going to attract more kids. Just look at things
like the Maker movement. It attracts kids from all over the
socioeconomic spectrum. Look at Dean Kamen's first project that
is in every inner city in the country as well as the wealthy
suburbs. This is the way kids today get excited. They get
excited by doing. And I think if we could sort of focus on
those two things, we could get more people in a more dedicated
way into the pipeline, and then if we can top that off by
improving the way we teach in universities somewhat along
similar directions, maybe we can get there, but this--to me,
this division between where kids come from and what their
chances are to succeed, it is not America. We really have to
get at this.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson. The gentleman----
Ms. Johnson. Well, I think Mr. Templeton----
Chairman Smith. Mr. Templeton?
Mr. Templeton. I was going to say amen.
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Johnson.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, is
recognized for his questions.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Let me ask Mr. Templeton, does your company benefit
directly from federal research projects? Do you actually get
direct money from the Federal Government to do research for
your company?
Mr. Templeton. And that was one of my comments. To be very
clear, this is about funding going into university systems for
basic research, not our company, so a very simple answer.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. So there is a certain amount of
money that your company is supporting going to a direct
research project for a university which then your company, as
other companies, then benefit from that research?
Mr. Templeton. No, we have a choice and we do choose to
participate alongside the Federal Government in long-term basic
research as well. Very much some of the same vehicles could be
the Nanoelectronics Research Initiative, NRI, or focus centers,
so this will be TI putting funding into universities for long-
term basic research, and we will do a small percentage of that,
so we are at the table and helping to shape an opinion of where
that----
Mr. Rohrabacher. How much money does your company actually
invest in this type of long-term future investment?
Mr. Templeton. It would be tens of millions on an annual
basis, so it is not a trivial amount.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay, tens of millions. Now, let me ask
you this. Your company manufactures chips?
Mr. Templeton. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Okay. What percentage of your production
is in the United States, and do you manufacture in China?
Mr. Templeton. The majority of our production today is in
the United States. We opened our most recent wafer fab, and in
our industry, 300-millimeter wafers or 12-inch-diameter wafers
are leading edge. We opened that facility in Richardson, Texas,
back in 2007, broke ground, put it online in 2010. I would
estimate that probably 40 percent of our chips are manufactured
in the United States but we also, to your direct question,
manufacture some chips in Europe. We have a facility in China.
We have facilities in Japan as well, so we are a global
manufacturer.
Mr. Rohrabacher. What percentage of your chips are
manufactured in China?
Mr. Templeton. It would be a very small percentage right
now.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Ten percent?
Mr. Templeton. Oh less, significantly less.
Mr. Rohrabacher. But your industry, there are major
components of your industry that are engaged in manufacturing
these types of things in China.
Mr. Templeton. There are other parts of the industry that
do manufacture in China, yes.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Well, we appreciate the fact that your
company is doing a lot of manufacturing here, and we appreciate
that investment.
It says here we have $400 billion in this type of research
that is going on. Does that figure, $400 billion annually, does
that calculate in what individual inventors put in to the mix
or are they just not part of the calculation?
Mr. Templeton. I don't know if they are. They are probably
not going to be a significant percentage, okay, as measured by
dollars but about 60 percent of that would come from private or
companies and 40 percent of that, as Chairman Smith commented,
would be federal funding.
Mr. Rohrabacher. When we are talking about private
inventors and their impact on new discoveries, how would you
place them in terms of government programs coming up with
something new, corporations coming up with something new versus
the individual inventor community coming up with something new?
Mr. Templeton. I think if you look at and take Dr. Vest's
list of the types of breakthroughs over the past 50 years, the
invention of the transistor or ARPANET, which led to the
Internet, these tended to be very significant basic research
programs that weren't in the minds of any one individual, even
at a university but typically a network of universities and a
network of people.
Mr. Rohrabacher. So the foundation, but we do know that
some very significant fortunes have been made utilizing that
information and creating something that really was put to use
in the marketplace, and my time is running here, but just in
terms of the inventors, yesterday we heard about the investment
again and government provided the money for the direct research
that ended up with somebody in the very end of the process was
the MRI. Well, I happen to know the guy who has the patent for
the MRI, and, you know, without him, there wouldn't have been
an MRI as well. Do you think that there has been--do you think
our patent protection for these innovators, the inventors, is
going in the right direction or the wrong direction?
Mr. Templeton. I think in general it has moved in a
positive direction over the past five years, trying to find
that very careful balance of what is good to protect invention
but not, you know, move off into where patent trolls and many
debates go around that topic. Depending on who you are, you
have a strong opinion one way or the other.
Mr. Rohrabacher. The Chairman and I have differences of
opinion on this. Thank you very much for sharing your views
with us today, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Rohrabacher.
The gentlewoman from Oregon, Ms. Bonamici, is recognized
for her questions.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank
you so much for scheduling this hearing. Thank you to all the
witnesses, panelists. I really appreciated the article in the
Politico, Mr. Templeton and Dr. Jackson.
The testimony that you all presented to the Committee
contains many common elements, and indeed, they are topics that
are frequently discussed in this room, especially the
importance of promoting STEM education and the role of
creativity and innovation in maintaining America's leadership
position in the global economy.
Now, when I am out talking with constituents and industry
leaders about this topic in my district in Oregon, especially
about the role that creativity and innovation play in driving
our economy forward, many of them express the importance of
STEAM education, which is integrating arts and design in
traditional STEM fields. Innovative companies across my
district from companies like Nike and tech giants like Intel
rely on employees with a mind for science but an eye for
design, and we have discussed how integrating arts and design
education into traditional science education can yield the sort
of creative, innovative workforce that many of you identify as
essential. And beyond just the benefit for the industry,
bringing arts and design into STEM classrooms can help keep
students engaged, and I know, Dr. Jackson, you talked about
drawing students in. I want to tell you, I visited a STEAM
elementary school in my district that took STEM and added arts
and design. Those kids were engaged. They were acting things
out. They were studying soil erosion and graphing things and
drawing charts and planting a garden and playing with worms. I
mean, they were really, really engaged in everything that they
were doing.
So in order to keep students engaged, I want to have a
discussion about STEAM. And Mr. Templeton, you affirmed that
government primarily conducts basic research while industry
focuses on the D side of R&D, developing products for
commercial application. In your experience at Texas
Instruments, can you discuss the importance of creativity and
design to this product development process?
Dr. Vest, you discussed improving learning in the STEM
fields for students and suggested promoting exciting learning
through projects and experiences rather than just boring
memorization of facts, and as you see it, could arts and design
play a role in STEM education, especially in the learning
atmosphere you envision with your comments? Thank you.
Mr. Templeton. Well, on the aspect of creativity, the
simple answer on that is yes. It is one thing to have numbers
and concepts. If they cannot be brought together and visualized
and turned into a product, it is knowledge that will not lead
to productive things. It is also the case then if you look at
STEAM efforts, we have very recently done something with one of
the school districts in North Texas, and I think it has got
great potential for the creativity that brings along. I do
think it is important while we look at that, back to Dr.
Jackson's comments, we have to be mindful of the basics, be it
the math and science principles, because if we don't have that
foundation in place, you can never get to some of the higher-
level concepts as well, so I think keeping those in balance is
a wonderful thing.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you.
Dr. Vest?
Dr. Vest. It is a very perceptive question, in my view, and
one I get pretty excited about, so you may have to shut me off,
Mr. Chairman. But I cannot imagine MIT without its visual and
performing arts component. It would not be MIT. We would not
attract the same kind of kids. And it is very much a part, in
my opinion, of what has to happen at both K-12 and in
undergraduate and even graduate education in our universities.
Rising Above the Gathering Storm tried to emphasize, we are not
telling all kids we want them to become professional scientists
and engineers but everybody needs to know some fundamentals
today about science and engineering. My experience, if you look
at virtually any of the real good high schools that are
succeeding, High Tech High in San Diego and so forth, the
integration of arts into their curriculum is a very important
part. I commented on the Maker movement. This attracts kids
from left brain, right brain, everything in between, and I am
frankly a big believer in the STEAM movement. There is a
hearing somewhere in Congress coming up over the next several
weeks that my wonderful friend John Maeda from RISD, the Rhode
Island School of Design, is helping to organize. So I am a big
believer in this, but it always leaves me in an odd position
because I also know that we are failing in our core STEM areas,
so it is difficult to talk about the breadth, but yes, arts and
the humanities are a very important part of building
creativity.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you. And I am afraid I am out of time,
but Dr. Jackson, if you wanted to----
Dr. Jackson. You didn't pose the question to me, but we
believe so much in it that we have built an experimental media
and performing arts center at Rensselaer, and it is both a very
high-end cultural and performing arts platform and it is a
research platform at the same time. It brings the arts,
engineering, the sciences, computer sciences all together, and
we have various venues within it, but one in particular allows
us to do visualization, animation, simulation, acoustics,
haptics, haptics where you can simulate touch. All of this
requires bringing all of the disciplines together, including in
the arts. We have a games and simulation arts and sciences
curriculum, and it uses that whole structure to animate what
students do, but at the same time, we feel that fundamental
studies in certain fields of the humanities, arts and social
sciences are critically important and so we have built those up
as well.
But you know, it is funny, we have gotten into these
buckets about what constitutes the liberal arts versus what
constitutes science and engineering, but if you go all the way
back to Cardinal Newman about the original definition of the
liberal arts, they were in fact together.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much. And I am out of time,
and that meeting is a week from tomorrow, and we will let the
Committee Members know if they would like to attend.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Ms. Bonamici.
The Chairman Emeritus, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Hall,
is recognized.
Mr. Hall. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and this is a
very unusual and talented group that are giving us your time,
the time it took you to get here, the time it took you to
appear before us, give us your testimony, get back to your
place of occupation. I know Rich Templeton very well and admire
him. Eddie Bernice and I, I am sure Eddie helped to ask you to
come here, Rich. We are proud of TI. Erik Jonsson, Gene
McDermott, Cecil Green, all those people created the University
of Texas at Dallas and were very generous in giving around
1,100 acres to that university. I was the Senate sponsor of
that with a guy from the House and I am very proud of the
university that you all have created. And Mr. Rohrabacher asked
about your support. I could talk all day about the support of
that university.
I will ask you this one question about STEM graduates. And
I know that your dream of Dallas Engineering School finally
became a reality in 1986 and the students that you have and you
have been a part of TI's history. What about the STEM
graduates? Are there enough available in the United States to
meet your current and future needs?
Mr. Templeton. Well, Mr. Hall, first, thank you for the
very complimentary statements about many of our founders, who
also had deep histories at both MIT and at RPI. If you look in
many ways, the percentage or the amount of people that we hire
on an annual basis, we are fortunate because of our reputation
that there is enough available. The danger is, that does not
apply, I believe, to all industries as you go down through that
and I think that supply will be under continued pressure if we
don't get K-12 STEM education turned and moving in the correct
direction.
Mr. Hall. What are some of the key factors in motivating
students to pursue STEM degrees?
Mr. Templeton. Well, I think it has been touched on by
both----
Mr. Hall. Well, I had to leave, and I have to leave soon to
go back to another Committee to vote. I am sorry to touch on it
a second time if it has already been asked.
Mr. Templeton. Oh, no, I will make it very simple. I think
it has been talked about. Make the business come alive. If you
look at many high school students, especially if you look at
women trying to consider a career in science and technology, if
you get to the undergraduate level that Dr. Jackson had talked
about, and you see nothing but four years of math and science
classes ahead of you before you can apply it to something that
makes it come to life, you lose a lot of people during that
time. When we look at the world of bioengineering to where you
really can't see the impact you can make in lives and it really
brings the potential career and the impact that you can have
alive in young people's minds, then I think that is the secret
to grow or to turn that trend around.
Mr. Hall. The best practices that the Federal Government
could implement to strength our Nation's R&D and maximize the
use of taxpayers' dollars, are you a witness to that?
Mr. Templeton. Well, I pay attention more to results, and
right now if I look at the results coming out of K-12 STEM
education in the United States, we continue to be ranked very
low on most national or most global ranks, so I think the work
that we have as a Nation is still in front of us on that.
Mr. Hall. All right. I thank you, and I thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Hall.
The gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, is
recognized.
Mr. Kennedy. Mr. Chairman, thank you, Madam Ranking Member,
thank you very much for calling this important hearing. To the
witnesses, thank you all very much for your testimony. As a
resident of Massachusetts, we are acutely aware of the
importance of R&D and greatly appreciate your time in coming
here today.
Mr. Templeton, I actually have a quick question for you
that is slightly off topic but of important interest back in my
district in Massachusetts and so, Mr. Chairman, I hope you will
forgive a quick diversion. As I am sure you are aware, Mr.
Templeton, Texas Instruments operated a manufacturing facility
in Attleboro, Massachusetts, for several decades. Until it was
sold in 2006, the company was a major employer in the area and
an active member of the local community. It remains well
respected in the city and in the surrounding areas still today.
That being said, in the years since the Attleboro plant was
closed, the cancer rate amongst former employees has been
alarming. Specifically affected are those men and women who
were employed by the company between 1953 and 1968 when TI was
involved in the federal nuclear program. As part of the Energy
Employees' Occupational Illness Compensation Program through
the Department of Labor, money has thankfully been made
available to those workers who are now suffering from crippling
illness. I know that TI has designated an internal point person
for the former workers who are seeking information from EEOIC,
and I commend you and TI for doing so.
But what I am hearing from many residents back in the
district is that very few of the thousands of former employees
in the Attleboro area are even aware that this program exists
and that there are benefits available to them at all. They have
seen minimal outreach efforts to ensure that those in need know
how to get the help they so deserve. I read this week about
Steve Foster from Taunton in the local newspaper. He is
suffering from thyroid cancer. His brother also has cancer. His
wife and father both died of cancer. All four worked in the
Attleboro plant. Yesterday I spoke to Larry Darcy, a resident
of Rehoboth, Massachusetts, who was diagnosed with kidney
cancer in 1992. Larry went out of his way to credit your
company for the opportunities that it gave him and his
coworkers. Over 180 of those coworkers from the Attleboro plant
that he is aware of have contracted some type of cancer.
I tell this story, sir, not to cast blame. The human cost
of this country's nuclear development in the 1950s and 1960s is
not unique to Texas Instruments or to Attleboro, but I do
believe that TI along with the Federal Government has a
responsibility to the men and women that we put in harm's way.
While we can't take back the exposure to the radioactive or
toxic material that so many suffered, what we can do is
absolutely everything in our power to make sure that we ease
their pain today. So, sir, I would like your opinion on how my
office can work with your company and the Department of Labor
and Department of Energy to ensure that we are doing all that
we can to get the compensation for those who need it. To start,
I am wondering if, one, there is any light you can shed on the
process that TI goes through to redoubt the former employees in
this situation or similar situations, and two, what my office
or the Federal Government can do to assist you in this process?
The money is there, the program is there and the need,
tragically, is also there. The communication is not, and we
need to try to fix that.
Mr. Templeton. I think, Mr. Kennedy, first, as you know, we
have been in very close contact with the DOL, or Department of
Labor, as well as the Department of Energy, and I think you
described the actions we need to take which is, we need to stay
in contact both between the appropriate government agencies and
your office. We have been very active with the Departments to
make sure any information we could help with was available. We
need to continue that and take a look. If there is more than
can be done, we should be doing it with you.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. President. Which--is there--I
would appreciate further communication with you and the
designated point person from your office to try to understand
if there are employee lists that go back to that time. I
understand you have a very generous pension plan, that there
are still health care benefits that are being paid to your
employees, which your employees went out of the way to credit
Texas Instruments for, but if we can somehow facilitate that
transfer of information to the government so that they can
reach out to those individuals, many of whom don't even know
that there is benefits there to cover medical bills that are
now soaring into the thousands of dollars?
Mr. Templeton. We can certainly get the right contacts to
you so that can be done.
Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, sir. I yield the balance of my
time, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Kennedy.
The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Broun, is recognized.
Mr. Broun. Our government is broke. Many Members of
Congress are either oblivious or in denial of that fact. We are
spending more money than we are bringing in. We are headed
towards a total economic meltdown of America if we don't make
some changes. Now, both parties have been guilty of
uncontrolled spending here in Washington. Promoting science as
well as research and development is extremely important for
America to get back on a sustainable fiscal course. We must
start making responsible decisions and choices here in
Congress.
With that said, Mr. Templeton, it is well known that the
United States has the highest corporate tax rates in the world.
It is 35 percent at the federal level. When you add state and
local taxes, it is much higher than that for employers and job
creators here in America. Please discuss how the rate impacts
businesses and how it affects those investment decisions,
including how it can be factored into decisions regarding where
to locate manufacturing facilities or how much to invest in
R&D. How would business investment, hiring and overall U.S.
competitiveness be impacted if we eliminated corporate taxes
altogether such as my JOBS Act does? The JOBS Act will
permanently reduce corporate taxes to zero and capital gains
taxes to zero, and I think personally it would be a huge
economic boon, and instead of raising taxes would raise
taxpayers with good-paying jobs. Could you please discuss that,
Mr. Templeton?
Mr. Templeton. I will not disagree with your final
conclusion. I also know it brings the double taxation dialog
that many debate, especially in difficult budget times. But I
think the conclusion that you are leading to in the question is
very clear. We compete against companies that could be
headquartered in Taiwan, for example, and some of them because
of government policy virtually have a zero tax rate, and so if
we try to operate in the United States market or work against
some number incrementally at the 35 percent level and you have
got shareholders that have an expectation for a company in
Taiwan that operate at zero, it puts a very difficult situation
in place for the long term, and even further to the point, and
you have seen some of it where companies are faced with, should
they move their corporate headquarters to different countries
if they are trying to be responsible to their shareholders. I
think that is a really dangerous slope to end up on as a
country. So I think that the conclusion of your points is very
accurate on that.
I think it also does come back to by investing in
university research, by having those ideas being developed
here, we do give advantages to being U.S. headquartered and
what we need to do is not be uncompetitive against some of
these other countries and then I think we can get great gains
from where we are today.
Mr. Broun. Mr. Templeton, I believe that the high tax rate
and the regulatory burden that the Federal Government has put
on business and industry is what is driving manufacturing jobs
offshore, and I believe very firmly that we have to bring those
jobs back to America because that is what is going to get our
economy going again, create those good-paying jobs,
particularly in areas of science, technology and engineering,
medical science. I am a physician. Do you have any suggestions
about how we can look at the regulatory burden and tax burden,
besides passing my JOBS bill, which I think is critical to
bring those manufacturing jobs back to America? Can you give us
some suggestions about what we can do to look at the regulatory
burden as well as the tax burden and give us help in getting
these shackles off of business and industry, our job creators,
so that we can start having a strong manufacturing industry
here in this country? And thank you for--I want to thank you
for Texas Instruments having the manufacturing that you all do
here in this country.
Mr. Templeton. Mr. Broun, you know, the simplest way that I
think about this is, we have five percent of the world's
population, which says 95 percent of it is somewhere else. So
when we think about economic growth for our country and for
companies that are headquartered in the United States, we have
to have policies and plans that let U.S.-headquartered
companies compete globally because it ends up creating great
opportunities and great economic growth in the United States. I
think therein lies the beginning of that policy on how can our
U.S.-headquartered companies be highly competitive. That then
brings in issues of tax. That brings in issues like today's
hearing on research and investment into basic universities. It
brings into scope, you know, issues on regulation. We want to
be able to operate well but we need to also be able to operate
competitively on a global basis, and when that frame is in
place, I think you can get to those points or those conclusions
pretty quickly.
Mr. Broun. Thank you, Mr. Templeton. I yield back.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Broun.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Bera, is recognized.
Mr. Bera. Mr. Chairman, thank you for convening this
hearing.
I will make a quick comment. As a former Associate Dean at
the University of California Medical School, we did look
extensively at the loss of undergraduate talent, and that
clearly is tied to our K-12 system, particularly in lower-
income communities and students just not being prepared. If we
can hold on to those students when they get to their junior
year, they do make up the gap, but we lose far too many of our
students there.
My question, I will direct it at Dr. Jackson. You are also
coming out of a research university background. A key element
that we need to focus on is that technology transfer issue, how
academia and industry partner, and if you could give us some
specific recommendations, and I would open it up to any of the
panelists, how we can do that better, how we can work on that
partnership?
Dr. Jackson. Thank you. I would say a couple of things.
First, there are many mechanisms. This whole question about
technology transfer, how ideas go from the university into the
marketplace is a complex one and it happens within multiple
groups. They are public. They are university-industry
partnerships, industrial liaison programs. There are
entrepreneurs who take the intellectual property they develop
in the university, out of the university. The university
licenses out intellectual property. All of these things are
pathways for that. I think there is a balance that one has to
strike, as a university president, in terms of the focus on the
basic research and the fundamental learning that goes along
with that, and the exploitation of the intellectual property to
move it into the marketplace and fundamentally we are focused
on both. We actually have a 1,250-acre technology park that is
actually home to about 70 enterprises, primary technology
based. We have what is called the Emerging Ventures Ecosystem,
which specifically seeks into the research, work with our
faculty, find where there is exploitable, important
intellectual property, and then look for the right
translational pathway, whether that pathway has to do with
licensing, with helping the faculty member launch a company,
joint venturing, etc. We also operate, as part of, that an
incubation program, but in our case, we went from having one
fixed incubator to having kind of a virtual incubator where we
broker the right space for companies. This is very important.
And I spoke in my oral remarks about shared infrastructure.
A big problem for many startup companies, particularly in areas
of new technology, has to do with the so-called valley of death
where they go from the sort of very initial startup phase and
they may get angel investors for that, to be able to scale what
they do, to do prototyping and then ultimately get larger
investment. And so there has to be a way for that to happen. It
is interesting that we, in some ways, do that through certain
mechanisms like OPIC and the Ex-Im Bank when it comes to
companies doing things out of the country. But we need
something that relates to that kind of thing inside the
country. So these are some of the things I would say.
The other has to do with patent policies, and on the one
hand, the new patent legislation is very helpful. It is very
helpful to companies in particular. But it has caused
universities to rethink, particularly the piece having to do
with ``First to File.'' On the other hand, in terms of the kind
of domain within which to operate and how to ensure that, it
has been helpful. So all of these kinds of mechanisms exist. I
also believe that--and Chuck talked about making the R&D tax
credit permanent. That has an effect that spurs, I think,
companies to do more, but it also, in an interesting way
because of that spur can increase the interest of companies in
working with universities in more basic areas.
Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Bera.
Dr. Vest. Mr. Chairman, may I add to that?
Chairman Smith. Yes, Dr. Vest.
Dr. Vest. Just very quickly, I learned four things about
this in 14 years as President of MIT and two of them have been
greatly supplemented by what I have learned at the National
Academies. First of all, we need a simplified policy patent,
and I am not talking about federal policy now; I am talking
about agreements between universities and companies, at least
for modest-scale projects. It should be a boilerplate, no
negotiation kind of package, and we are making some progress
toward that.
Second, what we most need with big companies, long-term
strategic partnerships, sticking with it in ways that honestly
the Federal Government frequently can't do. There is a great
example of Mr. Templeton's company and a few faculty at MIT in
the area of signal processing. It has been running for decades,
not at a terribly high financial level but it has been really
productive.
Third, and not every university can do this, I would admit,
but we need some large-scale partnerships by which I mean
significant multimillion-dollar partnerships between the
university and a company because only then do you get real
interaction with the thought-leaders in the company. You can't
do many of them but a few of them are important.
And finally, on the entrepreneurial side, which is so much
of what is ``technology transfer'' today at an RPI or an MIT or
virtually any of our great public or private universities,
creating opportunities for young people to get coached. Hands-
on coaching by real entrepreneurs and real VCs is just worth
its weight in platinum. It is the real key to building up that
ecostructure. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Dr. Vest. Thank you, Dr. Bera.
The gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Palazzo, is recognized
for questions.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank our
witnesses for being here today. There has been some very good
discussion.
You know, there is no doubt that foreign competitors
present a substantial challenge to U.S. economic
competitiveness and some of those reasons why they are doing
well is some of the self-inflicted wounds that we have caused
to ourselves such as having an antiquated tax code that really
is punishing our corporate job creators in America as well as
the job-killing regulatory regime that is pushing a lot of
American jobs overseas and actually pushing a lot of businesses
just out of business, killing small business as well.
One field of endeavor for American competition is still
space. So my question is going to be space-specific. I am
pretty much a one-trick pony when it comes to this Committee,
and anything space and aeronautics is what I like to talk
about.
America used to be in a space race with the Soviet Union,
and today, unfortunately, NASA purchases seats on the Russian
Soyuz rockets at $16 million per astronaut to launch to the
International Space Station that we built with the now-retired
space shuttle. So my question is for everyone. How do you think
America's ceding leadership in space like that translates to
the sense among many Americans that we are no longer a
technology leader? And we will start with Mr. Templeton.
Mr. Templeton. You know, I think in many ways, as many on
this Committee probably know, the space race was a very
polarizing, very inspiring challenge back in the 1960s and
provided tremendous investments that led to things like the
semiconductor industry. I suspect when the space race was
underway there was no one sitting around in federal labs or at
an agency planning out semiconductor industry leadership 30
years from when they began that race. So, you know, I am not
qualified to comment about the specifics of space or not, but I
think wonderfully challenging goals, okay, really help this
country, really bring energy and inspiration to invest and go
try to do great things, and whether that is a space objective
or things in the biomedical field that were talked about, I
think those have, you know, great potential when we think about
this challenge in front of us.
Mr. Palazzo. Dr. Jackson?
Dr. Jackson. Thank you. You know, it turns out that one of
my predecessors as President of RPI, Rensselaer, was George
Lowe, who basically was the operations director who ran the
Apollo program that put man on the moon. As well, a number of
our graduates have been involved in more recent work in
designing and launching the Mars Rover. So it is a big part of
our history and tradition. But what I would say is the
following. There are a number of pieces, some having to do with
basic research, and I will mention just a couple of things with
that, some having to do with infrastructural questions, and
then the third having to do with the overall industrial
capability to do these things.
On the basic research, if you think about space missions,
they depend on fundamental science and people want to explore
space for that reason. The knowledge of it, as well, is
particularly important for various kinds of missions including
potential manned missions. It requires computational
capability. It requires strength in material science and
engineering. It requires strength in aerospace and thinking
about new propulsion systems. You mentioned our having to use
other people's rockets to get people to the International Space
Station. We also use other people's rockets to launch our
satellites and so that is an infrastructural question.
And then, you know, there is an overall question about
overall industrial and manufacturing capacity to continue to
make and develop these sorts of technologies, and I am sure Mr.
Templeton can speak more directly to that, but these are areas
that concern me as we go forward.
Mr. Palazzo. Before I go to Dr. Vest, I do want to ask one
more question because I know we are getting short on time. Dr.
Jackson, does the space exploration, American space
exploration, still excite children to study science, math,
engineering and technology?
Dr. Jackson. It sure does. We had a presentation at
Rensselaer and it was during one of our alumni weekends of the
landing of the Mars Rover, and that is because our Dean of
Science, in fact, had two experiments on the Rover and was
there the day the latest Rover landed. We also had some of the
engineers in who were involved with the design and development
of the latest Rover, and frankly, half the space, and we had it
in a concert hall in our experimental media and performing arts
center that holds about 1,200 people and half the people were
young people and they were so excited. So absolutely, but I
think it relates to Mr. Templeton's point that a big idea,
something that we galvanize around, we rally around is really
what captures people's imagination.
Mr. Palazzo. Thank you.
Dr. Vest. I am going to speak out of both sides of my
mouth, first by saying this generation has its own great
challenges that it needs to be and is excited about,
sustainability and energy security and resilience, provision of
health care. It has got big challenges of its own that are even
more important than the space race was, and we need to give
some focus to that.
Having said that, I will admit I am a space cadet. I grew
up in the 1950s and 1960s and lived through all this wonderful
period. It is still--when we survey incoming freshmen at MIT,
space is still the largest single motivator among these kids of
why they went into science and engineering. That is the reason
we need to keep at it.
But having said that, these programs are so big and so
expensive that I think we need to find the right way to do them
internationally. At one level it hurts me, but my logic, it
doesn't bother me too much that at least for a period of time
we are launching humans with a Russian rocket. We need this
kind of synergy and integration. But I will tell you, nobody
has done anything as exciting as this Mars lander. I mean, it
was unbelievable.
And very quickly, you may know the story of the guy who
managed the actual engineering of that project and that landing
was a drop-out from high school who became a rock musician and
eventually decided he wasn't going to make it with that and one
night literally was driving home and looked up in the sky and
saw Venus and he started thinking about this and he got more
and more excited, and he said, you know, this is my destiny is
to get out there somewhere, and I apologize for not having his
name at my fingertips. He went back to community college, got a
technology degree, started to work, eventually went to
university and became an engineer and ran that project. You
know, that is the kind of excitement we need, and we can kind
of duplicate that with what we do in education. But I was very
disappointed by the short time scale of America's attention to
that program because I can't imagine anything more exciting. I
have to----
Chairman Smith. I am afraid to interrupt you all. Votes
have been called and I am going to try to squeeze in one more
Member to ask questions. Mr. Palazzo, thank you for your
questions.
And also, let me sort of explain the situation to everyone
who is here. The series of votes will mean we will not be able
to come back for about an hour. Our Democratic friends are
getting on buses immediately after these votes to go to an out-
of-town retreat, and I am just wondering how many Members
really would come back in an hour and if they might consider
submitting questions in writing, and if that is not acceptable,
we will come back, but if that is acceptable, I just apologize
to you for not having time for Members. Does that sound all
right? Okay. Thank you for your consideration.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Swalwell, is recognized
for his questions.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you, Chairman Smith and Madam Ranking
Member Johnson, and thank you, Mr. Templeton, Dr. Jackson and
Dr. Vest.
We have talked a lot about startups today, and I am a
startup Member of Congress, having just arrived here. I came to
Congress wanting to support the innovation agenda, and as a
freshman and a new Member in Congress, and a new Member to this
Committee, I am encouraged that our first hearing is on
research and development. I represent California's East Bay,
where people understand that to do big things, you have to take
big risks, and I am excited to be on this Committee because I
truly do believe in science, and I believe in what science can
do, and as our Ranking Member mentioned, the number of
innovations that have come out of the Federal Government's role
in science is very important to me.
I wanted to talk to you a little bit about Dr. Jackson and
her testimony about collaboration between government and
business and also Mr. Templeton discussed good examples of
public R&D partnerships in the semiconductor industry. In
Livermore, California, we have what is called IGATE, Innovation
for Green Advanced Transportation Excellence. It is a regional
public-private partnership designed to support small businesses
and maximize the economic potential of green transportation and
clean energy technologies. It is a partnership with the cities
in the surrounding communities, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratories and also the University of California,
the Berkeley and Davis campuses.
And so my question is, we are just starting to see this
project get off the ground, but as you can imagine, one of the
biggest challenges is access to capital, to have an incubator-
type setting where you can have small startups, medium-size
startups come in and do the work that they need to do to create
local made in America jobs. And so a couple questions. One, is
there still a role for the Federal Government to play? Because
I believe you need a federal partner if you are ever going to
activate a region like that. Two, what can we do to increase
access to capital as a Congress so that we can see those
startups get going and create jobs? And three, how do we--and
when we talk about the ecosystems of innovation, how do we also
find those pipelines to the students where we have those
businesses not just working on creating jobs but also
transferring their knowledge to high school and college
students who are going to be the next generation in those
industries? So is there a role, how do we get the access to
capital, how do we educate our children?
Dr. Jackson. I will try to be succinct. I would say
absolutely, there is a role. Now, we have talked about one
element of that role having to do with support for basic
research, support for students, both at the undergraduate level
and importantly where we have not talked about it for graduate
education and its linkage to research. But importantly, you
mentioned energy, green energy technologies. Energy tends to be
a huge kind of--there are any number of demonstration projects
early in kinds of things people can do but it is the kind of
activity that requires a certain degree of activity at scale,
and so that kind of infrastructural support is very important,
and the Federal Government can do any number of things, but one
is simply to provide a safe harbor for corporate partners to
come together, not unlike SEMATECH, to bring them together with
universities, particularly in precompetitive research including
applied research areas, to help support shared infrastructure
and that is where smaller companies that really need to do
prototyping. Some of the national labs are providing their
major computational facilities to help companies with modeling
and simulation, to be able to improve and begin to think about
how to scale what they do. So it is kind of a daisy chain going
from the fundamental research to creating the kind of safe
harbors and partnerships that can allow roadmaps to be
developed and people to move along, with the shared
infrastructure as well. I am sure I have left something out,
but these are some of the things that we try to do, and we
don't have the benefit of being in Silicon Valley, we are in
upstate New York, and so we don't have a big national lab. So
the state has stepped in and done a lot of things, and then the
universities themselves have come together. Thank you.
Mr. Swalwell. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my
time.
Chairman Smith. Thank you. We have got about four minutes
left to go vote. I thank you for yielding back.
Let me thank our witnesses today for their just wonderfully
inspiring testimony. It has been very helpful, very
informative, and I hope those who are watching this hearing
either in person or on C-SPAN recognize that we are talking
about a wonderful future for them and their children and
grandchildren if we make the kind of investments in research
and technology that we should. It is just going to pay a vast
amount of rewards. It will improve productivity. It will
improve people's standard of living, and that will benefit us
all, but thank you all for your participation today.
[Whereupon, at 11:12 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Mr. Richard Templeton
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Responses by Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson
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Responses by Dr. Charles Vest
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